Waste management also reflects the social structure and social problems of a country. Should a country be poor and its people suffering from overpopulation,t he waste management system may show that. Singapore’s waste management system too, reflects the social structure of the society very similiar to that of a dependant child to parent relationship

In singapore, our waste is disposed off immediately and for civilians, without a second thought. about the most difficult thing is to walk out to a common chute that’s conveniently located one on each floor of a HDB flat. everything from the sorting to teh actualy process is done in a way that the civilians have no part to play in because we’re so dependent on our own gov to clear the trash for us. as such, singaporeans have huge wastages arising from this problem. “out of sight, out of mind” for most civilians and we end up not cultivating a common culture of recycling.

In afghanistan, there is virtually no waste management ssytem to speak off. the only one they have can hardly shift the tonnes of industrial waste they generate in a bid to industrialize quickly. such poor waste management skills are elading to poor health management of the people, poor living condionts, pest and diseases abound.

Countries are often only pressured into doing something about their waste only when given external pressur.e for example, beijin only clamped down on non catylytic fitted factories when the beijing olympics was help in order to lesson the air pollution. Japan, well known for it waste maangement system that is so detailed, it involves every single japanese cilivian, was pressured into doing so only after recognizing that it had a garbage crisis that was threatening to curb its economic growth.

there is much to learn from japan’s recycling system. certainly, on the most basic level, as singaporeans, we can learn to sort out and recycle our own trash instead of depending so much on the governement. we can also make the government more aware of our green efforts so that mose attention can be placed to cultivate a greener culture in singapore such that recycling becomes a way of life for every singaporean instead of something spoonfed to us once again

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/3812275.stm

Case study: India

For many Indians, life is a big struggle just to put together the bare essentials for survival, and shortages of resources works most against the poor and underprivileged. Even as sections of India’s middle-class struggle with scarcities, it is the poor and vulnerable sections of society who suffer most. It is well known that the biggest curse to the lives of millions of Indians is poverty. Though the rural poor have always been a deprived lot, their urban counterparts are not an inch better off. Having migrated to towns and cities in search of better life, they now survive under the most appalling of living conditions, with scant regard to the basics of cleanliness and hygiene. Awareness of healthy living habits is woefully lacking, so that, though the mortality rate has fallen over the years, epidemics and killer diseases continue to claim lives that could easily be saved. Infant mortality and deaths related to childbirth are still disturbingly common all over India, with large sections of the female population and a fair section of the male yet to receive their first lessons in literacy. With illiteracy rampant among the impoverished majority of the country, it is not difficult to understand why the rich easily exploit the poor, and corruption seems to have become a way of life. Indian life presents a classic example of being trapped in a vicious circle of poverty, from which there appears to be no escape. Nevertheless, a close inspection of the nature of these ills and inequalities reveals a single root cause lying at the core of the great entangled mass of our national life: viz. Population.

Population is the only non-depleting resource and a parameter of a country’s development. In a country like India where the factors contributing to population growth far outweigh the factors for development, population is no longer a resource but a burden to society. India’s population policy has been guided by the perception that a growing population is a serious impediment to development efforts. At the time, census figures showed a Crude Birth Rate (CBR) of over 45/1,000 population — every year; over 45 children were born for every 1,000 people. Many couples have large families as insurance against multiple infant and child deaths. The National Population Policy 2000 notes that only 44 per cent of India’s 168 million couples in the reproductive age group use effective contraception. Reproductive health and basic health infrastructure and services often do not reach the villages.

When India became independent, population growth was seen as a major impediment to the country’s socio-economic development and population ‘control’ was seen as integral to the development process. Population growth was seen as an urgent problem related to economic development with limited resources. At the same time, family planning would benefit both individual families as well as women’s health. In 1952, a sub-committee appointed by the Planning Commission asked the government to provide sterilization facilities and contraceptive advice through existing health services, in order to limit family size, and also institute studies on population. The Reorganized Family Planning Programme ended up focusing on programmes for IUD insertion and sterilization camps. In 1966, the health minister announced annual targets of 6 million IUCD insertions (20/1,000 population in the urban areas and 10/1,000 in the rural areas) and 1.23 million sterilizations (or 2.5/1,000 population). Sterilization accounts for more than 75 per cent of total contraception in India, with female sterilization accounting for almost 95 per cent of all sterilizations. In 1976, the first National Population Policy talked of integrating family planning with general health care, of maternal and child health, the influence of female education, employment and age of marriage on family size, the effect of a high infant mortality rate, and so on. 1977 saw the Policy Statement on the Family Welfare Programme. The National Health Policy of 1983 emphasized the need for “securing the small family norm through voluntary efforts and moving towards the goal of population stabilization”. In 1991, the Report of the National Development Council Committee on Population proposed the formulation of a National Population Policy with a long-term and holistic view of development, population growth and environmental protection. The Reproductive and Child Health Programme, launched with much fanfare in India in 1997, has generally provided only contraceptive services. NPP 2000′s stated goal is to achieve net replacement levels by 2010, by meeting people ‘reproductive and child health needs’. Following the announcement of a National Population Policy, a number of states are coming out with their own policies.

The pressing need of the day is to at create ideal conditions for acceptance of the need for stabilizing the population and how it is an essential element of human welfare and development. The solution to this lie in spreading of education and enlightenment, and in the empowerment of women. Birth control programmes should also be integrated with medical and public health services to make them popular among the masses.

(http://www.azadindia.org/social-issues/india-population.html)

                In a physical aspect, urbanization is proving to be too much of a strain on the world’s resources and the environment. It is polluting the skies with exhaust fumes from cars, with smoke from industrial chimneys and the cutting down of forests and greenery to make way for yet another building. With greater cities, more industrialization, greater economic sectors, we’re straining the earth’s fuel resources. This pushes up the cost of living in the city. While many people dream of going to the city to earn money to better their living conditions where they came from, countries are struggling to meet demand and people are struggling to pay for the cost of living in a city. Featured in the Straits Times was an article about foreign workers who came to Singapore in search of work in hopes that they will be able to send money back to their family members in their homeland. However, one of them commented that it was virtually impossible to send any money back at all as the cost of living was so high that with the wages they were earning, they were just barely surviving and I guess that’s where the irony of urbanization is. On one hand, it tells you all these little lies and lures you to think that life in the big city is the best way of earning money and getting wealthy, but once in the city, you realize that cost of living is so high that you aren’t any better off than when you first started but you can’t go back either because it will probably bring shame on yourself in your very communal family back home.

                As such, a lot of people driven to desperation in the big city are forced to seek alternative means of income. We’ve seen this already in the lecture on women, who are driven to prostitution and men who if they are lucky, are able to find meager salaries for menial work. then there are others who steal, hijack cars, drive crime rates up in cities where the income divide is ever present and increasingly wide.  Also with Urbanization, as more and more people leave their families ( mostly elderly parents) behind, they are losing their source of kinship and is pulling families apart. There are many who report feeling distanced from their families after trying to make it big in the city and families who break apart after the husband goes astray in the city.

                To my horribly narrow mind, I cannot think of a way to stop urbanization and I don’t even think it should stop for as it goes, it IS a centre of trade and commerce where conglomeration fuels efficiency in such an aspect but surely there can be ways to control it and I think the answer lies in spreading out resources, removing urban bias and placing more emphasis on sustainable development. But my viewpoint of course, is that talk is cheap. I truly doubt that there will be many countries who will be willing to remove urban bias. More wealth or a spreading communistic idea of shared wealth with others means a lesser wealth for their own self. Even with the rise of China and India, many rich countries now are afraid they’ll grow too fast and overtake them. Citing environmental fears is just one aspect, a slight façade I believe, they are more afraid of being overthrown.  It is a dog eat dog world and this, is after all, the city.

Globalization has made the most cosmopolitan of cities around the world a melting pot of cultures. Unfortunately, this fantastic broth hailed as the New Age of variety has been criticized by many as having too strong a McD flavor and there have been bubbles of discontentment arising from the rest of the other “ingredients” trying to froth forth their own distinct flavor or succumb to their dilution of distinctiveness.

Globalization has brought about greater avenues of interaction. Through a platform of a common language such as English, globalization has helped to bring the world together for greater trade benefits. Globalization has done more than stayed in the economic realm. It has infiltrated other aspects and many have toted globalization as bringing greater recognition to minority cultures, making them more accessible and understood by the world.

Unfortunately, the idea of shared language and culture for greater understanding and interaction has led to a globalized identity that is excluding cultures deemed too backward or unworthy of a global identity. Following an era that hailed the States as the world’s major superpower, people are predisposed to follow the ideals of the “Land of the Free” in order to trade effectively or be internationally recognized. This has led to many cultures trying to keep their head above water in the advent of a globalized identity.

Take the Maoris in New Zealand for example. Under New Zealand’s heritage promotion Board, the group strived to keep and maintain the Maoris’ way of life in New Zealand. They heralded the need to tell the world or their original culture. Unlike Australia which immediately relegated it’s Aboriginal culture to specific residential districts, the New Zealanders have been fighting to allow the Maori tribes to continue their strong heritage and tradition. The very fact that they have to fight for their existence just goes to show that the globalized identity the world is trying to forge has little understanding for heritage and culture and has eyes only for trade and commerce. Now the Maoris have been reduced to little more than tourist attractions across the country and after all the talk about keeping the heritage, the Maoris themselves have to accept that they are a people of the past.

In terms of the 9/11 attacks, I’ve come to view it as not just the fault of the terrorists alone. While I certainly do not condone their act, it is almost too simplistic to say that poor America was victimized by them. Rather, I’m being to see it as a problem of a globalized culture that is slowly evolving into a dictatorship with too little understanding of minorities or people that may get into their way of more self benefits. As with rebellions and uprisings of the past, the terrorists themselves have had no choice but to rebel against a dictated global identity or lose themselves in the midst as so many other countries have done.

I feel that a globalized identity is pretty good because it provides a platform of mutual experience and understanding. But when this mutual understanding isn’t’ achieve, and more often than not, people are slighted and undermined to achieve a global identity that is beneficial only to a few, then this can hardly be considered a GLOBAL identity when it doesn’t take into account the people who make up the globe too and will only contribute to a vicious cycle when the undermined will rebel and be even more excluded and undermined than before and all other aspects of heritage and culture will only be kept as a novelty or a tool for tourism.

so there, i’m blogging something that might possibly get my fingers burnt so even in a democractic country like mine, i have to put the above statement. go figure.

Anyway, i love my country i really do. i used to wonder why everybody had all these angst against the people who ruled them. sure, we have many rules about speaking out and maybe we can’t use our government’s name in movies ala bush in the “simpsons” but call is “suppresing the voice of the people” is a little too harsh isn’t it? i mean, isn’t it a small price to pay for an uncorrupted governemnt, food, clothes, jobs and shelter over our heads each night. sometimes really, i felt like we’re ingrates for treating out government the way we do; after all, we don’t question our parents way of discipline do we?

but recent events and things learnt hae caused me to rethink my point. i’m still grateful of course, not many people (person) could have (singlehandedly) brought an unknown asian country from grime and crime to globalized cosmopolitan culture globally recognized for business efficiency and low crime rates. We are democratic everybody learns from the pledge drummed into our heads since primary school. but what exactly are we NOT having despite calling oursleves democractic?

Below is an excerpt i took off the net detailing the oppositon’s stand against democracy in the country

Excerpts of the speech Dr Chee Soon Juan gave when he was presented the Defender of Democracy 2003 award by the Parliamentarians of Global Action (PGA)

WHENEVER one mentions Singapore, a few things come to mind: the first is clean streets, the second a nice airport and the third Lee Kuan Yew. Mr Lee has been ruling Singapore since 1959 when he first became the prime minister. His dictatorial grip on society remains to this day.

I am not sure if you had an underlying message when you chose this day to give me this award. But you will agree that this delectable irony cannot be left unmentioned: You see, today is Lee Kuan Yew’s birthday.

What you don’t know about Singapore

Allow me to give you a little bit of the reality of the state of democracy in Singapore. We still have the Internal Security Act (ISA) which allows the Government to arbitrarily arrest citizens and detain them without trial. We had many oppositionists, trade union leaders, journalists and activists imprisoned under the ISA for opposing the ruling PAP. The longest-serving prisoner is Mr Chia Thye Poh who was detained for 23 years without ever given a trial.

All newspapers, TV and radio stations are owned and run by the Government.

Even the foreign press has come under control when it was sued repeatedly or had their circulation curtailed by the Singapore Government.

And as for the labour movement we have one umbrella trade union called the National Trades Union Congress, which is headed by a cabinet minister.

And if all this does not ensure total control by the ruling party, there is the judiciary. I am sure you have heard how Governments leaders continue to take opposition members to court in financially-debilitating lawsuits.

Francis Seow, Singapore’s former solicitor-general now living in exile in the US, said: “Supremely confident in the reliability of his judiciary, the prime minister Lee Kuan Yew uses the courts as a legal weapon to intimidate, bankrupt or cripple the political opposition, and ventilate his political agenda. He has distinguished himself in numerous legal suits against dissidents and detractors for alleged defamation in Singapore courts, and has won them all. The idea that he could possibly lose is so fanciful that it could be dismissed out of mind. Which judge would be so reckless or foolhardy to award a decision against him?”

Australian Queen’s Counsel, Frank Galbally, who observed a trial involving student leader Tan Wah Piow, reported: “In Australia, the case would be laughed out of court…the evidence and procedure…would have aborted any trial in Australia…The three accused persons did not get a fair trial… In my opinion, it is just a political trial.”

The New York City Bar Association, after a fact-finding mission to Singapore led by the late Robert B. McKay, then dean of the New York University Law School, observed: “What emerges…is a government that has been willing to decimate the rule of law for the benefit of its political interests. Lawyers have been cowed to passivity, judges are kept on a short leash, and the law has been manipulated so that gaping holes exist in the system of restraints on government action toward the individual.”

Amnesty International wrote: “Civil defamation suits are being misused by the Executive to intimidate and deter those Singaporeans holding dissenting views…In fact the government’s resort to civil defamation suits to intimidate and deter those Singaporeans seeking to dissenting views may well have a more subtle and insidious effect than the ISA, in that such suits are not so likely to provoke domestic and international protest.”

The International Commission for Jurists observed that defamation lawsuits have “done little to overcome the courts’ reputation as improperly compliant to the interests of the country’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP).”

Then you have all this talk about Singapore being open and transparent. Mr Lee Kuan Yew chairs the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, or GIC, which takes all of the country’s financial reserves and invests it all over the world. The organisation does not give an account of these investments. His son, Lee Hsien Loong , is the prime-minister-to-be, the chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore and also the finance minister. His wife, Lee Kuan Yew’s daughter-in-law, controls one of the biggest groups of companies controlled by the Government. Lee Kuan Yew’s second son is in charge of the biggest government-run corporation, Singapore Telecom.

The lock-down is complete when you consider that the gathering of five or more persons for political purposes is considered illegal assembly and that the Government outlaws public rallies and protests.

Voting for autocracy

But the PAP insists that it is democratic because it conducts elections once every four to five years. We had elections in 2001 during which voters were told that the Government was giving them shares and that they could convert these shares into money. The trick was that these shares could be cashed in the day before voting. In Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, and so on votes are bought with sandals, rice, and oil. In Singapore the commodity is different but the corruption reeks just as foul.

In the elections in 1997, the PAP announced that if the voters did not vote for its candidates, their housing estates and apartments which are all government-owned, would not be refurbished and would eventually turn into slums.

We have no independent electoral commission. The campaign period is limited to nine days and the boundaries, after some very creative redrawing, is announced the day before elections are called.

Even then the government is already thinking ahead. It is going to introduce at the next elections electronic voting. I don’t have to tell you how much that opens up the elections to fraud and manipulation.

All this means that however adverse government policy affects Singaporeans there’s not a thing that we can do about it. There is absolutely no way that we can hold the Government accountable, no way that we can affect the decision-making process.

The march of democracy

If any country can democratise, it is Singapore. When you look at Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea, and see these countries make the transition to democracy, I don’t see why Singapore cannot do the same.

But why Singapore? Why should you pay attention to this little island? Because the autocrats in Singapore hold themselves out as some sort of model for the developing world. As a result leaders such as China’s Deng Xiaoping, Hong Kong’s Tung Chee Hwa, and lately, Thailand’s Shinawatra Thaksin have all indicated that they would like to emulate the dictatorial ways of the PAP.

And when you think about what Singapore does in the region as far as investment is concerned, there is much reason for us to worry. The Singapore Government – mind you, I’m not talking about private enterprises but the government itself – is one of the biggest, if not the biggest investor, in Burma. Much of this money was reported to be invested in projects with Burmese drugs lords.

So you see, behind the facade of democracy, we actually have a long long way to go. we may think we’re living a great life now, nut in terms of more freedom for the people, there really is more. it’s just that we’ve been conditioned to think that this is the best way to live life because we’ve been told so, and we’ve been cultivated to see only immediate needs are met rather than long term. “the father knows best” policy might have been fantastic years ago but at the turn of the new century, more freedom given to a new intellectual generation needs to be addressed.

these children, some as young as 4, are taught to handle weapons and the only way of survival is through violence. it is especially morbid when images have a child juxtaposed against a heavy weapons. it really goes against the grain of basic morality. perhaps however marality in these societies are different? when survival is your topmost priority ( not finishing your assignment) then these children aren’t viewd as children? rather, they are a chance at survival. another who knows how to wield a gun would mean an increased chance that an enemy might be taken down.

much as it is said that children are victims of war, these children are also allowing wars to take on a more humanitarian front. my view is that you can’t stop war these days. with the increasing scarcity of the environment and the power struggle between developing countries and the need to maintain power by developed countries, war is the only method mankind knows to protect and achieve assets. if war is inevitable, then the only hope that war might be lessen or the impact of it less damamging lies with the children of the nation. no doubt, the children suffer the most. no doubt they are born only to be killed, or live a life inflicted with woulds and disability but through these kids, we see a step up effort to provide at elast humanitarian aid for them. more and and more funds are being set up in the name of assisting war stricken children ( albeit it even enough) what i’m driving at is that we constantly view children as the hopeless victims of war but what they can be is the focal point to bring war to a lesser degree. however brutal or savage a war campaign is, surely a shred of humanity can be found within the “leaders”.surely a wounded child would bring across more poignant meaning than hundreds of dead bodies that just become a meanignless statistic? the article below proves how children can be used as a focal point to create “zones of peace” to lesser the degree of war and see the child as having rights even in the ravages of war

“El Salvador in 1985 saw the first ‘days of tranquillity’, when the fighting stopped for three days to allow 250,000 small children to be vaccinated.”

This concern is of more than sentimental value. It has frequently allowed relief to penetrate enemy lines to reach starving children beyond.

After World War I, Eglantyne Jebb, one of the founders of the British Save the Children Fund, who had organized food for needy children on both sides of the conflict, was charged in the United Kingdom with having given aid and succour to the enemy. “My Lord,” she is said to have responded, “I have no enemies below the age of 11.” She was acquitted.⁶⁰ Similarly during World War II, the establishment of what is now Oxfam was based on defiance of official opposition to aiding civilians in Belgium and Greece who were suffering from the Allied blockade.

UNICEF, too, has since 1946 frequently used its focus on children as a means of working on both sides in civil wars—as it did in the 1960s in Biafra, and later in the 1970s in what was then Kampuchea. However, it was not until the 1980s that the idea emerged of children as a ‘conflict-free zone’—that children should be protected from harm and provided with the essential services to ensure their survival and well-being. That concept was first formulated in 1983 by Nils Thedin of Sweden in a proposal to UNICEF.

If ever an idea seemed quixotic, this was it. To expect the perpetrators of some of the most sadistic actions to stop and think about children initially made little sense. Until it was tried. Since Nils Thedin’s proposal, a half-dozen corridors of peace, days of tranquillity, bubbles of peace—different names for the same phenomenon—have actually been negotiated in the midst of a number of bloody conflicts.

The first occasion was in El Salvador in 1985. After much negotiation with the Government and the rebels, there was finally agreement that the carnage should stop for three ‘days of tranquillity’.

On three days in consecutive months, the Salvadorian conflict gave way to a campaign in which as many as 20,000 health workers immunized 250,000 small children against polio, measles, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. This process was repeated every year until the end of the war six years later.

Similar principles have been applied in other disputes. In 1986, in the war between the Ugandan Government and the National Resistance Army, the warring parties agreed to allow vaccines, personnel and equipment to travel along a corridor of peace. A few months later in Lebanon, in March 1987, hostilities were suspended for three days to permit all young children to be vaccinated. Two years later in Afghanistan, in 1988-1989, vaccination teams operated in both government- and mujahidin-controlled territories and in some areas raised vaccination levels above 80 per cent.

Probably the most sustained example of humanitarian aid working on both sides of a conflict has been in the Sudan. The Sudan for years had been racked by civil war, but during 1988 this had been compounded by a disastrous drought causing the loss of 250,000 lives and displacing nearly 3 million people. By January 1989, it was clear that a similar tragedy lay in store for the following year. The Secretary-General asked UNICEF Executive Director James P. Grant to meet with the warring parties—and Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) was the result. Through OLS the relief agencies negotiated both with the Government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which agreed to allow eight ‘corridors’ of relief to be created.

In the face of enormous odds, OLS achieved significant results. By the end of September that year, it had delivered over 100,000 metric tons of food and 4,000 tons of medical supplies.⁶¹ At the same time, vaccination clinics became operational in all the garrison towns and reached 90,000 children in SPLA areas.

OLS also brought about a reduction in the fighting—at least along the corridors of tranquillity. It allowed people to move about the countryside, and above all it gave people hope. Even after hostilities were resumed, civilian despair was never again to be so widespread or intense. A second phase was negotiated in March 1990 and, within the limits imposed by the fighting, has been running ever since. In 1995, the SPLA became the first combatant group in dispute with a recognized government to commit itself to abide by the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.- taken from http://www.unicef.org/sowc96/14zones.htm

while all this is good and sounds nice. yay! we’re helping the children! yay, we’re providing them with rights! i still think it’s like trying to provide medicinal relief only after disease has struck. what i really hope is for a preventive measure rather than a cure. these chidlren don’t need humanitarian aid AFTER war has ravaged their homes, they need a stable environment to grow up in where pubic money is moved from weapons and arms to education, public infrastructure and basic living conditions.

From the Youth Justice Board’s Annual Workload Report, British girls between the ages 10 to 17 have increased their share of criminal acts with 59,236 incidents reported in 2006-07. The figure represents a 25 percent jump from 47,358 young girl crimes in 2003-04. Among the crimes frequently committed by young British girls were violent attacks with 16,000 incidents, theft 20,000, arson 180, drug crimes 1,000, driving offenses 1,500 and public order crimes 6,000. In contrast, British boys even registered a 2 percent decline in crime rates for the same period. However, despite the emerging trends, the bulk of offenders were still young men.

But what are the social problems that lead to such a rise in juvenile crime particularly for girls? Girls as young as 12 have been known to be hauled to juvenile court to be tried for crime ranging from mere pick pocketing to arson. On the rise definitely are girl gang related crimes. While it is traditionally believed that a rocky family background contributes greatly to being a push factor for a young girl to join a gang and commit crimes, it is not as simplistic as that now in the modern age.

Firstly, Hollywood has glamorized crime, making it the language of cool. For girls battling even more insecurities in a world where the mass media proliferates images of perfection and the pressures to better oneself in a knowledge based economy, the young face tremendous pressure and often battle insecurity. When support is not given and help is not easily available, many girls turn to gangs as a perception of their self worth. Whilst most gangs are merely groups that are relatively harmless, often time, the girls are pressured into committing crimes in order to be accepted. This usually leads to a de- sensitization in committing crimes and a vicious cycle begins.

Also, the perception of women as stronger and more valuable now also contributes ironically to the rise in female involved crimes. Women now more accepted in the workforce are leaving their children to caretakers at best or nobody at all. The absence of the parents and the lax in control in child discipline gives rise to young girls joining gangs to commit crimes to seek friendship or as a way to get noticed. Tabler studies focussing on the psychology of young girls committing crimes feels that a family that is too lax and a society too accepting of all things risqué leads to very little being able to excite or over stimulate a child. (A child constantly exposed to moving images on telly, chaotic news in the newspaper soon becomes desensitized to everything around and it takes a lot to get the child excited about something) Thus, it breeds boredom so the child seeks out crime as a thrilling alternative. On the other hand, (he cites Asian countries here who although have a low crime rate, have girls increasingly committing crimes) societies where parental control have been too strict can often cause the child to rebel and seek solace in other forms of relationships instead. (Tabler, 1992)

Nowadays, the law is starting to see the females as a mean for violence too. While this superficially does not look good for a woman of course but it is also because of this that more avenues and alternatives such as help centres are being opened to cater to such a problem and aid the women. SO it might be a good thing! Nevertheless, there are some studies that also show that many believe it is in fact women who are helping to keep the violence in check. While it is true that more girls are turning to crime, studies still show that groups where there are females involved can also help calm the ‘herd aggression’ that often occurs when too many males are grouped together.

There are still many avenues that can be discussed about this issue but I’m kinda stuck already. What do you guys think? I really feel that there is so much more to it than meets the eye but I just can’t seem to grasp more than a general sweeping concept on it. Will update more when I delve into it a little deeper!

And that was just it. Society’s perception especially in Singapore is slowly changing to understand that men can sometime be a superficial representation of power but if you want any work done, you’ve got to ask a woman. With increased education opportunities based on meritocracy and not on gender, females are now given more chances to speak up for themselves, to be seen and heard and not have to whittle away at home darning socks. A long time ago, many looked up to Margaret Thatcher as the one who broke psychological barriers and made women all around the world aspire to be somebody. She made women know that it was possible to wear a dress and pearls and stand at a podium deciding a nation’s economic future. Yet, as thrilled as I was with such POWER TO THE WOMEN role reversals, there was still a deep seated discomfort. What was the price of success for such women?

A lot of women now juggle everything, from relationships to personal life, to work and home. Everything from baby diapers to company finances, it seems like nothing’s going to stop a successful career women, except, maybe when she doesn’t have that great organizational skills. Or let’s face it, we’re not robots; especially not women and to have to balance all these parts of life, something’s got to go and often women sacrifice their family life to pursue their careers. With more females getting university degrees, it seems such a waste to just throw these degrees  on the backbench to raise a child. The Singapore government especially is really worried about low population growth thanks to couple and women in particular who have NO TIME to have a baby. Since when did something as beautiful as having a family play second fiddle to government bribery and the pursue of a higher rung on the corporate ladder?

Also, how did Margaret Thatcher rise to the top? Did she do it by being wonderfully feminine and nurturing? As far as I know, she was even more aggressive than her male counterparts. Is that the price of success women have to pay? To shed their femininity to portray the same or even a higher level of aggressiveness than the males to prove their worth? And most importantly, how did Margaret Thatcher and all the other wonder women we’ve heard of raise the bar COLLECTIVELY for other women? Did Margaret Thatcher, as a woman herself, advocate female rise to power? When a female succeeds, do we forget the past rag stories and forge ahead, only to embody male aggressiveness and ambition? Do we no longer display the nurturing qualities of being quintessentially female and thus, collectively raise the bar of success for all our other female peers?

Until that happens, and I see a woman in power who also strongly advocates the rise of other females (not a feminist movement of course) and who can get to be successful being truly and uniquely female, let’s just say, I doubt we can be proud of being bra-burners yet.

Many argue that free trade is the quickest way to fuel growth and alleviate poverty; In East Asia for example, the percentage of people living on less that $2 a day has fallen from 50 to 32 percent over the past decade. In large part because of deregulation, liberalization and freer trade, there has been growth, and thus, poverty reduction. But developing countries still have a long way to go. Despite their pools of cheap labor, Asian economies are among the world’s least accommodating places for business, bearing in mind corruption, unstable politics and poor infrastructure. It is a vicious cycle really, how they have no money to set in place infrastructure and logistics that they need to hold them in good stead to allow free trade to take place in their country. Then again, free trade hasn’t much helped the 47 least developed countries in the world- the poorest of the poor.  I remember when I was in Hongkong during the WTO meetings; I was astounded to see people rioting on television about something I didn’t comprehend at all. I thought free trade was meant to help; then why were all these people so angry?

It was the type of people, not the way they were protesting that really got my attention. These were simple common folk, hoping to eke out a living from the simplest of means. Yet, with the advent of trade policies that are in place to accelerate economic growth, these people are being benched. They are saying free trade can kill economies. Robert Sisilo, the Solomon Island’s permanent representative to the World Trade Organization certainly thinks so. If a sweeping trade package under discussion at the global body is ever implemented, his isolated nation stands to lose a mainstay revenue source: fees for access to its territorial waters. Others too, have to affected by these policies and more often than not, it’s those who aren’t able to generate enough income and pursue advance technology to keep; the very people who need the economic wealth supposed fuelled by trade agreements that are being the most badly affected.

So what can be done to stop this tidal wave of worsen poverty through international regulations. For one, the countries’ governments definitely need to have a much bigger role in handling work and trade conditions. Many countries are recognizing the need for market driven policies whilst maintaining decent work conditions. India for example, aims to boost rural incomes by creating 150 million wage jobs in the country’s poorest village. Indonesia is establishing new schemes to compensate poor households for higher gas prices and so one. Perhaps we can strike a balance somewhere like how Asian governments especially have demanded that developed markets open more fully to  their exports but reserve the right to shield vulnerable sectors of their domestic economies from cheap imports. Surely, with the right government choices and reforms, free trade can finally realize its ideals and help those who truly need its help rather than shunting those who need its benefits the most.

 Resources:

http://www.ifpri.org/2020conference/PDF/summary_johnsonrobbin.pdf

Time Magazine