Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Guy Ryder the 57 year old British Director General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and former General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), a leading figure in the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) has published an article on Aljazeera titled ‘One idea the world has not tried’ claiming that setting job creation as a number one goal would be a sustainable way out of the economic crisis. Ryder states “We have spent the past five years trying to jump start the global economy. After a promising start, we now seem to be heading in the wrong direction. …Some 200 million people worldwide are out of a job. …Young people are particularly hard hit. Close to 75 million 15-24 year olds are unemployed. Many of them experience long spells of unemployment right from the start, or leave the labour market altogether, often losing their professional and social skills and missing out on on-the-job experience. …There is one idea we have not tried: making job creation our number one priority. We have talked about it, but haven’t really acted on it. … when people have no jobs or are forced to work in poverty, there is less growth, less security and less human and economic development. Add to this the growing income and social inequalities within and across countries, and what you get is a recipe for economic, political and social instability. A shift to inclusive and sustainable development will not be possible if millions of people are denied the opportunity to earn their living in conditions of equity and dignity. That is why our efforts to achieve inclusive, equitable and sustainable development must be anchored in decent jobs. And why it’s time to redouble them now.”

Inspired by Guy Ryder, Aljazeera ow.ly/hnKgB Image source Facebook ow.ly/hnKwk

Julia Marton-Lefèvre the Hungarian American Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world’s largest conservation environment membership organization which brings together states, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, scientists and experts in a unique worldwide partnership, has been interviewed by Busani Bafana for the Inter Press Service. In the interview Marton-Lefèvre stated “…through our SOS or Save Our Species initiative, IUCN and partners have already helped conserve close to 100 threatened species in over 30 countries. We know that conservation works, but we need significantly greater resources if we are to reverse the current extinction crisis. …a recent ground-breaking study found that we have overshot three out of nine of the so-called “planetary boundaries” that define a “safe operating space” for humanity, including biodiversity loss. Today we are dangerously close to reaching such “points of no return”, but it is very difficult to predict precisely when a tipping point is reached until it actually happens. For instance, the collapse of the north Atlantic cod fishery happened back in the 1970s but its impacts are felt even today. …Consumer demand for nature-based products – for food, medicine, clothing – has emerged as a major threat for many species that had not been affected by habitat loss or climate change thus far. Nature simply cannot keep up with our insatiable appetite for everything from raw materials to live animals – and we need to change that. …The biggest challenge now is getting everyone to understand what is at stake: that nature is not a luxury but the very foundation of our own wellbeing on this planet.”

Inspired by Inter Press Service ow.ly/d7evI image source Twitter ow.ly/d7eql

Each attempt to silence us further emboldened us (October 5th)

Wadah Khanfar the 44 year old Director General of the Al Jazeera Network has been forced to stepped down as the head of the organization, after Wikileaks released a diplomatic cable showing he collaborated with the U.S. government. The cable stated Khanfar had agreed to remove detrimental images from the network’s online slideshow. Contrary to Al Jazeera’s reputation that Khanfar had built, taking the single channel news to a multi-national network that countered the US newsgathering hegemony, the cable implied Khanfar had systematically worked closely with the US intelligence. The images removed from the online slideshow depicted injured women and children resulting from US military actions. Khanfar’s replacement is Sheikh Ahmad bin Jassim bin Mohammad Al Thani, a member of the Qatari royal family, seen as a move by the establishment to control the growing Network’s power.

Inspired by Zara Golden http://ow.ly/6DF2E image source AlJazeera http://ow.ly/6DFhs