With the popularity and reach of the web, users have never been as concerned and conscious about privacy protection matters as they are today.Julia Angwin decided to pull the plug. That was it. She needed her privacy. It was time to be in charge of her own information, other than sitting on the back seat. No more just handing in her information to companies and to the government so they can use it freely. No more receiving undesirable marketing mails. No more surveillance. Not anymore. This time, she was taking control of her personal information.
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He stares at the shelf for half a second only before grabbing a jar of Panzani tomato sauce. Thomas Scharwatt, a student in Strasbourg, is doing his weekly grocery shopping at one of the biggest retailers in France: Leclerc. As he reaches the organic food section, he sounds surprised “they have pasta sauce here again!” But his cart already has the well-known brand. He is fast, knows where to go, which products he wants. Next time, maybe.
Although still a niche in slow progress, organic food consumption in France is not the main issue. Rather, the production is. The latest statistics by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), show that in 2013, only 3.9% of the agricultural land was dedicated to organic in France, leaving the country at the 18th position in the European Union. In Sweden, it was 16.3% and the EU leader, Austria, had 19.5% dedicated to organic production. So why is France behind? By Jialu Zhang When Darren Porgieter was the section manager at Niassa National Reserve in the north of Mozambique, he was known as "pilot conservationist", combating poachers with aerial surveillance. "Yes, I’ve seen countless elephant corpses," he admitted, "even piles of corpses, sometimes over 50, 60 all together."
Darren could never forget the day when he just landed by helicopter and about to rush into bushes and start searching for poachers. Gunfire suddenly broke out. "Following the sound, I saw a male elephant with half of his face cut away, lying on the ground. His trunk was thrown aside, and he was still alive, bleeding," Darren said, "It’s all because of his tusk-- ivory." According to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), in the last 20 years, around 33,000 elephants were butchered every year, and at this rate, African elephants will be extinct in ten years. Though the direct cause of extinction is arguably the poaching, simply a curb on poaching might not solve the problem. From the half-torn-faced elephant, many more hands are stained with blood. The shining Sugarloaf Mountain, at the mouth of Guanabara Bay, in Rio de Janeiro, still tries to smile with joy to locals and tourists that wander without a curfew around the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon. It is one of the highest-class neighborhoods in town, which will no longer wave back to the Sugarloaf in the same way they did before.
Brazil remains shocked. On Tuesday, May 19th, 2015, 57-year-old Jaime Gold, doctor, left home around 7 pm for a ride around the lagoon. Three criminals stabbed Gold four times, leaving a trail of blood and all for his bicycle. First Pan Am, then ValuJet. Malaysia Airlines was the latest example of an airline that went bankrupt because of a deadly accident – among others. And now even Lufthansa, or more precisely it’s 'budget' subsidiary, Germanwings, has to face and master the challenge that the three mentioned airlines could not: To stay in the black after the most fatal tragedy the airline has ever experienced.
On March 24 this year the Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz allegedly committed suicide by crashing a A320 airplane into a mountainside of the French Alps. 149 people, including five crew members, died with him. The event caused widespread media coverage and international outcries ranging from postulating stricter psychological evaluations for pilots to demanding a change in the safety measures for cockpit doors. Investigators assume that the 27-year old man had locked the door while in the cockpit alone – recordings found on the black box opened up assumptions that the pilot of flight 4U 9525 had tried to open the cockpit door from the outside just before the crash to no avail. People around the world seem to be hit hard by the tragedy, but Germans appear to be a special case. This plane crash seemed to evoke unusually dramatic reactions – possibly because it is connected to Lufthansa. The award-winning airline had enjoyed a nearly impeccable reputation for more than sixty years, "safety" being their brand recognition feature and always played a large role in how they branded themselves. It had also been unaffected by any accidents for more than two decades. Now the question, if one person's actions are sufficient to blacken Lufthansa's spotless sun-yellow image and which are the contributing factors, may be posed. Why the sino-danish educational collaboration has not become a geopolitical success story.Joakim Villumsen was thrilled to arrive in China under a clear blue sky, seeing first-hand that his hope of a smog-free Beijing was real. It was summer, late August 2013, and the 25-year-old Danish student was about to start a two-year Master’s program as part of the second ever cohort at the Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research (SDC) - a university center based in China, where Danish universities and a Chinese university offer a range of different master’s programs.
Along with being far away from family and friends, the issue of pollution had been the reason behind Joakim doubting whether to go to China for his masters in the first place. However, convinced by the career prospects of obtaining a Chinese university degree and a personal interest in Chinese culture, Joakim applied and regarded himself lucky to get one of only 15 places offered at the master’s programme of Nanoscience and Technology at SDC. As it turned out, luck had nothing to do with it. The programme had not received many applications. Only three Danish students started alongside Joakim, and less than a year after he was back in Copenhagen, still enrolled at SDC but finishing his studies in familiar surroundings. Over winter, the smog had returned to Beijing covering the city like an inescapable veil. Not a brand new story of Chinese immigrants.By Shulun Huang It is an usual Sunday, December 1st, 2013. Many people are enjoying the weekend with their family. But the fire accident in a Chinese-owned factory snatched seven Chinese immigrant workers’ lives. The factory is located in Prato, Tuscany. Those Chinese workers both lived and worked at the factory, some have no identity authority to live in Italy. This accident has been widely reported, attracting worldwide attention.
The Italian authority, local procurator in Prato, started to investigate the accident immediately. After one year, reported by The Local, Lin You Lan, the manager of the factory was sentenced 8 years and 8 months in prison. Her sister Lin You Li was also found guilty. But this accident has been described as foretold as Roberto Pistonina from Italian Confederation of Worker’s Trade Unions, posted on his Facebook page to describe that hundreds of Chinese immigrant workers were "living and working in conditions of near-slavery." Many hard-working Chinese work day in and day out in Prato with a lack of enough concern about production safety. "Made in Italy" is actually mostly made by Chinese, the clothing produced by Chinese cheap labor is "at a lightning pace for sale at rock-bottom prices" to occupy large quantity of the European garment market. Alongside with the terrible accident, competition, conflicts between Chinese immigrant group and native Italian group have been surfaced distinctly. The enduring popularity of New Zealand Prime Minister John Key.The Key family must have been positively euphoric as they awoke in their plush Parnell mansion on the morning of 21 September, 2014.
The previous night, disappointed Labour-leader David Cunliffe phoned to concede defeat after it became clear John Key had the numbers to serve a third term as New Zealand’s Prime Minister. In one sense, the victory was unsurprising. A weak Labour party had struggled with in-fighting for much of 2014. Cunliffe had failed to gain traction with the Kiwi public, let alone his own colleagues. All told - the opposition were simply no match for the confidence and perceived stability of a National Government led by Key. Even so, the margin of National’s victory was a surprise. Throughout the year the Prime Minister and Government had survived multiple scandals and controversies. From the revelation they had illegally spied on giant German playboy Kim Dotcom and other New Zealanders, to the covert use of attack bloggers to undermine political opponents. It seemed as though John Key had expended his political capital. The New Zealand electorate felt otherwise. Chinese government’s detention of five feminists may have deeper political concern.By Muyu Xu On March 7th, a hazy Saturday in Beijing, Wei Tingting was doing laundry at home when the police came in and took her away. "She did not turn off the machine when she left. Apparently she thought she would come back home in some hours." Fan Popo, a roommate of Wei, recalled. But Wei was not released until April 13th, 37 days later. According to Chinese law, 37 days is the maximum restrain for detainment.
Wei was not the only one who was arrested on that day. Tens of feminists around the country were taken by the police, but they were set free within 24 hours. Only Wei Tingting, Wu Rongrong, Li Tingting, Wang Man and Zheng Churan were arrested and then detained, on the charge of "creating disturbance". The detained five people are all young, well-educated females on the average 27 years old. They are the core members of Chinese new feminism movements and were dubbed as 'Feminist Five'. The Feminist Five were planing to conduct some activities, aiming at raising public awareness of sexual harassment on public transportation, on March 8th - the International Woman’s Day. |
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