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ISN Insights: Look Back, Week Ahead

New ISN Insights week starts today, photo: Caro's Lines/flickr

Last week, ISN Insights focused on global health issues:

This week, we will be examining: Bosnia’s political outlook, nuclear weapons proliferation, the impact of ‘currency wars’ on Africa, corruption and much more.

Make sure to tune in each day for the newest ISN Insights package. And if you’re an active Twitter or Facebook user, look us up and become a follower/fan!

How Are the World’s Children Doing?

Children have the right to learn, photo: D Sharon Pruitt/flickr

A UNICEF report titled “The Children Left Behind”, to be released today, examines the level of inequality in the education, well-being and health of children in the world’s richest countries. The countries with the least inequality were the usual lot: Iceland, Finland, the Netherlands and Norway.

While Finland, for example, tops the list in terms of having the most equal education system, it fares less well on the health front. Despite free and healthy school meals, Finnish media decried, Finnish children are still not eating enough vegetables and fruit. Switzerland, somewhat unsurprisingly, tops the list as the country with the highest level of material well-being for kids. While Canadian authorities and media reacted with shock at how badly off Canadian children are in terms of material well-being and health, the US ranks even far below its northern neighbor (near the bottom of 24 OECD countries under scrutiny). This should ruffle some feathers in the US and show how vulnerable children in particular are to societal inequality. Sadly, given the intensely polarized political environment, this important report is likely to get buried under a myriad of apparently much more urgent policy concerns.

Yet, the US, like any other wealthy nation not only owes its children a good standard of living from a moral standpoint, but also has to provide it in order to compete in tomorrow’s increasingly crowded knowledge economy in which a pool of healthy, smart and motivated young people is a prerequisite for success. Inequality, ill-health and resentment will hamper growth and make countries less dynamic and less competitive, regardless of their relative ranking in the world today.

WikiLeaks, the Greenpeace of Politics?

 

With more revelations coming out every day, the latest WikiLeaks stunt will stay in the news for some time to come. But what really came out of these leaks? Any surprises, any shocks or just glorified diplomatic gossip? And what effect will it have on world affairs in the months and years to come?

ISN’s editorial staff reacts:

WikiLeaks reminded us of how ugly war is with the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs. Now they shed light on diplomatic practice, which turns out to be less diplomatic than we thought. After having dishonored warriors and undressed diplomats, who will WikiLeaks target next? Business executives, says Julian Assange, and it is only fair that corporate wrongdoers will have to pay their share. And then, whose turn will it be after? The NGOs, I assume, because it would surprise me if they didn’t have anything to hide.

– Ralph Stamm

The latest collection of documents released by WikiLeaks makes for exciting reading. The cache of diplomatic cables contains a bunch of juicy exploits of the sort usually found in gossip columns. Yet that’s exactly the reason why their publication should not be supported. To a disturbing degree, their release is like stealing the diary of the most popular girl in school and posting it on the Internet. It serves no purpose other than to satisfy the public’s curiosity, while embarrassing the officials in Washington and across the world. However, it is part of the nature of human communication that one doesn’t always say the same thing to every audience. Therefore, if we are interested in the existence of a diplomatic corps, it must be allowed to operate without fear of humiliation. By turning into the world’s new diplomatic gossip channel, Wikileaks has lost both its credibility and its integrity.

– Joav Ben-Shmuel

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Keyword in Focus

Keyword in Focus: Euro

Europe on a shoestring, photo: Howard Lake/flickr

With Spain next on the list of eurozone countries on the brink of financial abyss, nerves about the future of the great European experiment are at an all-time high. The narrative of the euro’s crisis seems self-fulfilling as  markets move from one financially challenged euro country to the next, and after the Irish bailout, Portugal and Spain seem to be next in line, with cups in their hands and market speculators on their backs.

The collapse of the Spanish economy, with its overstretched banks, chronically high unemployment and a much larger economy than previous recipients of EU/IMF bailout money, is a particularly worrying prospect, yet European leaders seem committed to saving the euro. Even Britain’s George Osborne, the deeply euro-skeptic Chancellor of the Exchequer, acknowledged last week that despite not joining the euro (and still thinking it was a bad idea- “Hah, I told you so!”), it is in Britain’s interest to help with the bailout efforts and to ensure that neighboring countries like Ireland are repaired and revitalized.

With the air of crisis set to loom over Europe for months to come, EU leaders and Europhiles everywhere must be asking themselves: How do we get out of this mess (and how did we get into it in the first place)? Because as much as Americans or even the Brits might enjoy gloating in the face of this largely self-inflicted mess, the EU and its experiment with a common currency are here to stay.

For an excellent set of resources on this highly topical issue, check out our Euro keyword.

ISN Insights: Look Back, Week Ahead

 

Last week, ISN Insights looked at:

This week, we will be focusing on the issue of global health from the following perspectives: global health funding, horizontal vs. vertical health aid, the ‘rationing’ of care, the global health governance architecture and the AIDS pandemic.

Make sure to ‘tune in’ each day for the newest ISN Insights package. And if you’re an active Twitter or Facebook user, look us up and become a follower!