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RECENT🚨 (June 2018): Guatemala volcano erupts aggressively 

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RECENT🚨 (June 2018): Guatemala volcano erupts aggressively 

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"At least 25 people have been killed and nearly 300 injured in the most violent eruption of Guatemala’s Fuego volcano in more than 40 years, officials said. Fuego (‘Fire’), spewed a five-mile stream of lava and belched smoke and ash that rained on to the capital and other regions" https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2018/jun/04/guatemalas-fuego-volcano-erupts-in-pictures

A detailed article of the recent Guatemala volcanic eruption can be found in the article below:
"Soldiers are helping firefighters search for missing people after Sunday's horrific volcanic eruption in Guatemala, when torrents of superheated rock, ash and mud destroyed villages."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-44363444

Taaha AlShamma

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The amount of plastic in the ocean is set to triple in a decade unless litter is curbed, a major report has warned.

Plastics is just one issue facing the world's seas, along with rising sea levels, warming oceans, and pollution, it says.

But the Foresight Future of the Sea Report for the UK government said there are also opportunities to cash in on the "ocean economy".

They say this is predicted to double to $3 trillion (£2 trillion) by 2030.

The report says much more knowledge is needed about the ocean. The authors say the world needs a Mission to "Planet Ocean" to mirror the excitement of voyaging to the moon and Mars.

The Foresight reports are written by experts to brief ministers on medium and long-term issues of significance. This one has been signed off by ministers from four different departments as the authors emphasise the need for a joined-up oceans policy.

One of the authors, Prof Edward Hill from the UK National Oceanography Centre told BBC News: "The ocean is critical to our economic future. Nine billion people will be looking to the ocean for more food. Yet we know so little of what's down there.

"We invest a lot of money and enthusiasm for missions to space - but there's nothing living out there. The sea bed is teeming with life. We really need a mission to planet ocean - it's the last frontier."

Another of the authors, the chief scientist for the UK government's environment department Ian Boyd, agreed: "The ocean is out of sight, out of mind," he said.

He told BBC News: "There's a continuous process of exploring for new things to exploit in the oceans, and that's happening faster than we scientists can keep up with. My suspicion is legislation is also struggling to keep up - and obviously there are risks in that."

He said offshore wind farms, oil industries and mining firms were spreading into unexplored areas. "Scientists need to get in there faster than the commercial people or at least at the same time - to put proper regulation in place to govern those industries."

The report highlights many concerns, including the current worry about ocean plastic litter, which it forecasts will treble between 2015 and 2025.

But it stresses that the ocean is being assailed from many different types of pollution - including run-off pesticides and fertilisers from farms, industrial toxins like PCBs, and pharmaceuticals.

The authors say if governments can identify ways of protecting biodiversity in the seas, there are riches to be harvested - including nodules of metals and possibly even cures for cancer.

They predict that the biggest industrial growth in the seas will come from offshore wind, followed by marine aquaculture and fish processing. The report also projects an increase in industrial capture of wild fish.

This latter suggestion alarmed Rachel Jones, a marine expert from London Zoo, ZSL. She told BBC News: "Given that 90% of global fisheries are either at or in excess of sustainable catch levels, I can't really see how they are going to expand capture fisheries."

Follow Roger on Twitter.

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The amount of plastic in the ocean is set to triple in a decade unless litter is curbed, a major report has warned. Plastics is just one issue facing the world's seas, along with rising sea levels, warming oceans, and pollution, it says.

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An new plan in China???

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In the weaving alleys of Shanghai's Laoximen district, swathes of residential buildings sit empty. The historic area in the heart of the city is being slowly demolished, and many residents have already abandoned it, leaving behind rows of traditional terraced houses with boarded-up windows and demolition signs on the doors.

Laoximen is one of a number of neighbourhoods in Shanghai to be "upgraded" in the city's relentless race for modernity. The redevelopments are a reaction to the city's runaway growth, and key contributors to the first population falls in Shanghai and Beijing for decades.

Reducing population has been heralded as an answer to "big city disease", characterised by state media as an overcrowded, polluted city with too many people living in it. As a result, both Shanghai and Beijing, the Chinese capital, implemented population caps last year, leaving little room for additional growth - Shanghai plans to limit the population to 25 million, Beijing to 23 million.

It appears that urban planning policies to control the inflows of people and force out lower-skilled populations are already having an effect. Beijing housed 21.7 million people at the end of 2017 - about 20,000 fewer than at the end of 2016, according to official figures - while Shanghai's population fell by about 10,000 to 24.18 million.

Demographic factors also could be at play: despite a reversal in the one-child policy, implemented in 1979 to curb the country's growing population and limit demand on resources, the number of births fell in China last year. Meanwhile, the population is ageing - a demographic crisis that will put immense pressure on state services from healthcare to employment.

However, it is state-led rules which are the root cause of this population drop in Shanghai and Beijing. Ongoing efforts to "beautify" both cities have included rebuilding grittier districts, rounding up street vendors, closing or moving hundreds of markets and bricking up restaurants, bars and shops without licences. While the government has said it is not specifically targeting migrant workers, critics claim the reforms disproportionately affect the cities' poorest.

Tens of thousands of migrants were forced out of Beijing last November as part of a government crackdown on illegal housing. After a fire in a crowded district on the city's southern outskirts killed 19 people, the government carried out a swift wave of demolitions and mass evictions, giving many residents only minutes to pack and leave their homes. Protesters argued the authorities used the fire as a pretext to accelerate their targets to demolish 15 square miles of illegal structures - mostly shops and homes for low-income residents - and drive "low-end" migrant workers out of the city.

In Shanghai, the government has also carried out sweeping removals of "urban villages" - low-cost housing generally populated by migrant workers - and the rebuilding of older neighbourhoods.

"What used to hold four families is now the luxury ground floor on a building for one rich person," says Saskia Sassen, professor of sociology at Columbia University and author of the book Expulsions. "China's government is moving people out of its top cities to its underused cities - not the likes of Shanghai or Guangzhou, but really overbuilt half-empty cities that were just projects for the construction companies to make money."

Sassen argues that cities such as Shanghai and Beijing have been systematically making room for a "new very high-income middle class", and pushing the lower-earning middle classes out to the edges of the city limits. This leaves even less space for poorer communities, and creates more economic opportunities around city-centre real estate. Newly built apartments in these cities can be out of reach for many of its citizens, costing upwards of 20 times the average annual income.

However, there will always be demand for lower-skilled jobs and services, experts say, so efforts to push migrant workers out of the city are instead likely to add new problems.

"This urban gentrification is not a good thing for the city," says Dr Yan Song, director of the University of North Carolina's programme on Chinese cities. "You attract wealth but you push away lower-income people. The demand and the need for the lower end of services will still exist, but those people will just live further and further away from the city centre, and have to spend longer getting to work.

"People come to these cities because of better services, opportunities and incomes, so if you can't provide that in other places, they are still going to come."

A key part of China's plan to limit city growth involves the redistribution of populations into new urban areas, such as the Jing-Jin-Ji region outside Beijing, and the 39 square mile Xiong'an New Area, a new city district near Hebei which the government is hoping will attract tech companies.

These new districts and hubs are designed to take the pressure off overcrowded cities. Factories, manufacturing hubs and markets have already been relocated to Jing-Jin-Ji. But others argue that policies to decrease city populations are misguided.

Q&A
What is the Overstretched Cities series?

Overstretched Cities is an in-depth look at how urbanisation has seen cities all over the world mushroom in size, putting new strain on infrastructure and resources - but in some cases offering hope for a more sustainable relationship with the natural world.

Over the course of the week, Guardian Cities correspondents will look beyond the numbers to tell the stories of people affected by the 21st century's population and consumption boom. From sprawling cities in the developed world that are consuming more than their fair share of energy and water, to less wealthy cities unequipped to handle the rapid increase in geographical and population size, we will interrogate this global phenomenon by talking to the people who are trying to mitigate its worst effects - and shine a light on the upside of our population boom by exploring the social and environmental advantages of urban density.

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"Population is not the root of this 'urban disease'; it's due to poor management of the cities, and poor urban structures that causes a lot of unnecessary, chaotic commuting, traffic congestion and overcrowding," says Song.

"I would say, if there is overcrowding or a shortage of services, why don't you expand public services? Provide more education, opportunities, healthcare, hospitals - that's something the government could do, rather than putting effort into pushing away the migrant population."
This week, the Overstretched Cities series examines the impact of the rush to urbanisation, which has seen cities around the world explode in size. Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to join the discussion, and explore our archive here

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China's radical plan to limit the populations of Beijing and Shanghai

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In the weaving alleys of Shanghai's Laoximen district, swathes of residential buildings sit empty. The historic area in the heart of the city is being slowly demolished, and many residents have already abandoned it, leaving behind rows of traditional terraced houses with boarded-up windows and demolition signs on the doors.

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The least sustainable city....

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Jennifer Afshar and her husband, John, pushed their bikes across the grass and paused to savour the sunshine, while their two boys went to look at the duck pond. Other kids were playing soccer or doing tricks in the skate park, and families picnicked on blankets or fired up a barbecue across from the swimming pool.

"We moved here from Los Angeles, to get away from the rising cost of living and the traffic," said Jennifer. "When we saw this park, we thought they were punking us it was so good. There's low crime, the home owners association takes great care of the grass and trees - we like it."

The Afshars live in the squeaky-clean suburb of Anthem, Arizona. It's part of a giant conurbation of satellite towns surrounding Phoenix, and is a classic example of why this metropolitan - or "megapolitan" - area is tempting fate.

Climate change is having an impact but that's a controversial, unsettled issue in the western US

Twenty years ago, Anthem sprung out of virgin desert, a community "masterplanned" from scratch with schools, shops, restaurants and spacious homes - many behind high walls and electronic gates - and its own country club and golf course. It now has a population of 30,000.

To look around Anthem would be to imagine there is no such thing as a water shortage. But the lush vegetation and ponds do not occur naturally. Phoenix gets less than eight inches of rainfall each year; most of the water supply for central and southern Arizona is pumped from Lake Mead, fed by the Colorado river over 300 miles away. Anthem's private developer paid a local Native American tribe to lease some of its historic water rights, and pipes its water from the nearby Lake Pleasant reservoir - also filled by the Colorado.

That river is drying up. This winter, snow in the Rocky Mountains, which feeds the Colorado, was 70% lower than average. Last month, the US government calculated that two thirds of Arizona is currently facing severe to extreme drought; last summer 50 flights were grounded at Phoenix airport because the heat - which hit 47C (116F) - made the air too thin to take off safely. The " heat island" effect keeps temperatures in Phoenix above 37C (98F) at night in summer.

Phoenix and its surrounding area is known as the Valley of the Sun, and downtown Phoenix - which in 2017 overtook Philadelphia as America's fifth-largest city - is easily walkable, with restaurants, bars and an evening buzz. But it is a modern shrine to towering concrete, and gives way to endless sprawl that stretches up to 35 miles away to places like Anthem. The area is still growing - and is dangerously overstretched, experts warn.

"There are plans for substantial further growth and there just isn't the water to support that," says climate researcher Jonathan Overpeck, who co-authored a 2017 report that linked declining flows in the Colorado river to climate change. "The Phoenix metro area is on the cusp of being dangerously overextended. It's the urban bullseye for global warming in north America."

One of those plans is Bill Gates's new "smart city". The Microsoft founder recently invested $80m (£57m) in a development firm that aims to construct 80,000 new homes on undeveloped land west of Phoenix, and a new freeway all the way to Las Vegas.

Another firm wants to build a "masterplanned community", like Anthem, south of Tucson, and modelled after the hilltop towns of Tuscany. It envisages five golf courses, a vineyard, parks, lakes and 28,000 homes. The promotional video contains no details about where all the water will come from, but boasts: "This is the American dream: whatever you want you can have."

What these cities want is water. The Phoenix area draws from groundwater, from small rivers to the east, and from the mighty Colorado. The Hoover Dam holds much of the Colorado's flow in the vast Lake Mead reservoir, but the river itself is sorely depleted. That water has now dropped to within a few feet of levels that California, Nevada and Arizona, which all rely on it, count as official shortages. Lake Powell, the reservoir at the other end of the Grand Canyon, similarly averages half its historic levels.

And yet despite the federal Bureau of Reclamation reporting in 2012 that droughts of five or more years would happen every decade over the next 50 years, greater Phoenix has not declared any water restrictions. Nor has the state government decided its official drought contingency proposal.

"There's an enormous fight over all this," says Jim Holway, vice president of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District. "Climate change is having an impact but that's a controversial, unsettled issue in the western US."

'Sprawl is the norm'

As a hummingbird flitted to a shrub near Holway's swimming pool - Phoenix from above is a blue mosaic of back-garden pools - Holway explained that the Valley of the Sun may have to choose between agriculture and further urbanisation. Twenty years ago, when he moved here, his house looked out on to citrus groves and flower farms. Now the valley is dominated by mega-farms growing winter vegetables for export and thirsty alfalfa for the cattle feed market. "Do we want to grow houses or crops?" he asks.

Most American cities use more resources than necessary and that's the way they were designed.

The conversation in Arizona even turns periodically to the outlandish ideas of drawing water from the Great Lakes 1,700 miles away, or building expensive desalination plants on the Pacific Ocean, instead of imposing water restrictions.

Greater Phoenix is good at recycling waste water, but most of it is used for cooling the Palo Verde nuclear power plant to the west of the city, the largest in the US and the only one not on its own body of water. Conversely, the water department is Arizona's biggest electricity consumer, because it has to pump the water uphill from the Colorado along miles of canals into Phoenix and Tucson. And most of that electricity comes from the heavily polluting, coal-fired Navajo Generating Station in the north of the state.

Meanwhile, despite enjoying more than 330 days of bright sunshine a year, Holway estimates that Arizona only derives 2-5% of its energy from solar power.

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The Navajo Generating Station in north Arizona. Photograph: Alamy

Phoenix is extreme but not alone. "Most American cities use more resources than necessary and that's the way they were designed," says Sandy Bahr, director of the Arizona chapter of the Sierra Club. "There is overconsumption and a disposable mentality. Our waste is taken to remote landfill sites, the cities are designed for cars, and sprawl is the norm."

In his 2011 book Bird on Fire, the New York University sociologist Andrew Ross branded Phoenix the least sustainable city in the world. He says he stands by his assessment and warns of an "eco-apartheid", whereby low-income neighbourhoods on the more polluted south side of the Salt River (which once flowed vigorously through the city and is now a trickle) are less able to protect themselves from the heat and drought than wealthier citizens.

Overstretched Cities is an in-depth look at how urbanisation has seen cities all over the world mushroom in size, putting new strain on infrastructure and resources - but in some cases offering hope for a more sustainable relationship with the natural world.

Over the course of the week, Guardian Cities correspondents will look beyond the numbers to tell the stories of people affected by the 21st century's population and consumption boom. From sprawling cities in the developed world that are consuming more than their fair share of energy and water, to less wealthy cities unequipped to handle the rapid increase in geographical and population size, we will interrogate this global phenomenon by talking to the people who are trying to mitigate its worst effects - and shine a light on the upside of our population boom by exploring the social and environmental advantages of urban density.

Was this helpful?

Thank you for your feedback.

"There's a stark disparity," he says. "The resource havens, with their hybrid cars, their solar panels and other green gizmos; and the folks on the other side struggling to breathe clean air and drink uncontaminated water. It's a prediction of where the world is headed."

Or, he says, you can just look at the past. The Hohokam people were the original irrigators of the valley that later became home to Phoenix. Their society, numbering an estimated 40,000, collapsed in the 15th century - for reasons believed to relate to disagreements over scarce water.
This week, the Overstretched Cities series examines the impact of the rush to urbanisation, which has seen cities around the world explode in size. Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to join the discussion, and explore our archive here Topics

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Plight of Phoenix: how long can the world's 'least sustainable' city survive?

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Jennifer Afshar and her husband, John, pushed their bikes across the grass and paused to savour the sunshine, while their two boys went to look at the duck pond. Other kids were playing soccer or doing tricks in the skate park, and families picnicked on blankets or fired up a barbecue across from the swimming pool.

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The 100 million city: is 21st century urbanisation out of control?

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Projections suggest cities will swell at an astonishing pace – but whether that means our salvation or an eco-disaster is by no means certain

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The most densely populated place!

Links to shanty towns, sustainability and waste management

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Santa Cruz del Islote is a tiny island on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Five hundred people live in 115 houses on an area the size of a soccer field.

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The 11 cities most likely to run out of drinking water - like Cape Town

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Cape Town’s taps are due to be turned off because of severe drought. It is not alone in having water woes.

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Aftershocks continue to rattle Taiwan after a strong earthquake killed at least seven people and injured more than 250 others on Tuesday night.

A 5.7-magnitude tremor was felt late on Wednesday, in the same area where the 6.4-magnitude quake struck on the country's east coast.

Some 67 people are still unaccounted for after a number of buildings across the city of Hualien were badly damaged.

Hualien, a popular tourist hub, is home to about 100,000 people.

Images from the city showed tilted structures, scattered debris and extensive damage to roads.

Dozens of the missing are thought to be in a residential building that is leaning dramatically to one side.

Engineers have attempted to secure it using concrete blocks and steel, but efforts have been complicated by ongoing tremors and rainfall.

Rescues at the apartment block were at one stage temporarily suspended for safety reasons, but emergency responders and soldiers continued to work into the night on Wednesday.

An 80-year-old resident of the building told the AFP news agency that he was asleep in his flat on the top floor when Tuesday's earthquake struck.

"My bed turned completely vertical. I was sleeping and suddenly I was standing," Chen Chih-wei said.

At least two people died in the city's Marshal Hotel when the building's bottom floors collapsed. Authorities said on Wednesday they believed no one else was left inside.

Residents of Hualien have been told to stay away from their damaged homes, and hundreds have taken shelter in community buildings because of the aftershocks.

President Tsai Ing-wen was at the scene of the quake on Wednesday morning, where she visited hospitals and relief centres.

In a statement, Ms Tsai said that the government would help Hualien to the best of its abilities, adding that she hoped "people's lives would return to normal as soon as possible".

Pope Francis also expressed solidarity with the victims in a statement released by the Vatican.

'I wanted to hide under a bed'
by Cheng Chunglan, BBC Chinese, Hualien
Earthquakes are not uncommon for residents in Hualien but the 6.4-magnitude quake, one of the strongest in recent years, came as a shock.

According to witnesses, residents were running out of buildings crying and screaming when the earthquake shook the city.

"It is the first time in my life [where I felt like] I wanted to hide under a bed," said 32-year-old Ms Chieh. "Later, my entire family and all my neighbours ran out onto the street."

She added that she felt very scared and found it "unbelievable" that the hotel building near her home was so seriously damaged.

People reported feeling Tuesday's quake in the island's capital, Taipei, more than 160km (100 miles) away.

The earthquake happened exactly two years after a previous quake in the Taiwanese city of Tainan that killed at least 116 people.

Taiwan has been rocked by more than 100 earthquakes so far this month, according to the government. The island sits near a junction of two tectonic plates and is regularly hit by earthquakes.

Taiwan has for all practical purposes been independent since 1950, but China regards it as a rebel region that must be reunited with the mainland.
Are you in the area? Did you witness what happened? If it's safe to do so, you can share your experience by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk .
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:

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Text an SMS or MMS to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (international)

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Aftershocks rock Taiwan after deadly quake

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Aftershocks continue to rattle Taiwan after a strong earthquake killed at least seven people and injured more than 250 others on Tuesday night. A 5.7-magnitude tremor was felt late on Wednesday, in the same area where the 6.4-magnitude quake struck on the country's east coast.

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Over the next thirty years, most of the world’s population growth will occur in cities and towns of poor countries. Even while population growth rates in Asia, for instance, are falling dramatically, the region will see an absolute increase of nearly a billion people over the next three decades. For example, in the United Republic of Tanzania, the population of Dar es Salaam is doubling every 12 years.

Rapid, unplanned and unsustainable patterns of urban development are making developing cities focal points for many emerging environment and health hazards. As urban populations grow, the quality of the urban environment, will play an increasingly important role in public health with respect to issues ranging from solid waste disposal, provision of safe water and sanitation, and injury prevention, to the interface between urban poverty, environment and health.

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Hong Kong population problems in the future

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Hong Kong population problems in the future

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- aman 10S

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i love this video a lot because it shows how we will be soon be talking if we dont help rebuild our earth again.

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i am going to be linking amazing environment videos ,please watch its beautiful

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To summarize this article is about how global warming is affecting the arctic in terms of animals.
We already know the effect that global warming has on the arctic but we tend to forget about the animals that live there.They made a experiment by putting camera collars on several polar bears to see their life now.
My opinion is that its very tragic how animals who have been here longer than us and never hurt us are being effected and suffer because of our actions.I find is horrible.

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High-tech tracking collars on nine female polar bears have measured the animals' efforts to find food on the diminishing Arctic ice.

Each bear wore a collar - recording video, location and activity levels - for 8-12 days, while metabolic tracers tracked the bears' energy use.

This revealed that most of the animals were unable to catch enough prey to meet their energy needs.

The team says wild bears have higher metabolic rates than thought.

Moreover, climate change appears to be having dramatic effects on the Arctic sea-ice, forcing polar bears to move greater distances as they hunt, and making it harder for them to catch prey.

The vision of a polar bear plucking a vulnerable seal off an ice floe is something familiar to wildlife documentary fanatics. Earlier this winter, though, an image of an emaciated polar bear went viral, with many asking if this was the telltale image of climate change.

The authors of this study, published in the journal Science, point out that the animals do now need to travel further to find seals, and that this is likely to be an "important factor explaining declines in their body condition and survival" of polar bears.

Polar bears travel further on ice

Tracking every move

In Spring of 2014, 2015, and 2016, Anthony Pagano, a researcher at the University of California Santa Cruz and his colleagues, set out to track the polar bears' hunting and survival during this critical season. They captured nine females on the sea-ice of the Beaufort Sea and measured the metabolic rates of each bear using blood and urine samples.

They also fitted the bear with the GPS-camera collars, to record and film their activity.

"We found that polar bears actually have much higher energy demands than predicted. They need to be catching a lot of seals," Mr Pagano explained.

The extent of Arctic sea-ice, as measured at its minimum in September, is decreasing at a rate of about 14% per decade, which is likely reducing polar bears' access to seals. And their plight could be exacerbated by the need to alter hunting strategies with the seasons.

In the spring, the researchers explained polar bears are mostly preying on juvenile seals. But later in the year, after the bears' long summer fast, those young seals are older and wiser, meaning polar bears are not able to catch as many.

"It's thought that bears might catch a couple per month in the fall, compared to five to 10 per month in the spring and early summer," Mr Pagano said.

"We now have the technology to learn how they are moving on the ice, their activity patterns, and their energy needs, so we can better understand the implications of these changes we are seeing in the sea-ice."
Follow Victoria on Twitter

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High-tech tracking collars on nine female polar bears have measured the animals' efforts to find food on the diminishing Arctic ice. Each bear wore a collar - recording video, location and activity levels - for 8-12 days, while metabolic tracers tracked the bears' energy use.

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Here is a link to the prices of houses in Hong Kong.

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Here is a link to the prices of houses in Hong Kong.

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Hassan EL-Kaissi

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Hong Kong's property market continues to rise. Hong Kong's residential property price index soared 14.29% (14.4% inflation-adjusted) during the year to February 2017, a sharp turnaround from a y-o-y decline of 6.11% (-8.82% inflation-adjusted) during the same period last year, according to the Ratings and Valuation Department (RVD). Quarter-on-quarter, residential property prices increased 1.99% (1.89% inflation-adjusted) in February 2017.

Real incomes have virtually stagnated in Hong Kong for years. But house prices have tripled from 2003 to 2015.

Housing demand has been propelled by a combination of stringent government regulations on development, low interest rates, and currency stability; while the supply of land, which the government controls, continues to diminish. The latest house price rises come despite the government's decision to raise stamp duties for all non-first time homebuyers starting November 2016. Demand is surging. House price rises are accelerating. Residential construction activity is rising sharply.

Smaller-sized properties have had the biggest price increases. Prices of apartments smaller than 40 sq. m. surged by 16.3% during the year to February 2017, and apartments 40-69.9 sq. m. rose by 13.9%. Prices of apartments 70-99.9 sq. m. rose by a meager 1.5%, while prices of apartments 100-159.9 sq. m. increased 7.8%. Prices of apartments with sizes bigger than 160 sq. m. rose by 5.9% y-o-y in February 2017.

The total number of property transactions in Hong Kong increased 2.3 times to 4,079 in February 2017 from the same period last year, based on RVD figures, while sales values more than tripled to HK$36.46 billion (US$4.7 billion) over the same period.

Residential construction activity is also rising strongly. Completions rose by 29.4% in 2016 from a year earlier, to 14,595 units, according to the RVD.Likewise, housing starts surged 80% to 25,500 units in 2016 from a year earlier – the highest level since 2000, according to the Transport and Housing Bureau.

From 2008 to 2013, house prices skyrocketed by 134% (95.7% inflation-adjusted), driven by a flood of money in the wake of the global financial crisis.

The market slowed in the first half of 2014, with house prices rising only by 2.9%, due to government cooling measures. But the housing market bounced back quickly in the second half of 2014, with prices rising by 13.6% in Q4 2014, 19.6% in Q1 2015, 20.4% in Q2 2015, and 15% in Q3 2015. After a brief housing market slowdown from Q4 2015 to Q3 2016 amidst Hong Kong's economic slowdown and decline in tourist arrivals, house prices recovered rapidly by end-2016.

Hong Kong's currency peg to the dollar kept borrowing costs near record lows, fuelling continued property demand.

Hong Kong's property market is expected to remain robust in the coming months, amidst strong domestic and foreign demand and an improvement in economic conditions.

"Whilst domestic demand has been strong, mainland Chinese buyers have been investing in Hong Kong residential properties as a hedge against possible further depreciation of the renminbi," according to Colliers International.

"Demand in the primary market should remain unaffected by the implementation of the new curbs in the near term, since developers have adopted sales strategies such as offering mortgage financing, discounts on stamp duty, and reducing unit sizes to secure buying interest," the Colliers report added.

Hong Kong´s economy grew 1.9% in 2016, after growth rates of 2.4% in 2015, 2.7% in 2014, 3.1% in 2013, and 1.7% in 2012, according to the Census and Statistics Department. The economy is expected improve this year, with projected GDP growth of 2% to 3%. This is in line with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s projection of a 2.4% growth this year.

Hong Kong property market remains the world's most unaffordable

In 2009, while property prices were taking a nosedive across the U.S., Hong Kong's housing market was going into overdrive.

In 2009, residential property prices surged by 28.5% (26.5% inflation-adjusted)

In 2010, house prices rose by 21% (17.7% inflation-adjusted)

In 2011, house prices rose by 11.1% (5.1% inflation-adjusted)

In 2012, property prices skyrocketed by 25.7% (21.2% inflation-adjusted)

In 2013, property prices rose 7.7% (3.3% inflation-adjusted)

In 2014, property prices rose 13.6% (8.2% inflation-adjusted)

In 2015, property prices rose by just 2.4% (0.1% inflation-adjusted)

In 2016, property prices rose by 7.8% (6.6% inflation-adjusted)

For the seventh year in a row, Hong Kong's property market is rated the world's most unaffordable by the 13th Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2017. Average home prices were 18.1 times gross annual median household income in 2016, from 19 times in 2015, 17 times in 2014 and 12.6 times in 2013.

This is in line with Mercer 's 2016 Cost of Living Survey, which ranked Hong Kong the world's most expensive city for expatriates to live in, up from second-most-expensive the previous year.

Based on UBS Real Estate Bubble Index released in September 2016, Hong Kong remains in "bubble-risk territory" despite the fact that HK house prices were falling during the time when the report was published. "The recent price decrease has brought only minor relief, as buying a flat costs more than 18 years' income," UBS noted.

Government closes off stamp duty loophole

In November 2016, the government raised stamp duties for all property transactions to 15%, except for first time homebuyers who are charged just 4.25%. However, house price rises continued to accelerate, amidst a surge in the number of multiple home purchases on one single transaction as investors take advantage of lower tax rates.

In an effort to close the loophole, the government recently announced that first time homebuyers acquiring more than one property in a single contract will be charged the same 15% stamp duty that applies to purchases of a second property starting April 2017.

"Though buying multiple flats in one contract accounts for a small proportion of residential apartment transactions, there's a noticeable increasing trend," said Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying.

In recent years, Hong Kong's government has leaned against the property price rises:

Property sales soaring

The total number of property transactions in Hong Kong increased 2.3 times in February 2017 from the same period last year, based on RVD figures, while sales values more than tripled over the same period.

In February 2017:

Primary market property sales almost doubled to 1,421 units from just 767 a year earlier, while total transaction values more than doubled to HK$6.91 billion (US$888 million), according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).

Secondary market property sales almost doubled to 3,569 units from a year earlier, while transaction values increased 2.25 times to HK$12.99 billion (US$1.67 billion).

Interest rate hikes

Hong Kong's currency has been pegged at circa HK$7.8 per U.S. dollar since October 1983, so that when the Federal Reserve increases interest rates, Hong Kong's interest rates will most likely increase as well.

TheHKMA raised its base rate by 25 basis points to 1.25% in March 2017, the second time in three months following a similar move made by the Fed. Despite this, the best lending rate remained unchanged at 5% in March 2017. It dropped from 5.25% to 5% in December 2008, when the Fed Funds rate declined from 1% to 0.13%, and has been unchanged since then.

In February 2017, the average interest rate on new mortgage loans approved with reference to best lending rate stood at 3%, up from 2.6% in the previous month. Over the same period, the average fixed interest rate for new mortgage loans increased to 1.9%, from 1.8% in the previous month.

New mortgage lending rising sharply

In February 2017, total residential mortgage loans outstanding rose by 5.1% to HK$1.13 trillion (US$145.35 billion) compared to a year ago, according to Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). In 2016, the size of the mortgage market was equivalent to almost 45% of GDP.

In February 2017, new residential mortgage loans approved almost doubled to 7,404, from 3,926 in the same period last year. Likewise, the value of newly approved residential mortgage loans was HK$27.6 billion (US$3.55 billion) in February 2017, sharply up from just HK$12.76 billion (US$1.64 billion) in a year earlier.

Both the mortgage delinquency ratio (more than 3 months) and the rescheduled loan ratio were unchanged in February 2017, at 0.04% and 0% respectively.

Hong Kong's rental yields falling; rents rising

Rental yields are generally falling, for all property classes. In February 2017:

The extremely low rental yields in Hong Kong can be attributed to the surge in property prices in recent years. Hong Kong is not a 'typical' market. It is a place where the rich choose to park assets in the form of apartments, as part of a diversified asset-safeguard strategy - like Monaco and Singapore. Such markets typically have lower rental yields than more 'normal' housing markets.

Rents are rising for smaller-sized apartments in Hong Kong, while they are falling for bigger-sized apartments.

In February 2017:

Residential construction surging

Completions rose by 29.4% in 2016 from a year earlier, to 14,595 units, according to the RVD. From 2007 to 2015, completions averaged 10,500 units per year, down from an average of 25,000 units from 2000 to 2006.

During 2016:

Likewise, housing starts in Hong Kong surged 80% to 25,500 units in 2016 from a year earlier – the highest level since 2000, according to the Transport and Housing Bureau.

How to solve Hong Kong´s housing crisis?

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying believes that increasing supply is the "ultimate solution" to Hong Kong's various housing-related issues.

"The housing problem in Hong Kong boils down to land use, which is not a technical issue, but a conceptual one," Leung said.

Almost all land in Hong Kong is owned by the government but leased out for private use.

The government's plan is to sell 28 new land sites for private housing during the fiscal year 2017-18, which is projected to provide almost 19,000 new flats. The total land supply for private housing, which includes urban renewal, private redevelopment projects, and railway property, is expected to be sufficient to build almost 32,000 new flats this fiscal year.

Recently, the government unveiled a plan to build about 460,000 units over the next decade, including 200,000 public rental housing units and 80,000 subsidized sale flats. In the private sector, around 94,000 units are expected to become available to buyers in the next three to four years.

In 2015, the total housing stock stood at 1,145,454 units, a 1% increase from the previous year.

Modest economic growth

Hong Kong´s economy grew 1.9% in 2016, after growth rates of 2.4% in 2015, 2.7% in 2014, 3.1% in 2013, and 1.7% in 2012, according to the Census and Statistics Department.

The country's merchandise exports declined by 0.5% in 2016, after falling by 1.8% in 2015, while merchandise imports fell by 0.9% after declining by 4.1%.Retail sales dropped 8.1% in 2016.

Visitor arrivals dropped 4.5% y-o-y in 2016, after falling by 2.5% in 2015 and the worst figures since 2003 when the city was struck by the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, according the Tourism Board. The decline was mainly due to a slowdown in the number of tourists from Mainland China, which account for almost 80% of all visitor arrivals in Hong Kong.

Tourism Board chairman Peter Lam Kin-ngok expects 2017 to be another challenging year for the tourism sector, as its strong currency, pegged to the US Dollar, has made Hong Kong expensive for overseas travellers, especially those from the mainland.

Nevertheless the economy is expected improve this year, with projected GDP growth of 2% to 3%, according to government estimates. This is in line with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s projection of a 2.4% growth this year. During the first two months of 2017, both merchandise exports and imports increased 6.7% and 9.3%, respectively.

Hong Kong's small open economy depends largely on variables it cannot control – tourist spending, trade income, and foreign money inflows. With an average real GDP growth rate of 7.4% from 2004 to 2007, growth slowed to 2.1% in 2008, and then contracted by 2.5% in 2009. The economy bounced back strongly, with real GDP growth rates of 6.8% in 2010, and another 4.9% in 2011, according to the IMF.

In March 2017, inflation eased to 0.5%, from 2.9% in the same period last year, according to the Census and Statistics Department. The country's inflation rate averaged 4% from 2011 to 2016.

HK's overall inflation rate is projected at 2.6% this year and 2.7% in 2018, according to the IMF.

The country's jobless rate remains low. Unemployment was 3.2% in Q1 2017, down from 3.4% in the same period last year, according to the Census and Statistics Department. Hong Kong's unemployment rate averaged 3.5% from 2010 to 2016, down from an average of 5.5% from 2000 to 2009, according to the IMF.

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Hong Kong's property market continues to rise. Hong Kong's residential property price index soared 14.29% (14.4% inflation-adjusted) during the year to February 2017, a sharp turnaround from a y-o-y decline of 6.11% (-8.82% inflation-adjusted) during the same period last year, according to the Ratings and Valuation Department (RVD).

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An interesting look at the most densely populated country in the world.

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Imagine a pint-sized country - less than a square mile in size (2 square kilometres) - with sun-drenched, quiet streets, no dog poo and no income tax to pay. A place where motor racing and yachting are the national pastimes and people hop into a helicopter to get from A to B instead of hailing a taxi.

Now imagine that one in three of the people who live there are millionaires - often many times over.

This little oasis has, in fact, become such a magnet for millionaires that many more want to relocate to its sunny shores. So, the local authorities have taken the radical step of allowing the construction of artificial islands out across the sea to house them all.

An estimated 2,700 more millionaires are hoping to claim a piece of this diminutive country for themselves in the next 10 years

Sounds too bizarre to be true, but perched on the picturesque cliff tops of the French Riviera, such an odd place does exist.

It's the tiny principality of Monaco - millionaire hub of the world, with the highest number of millionaires per capita.

If you drive along the Mediterranean coast of France, glimpses of pebbly beaches dotted with sun-bleached umbrellas poke though the cypress trees.

Then out of nowhere towering, concrete buildings emerge from an otherwise sleepy seafront. When you spot shimmering skyscrapers, Bugattis whizzing past and a world-famous casino, you know you've arrived in the city-state of Monaco.

House prices in Monaco now top the world market with an average price of between €53,000 ($67,000) and €100,000 ($142,000) per square metre

With the highest population density of any country in the world, and reputation as a playground for the world's super rich, demand for property here has soared.

But it's not just sea views these buyers are drawn to: this pocket-sized principality is also a tax haven.

Oliver Williams, head of wealth consultancy firm WealthInsights, analyses statistics describing the movement of wealth globally, and points out that it's no secret that people move to Monaco for financial reasons.

"It's got no income tax and no corporation tax for businesses doing most of their work in Monaco, so tax is the main reason we found for people wanting to move here. The other thing is simply lifestyle," he says.

There will be 16,100 millionaires or multimillionaires in Monaco by 2026

Over 30% of the roughly 38,000 residents of Monaco are millionaires, according to Williams' research. "Next down the list are some Swiss cities like Geneva and Zurich and so on," he says.

That number is forecast to rise. According to Knight Frank property agency's analysis, there will be 16,100 millionaires or multimillionaires hoping to claim a piece of this diminutive country for themselves in the next 10 years, but at the moment they can't. There's no more room.

Research from Knight Frank show house prices in Monaco now top the world market with an average price of between €53,000 ($67,000) and €100,000 ($142,000) per square metre.

The city-state is building an extension

Measuring just 0.78 square miles (2.02 square kilometres) Monaco is crowded, it's the second smallest country in the world (after Vatican City) and existing building space has already been stretched to the limit by carving homes into the mountainsides, building up into the sky and even tunnelling down into the ground.

So, in a bid to try and cater to the demands of this new super rich tribe, the current ruler, Prince Albert II, has agreed an ambitious land reclamation project.

The government of Monaco is overseeing the project and private financiers are paying for the build and will sell the real estate.

The £1.5 billion ($2.1 billion) Offshore Urban Extension Project will add 15 acres of landmass to the principality by 2026. Portier Cove, will include a harbour big enough for 30 ships, a landscaped park and luxury residential buildings with plans for 120 new homes.

But the construction involves a Herculean effort: putting large concrete-filled watertight chambers, called caissons, into the sea, then draining the water from the surrounding area and filling it in with sand imported from Sicily to create an artificial landmass jutting out from the seafront.

The £1.5 billion ($2.1 billion) Offshore Urban Extension Project will add 15 acres of landmass to the principality by 2026

And expansion on this scale doesn't come without costs. Although French construction firm, Bouyages Travaux Publiques, are planning to relocate marine flora and fauna from the building site to other protected areas and creating a 3D-printed artificial reef as part of the development, there are still risks.

Marine experts suggest that no matter how carefully you carry out land reclamation, disrupting the sea to build artificial islands will have a direct impact on natural surroundings and marine life.

It is estimated that hundreds of types of algae and thousands of marine organisms live in the waters that will be replaced by dry land. Environmentalists warn that there is no way to fully protect the area's fragile biodiversity in the face of such a large-scale offshore project.

The principality has expanded by 20% since 1861

Land reclamation is nothing new to Monaco - the principality has already expanded its territory by 20% since 186 1 - but now even the deep ocean seems no match for property demand.

Still the eco-conscious prince - who drives an electric car and has donated millions through his foundation to environmental causes - is adamant further land expansion in his country must now be carefully weighed up against environmental concerns.

The unique challenge for Portier Cove is that the builders are being asked to meet international sustainable urban development certifications including the HQE Aménagement, Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method standard and the Clean Ports label.

It is hoped the project will become a flagship example that other growing countries will look to follow.

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The country running out of space for its millionaires

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Imagine a pint-sized country - less than a square mile in size (2 square kilometres) - with sun-drenched, quiet streets, no dog poo and no income tax to pay. A place where motor racing and yachting are the national pastimes and people hop into a helicopter to get from A to B instead of hailing a taxi.

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People move to the cities for the availability of job opportunities, schooling and possibly the pursuit of better living standards. However, despite the growth of the city, such considerable growth of population in the CBD causes minor (sometimes major) problems that a government have to face. For example, the rise of population in the UK causes remarkable traffic congestions. It is compounded by people being brought into city on large roads or motorways. These roads then link up with smaller, older, narrower roads in the city centre which causes a bottleneck and congestion. Meanwhile, problems governments would face at a certain phase could possibly be the industrial and/or domestic requirements in which the government cannot afford or possibly offer, such as basic necessary utilities - often the provision of basic services does not keep up with the growth of population. As a consequence, not all parts pf a built-up area will be provided with running water, sanitation or electricity.

However, governments and councils haste to find quick and affective solutions to bring such occurring problems to a halt. Evidence? Tokyo promotes a prominent ides in which the government decentralise job opportunities from the city elsewhere, this is to lower population density in the CBD and possibly spread it accross the suburbs.

Overall, the problems and drawbacks generated from the rapid urbanisations is quite avoidable, thus we can completely deny the fact that its inevitable. Innovative and creative ideas are the key to fix an issue in a city in order to offer the essential standards in which the people need.

Taaha AlShamma
Fully written

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LACK OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Lack of affordable housing has led to confrontations with well – organized squatters, who take over unoccupied buildings to live rent- free or prevent demolitions. Which has brought about, lack of housing vacancy rate, due to the rapid job growth and housing costs that has increased.

FLOODING

Flooding is a very serious problem faced in urban areas, especially in developing countries, during the rainy seasons. The drainage is poorly constructed leading to difficulty in accessing the roads due to the flood leading to the flood disaster in some developing countries.

CRIME
The increase in population leads to an increase in crime rate. Due to the high level of urban unemployment, idleness and joblessness, this has brought about a high increase in crime rates suffered by the majority of the people in Urban cities. "Without economic security and amid poor living conditions, crime is inevitable"

CONGESTION
It could be in traffic and overcrowding. In traffic, there is an overcrowding of a route, leading to slow and inefficient flow which makes movement difficult. Congestion within urban areas restricts accessibility. Traffic flow could be controlled by various rules, regulation and signs which are used to keep traffic flow smoothly.
Fuad

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Urban growth is one of the biggest challenges for humankind in the twenty-first century. The world's urban population is at present estimated to be growing by about 50 million people per year. So there is much discussion about estimates of land consumption, the manageable size of megacities, and simple ways to structure, if not to control, this spread of urbanization.
Developing countries are experiencing a rapid growth in the urbanization. As a result of these, countries are faced with shortage of jobs. Unemployment rates rise as a result of causing people to apply for government-funded programs and benefits. "Businesses and governments cannot produce enough jobs to meet the demand of a fast-growing population" in developing countries.

The problems associated with urbanization are: High population density, inadequate infrastructure, lack of affordable housing, flooding, pollution, slum creation, crime, congestion and poverty.
Fuad

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-Rhea

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hong kong's population problems must be addressed

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Hong Kong's population problems must be addressed|HongKong Comment|chinadaily.com.cn

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In part one of this two-part series, we discussed the serious consequences resulting from young people in Hong Kong residing with and depending financially upon their parents until they are 25 or even 30 years old.

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Technological advancements with landscaping - Miguel

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The team plans to release more detailed looks into its findings later in the year, and the full data set from the search will be made available in the middle of the year.

Walter H.F. Smith, a geophysicist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the hunt for the lost jetliner highlighted how little we know about the oceans. In a paper that was also published Wednesday in the journal EOS, he and his colleagues explained how common unmapped areas of ocean are.

"There are all kinds of things you can't do if you don't know the shape of the ocean bottom, or don't know it properly," Dr. Smith said. The consequences of not knowing, he said, can hinder how experts predict tsunamis, understand ocean currents, make climate forecasts, study marine life and search for missing planes.

Previous studies have suggested that only 8 percent of the world's oceans have been mapped, meaning that a ship measured an area's depth and recorded it in a scientific database. Before Flight 370's disappearance, only 5 percent of the southeast Indian Ocean had been mapped, Dr. Smith said.

To figure out how often people fly over unmapped parts of the world's oceans, Dr. Smith and his colleagues compared data on mapped and unmapped segments of the world's ocean segments with a database of commercial airline routes. They found that about 60 percent of all commercial flights that cross over the ocean travel over waters with unmeasured depths.

The longest contiguous route over unmapped ocean was from Kennedy International Airport in New York to Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport in China, a journey over more than 1,200 nautical miles of unmapped ocean.

"I wanted people to realize that it's not just Malaysia Airlines straying into the southeast Indian Ocean where it shouldn't have been," he said. "Even when your aircraft is exactly where it's supposed to be, it might be over unknown ocean."

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aviation accidents  safety and disasters

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From Flight 370 Hunt, New Insight Into Indian Ocean's Unknown Depths

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The team plans to release more detailed looks into its findings later in the year, and the full data set from the search will be made available in the middle of the year. Walter H.F. Smith, a geophysicist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the hunt for the lost jetliner highlighted how little we know about the oceans.

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social problems in New York

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Article on the problems of urbanization

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HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong's soaring property prices have pushed tens of thousands of families into tiny, partitioned apartments, sparking calls for creative solutions, including converting shipping containers and even water pipes into temporary homes.

The former British colony, one of the most densely populated places on Earth where individual, caged beds offer the only living space for some of the very poor, has seen home prices shatter historic records for 12 straight months.

In November, an apartment sold for HK$132,060 ($16,915) per square foot, making it the most expensive apartment per square foot in Asia.

This has forced some 200,000 individuals into tiny partitioned flats, averaging a mere 62 square feet (six square meters).

Government figures released on Wednesday show the number of households living in "inadequate housing", including partitioned flats and industrial buildings, surged nine percent to 115,000 this year.

Hong Kong had won praise for a post-war program that put hundreds of thousands into public housing and cleared hillsides of precarious, fire-prone squatter villages, but demand has since outstripped supply, inspiring ideas for short-term solutions.

Concrete water pipes - some measuring 2.5 meters in diameter - could be converted into a 120-square-feet mini-apartment for two, complete with a shower and a toilet, according to architect James Law.

They could be stacked between the city's highrises and utilize space otherwise going to waste, Law said, adding that he was seeking government approval.

Demand for shipping container homes has surged, with one manufacturer, Markbox, saying demand had doubled in the past year.

Online advertisements for converted containers, which are legal to build but illegal to live in, tout monthly rents of HK$3,000 to HK$5,000.

The government in the Chinese-ruled city has said it will continue to tackle the housing shortage and that it is exploring different forms of "transitional housing".

Non-governmental groups say while pipes and containers could provide temporary reprieve, they cannot be the solution.

"We welcome any possibilities to speed up the provision of temporary housing," said Lai Kin-kwok, convener of Platform Concerning Subdivided Flats in Hong Kong.

"But I want to stress these can only be short-term arrangements. Ultimately the government must speed up the construction of public housing."

Additional Reporting by Venus Wu; Editing by James Pomfret and Nick Macfie

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Thinking outside the box to ease Hong Kong's housing crisis

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HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong's soaring property prices have pushed tens of thousands of families into tiny, partitioned apartments, sparking calls for creative solutions, including converting shipping containers and even water pipes into temporary homes.

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Noof

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Any city in the developed world will face considerable problems. These could include:

1. Inequality. Inequalities exist in all cities in the developed world. The most deprived groups can often be found in old inner city areas. These areas are often typified by:

2. High levels of unemployment and a lack of employment opportunities:

3. Poor household amenities.

4. Large areas of derelict land.

5. Air, water and land pollution.

6. High social problems such as alcoholism, drug abuse and crime.

7. Greater frequency of health problems.

The problem is that the inner cities are often caught in a cycle of decline.

The above paints a very depressing picture of the inner cities. This is not always the case. The inner cities of many British cities are improving rapidly and people are once again choosing to live in them. This is, in part as a consequence of gentrification and urban regeneration.

1. Traffic congestion. The cities of the UK are often choked with the pollution from cars. There is a well-known statistic about the average speed of a car in London being slower than the old horse and cart.

You must remember that the cities of the UK were built before the invention of the car!

2. Death of the CBD. The CBD of many major cities is in trouble. Increasingly more of the functions associated with the CBD can be found on the outskirts of town. In Bristol, for example, there are now four cinema multiplexes outside the city. Whilst these are thriving, those cinemas left in the city are either closing or face a great struggle for survival. Many UK towns no longer have a cinema. The opening of 'The Mall' (a large shopping and entertainment complex outside Bristol) meant that John Lewis closed its city department store and relocated. This has meant that a lot of shoppers no longer come into the city centre. Since 'The Mall' opened, shops and entertainment in the CBD have had a constant struggle for survival.
If people do not go into the centre for their shopping or entertainment, then what is the future of the CBD?
There have been a number of policies and initiatives that have had the overall objective of regenerating urban areas. In the past twenty years, these have changed frequently, but have included Urban Development Corporations and more recently, schemes where councils have to bid for various sources of money. One of those sources is lottery money.

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Problems and solutions: more developed countries

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ProblemsAny city in the developed world will face considerable problems. These could include: Inequality. Inequalities exist in all cities in the developed world. The most deprived groups can often be found in old inner city areas. These areas are often typified by: High levels of unemployment and a lack of employment opportunities: Poor household amenities.

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-Josh

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The County of Los Angeles covers 4,083 square miles with a population of 9.5 million people. The County is geographically located 75 miles of the Pacific Ocean and bordered by Orange and San...

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Urban problems, solutions and innovations in Tokyo, Japan

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Urban problems, solutions and innovations in Tokyo, Japan

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-Talha

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Urban problems, solutions and innovations

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Urban problems As the Capital Tokyo Metropolitan Area expands, the demand for water, both domestic and industrial has increased considerably, but at the moment and for the foreseeable future, the...

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https://www.google.ca/amp/m.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2115718/hong-kongs-pollution-and-waste-problems-are-just-important%3famp=1

Essa 10m

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Hong Kong’s efficient public transport system is not so convenient for the disabled.

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Hong Kong’s efficient public transport system is not so convenient for the disabled.

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Here is a link to a website which details some struggles faced by the disabled.

Waiza Rab

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Streets jammed with vehicles, pavements packed with people - Hong Kong is a city on the move. It is also blessed with an efficient and extensive public transport system and it is generally easy to get around. But for those with physical disabilities, what would be a straightforward journey for most of us can be a lot less convenient.

Henry Tam Wing-hang, 23, is a student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Tam has spinal muscular atrophy and his mobility is restricted to the four fingers of his right hand. He needs his helper and his electronic wheelchair to go about his daily life.

Tam often takes the bus to get around. Nowadays, most buses in Hong Kong are super-low floor models allowing for easier access from the sidewalk onto the bus for the elderly and people using wheelchairs and walkers. The Kowloon Motor Bus Company (KMB) introduced the world's first super-low floor double-deckers in 1997 and now most of its fleet is super-low floor.

Wheelchair users do still need assistance from the bus driver to board or alight. The driver needs to leave his or her seat to lower the ramp for wheelchair users to get on and off the bus. In his experience, Tam says most drivers are helpful and friendly and he attributes this to the training and guidelines bus companies provide to their employees.

However, it is a different matter when it comes to his fellow passengers. Tam says passengers are sometimes reluctant to make way for him when he is boarding the bus.

"In fact, the capacity of the area [set aside for wheelchair users] can accommodate several people. If they are already standing there before I come on board, then for sure they are not willing to move," says Tam.

Fortunately, most of the time, the passengers do eventually cooperate after they are asked to by the driver. But Tam can tell that some of them are displeased by the expressions on their faces.

"There was one time about a year ago, where there was a group of ladies standing in that area on the bus. They didn't say much when the driver asked them to move away. But when I walked pass them, I heard them murmur, saying that I am 'annoying and shouldn't have taken the bus'," Tam recalls sadly.

Apart from such unpleasant experiences, Tam says safety concerns are another issue to contend with when taking the bus. There is only one seat-belt attached to the disabled seat, and it is not long enough for the larger models of wheelchair, which have become common in recent years. Tam says that to be really safe, there should be four to five locking points to secure the stability of the wheelchair. Knowing that many developed countries have already introduced technologies to keep wheelchairs stable on board, Tam urges the government and public transports operators to review the current designs.

The problems Tam encounters on public buses are not an issue on the Rehab Bus, the rehabilitation bus service operated by the Hong Kong Society of Rehabilitation with funding from the government. However, Tam questions the effectiveness of this service.

Wheelchair users have to book the service several months in advance, as many timeslots are reserved for elderly groups and students at special schools. With such a long waiting period, some are willing to take the risk of hiring privately-owned vans that are modified specifically for wheelchair users.

These privately-owned modified vans are not licensed, regulated or insured to provide passenger services. Yet, service providers freely promote their businesses in online forums. There is no sign the government is cracking down on them and Varsity 's questions to the Transport Department on the matter had not received a response at time of publication.

Tam thinks the fact that people are willing to pay for these vans despite the potential dangers, both physical and legal, illustrates shortcomings in the provision of licensed transportation for disabled passengers in Hong Kong.

Hui Yuk-ching, 44, a member of the Direction Association of the Handicapped, agrees there is room for improvement on the rehabilitation bus service. He thinks there should be a better way to allocate service resources.

Hui says it is common to have a situation where one individual occupies the whole bus and he thinks this is "a waste of resources" when a rehabilitation bus has the capacity to carry up to four wheelchair users and six to seven non-disabled passengers at a time. So, if a user wants to enjoy the services on their own, which they are allowed to, plenty of space is wasted.

To allocate resources in a more effective way, the Hong Kong Society of Rehabilitation recently launched the Pooled Dial-a-Ride Service. The scheme aims to gather and pick up several disabled passengers in a single journey. Hui thinks that can shorten the average waiting time for the service. However, the service is not compulsory and some users may not want to share a ride due to an increase in travel time.

Bookings made long in advance are also needed for Diamond Cab, a taxi service for wheelchair users run by a social enterprise. Apart from the long waiting time, users also have to be willing to pay a high cost for these cabs. The fare can be three to four times that of a regular taxi.

The wheelchair users who spoke to Varsity say that of all the available transportation options, they and most of their friends prefer using the MTR.

Under the current MTR policy, wheelchair users can ask for staff-assisted portable ramp services to get across the gap between the platform and the multi-purpose space provided in the front carriage. However, company policy dictates that only one wheelchair is assisted in boarding for each train due to time and safety considerations. This is because the MTR thinks it is difficult to handle more than one wheelchair in emergency situations.

In other words, when a group of wheelchair users request assistance from the MTR staff, they need to split up and get onto different trains, rather than different carriages. This has
happened to Hui in the past and he felt sad to have to travel separately from his friends. It also extended their total travel time.

Passengers who need assistance are recommended to give prior notice by calling the control room of the station at which they will board. The staff will then inform the control room about the passenger's destination. Hui says this communication normally takes enough time for one or two trains to pass the station.

"Sometimes when I am in a hurry I want to get on as soon as possible. But I am not allowed to board immediately. I am a bit impatient under such circumstances," says Hui.

In fact, many wheelchair users choose to board without assistance in order to save time. Hui thinks this is "no big deal" because they are able to cross the platform gaps themselves at most stations. He only asks for assistance when it is necessary, for example when he is at University station on the East Rail, which has particularly wide platform gaps.

There is a reason why most wheelchair users prefer taking the MTR to buses. Hui's electric wheelchair is too bulky for the buses and he has trouble getting on them. The gangway in the buses can barely accommodate his wheelchair so he needs to be extremely careful when he moves through the bus.

Hui thinks the gangway and wheelchair-prioritised areas on buses are too narrow because the carriages were designed before bigger electronic wheelchairs became commonplace. He is not sure what can be done to improve the situation.

Some stakeholders think public transport for wheelchair users has improved in recent years because different government departments and public transport operators are willing to consult passengers with disabilities.

Vicky Ho Hoi-yin, senior organising officer of the Direction Association for the Handicapped, says the Transport Department and the MTR have invited the group's members to meetings and site visits to see whether the existing facilities can cater to their needs.

Ho says getting around on public transport has been getting easier for wheelchair users but there is still a lot to be done. She stresses that consultations and meetings need to be followed up with prompt action.

Ho's colleague Elaine Wan Yee Ling, the centre-in-charge at the Direction Association for the Handicapped, points out that barrier-free facilities, such as elevators and ramps, are not only for wheelchair users.

People without disabilities may need to use them as well at different times of their lives. Anyone may need them when they are old and have difficulty in walking or when they are carrying infants, young children and a stroller. Creating a barrier-free public transport system should not just been seen as a matter of rights for people with disabilities, but also an issue that is relevant to everyone.

Comments

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Hong Kong's efficient public transport system is not so convenient for the disabled | Hong Kong Free Press HKFP

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By Angela Siu, Eric Park, Ryan Li Streets jammed with vehicles, pavements packed with people - Hong Kong is a city on the move. It is also blessed with an efficient and extensive public transport system and it is generally easy to get around. But for those with physical disabilities, what ...

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- Lisha :)

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Rising Temperatures

It's no secret that temperatures around the world are rising. 2017's record temperatures, prolific hurricane season, and heavy rainfall prompted the World Economic Forum to predict that extreme weather would be the biggest threat in 2018.

A team of researchers from the University of California, Irvine analyzed data from 9,000 weather stations around the world and determined the global temperature has increased by 0.19 degrees Celsius each decade for the last 50 years. They also noted that the increase was even more pronounced in the last 30 years - a 0.25 degree-increase each between 1986 and 2015.

The team's study, published in the journal Earth's Future, claimed that these rising temperatures come with an increased risk of "short-term heatwaves" in Europe, Asia, and Australia. They noted that these heatwaves will disproportionately impact the mega cities on each continent.

According to the United Nations, nearly 54 percent of the world's population resided in urban areas in 2014. The U.N. projects that by 2050 that will rise to 66 percent. Noting those statistics, the California-Irvine team said that billions of people are at risk of experiencing these heatwaves, especially the urban poor.

"There are more than a billion people living in extreme poverty, with many of them living in mega cities and large urban centers," said Simon Michael Papalexiou, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "Most such people have no access to air conditioning or other alternatives to protect themselves."

Devastating Heatwaves

Papalexiou and his team describe the heatwave phenomenon known as the "heat island effect." In urban environments, hot air tends to linger around for longer periods of time, and surfaces like asphalt, concrete, glass, and steel reflect the Sun's rays.

Devastating heatwave events have been documented in the past; the team cited a 2003 heatwave in Europe that caused the deaths of roughly 70,000 people. Another heatwave happened in Russia in 2010, and killed nearly 55,000 people.

Amir AghaKouchak, co-author of the study, noted that the 2003 event led to a new policy in France requiring nursing homes and other places with vulnerable people to have air condition in the common areas.

"But some countries don't have the resources to do that," AghaKouchak told the Thomas Reuters Foundation.

Papalexiou said that making cities greener would go a long way to lower temperatures in urban areas and decrease the threat of heatwaves. In nature, vegetation helps dissipate heat, whereas buildings and asphalt amplify it. Architects are starting to design "greener" structures, like the White Forest Tower in Paris that is covered in 2,000 trees and shrubs and a flood-proof parking garage that would feature a park area full of plant-life.

But in order to mitigate the impending heatwaves and extreme temperatures, it still comes down to humanity's efforts to combat climate change. "Our question now is: Will this acceleration continue into the future?" Papalexiou said. "Because if it does, adverse effects for human societies are inevitable."

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Mega cities poised to become the hottest and most dangerous places under climate change

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It's no secret that temperatures around the world are rising. 2017's record temperatures, prolific hurricane season, and heavy rainfall prompted the World Economic Forum to predict that extreme weather would be the biggest threat in 2018.

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 Problems faced by the world's largest city 

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 Problems faced by the world's largest city 

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In essence, as shown in this article, not even the world's most developed and prestigious cities are devoid of problems, and in fact actually do have their fair share of problems. Said 'problems' are further discussed in the article, as well as the steps taken by the Japanese government in order to alleviate said problems

- Benedict

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A picture of the packed Tokyo train system in operation.

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Despite the fact that LA is one of the most exciting cities in California, the city is often negatively associated with congested traffic problems along with poor air quality.  In fact, LA is a model city that is far away from sustainability. However, Mayor Villaraigosa continues to work hard with an important goal in mind: to
transform the city into a “greenest big city in America.”  The Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment for city of Los Angeles, Nancy Sutley, aims to utilize environmental policies to guide the city towards a sustainable development.  This much needed transformation requires the analysis of wide range of current issues along with upcoming environmental initiatives.  This section focuses on the topics of energy conservation, water resources, transportation, and future community projects .~ yasmeen

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-Rhea

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The Challenges of an Urban World - GCSE Geography

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Global trends in urbanisation, megacities, urban challenges in developed and developing world, reducing eco-footprint, strategies in the developing world

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This article conveys the urban problems that the developed city of Los Angeles faces ~yasmeen

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The County of Los Angeles covers 4,083 square miles with a population of 9.5 million people. The County is geographically located 75 miles of the Pacific Ocean and bordered by Orange and San...

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The land in Hong Kong is so expensive its forcing the residents to live in Caverns

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The land in Hong Kong is so expensive its forcing the residents to live in Caverns

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Abdullah Jassim 10D
Hong Kong has the most expensive housing market in the world, with median property prices more than 18 times median household incomes. Since British colonial rule began in the mid-19th century, the city has relied on reclaimed land, given the hilly terrain, and is plagued by property cartels and static government housing policy.

Click on the link below to continue on reading

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There is a particular bridge in Hong Kong that offers spectacular views: the mouth of a river on one side, and near-identical rows of white apartment blocks and mountains on the other.

No matter where you look, though, you can't escape the stench of sewage. It wafts up from the treatment plant at Sha Tin, originally built on the city's fringe but now very much part of Hong Kong, as relentless development has pushed the city outward.

Soon, however, there will be no need to escape: the notorious smell will vanish, as part of Hong Kong's ambitious plan to move unsightly public works underground.

The city government is encouraging a host of businesses to build new facilities deep beneath the earth, inside the mountains that have caused the former British colony to become one of the world's densest metropolises.

Officials have suggested that logistics facilities, data centres, reservoirs, laboratories and even swimming pools are all suitable for subterranean development. The government has released a masterplan for potential sites - a programme that recently won an award from the International Tunnelling Association in Paris - and is working to move other public utilities underground.

"In Hong Kong, the key driver [of cave development] is the land issue," says Edward Lo, the chief town planner. "Only about 24% of the land can be developed in Hong Kong, everything else is hilly areas that aren't cost effective to build on. So we want to turn this constraint into an opportunity."

Video: a flythrough of a proposed warehouse cavern. Source: Arup

Hong Kong has the most expensive housing market in the world, with median property prices more than 18 times median household incomes. Since British colonial rule began in the mid-19th century, the city has relied on reclaimed land, given the hilly terrain, and is plagued by property cartels and static government housing policy.

The masterplan could free as much as 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) in the land-starved territory. The sewage treatment plant in Sha Tin will be the largest project to date, and is an attempt to showcase the benefits.

While building deep underground is not a new idea - Norway built its entire national archives in a cavern in Oslo, and Helsinki boasts an underground swimming pool that can accommodate 1,000 people - Hong Kong has taken it several steps further.

The plan lists 48 potential underground and hillside sites for new caverns, eliminating the need for companies to locate their own. Hong Kong also already has several projects built inside hills, including a waste transfer station, an explosives depot, a reservoir and metro stations. Hong Kong University moved a reservoir into a nearby hill in 2007, in order to expand its campus.

Officials hope underground tunnels can also accommodate records storage, science labs, wine cellars and car parks.

Hong Kong caverns map

"Caverns are a good way to deal with nimby-type facilities," says Tony Ho, chief geotechnical engineer at the Civil Engineering and Development Department, arguing that residents are less likely to object to unsightly projects if they are buried below ground.

"If we can put suitable facilities inside caverns, then we can release precious surface land for other uses: for example, housing."

But critics argue that caverns are no quick fix for the city's land problems. Hong Kong needs roughly 9,000 hectares for housing development, according to the Our Hong Kong Foundation think tank. The caverns will only free about 1,000 hectares, and then only if existing structures are moved underground.

"This only solves a small problem," says Stephen Wong, deputy executive director of the foundation. "What else are we doing? Where are the other innovative ideas for creating much more land? We don't oppose using caverns, but we're saying it's technically difficult, it's costly, very time-consuming and only a few hectares will be released with each project."

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Walkways inside a manmade reservoir under Hong Kong. Photograph: Hong Kong Civil Engineering and Development Department

Planning to relocate the Sha Tin sewage treatment plant to a cave began in 2012, and construction is not scheduled to start until next year. It will take a further nine years to build the facility, and up to two years of tests, bringing the total project time to about 18 years.

"Because this project is so big, we can't afford to have any failure, so we'll need at least a year of testing to make sure the facilities in the cavern work before we release the land [at the original site]," Ho says.

Costs can also be a burden. Relocating the plant is projected to cost about £60m, and similar schemes can amount to as much as £275 per cubic metre to build. Construction costs are typically two times more expensive than building above ground.

Despite the high upfront expenditure, however, caverns can benefit from lower maintenance costs than traditional buildings, and never need to be torn down.

They also could reduce energy consumption. Cooler, more consistent temperatures underground mean less need for air conditioning, especially during Hong Kong's notoriously hot summers, when the mercury rarely dips below 30C (86F) during the day.

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'Dr Marmot' encourages residents to learn more about the relocation of the Sha Tin sewage treatment plant. Photograph: Drainage Services Department

In a bid to give the project a friendly face, officials have rolled out a cartoon marmot, an animal known for its burrowing skills, and hosted a series of public education events.

Given Hong Kong's well-publicised housing shortages - and the lengths people will go to to get a bed for the night - Ho and Lo stress that there are no plans for people to live in caverns.

"We won't recommend housing in caverns, but we will try to put a host of other facilities underground so we can release surface land for housing," adds Lo. "We still think above ground would be a better built environment for living."

Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to join the discussion, and explore our archive here Topics

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The big dig: how the high cost of land is forcing Hong Kong into caverns

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There is a particular bridge in Hong Kong that offers spectacular views: the mouth of a river on one side, and near-identical rows of white apartment blocks and mountains on the other. No matter where you look, though, you can't escape the stench of sewage.

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Reece 10Q

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Development in Hong Kong and other major cities needs to become more sustainable. Hong Kong, however, faces additional problems such as potential increases in population and a corresponding need for additional housing and many other facilities.

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This is a link to a website addressing New York City’s urban issues.

Nour Maarouf

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NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress

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Explore the Issues Urban informatics can turn data into solutions for New York City's toughest problems.

The digital revolution brought with it radically new ways of collecting, storing, and processing data. By creating knowledge from data about how New York functions, the city can combat fundamental challenges that have loomed large for decades here in New York and in cities throughout the world.

To make sense of big data, we need new techniques to manage and analyze it, advanced methods to uncover patterns, make predictions, and ways of turning findings into practical recommendations governments, companies, and even citizens, can put into action. This is the aim of urban informatics.

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Urban Informatics: Explore the Issues - NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress

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Explore the Issues Urban informatics can turn data into solutions for New York City's toughest problems. The digital revolution brought with it radically new ways of collecting, storing, and processing data. By creating knowledge from data about how New York functions, the city can combat fundamental challenges that have loomed large for decades here in New York and in cities throughout the world.

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http://www.who.int/heli/risks/ehindevcoun/en/http://www.who.int/heli/risks/ehindevcoun/en/

Tresheka 10M

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Here is a link to the National Geographic website talking problems about Urban cities...

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Here is a link to the National Geographic website talking problems about Urban cities...

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(Hassan EL-Kaissi)

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The promise of jobs and prosperity, among other factors, pulls people to cities. Half of the global population already lives in cities, and by 2050 two-thirds of the world's people are expected to live in urban areas. But in cities two of the most pressing problems facing the world today also come together: poverty and environmental degradation.

Poor air and water quality, insufficient water availability, waste-disposal problems, and high energy consumption are exacerbated by the increasing population density and demands of urban environments. Strong city planning will be essential in managing these and other difficulties as the world's urban areas swell.

Threats

Intensive urban growth can lead to greater poverty, with local governments unable to provide services for all people.

Concentrated energy use leads to greater air pollution with significant impact on human health.

Automobile exhaust produces elevated lead levels in urban air.

Large volumes of uncollected waste create multiple health hazards.

Urban development can magnify the risk of environmental hazards such as flash flooding.

Pollution and physical barriers to root growth promote loss of urban tree cover.

Animal populations are inhibited by toxic substances, vehicles, and the loss of habitat and food sources.

Solutions

Combat poverty by promoting economic development and job creation.

Involve local community in local government.

Reduce air pollution by upgrading energy use and alternative transport systems.

Create private-public partnerships to provide services such as waste disposal and housing.

Plant trees and incorporate the care of city green spaces as a key element in urban planning.

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The promise of jobs and prosperity, among other factors, pulls people to cities. Half of the global population already lives in cities, and by 2050 two-thirds of the world's people are expected to live in urban areas. But in cities two of the most pressing problems facing the world today also come together: poverty and environmental degradation.

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http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2125641/does-hong-kong-have-housing-crisis-answer-depends-whether-youhttp://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2125641/does-hong-kong-have-housing-crisis-answer-depends-whether-you

Summary:
Hong Kong’s home prices are the world’s highest. Between January 2017 and October prices spiked by 11%  according to the government’s private domestic price indices, which track overall trends in the property market. Can the city fix this?
Aarayman

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Why not take a look at the examiners report from the 2017 exam - this was the knowledge paper that you sat - Q1,3,6 and 12!

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Foxconn, a main supplier for Apple's iPhone, says it has stopped interns from working illegal overtime at its factory in China.

It comes after a Financial Times report found at least six students worked 11-hour days at its iPhone X plant in Henan province.

The practice breached Chinese laws preventing children from working more than 40 hours per week.

About 3,000 students were reportedly hired to work at the Zhengzhou plant.

Apple said the secondary school students worked voluntarily but they "should not have been allowed to work overtime".

Both the tech giant and Foxconn have said the interns were "compensated and provided benefits".

"Apple is dedicated to ensuring everyone in our supply chain is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve," the firm said in a statement.

"We know our work is never done and we'll continue to do all we can to make a positive impact and protect workers in our supply chain."

The Foxconn Technology Group, which operates an internship programme at the Chinese factory, told the BBC in a statement that it took "immediate action to ensure that no interns are carrying out any overtime work".

It added that "interns represent a very small percentage" of its workforce in China and that the breach of labour laws was inconsistent with its own policies.

The Taiwanese firm reportedly hired the students in September to keep up with demand for the new iPhone X, which Apple has described as being "off the charts".

The iPhone is critical to Apple's product line and makes up more than half of its revenue, with more than 46.6 million phones sold between July and September this year.

Its latest model, the iPhone X, was launched on the 10 year anniversary of the iconic smartphone and is Apple's most expensive handset yet, retailing for £999.

Apple and its suppliers have come under fire several times in recent years amid accusations that they have failed to protect workers at Chinese manufacturing facilities, where some allegedly lived in overcrowded factory dorms and worked excessive hours.

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Foxconn, a main supplier for Apple's iPhone, says it has stopped interns from working illegal overtime at its factory in China. It comes after a Financial Times report found at least six students worked 11-hour days at its iPhone X plant in Henan province.

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Water firms have been hastily distancing themselves from their own admissions that they use divining rods to detect leaks amid widespread alarm at public listed companies using witchcraft in one of the key areas of their business.

Ten of the 12 water companies in the UK told the science blogger Sally Le Page, via Twitter, that they are still using the practice of water dowsing despite the lack of scientific evidence for its effectiveness.

But after the disclosure was first reported in the Guardian and then picked up by media across the world, many of the companies have tried to row back on their admissions or blame rogue engineers.

One of them, Welsh Water, has even deleted a tweet in which it acknowledged using dowsing rods.

Le Page took the precaution of taking a screen shot of the Welsh Water's admission, alongside a smiley face emoji, before the company erased the tweet.

Sally Le Page (@sallylepage)
How interesting: @DwrCymru deleted their tweet admitting to using water divination. Good job I screenshotted every response as they came in! https://t.co/9CVWixZMGt pic.twitter.com/5s7bcQhsm0

Other companies have not denied that some of their engineers are still use diving rods but have stressed that they do not spend money on the practice.

The clarification comes after Christopher Hassall, a specialist in water management at the Leeds University school of biology, expressed alarm at the continuing use of what he dismissed as witchcraft.

Hassal, who has worked with a number of water companies, including Yorkshire Water, to try to modernise "some very peculiar practices", called for the water regulator, Ofwat, to intervene.

"If they are going to be passing the charges on to us for using dubious practices, then that's something everyone in the UK should be concerned about," he told the Guardian.

United Utilities is one of several of the companies involved to have since pointed out that its engineers are not issued with diving rods. After telling Le Page that the company does use them from "time to time", it subsequently tweeted only "one or two of our engineers were interested enough to learn how to use them in their spare time".

United Utilities (@unitedutilities)
one or two of our engineers were interested enough to learn how to use them in their spare time. Thanks, Sharon

Anglian Water claims its admission of using divining rods and an apparent invitation to Le Page to demonstrate their effectiveness was misunderstood.

It has since said: "If you don't know where a water pipe is, you have to dig to find out. Most will take an educated guess, some may add a little superstition as well. If we thought it was costing customers money then of course we'd clamp down, but it doesn't.

"We suggested Sally come see our real leakage tech - drones and robots, and then compare to divining rods, which won't work. We accept the tweet wasn't explicit enough & we were probably too jovial today but we did it honestly and it's been taken out of context."

Anglian Water (@AnglianWater)
If you don't know where a water pipe is, you have to dig to find out. Most will take an educated guess, some may add a little superstition as well. If we thought it was costing customers money then of course we'd clamp down, but it doesn't.

Anglian Water (@AnglianWater)
We suggested Sally come see our real leakage tech - drones and robots, and then compare to divining rods, which won't work. We accept the tweet wasn't explicit enough & we were probably too jovial today but we did it honestly and it's been taken out of context. Sorry. Emma

In a statement to the Guardian, the company added: "Using dowsing rods to find leaks is an old-fashioned method. We don't spend money on it, or issue rods to our engineers."

Le Page began asking questions about the practice when her parents reported seeing an engineer from Severn Trent "walking around holding two bent tent pegs to locate a pipe" near their home in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Severn Trent told the Mirror: "We don't issue divining rods to our engineers but we believe some of our engineers use them. As long as the leak is found and repaired quickly, by whatever means, we're happy and so are our customers."

Southern Water took a similar line. It said: "It's not company policy to use dowsing rods, although it's possible some of our leakage technicians may use them. However it's done, finding and fixing leaks as quickly as possible remains the most important thing to us, and we'll continue [to] work hard to drive down our leakage figures."

Southern Water (@SouthernWater)
It's not company policy to use dowsing rods, although it's possible some of our leakage technicians may use them. However it's done, finding & fixing leaks as quickly as possible remains the most important thing to us, & we'll continue work hard to drive down our leakage figures.

The industry's trade body Water UK also blamed individual engineers. It said: "The reality is that water companies are spending millions of pounds each year on innovative leakage detection schemes such as thermal imaging drones, sonic listening devices and other high-tech electronic mapping equipment which has helped reduce leakages by a third since the 1990s, and it's unlikely that a few individuals doing some unofficial divining has had much impact."

The physicist Helen Czerski, a research fellow in the department of mechanical engineering at University College London, tweeted that the companies should be ashamed of themselves.

Helen Czerski (@helenczerski)
. @thameswater @AnglianWater @stwater & the rest, you should be utterly ashamed of yourselves. Divining rods? IT'S 2017! I want my water supplied by people who understand evidence, not those who peddle witchcraft. https://t.co/BVLaz8xabt

Wessex Water and Northern Ireland Water were the only two company in the UK to state that they did not use water divining.

In a statement to the Guardian, Northern Ireland Water said: "NI Water has never used divining as a method to detect leakage although it does understand that prior to the formation of the company it was a technique which was used by some water technicians on a totally informal basis to locate pipes. NI Water uses a range of modern industry techniques and high quality equipment to locate leaks."

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Water firms backtrack on admissions that they use divining rods

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Water firms have been hastily distancing themselves from their own admissions that they use divining rods to detect leaks amid widespread alarm at public listed companies using witchcraft in one of the key areas of their business.

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Nuclear Power v Wind Farms

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New nuclear power stations in the UK can no longer compete with windfarms on price, according to the boss of a German energy company's green power arm.

Hans Bunting, the chief operating officer of Innogy Renewables, part of the company that owns the UK energy supplier npower, said offshore windfarms had become mainstream and were destined to become even cheaper because of new, bigger turbines.

Asked whether nuclear groups that want to build new reactors in the UK could compete with windfarms on cost, even when their intermittency was taken into account, Bunting replied: "Obviously they can't."

His comments came after MPs criticised the £30bn cost to consumers for EDF Energy's Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, and said ministers should revisit the case for new nuclear before proceeding with more projects.

Innogy recently secured a subsidy of £74.75 per megawatt hour of power to build a windfarm off the Lincolnshire coast, which is £17.75 cheaper than Hinkley and should be completed about three years earlier.

"What we see now [with prices] is with today's technology. It's not about tomorrow's technology, which is about [to come in] 2025, 2027, when Hinkley will most likely come to the grid ... and then it [windfarms] will be even cheaper."

While the company is planning to use the most powerful turbines in the world today for the Lincolnshire windfarm, Bunting said even bigger ones in development would drive costs down further.

"A few years ago everyone thought 10MW [turbines] was the maximum, now we're talking about 15[MW]. It seems the sky is the limit," he said. "[It] means less turbines for the same capacity, less steel in the ground, less cables, even bigger rotors catching more wind, so it will become cheaper."

However, EDF argued that nuclear was also on a path to lower costs.

"Early offshore wind projects started at around £150 per MW/h and developers have shown they can offer lower prices by repeating projects with an established supply chain - the same is true for nuclear," an EDF spokesman said.

"EDF Energy's follow-on nuclear projects at Sizewell and Bradwell will remain competitive with other low-carbon options and we are confident they can be developed at a significantly lower price than Hinkley Point C."

In an interview with the Guardian, Bunting said Innogy was strongly committed to the UK despite its subsidiary npower merging with the big-six supplier SSE. A third of the group's staff are based in the UK.

"The npower and SSE merger does not for us mean we are going to leave the UK. No way. We're going to stay here, and grow here," he said.

He argued the new supplier would be good for billpayers, contrary to consumer groups' fears. "There is an industrial logic in it. I think at the end of the day it will help competition because then you have two large players on the market, and they will be more efficient."

Bunting said he would like to build onshore windfarms in the UK too, if the government rethought its ban on subsidies for them.

He said the political argument against them - public opposition in Tory shires - no longer stood because potential windfarms in Scotland and Wales were more likely to win subsidies.

"England shouldn't worry because England doesn't have such good wind conditions ... in an auction [for subsidies] the English sites would anyway struggle to qualify against Welsh and Scottish sites."

Innogy would also take a close interest in building large solar power plants, if ministers reopened support for them, he added.

Bunting rejected the idea that the subsidy costs of paying for clean power should be shifted off energy bills and into general taxation, as British Gas's boss has argued for.

Such a change would make the cost of clean power less transparent and deter households and businesses from taking steps to save energy, he said. "If part of the energy [costs] is tax-financed it will become completely intransparent," he said.

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New nuclear power cannot rival windfarms on price, energy boss says

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New nuclear power stations in the UK can no longer compete with windfarms on price, according to the boss of a German energy company's green power arm. Hans Bunting, the chief operating officer of Innogy Renewables, part of the company that owns the UK energy supplier npower, said offshore windfarms had become mainstream and were destined to become even cheaper because of new, bigger turbines.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HQjVF3TDcjn_efa1olE0ZslaefH65ClG5QFcFRXWYj8/edit?usp=sharing

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Nestlé, Mars and Hershey have been accused of breaking pledges to stop using "conflict palm oil" from deforested Indonesian jungles, just days before the annual Halloween confectionery frenzy.

The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) says consumers have been "deceived" by promises from the brands to clean up their supply chains which were subsequently delayed, revised or watered down.

Laurel Sutherlin, a spokesman for the group, told the Guardian: "For too many years, Nestlé, Mars and Hershey have cherry-picked their [palm oil] targets and then moved the goalposts when they don't achieve them. There's just no further room for error to prevent the extinction of tigers, orangutans and elephants."

The last parcel of Sumatran rainforest in which these three species all roam - along with rhinos, clouded leopards and sun bears - is vanishing at a dramatic pace as lucrative palm oil plantations illegally eat into tropical forestland.

The brands source palm oil from this 2.6m hectare Leuser region, via complex supply chains, some involving traders linked to suppliers illegally logging in the region.

Nestlé promised to end deforestation in its supply chain by 2015 in response to Greenpeace's KitKat campaign of 2010. After Ran's "Snack food 20" report, this was upgraded to a pledge of "no sourcing from areas converted from natural forests after 1 February 2013". The target was missed.

"Four years later we can now trace over 90% of our palm oil back to the mill of origin and almost two thirds back to the plantation level," said Nestlé spokeswoman Peggy Diby. "Our ambition is to raise this figure to 100% by 2020, back to plantation."

In July, Nestlé told the Guardian it could only source 47% of its palm oil to plantations, suggesting a big improvement in the last three months.

Hershey's said in 2014 that it would source all of its palm oil back to the mill level by 2015, and to plantations by 2016. But its plantation level sourcing actually fell in 2016 from 27% to 14%, and the commitment has been deferred until 2020.

Greenpeace protestors dressed as orangutans demonstrate against palm oil harvested from rainforest destruction outside a Nestle shareholders' meeting. Photograph: Antoine Antoniol/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Jeff Beckman, Hershey's communications director said: "While we remain deeply committed to pushing all stakeholders to accelerate traceability and bring full transparency to this supply chain along with our supplier partners, we realised it would take more time to achieve this goal than originally anticipated."

Mars had promised to cut conflict palm oil out of its supply chain by 2015. A spokesperson said: "Our traceability levels remain high. In the year to date, 97% of our palm oil is traceable to mill level and 40% traceable to the plantation. The evidence of the challenge in Leuser is clear, and we are already taking steps toward action."

Gemma Tillack, Ran's campaign director said: "It is our view that the brands have deceived consumers by continually claiming to be tackling deforestation when they have not executed the actions required to achieve a moratorium on the forest frontlines of their global supply chains."

* This article was amended on 30 October 2017 to include a response from Mars, which was supplied after publication.

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Nestlé, Hershey and Mars 'breaking promises over palm oil use'

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Nestlé, Mars and Hershey have been accused of breaking pledges to stop using "conflict palm oil" from deforested Indonesian jungles, just days before the annual Halloween confectionery frenzy. The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) says consumers have been "deceived" by promises from the brands to clean up their supply chains which were subsequently delayed, revised or watered down.

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An interesting look at the problems facing the world's longest river!

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The world's longest river is sick -
and getting sicker

Booming populations have dirtied and drained it, while climate change threatens to cut its flow.

And some fear that competition over its dwindling waters could trigger a regional conflict.

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The world's longest river is sick -and getting sicker Booming populations have dirtied and drained it, while climate change threatens to cut its flow. And some fear that competition over its dwindling waters could trigger a regional conflict.

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Also links to Globalisation and Coca cola!

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Councils across England could save up to £35m every year if the government introduces a deposit return scheme [DRS] for plastic bottles and other drinks containers, according to a new report.

Earlier this month environment secretary Michael Gove told the Conservative party conference that he would work with the industry to see how the scheme might be implemented in England.

Campaigners say it would reduce litter and help tackle plastic pollution which experts say risks "near permanent contamination of the natural environment " with potentially devastating consequences.

However, some cash-strapped local authorities have expressed concern that they would lose money as people would use the scheme rather than recycle through local authorities' kerbside systems.

But Wednesday's report, based on an analysis of data across eight local authorities including some with high and low recycling rates, found that rather than losing income individual authorities could make savings of between £60,000 and £500,000 each, due to reduced littering and landfill charges as well as there being fewer recycling bins to process.

Allison Ogden-Newton, chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy, one of the groups behind the report, said: "There is no doubt that introducing a deposit refund system would reduce littering in this country but, until now, there has been a concern that it would have a negative impact on cash-strapped councils. This report shows that in fact a DRS would create savings for local government."

Over eight million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans every year, with 80% coming from land. Plastic bottles are a major contributor; in June the Guardian revealed that a million are made every minute and the rate is rising quickly, with annual consumption forecast to top half a trillion by 2021.

At least a dozen nations already have a DRS, in which a small deposit is paid when purchasing the bottle, which is then returned when the empty bottle is brought back.

In Germany and Denmark, which have DRS schemes, more than 90% of bottles are returned. In England, just 57% of plastic bottles are recycled, mostly through streetside collection schemes.

Gove was pressured this summer by opposition parties and NGOs to introduce a DRS in England, and Nicola Sturgeon announced in September that Scotland would introduce a DRS.

In response he announced a four-week call for views to inform how the scheme would be designed. The government's working group on the issue will also consider DRS for metal and glass containers.

Today's report was commissioned by Keep Britain Tidy, the Marine Conservation Society, Surfers Against Sewage, Campaign to Protect Rural England and Reloop. It was carried out by environmental research group Eunomia.

It found that local authorities would lose some income as there would be a reduced number of cans and plastic bottles in the kerbside collections to sell to recyclers. However, the savings made from having fewer containers to collect and sort, as well as reduced levels of littering and reduced landfill charges would outweigh the loss of revenue.

Samantha Harding, from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: "There are no longer any valid arguments that DRS doesn't work and the environmental case is crystal clear. For our coasts and countryside, the cost of not taking action will be far greater than any incurred by the parts of industry that are trying to block this. Michael Gove can now build on the success of the government's bag charge and the ban on microbeads by confirming England will have a deposit system."

Hugo Tagholm, from Surfers Against Sewage, said: "Deposit refund schemes are a tried-and-tested way of dramatically increasing recycling rates while reducing plastic bottle and other container pollution on our beaches, in our streets and across the countryside.

"This report now clearly shows that introducing a DRS for England would also benefit local economies and communities, saving councils money that could be redirected to vital frontline services."

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Plastic bottle deposit return scheme could save England's councils £35m a year

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Councils across England could save up to £35m every year if the government introduces a deposit return scheme [DRS] for plastic bottles and other drinks containers, according to a new report. Earlier this month environment secretary Michael Gove told the Conservative party conference that he would work with the industry to see how the scheme might be implemented in England.

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Hurricane Nate has made landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) says.

The storm, with maximum sustained winds of 85mph (137km/h), is moving north, and a second landfall is expected on the Mississippi coast later.

Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and parts of Florida have issued hurricane warnings and evacuation orders.

Nate killed at least 25 people in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Honduras.

The tropical storm has since strengthened and is now a category one hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Although not as strong as last month's Maria and Irma, Nate is expected to bring strong winds and storm surges.

US President Donald Trump earlier issued an emergency declaration for Louisiana, allowing the state to seek federal help with preparation and possible relief efforts.

In Alabama, Republican Governor Kay Ivey has urged residents in areas facing heavy winds and storm surges to take precautions.

Five ports along the Gulf Coast have also been closed to shipping as a precaution.

Most oil and gas platforms in the US Gulf of Mexico have evacuated their staff and stopped production ahead of the storm.

Harvey v Katrina: Lessons learned?

How to stay safe in a hurricane

Do 'Pray for...' messages make disaster relief harder?

The hurricane warning issued to parts of the Gulf Coast includes the threat of life-threatening storm surge flooding. Evacuation orders have been put in place for some low-lying areas.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards has declared a state of emergency ahead of the hurricane.

He said more than 1,000 National Guard troops had been mobilised with a number sent to New Orleans to monitor the drainage pumps there. "Anyone in low-lying areas... we are urging them to prepare now," he said.

A mandatory curfew from 18:00 (23:00 GMT) is in place in New Orleans, where residents from areas outside the city's levee system have been evacuated.

"Nate is at our doorstep, or will be soon," the city's Mayor Mitch Landrieu said, adding that the winds could cause significant power outages.

"We have been through this many, many times, there is no need to panic," he added.

A tropical storm warning is currently in effect for New Orleans.

Nate went past Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula - home to the popular beach resorts of Cancun and Playa del Carmen - on Friday night as it headed north, the NHC said.

Nate caused heavy rains, landslides and floods which blocked roads, destroyed bridges and damaged houses as it tore through central America.

At least 13 people died in Nicaragua, eight in Costa Rica, three in Honduras and one in El Salvador.

The tail of the storm is still causing problems in the region, where thousands have been forced to sleep in shelters and some 400,000 people in Costa Rica were reported to be without running water.
Are you in the affected area? Email us with your experiences at haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk .
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:

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Hurricane Nate has made landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) says. The storm, with maximum sustained winds of 85mph (137km/h), is moving north, and a second landfall is expected on the Mississippi coast later.

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A very interesting read after the work we have been doing on Coca Cola!

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Coca-Cola increased its production of throwaway plastic bottles last year by well over a billion, according to analysis by Greenpeace.

The world's biggest soft drinks company does not disclose how much plastic packaging it puts into the market. But analysis by the campaign group Greenpeace reveals what they say is an increase in production of single-use PET bottles from 2015-2016.

The increase puts Coke's production at more than 110bn bottles each year, according to Greenpeace.

Coca-Cola has confirmed that single-use plastic bottles made up 59% of its global packaging in 2016 compared to 58% in the 12 months before.

The scale of production contributes to a plastic mountain which is growing vastly year on year. Figures obtained by the Guardian reveal that by 2021 the number of plastic drinks bottles produced globally will reach more than half a trillion.

But only a tiny fraction of these bottles are recycled. Fewer than half of the bottles bought in 2016 were collected for recycling and just 7% of those collected were turned into new bottles. Instead, most plastic bottles produced end up in landfill or in the ocean.

Between 5m and 13m tonnes of plastic leaks into the world's oceans each year to be ingested by sea birds, fish and other organisms, and by 2050 the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish, according to research by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Louise Edge, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace, said: "Coca-Cola talks the talk on sustainability but the astonishing rate at which it is pumping out single-use plastic bottles is still growing.

"We have calculated it produced over 110bn throwaway plastic bottles every year - an astounding 3,400 a second - while refusing to take responsibility for its role in the plastic pollution crisis facing our oceans.

"We would love Coke to provide detailed breakdowns of what it produces - so we would welcome any clarifications they have to offer on our estimates."

Amid growing concern about marine pollution and increasing evidence that plastic is finding its way into the food chain of fish and humans, Coca-Cola European Partners announced it had changed its mind about plastic bottle deposit schemes.

The company has expressed support for a deposit scheme and told Westminster MPs a new approach was needed to improve the stalled recycling rates in the UK of 57% for PET bottles, and is calling for collaborative efforts from government and industry to improve recycling rates.

Coca-Cola, which operates in more than 200 countries, has said disclosing the volume of plastic packaging it puts on the market annually is "commercially sensitive".

In July Coca-Cola European Partners announced it would increase the amount of recycled plastic in its bottles to 50% by 2020.

But plastic drinking bottles could be made out of 100% recycled plastic, known as RPet - and campaigners are pressing big drinks companies to radically increase the amount of recycled plastic in their bottles.

A spokesperson from Coca-Cola Great Britain said: "Our global PET bottle usage number for 2016 is 59%, an increase of 1% from 58% in 2015. We continue to review and adjust our packaging strategy as part of our overall business plan.

"In the UK, all of our bottles and cans are 100% recyclable and have been since 2012. Our plastic bottles contain 25% recycled material and we have recently pledged to double this amount to 50% by 2020."

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Coca-Cola increased its production of plastic bottles by a billion last year, says Greenpeace

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Coca-Cola increased its production of throwaway plastic bottles last year by well over a billion, according to analysis by Greenpeace. The world's biggest soft drinks company does not disclose how much plastic packaging it puts into the market. But analysis by the campaign group Greenpeace reveals what they say is an increase in production of single-use PET bottles from 2015-2016.

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Coca Cola has recovered and recycled or refilled 60% of the bottles that they released into the market.
http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/2016-sustainability-highlights-infographic

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Vanuatu is no stranger to the rumblings, shakings, floodwaters and wrecking winds of natural disaster. The south Pacific island nation was rated the most at-risk country in the world in a 2016 United Nations study. Its 83 islands are stuck right in the middle of hurricane alley, and they dot the border of the "ring of fire" - a belt around the Pacific prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Despite their precarious situation being a day-to-day reality, the nation has been galvanised by prime minister Charlot Salwai's order to evacuate the entire island of Ambae because of the threat that the volcano at its centre will blow.

"People's lives must be our first priority," said Salwai, the prime minister. "Everybody has to go."

What followed has been Vanuatu's own version of the Dunkirk evacuation. Folk began organising even before Salwai gave the order. The Ni-Vanuatu - the people of this archipelago - are defined by two things: land and family. From the moment a state of emergency was announced, members of the Ambae community in Port Vila, the capital, began to mobilise.

They knew better than to wait for the cash-strapped, resource-starved government, and instead jury-rigged a disaster response centre at a church. Local companies began donating goods immediately. Before long they had stockpiles of water, food, bedding and other essentials ready to send.

Then they chartered a ship.

The MV Makila was one of the first of Vanuatu's rag-tag fleet of inter-island barges and coasters to reach Ambae with supplies. It unloaded those goods, then took more than 100 passengers to safety on the nearby island of Espiritu Santo. Then it went back and did it again.

There was no hesitation, no reflection. The ships had to run. So the community members dug deep and shifted for themselves.

On the Indonesian island of Bali, where a volcano is also rumbling threateningly, authorities are dealing with too many people having evacuated: about half of the 140,000 people who have fled to shelters are being told to return home. The situation on Ambae could not be more different: it's 11,000 residents are having to be plucked off a handful at a time.

Ambae's Manaro volcano sits on a small island, in the middle of a lake, on top of Mt Lombenben - whose profile dominates the island. Until last week a calmly smoking patch of earth emitted a gentle column of steam and ash, sometimes shrouding the island. It was this vision of an almost magically disappearing Avalon of the Pacific that led the second world war-era writer James Michener to pen the legend of Bali Hai in his Tales of the South Pacific.

But Manaro's gentle demeanour masked a looming threat. Its gently sloping shape is caused by the earth's crust bending under unfathomable pressures below the surface. Last week began with a massive show of force as firstly one, then two new vents appeared. The hollow boom of repeated explosions reverberated across the island, and the glow of a newly formed lava lake was visible from Pentecost island, 30km away.

Over the weekend, the grassroots evacuation effort of Ambae cranked up. Nadia Kanegai has been personal assistant to a prime minister, and a former political candidate herself. A past master at getting things done by Vanuatu's often shambolic public bureaucracy, she didn't flinch at the difficulties presented by moving hundreds of her home island's most vulnerable inhabitants to safety.

She just hired a plane and told the pilot to keep flying until everyone was out.

Kanegai won't discuss how much this airlift is costing her personally, but whistle-stop charter flights to the outer islands typically cost the equivalent of £1,000 for a return hop. Her plane made 18 flights on the first day alone.

Moli, 14, has Down syndrome. Safe on the tarmac in Santo island, she spots the camera on her and mugs good-naturedly, flashing a peace sign. But asked how she's coping, she repeats again and again: "I just want to cry."

The grassroots airlift has two small 10-seater planes running all day. Nothing bigger can land on the remote island. But it's not nearly enough. Nancy Garae brought her mother-in-law to Longana airport from Lolovenue in the north-east of the island.

"She is nearly 100," said Garae of the elderly woman. "When we came, we found out the plane was already full. We're still waiting. Probably tomorrow." They have nowhere to stay in Longana, so they have no choice but to return to the village, then come back the next day.

The exodus from Ambae is ramping up. Ten ships are now involved in the effort, and Australia has announced that the HMAS Choules, a supply ship, is steaming across the Coral Sea to assist.

But for those who cannot travel by ship, or who cannot wait, the people of Ambae must look to themselves.

"These people made me who I am," says Kanegai. "I'm only paying them back."
Dan McGarry is media director at the Vanuatu Daily Post

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Planes, ships, barges: the DIY evacuation of Vanuatu's volcanic island

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Vanuatu is no stranger to the rumblings, shakings, floodwaters and wrecking winds of natural disaster. The south Pacific island nation was rated the most at-risk country in the world in a 2016 United Nations study.

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A really interesting documentary about overpopulation - well worth a watch if you have time!

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A really interesting documentary about overpopulation - well worth a watch if you have time!

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Coca Cola, a large Transnational Corporation and how they got sued for misleading the market
http://fortune.com/2017/01/05/coca-cola-sued-soda-marketing/

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http://theconversation.com/what-twitter-can-learn-from-that-time-coca-cola-changed-its-formula-84827

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'In 2016, through our suppliers, we relied on more than 5 million farmers to deliver our agriculture supply. Women farmers contribute significantly as part of our agricultural supply chain.'

http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/2016-agriculture

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coca cola is donating an additional $4.3 million to mexico and the Caribbean
http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/26/news/coca-cola-puerto-rico/index.html

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Coca-Cola has been accused of dehydrating communities in its pursuit of water resources to feed its own plants.
http://www.waronwant.org/media/coca-cola-drinking-world-dry

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In 2014 Coca Cola was forced to demolish the factory in the Indian province of Uttar Pradesh. Due to the amount of ground water in which Coca Cola was extracting. Whilst then polluting the water. Over several years many protests occurred. Source https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.rt.com/document/100000000000001000167012/amp/167012-coca-cola-factory-closed-india

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Workers in the Sunshine Coast return to work after a 3 week strike over a dispute with proposed change in pensions

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RICHMOND (NEWS 1130) - A labour dispute that impacted supply of Coca-Cola products across the Lower Mainland for three weeks is over, and employees will head back to work as early as Friday.

370 workers in Richmond, Coquitlam, Chilliwack and the Sunshine Coast had been on strike over proposed changes to pensions and other benefits since last month.

John Lynn from Teamsters Local 213 says a collective agreement has now been ratified, and the protracted industrial dispute is over.

"It's a long time for the company to be without its key workers, but it's even longer for our Teamsters who had to do without a payroll for that length of time," he says.

"So their families had to suck it up a little bit. And they've done that and they've achieved a result that they feel is fair and they're happy to be back at work."

Coca-Cola Canada and the union had been in negotiations over the contract since March.

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Coca-Cola strike over after three weeks - NEWS 1130

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RICHMOND (NEWS 1130) - A labour dispute that impacted supply of Coca-Cola products across the Lower Mainland for three weeks is over, and employees will head back to work as early as Friday. 370 workers in Richmond, Coquitlam, Chilliwack and the Sunshine Coast had been on strike over proposed changes to pensions and other benefits since last month.

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'In 2015, The Coca-ColaCompany and The Coca-Cola Foundation gave back more than $117 million to directly benefit nearly 300 organizations across more than 70 countries and territories.'  - http://www.coca-colacompany.com/our-company/the-coca-cola-foundation

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Access to education or appropriate education??

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Access to education or appropriate education??

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Six out of 10 children and teenagers in the world are failing to reach basic levels of proficiency in learning, warns a hard-hitting report from the United Nations.

The UN describes the findings as "staggering" and representing a "learning crisis".

Much of the focus of international aid in education has been on the lack of access to schools, particularly in poorer countries in sub-Saharan Africa or in conflict zones.

But this new research from the Unesco Institute for Statistics warns of the lack of quality within schools - saying more than 600 million school-age children do not have basic skills in maths and reading.

Huge divide

In sub-Saharan Africa, the research suggests 88% of children and adolescents will enter adulthood without a basic proficiency in reading.

And in central and southern Asia, 81% are not reaching an adequate level in literacy.

The report warns any ambitions for social and economic progress will be stifled without a literate and numerate population.

In North America and Europe, only 14% of young people leave education at such a low level. But, the UN research suggests, only 10% of the world's school-age children live in these more affluent, developed regions.

"Many of these children are not hidden or isolated from their governments and communities - they are sitting in classrooms," said Silvia Montoya, director of the Unesco Institute for Statistics.

She said the report was a "wake-up call for far greater investment in the quality of education".

This problem of "schooling without learning" was also highlighted by the World Bank in a report this week.

It warned that millions of young people in low- and middle-income countries were receiving an inadequate education that would leave them trapped in low-paid and insecure jobs.

The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, introducing the report, said the failures in education for so many represented "a moral and economic crisis".

Researchers warned of pupils in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Nicaragua who after years in school were unable to do simple sums or read simple sentences.

A basic level of proficiency in primary school was reached by 99% of pupils in Japan, but by only 7% of pupils in Mali, they said.

There were also wide gulfs within countries. At the end of primary school in Cameroon, only 5% of girls from the poorest families were at a level to continue with their education, compared with 76% of girls from wealthy families, the report said.

What's to blame?

The World Bank study examined the factors underlying such poor achievement:

It warned that in the poorest countries many pupils arrived at school in no condition to learn

Many had suffered from malnutrition and ill health, the World Bank said, and the deprivation and poverty of their home lives could mean they began school physically and mentally underdeveloped

There were also concerns about the quality of teaching, with too many teachers not being particularly well educated themselves

There was also a problem of teacher absenteeism in some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which has been linked to teachers not being regularly paid

The World Bank's chief economist, Paul Romer, said there had to be a more honest admission that for many children being in school did not mean worthwhile lessons.

He said progress would depend on recognising that "the facts about education reveal a painful truth".

The report warned of a lack of scrutiny over standards and the absence of even basic information about pupil achievement.

While the debate in Western countries has been about excessive testing, the World Bank said that in poorer countries, there was "too little measurement of learning, not too much".

But the researchers also pointed to countries that had made progress, such as South Korea and Vietnam.

And at the United Nations last week there were international pledges for greater investment in education.

"I have decided to set education as a top priority of French development and foreign policy," said French President Emmanuel Macron.

Former UK Prime Minister and UN education envoy Gordon Brown said he wanted the Global Partnership for Education, which channels aid to education projects, to have funds worth $2bn (£1.5bn) by 2020.

The European Union announced that 8% of its humanitarian budget would be spent on education.

For children missing school because of the conflict in Syria, the Education Above All Foundation and Unicef, along with other charities, committed an extra $60m (£45m).

"Funding our education goal will do far more than place a child at a desk. It will unleash opportunity and hope," said Mr Brown.

Ideas for the Global education series? Get in touch.

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Six out of 10 children and teenagers in the world are failing to reach basic levels of proficiency in learning, warns a hard-hitting report from the United Nations. The UN describes the findings as "staggering" and representing a "learning crisis".

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Building a wall between the USA and Mexico

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The US government has announced the start of construction on eight prototype barriers for the border with Mexico, a campaign promise of President Donald Trump.

The Customs and Border Protection says four of the prototypes will be made from concrete, while the others are from "alternate or other materials".

Its plan is to try out several sections of wall near San Diego.

Mr Trump had promised to build a "big beautiful wall" between the countries.

With a heavy federal and local law enforcement presence, workers have broken ground in an area surrounded by chain link fencing at Otay Mesa, one of three ports of entry in the San Diego-Tijuana metropolitan region.

The prototypes will be up to 30ft (9m) high and 30ft long and are expected to be completed within 30 days.

Officials will then spend up to three months evaluating the designs for their effectiveness, including gauging their resistance to penetration with small hand tools.

Six things that could topple Trump's border wall

What might the border wall look like?

Cameras and sensors will be incorporated into the final wall plan.

Each wall will cost up to $450,000 (£334,000) and will be paid for by federal funds which have already been sanctioned. There is, however, no agreement on the initial $1.5bn (£1.11bn) Mr Trump has requested from Congress to start construction of the final wall.

During his campaign, Mr Trump insisted that Mexico would pay for the structure.

"We are committed to securing our border and that includes constructing border walls," said Ronald Vitiello, acting deputy commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection agency.

"Our multi-pronged strategy to ensure the safety and security of the American people includes barriers, infrastructure, technology and people."

Four companies have been chosen to build the prototypes but the final wall is likely to be based on an amalgamation of design features.

The border agency says the prototypes "will inform future design standards which will likely continue to evolve to meet the US Border Patrol's requirements".

Border town divided on Trump's wall

WATCH: Who's hiding beneath the border?

Mr Trump has said some sections of the wall could be transparent so that people on the US side cannot be hit by bags of drugs being tossed over from Mexico. He has also suggested that parts of the wall could be covered in solar panels.

But California's attorney general is attempting to block the construction of a border wall. A lawsuit filed in a federal district court in San Diego last week argues that the government has overstepped its authority by waiving environmental reviews and other laws.

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The US government has announced the start of construction on eight prototype barriers for the border with Mexico, a campaign promise of President Donald Trump. The Customs and Border Protection says four of the prototypes will be made from concrete, while the others are from "alternate or other materials".

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About

Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in the stores, restaurants, and vending machines of more than 200 countries.

It is the number one manufacturer of soft drinks in the world.

Their headquarters is situated in Atlanta Georgia, USA. It is probably the best known brand symbol in the world.

They sell nearly 400 different products.

70% of its sales are generated outside of North America.

Until 1905, the soft drink, marketed as a tonic, contained extracts of cocaine as well as the caffeine-rich kola nut.

Growth

The Coca-Cola recipe was formulated at the Eagle Drug and Chemical Company, a drugstore in Columbus, Georgia by John Pemberton, originally as a coca wine called Pemberton's French Wine Coca.

In 1886, when the county passed legislation which prohibited the alcoholic version, Pemberton responded by developing Coca-Cola, a non-alcoholic version.

The soft drink was first sold to the public in Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta on May 8, 1886.

It proved popular in the United States at the time due to the belief that carbonated water was good for the health. Pemberton claimed Coca-Cola cured many diseases, including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence.

After disputes over ownership, with many people creating the recipe, Asa Griggs Candler The Coca-Cola Company in 1892.

Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time on March 12, 1894.

Cans of Coke first appeared in 1955

The first bottling of Coca-Cola occurred in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1891

By 1895, Candler had built syrup plants in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles.

Advertising focused on the authenticity of Coca-Cola, urging consumers to "Demand the genuine" and "Accept no substitute." As copycats sprang up.

As the country roared into the new century, The Coca-Cola Company grew rapidly, moving into Canada, Panama, Cuba, Puerto Rico, France, and other countries and U.S. territories. In 1900, there were two bottlers of Coca-Cola; by 1920, there would be about 1,000.

The expansion of Coca-Cola overseas took place in 1923 and in 1928 Coca-Cola was introduction to the Olympic Games for the first time when Coca-Cola traveled with the U.S. team to the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics

To support troops in the Second World War (but also to keep their business steady as far as business is concerned) they offered coca cola to any troops for 5 cents.

During the war, many people enjoyed their first taste of the beverage, and when peace finally came, the foundations were laid for Coca-Cola to do business overseas. From the mid-1940s until 1960, the number of countries with bottling operations nearly doubled.

After 70 years of success with one brand, Coca-Cola, the Company decided to expand with new flavors: Fanta was originally developed in the 1940s and introduced in the 1950s; Sprite followed in 1961. In 1960, The Coca-Cola Company acquired The Minute Maid Company, adding the line of juices to the Company.

The Company's presence worldwide was growing rapidly, and year after year, Coca-Cola found a home in more and more places: Cambodia, Montserrat, Paraguay, Macau, Turkey and more.

The 1990s were a time of continued growth for The Coca-Cola Company. The Company's long association with sports was strengthened during this decade, with ongoing support of the Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup football (soccer), Rugby World Cup and the National Basketball Association. Coca-Cola classic became the Official Soft Drink of NASCAR racing, connecting the brand with one of the world's fastest growing and most popular spectator sports.

Spatial Organisation

It has 139,600 associates around the world, with 50 percent of them outside the U.S.

The Coca-Cola Europe Group employs approximately 1,600 Company associates who work with European bottler employees numbering more than 60,000 strong. Approximately one third of the Company team of 1,600 provides shared services for all of the Europe Group and beyond and manages group-wide resources, while 12 business units, consisting of one to four countries each, execute plans at the local market level.

Headquarters

The Coca-Cola Headquarters is a campus in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia that is home to The Coca-Cola Company.
Production

1920s & 30s - The Company began a major push to establish bottling operations outside the U.S. Plants were opened in France, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Belgium, Italy, Peru, Spain, Australia and South Africa. By the time World War II began, Coca-Cola was being bottled in 44 countries.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Company invested heavily to build plants in Eastern Europe. And as the century closed, more than $1.5 billion was committed to new bottling facilities in Africa.

Coca Cola don't always own their factories; they subcontract out to pre-existing bottling companies to save more money.

Coca Cola want to have access to high earning large populations such as India, by manufacturing their goods close to their intended market they can save on transportation costs.

Coca Cola manufactures their drink concentrate in America. The marketing of its products is also completed in America.

Bottlers buy the concentrate from the Coca Cola Company. They then mix it with water and sweeteners then they bottle the finished product. Each bottling company has exclusive rights to a region of the world. Coca Cola owns shares in some of the companies but not all of them, some are independent. Bottlers are in charge of distributing the products to the retailers.

Retailers sell the bottled products to the public to buy.

Research & Development

"Research and Innovation uses sensory science, product development and consumer insights to create totally new beverages and to improve existing ones. We work with our other R&I centres around the world as well as suppliers, agencies and outside research institutes to create the best beverages in the world."

R&D still takes place in the US, there has however been recent expansion:
"According to a Coca-Cola official, the company, which has been attempting to increase their efforts in Turkey, is now finalizing the details in order to bring the R&D centre project into fruition. Michael O'Neill, CEO of Coca-Cola Soft Drinks, stated, "The issue of tax incentives is definitely a significant factor in the decision to make Turkey a R&D centre." http://www.europe-re.com/system/main.php?pageid=2526&articleid=13516

Coca-Cola opened a new 90 million USD new research and development centre in Shanghai in March 2009

Social Influences for Countries Affected

Coca Cola offer training and education.

Coca Cola runs some community schemes in Africa and South East Asia.

One of Coke's microfinance startup schemes provide 4000 Vietnamese women with the merchandise, training and basic equipment to begin selling Coca Cola.

Environmental regulations are often less strict in LEDC's: some TNC's take advantage of this.

Working conditions in some factories are harsh. Employees get very few benefits and there are unlikely to be any unions.

Depletion of the local ground water table due to the utilisation of natural water resources by the company poses a serious threat to many communities. In March 2004, local officials in Kerala, India shut down a $16 million Coke bottling plant blamed for a drastic decline in both quantity and quality of water available to local farmers and villagers.

On February 25, 2010, a new lawsuit was launched on behalf of 8 plaintiffs against The Coca-Cola Co. and Coke processing and bottling plants in Guatemala, with charges of murder, rape, and torture of union leaders and their families.

In Colombia there are allegations that the company "hired, contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces". In January 2004, a New York City-based group, that included some city officials, confirmed the workers' allegations. They found:

"To date, there have been a total of 179 major human rights violations of Coca-Cola's workers, including 9 murders. Family members o f union activists have been abducted and tortured. Union members have been fired for attending union meetings. The company has pressured workers to resign their union membership and contractual rights, and fired workers who refused to do so.
Most troubling to the delegation were the persistent allegations that paramilitary violence against workers was done with the knowledge of and likely under the direction of company managers. The physical access that paramilitaries have had to Coca-Cola bottling plants is impossible without company knowledge and/or tacit approval...."
Economic Influences for Countries Affected

Creates jobs both directly and indirectly in the host country.

Many of the bottling firms are local companies so all the profit stays in the host country.

Coca Cola has invested $1.5 billion in the Russian Economy; this includes training, the construction of manufacturing plants and improvements to infrastructure.

In some LEDCS they work long hours for very little pay.

Profits are returned to the shareholders, very little of the money remains in the host countries.

TNCs are very powerful; if they are not happy with the economic conditions within the host country they will pull out leaving people unemployed.

Case Study of a TNC - Coca Cola

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Case Study of a TNC - The Coca Cola Company - Joe Blakey

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About Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in the stores, restaurants, and vending machines of more than 200 countries. It is the number one manufacturer of soft drinks in the world. Their headquarters is situated in Atlanta Georgia, USA. It is probably the best known brand symbol in the world.

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An overview of the topic of TNCS case study for revision

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Coca-Cola is to increase the amount of recycled plastic in its bottles to 50% amid pressure from environmentalists over runaway use of the containers.

The world's biggest drinks brand says it will hit its new UK recycling target - up from a previous goal of 40% - by 2020.

The company described the proposal as ambitious but environmentalists said they did not go far enough.

John Sauven, head of Greenpeace UK, said smaller drinks companies were already going much further. "Other companies are already at 50% and are aiming to be at 100% by 2020. Coca Cola is huge in scale and this is not an ambitious target."

Coca-Cola's UK and Europe arm currently has a target to increase the amount of recycled plastic or RPET in its bottles to 40% by 2020.

It has already performed a U-turn over bottle deposit schemes following pressure from Greenpeace. In evidence to MPs before the UK election was called, the company said it now supported a deposit scheme. It had previously said it was opposed to such an idea.

Figures obtained by the Guardian this month revealed that across the globe one million plastic bottles are bought by consumers every minute - roughly 20,000 a second.

The number will jump another 20% by 2021, with annual sales rising to more than half a trillion a year, creating an environmental crisis some campaigners predict will be as serious as climate change.

More than 480bn plastic drinking bottles were sold across the world in 2016, up from about 300bn a decade ago. By 2021 this will increase to 583.3bn, according to the most up-to-date estimates from Euromonitor International's global packaging trends report.

Coca-Cola said it would hit its 50% target by investing millions of pounds in "Europe's largest and most advanced plastic bottle recycling facility" based in Lincolnshire.

Jon Woods, general manager of Coca Cola Britain said today's announcement was the start of an effort to ensure all of its packaging was "recovered and recycled."

"Doubling the amount of recycled material in all of our plastic bottles is a significant investment and sends a clear signal we want to play a positive role in supporting the circular economy here in Great Britain."

Sources within the recycling industry said Coca-Cola was competing with other brands to be first to announce that it was making dramatic changes to its packaging to use more recycled plastic and recycle more of its bottles.

One source said: "This is because of a combination of consumer pressure and pressure from environmental groups. There is a feeling that no one wants to be the brand which is littering beaches with plastic and there is something of a race among brands to get their green message out first."

Louise Edge, senior oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: "People expect companies like Coca-Cola to make their bottles out of 100% recycled content, not virgin plastic. But the bigger question is how Coca-Cola will reduce the sheer scale of plastic it's pumping out.

"Producing over 100 billion single-use plastic bottles every year, Coke's plastic footprint has been stomped into our planet's environment. What's their plan to stop all that plastic ending up in our oceans, streets and beaches?"

There has been growing concern about the impact of plastics pollution in oceans around the world. Last month scientists found nearly 18 tonnes of plastic on one of the world's most remote islands, an uninhabited coral atoll in the South Pacific.

Globally Coca-Cola has repeatedly refused to release data to Greenpeace about its global plastic usage. The environmental campaign group estimates that Coca-Cola produces more than 100bn plastic bottles every year - or 3,400 a second.

The top six drinks companies in the world use a combined average of just 6.6% of recycled plastic (PET) in their products, according to Greenpeace. A third have no targets to increase their use of recycled plastic and none are aiming to use 100% across their global production.

Plastic drinking bottles could be made out of 100% recycled plastic, known as RPET - and campaigners are pressing big drinks companies to radically increase the amount of recycled plastic in their bottles. But brands have been hostile to using more RPET for cosmetic reasons. But the recycling source told the Guardian: "Consumer pressure and the image of plastic littering our beaches is making them think again."

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Coca-Cola to increase amount of recycled plastic in its bottles

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Coca-Cola is to increase the amount of recycled plastic in its bottles to 50% amid pressure from environmentalists over runaway use of the containers. The world's biggest drinks brand says it will hit its new UK recycling target - up from a previous goal of 40% - by 2020.

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Keep up to date with news on the Mexican earthquake

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Keep up to date with news on the Mexican earthquake

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As it happened: Deadly quake rocks Mexico

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Our minute-by-minute coverage of the frantic rescue mission after the huge quake near Mexico City.

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Hurricanes and the Sahara - what's the link??

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Hurricanes and the Sahara - what's the link??

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Hurricanes are wet and windy and sand is dry, but it turns out there is a link between the two.
With more Caribbean islands set to be hit by Hurricane Maria, the tropical islands could really benefit from the sand that lies almost 7,000 miles away.

Because sandstorms that originate in the Sahara Desert can sometimes stop hurricanes from forming.

The BBC's weather presenter Tomasz Schafernaker explains: "Sandstorms which happen in Africa can sometimes blow out into the Atlantic Ocean and can move out quite far, they can go as far as the Caribbean and the Amazon.

"It [the sand] is carried high in the air and that sand can inhibit hurricanes forming.

"The sand makes hazy skies but it stops the hurricanes. One reasons we think it stops the hurricanes is because there's a lot of sand in the air and the atmosphere is hazy.

"You have less sunlight going through and sometimes the ocean water doesn't warm up so much.

"And if the ocean water isn't warm enough then hurricanes can't grow because they love hot, tropical water."

The origins of the hurricanes affecting the Caribbean can actually be found near to the Sahara Desert and as far away as Ethiopia in eastern Africa.

Ripples in the jet stream, known as the Easterly Jet, are carried across the desert to the west coast of Africa and create thick thunderstorms.

When they eventually move out into the Atlantic Ocean they can sometimes form hurricanes and travel to the Caribbean and US.

Tomasz says the reason why the Caribbean is being hit by huge storms at the moment it because the atmosphere is still, calm and clean and moist.

"The ocean is basically like bathwater with light winds and steam just rising off it and the hurricanes love that.

"The very warm water is the perfect environment for a hurricane to thrive and the spin of the earth makes the thunderstorms and they are just growing into big monsters.

"It's ticking a box - a calm atmosphere, big thunderstorms and hot water. It's a jigsaw coming together."
Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat

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What has Saharan sand got to do with hurricanes?

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Hurricanes are wet and windy and sand is dry, but it turns out there is a link between the two. With more Caribbean islands set to be hit by Hurricane Maria, the tropical islands could really benefit from the sand that lies almost 7,000 miles away.

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A new group led by investors and leading figures from the City of London has been brought together by the government to draw up measures to encourage "green finance" in the UK.

The Green Finance Taskforce will have six months to come up with proposals on how to increase investment in the low-carbon economy and will work with banks and other financial institutions. Chaired by Sir Roger Gifford, former lord mayor of London, the taskforce will look at measures to make the UK's planned investments in infrastructure, for instance on energy and transport, more environmentally sustainable.

The government also wants to give investors assurances about how their money is being looked after, and promote ways for consumers to benefit, for instance through green mortgages, which make borrowing cheaper for those who have insulated their homes.

Claire Perry, minister for climate change, said the UK already showed strong investment in low-carbon activities, and should build on its strengths.

"The transition to a low-carbon economy is a multi-billion pound investment opportunity and a key part of this government's industrial strategy," she said. "Developing standards to promote responsible investment in sustainable projects and establishing the Green Finance Taskforce will help ensure businesses across the UK take full advantage of it."

Stephen Barclay, economic secretary to the Treasury, added: "Financial services are a British success story. It is a priority of mine that people are able to access financial products that support their values, whether that be sharia-compliant loans or green mortgages that have a positive environmental impact. This taskforce will keep the UK at the forefront of green finance and help deliver choice for consumers."

However, the government made it clear that its approach is likely to be based on voluntary standards, to be adopted by companies, banks and investment institutions if they wish. These could include standards for companies to disclose their exposure to risks from climate change, which some companies already attempt.

As a result, although the taskforce may provide guidelines for investors wishing to ensure they put their money in greener stocks, it is unlikely to have much effect on the behaviour of core fossil fuel companies, or those companies that prefer to stay invested in the fossil fuel economy.

Friends of the Earth, the green campaign group, urged the government to go further. "Coming only a few days after it was revealed that the cost of offshore wind has plummeted, this is another welcome boost to the green economy," said Simon Bullock, senior climate campaigner. "But ministers must also do far more to reduce investment in climate-wrecking fossil fuels, such as fracking and deep sea oil exploration. If we want to stop climate change, 80% of the world's coal, oil and gas reserves must be left in the ground."

Members of the Green Finance Taskforce include the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, a senior adviser to the Bank of England, representatives from Barclays, HSBC and Aviva, and representatives from the public sector and academia.

The UK government made the announcement on the taskforce to coincide with the opening of Climate Week in New York. There, some UK companies including Aviva, WPP and Marks & Spencer joined with others from around the world to endorse the disclosure of climate risks to investors.

Nigel Topping, chief executive of the We Mean Business coalition, said: "There is a great need among the investor community to have consistent climate-related financial risk disclosures from businesses in order to make more informed decisions on capital investment."

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Ministers launch group to help boost green business investment

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A new group led by investors and leading figures from the City of London has been brought together by the government to draw up measures to encourage "green finance" in the UK. The Green Finance Taskforce will have six months to come up with proposals on how to increase investment in the low-carbon economy and will work with banks and other financial institutions.

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The global demand for chocolate is seeing rainforest destroyed

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The world's chocolate industry is driving deforestation on a devastating scale in West Africa, the Guardian can reveal.

Cocoa traders who sell to Mars, Nestlé, Mondelez and other big brands buy beans grown illegally inside protected areas in the Ivory Coast, where rainforest cover has been reduced by more than 80% since 1960.

Illegal product is mixed in with "clean" beans in the supply chain, meaning that Mars bars, Ferrero Rocher chocolates and Milka bars could all be tainted with "dirty" cocoa. As much as 40% of the world's cocoa comes from Ivory Coast.

Q&A
How does 'dirty' cocoa end up in our chocolate?
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The chocolate industry works mainly as follows: small-scale farmers grow cocoa on plantations, many of which are illegal as they are in national parks or protected forests. They sell it to middlemen with motorbikes known as 'pisteurs', or direct to buyers in local towns. These supply traders, which are often multimillion-dollar companies, which in turn sell to big chocolatiers. There are so many transactions in the supply chains that big brands sourcing from implicated traders cannot be sure their product is not contaminated.

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The Guardian travelled across Ivory Coast and documented rainforests cleared for cocoa plantation; villages and farmers occupying supposedly protected national parks; enforcement officials taking kickbacks for turning a blind eye to infractions and trading middlemen who supply the big brands indifferent to the provenance of beans.

When approached for comment, Mars, Mondelez and Nestlé, and traders Cargill and Barry Callebaut did not deny the specific allegation that illegal deforestation cocoa had entered their supply chains. All said they were working hard to eradicate the commodity from their products.

Up to 70% of the world's cocoa is produced by 2 million farmers in a belt that stretches from Sierra Leone to Cameroon, but Ivory Coast and Ghana are the giants, the world's first and second biggest producers. They are also the biggest victims of deforestation. Ivory Coast is losing its forests at a faster rate than any other African country - less than 4% of the country is covered in rainforest. Once, one quarter was.

The ballooning global demand for chocolate means that if nothing is done, by 2030 there will be no forest left, according to the environmental group Mighty Earth which today publishes an investigation into deforestation caused by chocolat e. The final, insulting irony is that locals are so poor they could never afford to eat a Mars bar.

Evidence of deforestation is not hard to find. Inside the Mount Tia protected forest, Salam Sawadougou, a Burkinabé farmer, is hacking a yellow cocoa pod off one of his plants in a four hectare (10 acre) plot. Here, the grey stumps of enormous ancient trees are all that is left of the forest.

"I burned it little by little," Sawadougou says, explaining that his cocoa needed full sun to grow. Farmers generally believe that recently deforested soil produces the biggest beans, so they remove the trees one by one, planting more cocoa as they go.

In recent years, the annual rate of deforestation inside parks has doubled, and in both Ivory Coast and Ghana, it is going twice as fast as deforestation in unprotected areas.

Cocoa is a monster that will eventually eat itself, scientists say. Farmers will miss the trees they cut and burned down for the very reason that their shade would have protected their cocoa plants from increasingly parched, dry seasons, driven by cutting down trees.

When approached for comment, most big companies acknowledged the problem of deforestation for cocoa production and said they were committed to tackling the problem.

Barry Parkin, chief sustainability officer at Mars, said: "We are committed to identifying the best ways to end deforestation and forest degradation in the global cocoa supply chain.

Deforestation

"We know that sustainable cocoa is too big a challenge for any one company to address. That is why we are partnering with others in the industry to try and drive change at a global scale."

Nestlé said it was "opposed to the deforestation of rainforests and peatlands around the world. Nestlé regards it as one of the most serious environmental challenges facing the world."

It noted that in 2010 it had pledged that none of its products should be associated with deforestation, and added that it supported international moves to secure zero net-deforestation by 2020.

Mondelez's Cathy Pieters said that deforestation in supply chains was something they were actively trying to root out.

"We all recognise the urgency, and we all acknowledge the issue," she said. "As an individual company we have probably worked the longest on this. We are exactly in the middle of that process, because of the urgency and the need for a solution."

Hershey said it was committed to sourcing 100% certified, sustainably sourced cocoa by 2020. "We take concerns about deforestation and forest degradation very seriously," said spokesman Jeff Beckman.

Ferrero Rocher did not respond to request for comment.

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Cocoa dries outside the chief's house in the illegal village of Zanbarmakro in the Marahoué national park, Ivory Coast. Photograph: Ruth Maclean for the Guardian

The cocoa traders Cargill said: "We have made a pledge to end deforestation - and we are committed to delivering." The company added that it was aiming to ensure that more than 70% of its Ivory Coast product would be third-party verified or certified by the end of next year.

Barry Callebaut, another trading firm, pointed out its commitment to be 100% deforestation free by 2025.

It added: "For any global company/industry commitment to succeed, the boundaries of the national parks and forêt classée [classified forests] need to be redrawn or reconfirmed for an area equivalent to its original designation. The redrawn or reconfirmed boundaries need to be legally enforced by the governments."

Many cocoa industry players - although not all - have pledged to end deforestation and forest degradation in a collective statement published in June. But this is a vague promise to try harder, while the real test will be the contents of the framework for action presented at the UN's Convention on Climate Change in November.

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A captive monkey, one of the last remaining in Mount Tia protected forest, Ivory Coast. Photograph: Ruth Maclean for the Guardian

Some of the farmers growing cocoa inside protected areas have been living there for decades, and how to resettle them and find them a new means of making a living is one of the major problems that the government and the industry need to work out in November.

None of the companies said they would support a moratorium on deforestation cocoa, despite the fact that one on soy worked well to stop deforestation in the Amazon. Neither did they say they would commit to 100% shade-grown cocoa.

Government commitment to protecting national forests is also key. "Companies alone can't solve this, and the government alone can't solve this," says Richard Scobey of the World Cocoa Foundation.

The situation inside the country's 231 classified forests is even worse than in the parks, and this has partly to do with the different authorities that run them.

The government-funded agency protecting forests is called Sodefor; the state parks authority is the OIPR (Office Ivorien des Parcs et Réserves). Neither is doing its job. In the Marahoué park, the Guardian found repeated examples of kickbacks and racketeering by OIPR officials. In the Mount Tia classified forest, the top Sodefor official, Karma Bakary, was asked how long it would take for the forest to grow back to its former size. "One to two years," he said. Under further questioning he upped his estimate to 10 years.

It is also the responsibility of the Conseil Café Cacao, the state regulator for coffee and cocoa, to oversee the industry, checking the quality of the cocoa, ensuring the right prices are being paid, and seeing that none of it is grown using child labour or in protected areas.

Responding to the Guardian, the Conseil Café Cacao said that it was committed to "good governance and ethics" in its activities and pointed to a programme it started, Cocoa, Friend of the Forest. There is little evidence of the programme on the ground.

Privately, activists have been warned not to touch cocoa, the backbone of the country's economy whose vertebrae reach the highest levels of society. Those who do can get in to serious trouble. In 2004 Guy-André Kieffer, a French-Canadian journalist working on a story about cocoa and corruption, disappeared. He is believed to have been killed.

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Evidence of deforestation in Mount Tia protected forest, Ivory Coast. Photograph: Ruth Maclean for the Guardian

The destruction of Mount Tia started in 2004, during the first Ivorian civil war, but its much larger neighbour, Mount Sassandra forest, remained almost untouched until 2011, long after that conflict ended.

In Mount Sassandra, farmers run away at the sight of visitors, aware that their business is illegal. But these farmers are not the ones earning the vast profits to be made from chocolate: many live in poverty, often exploited and underpaid for their crop. Most cannot even afford that basic luxury in the west: a bar of chocolate.

"It's white people who eat chocolate, not us," one says.

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Chocolate industry drives rainforest disaster in Ivory Coast

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The world's chocolate industry is driving deforestation on a devastating scale in West Africa, the Guardian can reveal. Cocoa traders who sell to Mars, Nestlé, Mondelez and other big brands buy beans grown illegally inside protected areas in the Ivory Coast, where rainforest cover has been reduced by more than 80% since 1960.

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http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2125641/does-hong-kong-have-housing-crisis-answer-depends-whether-you

Summary:
The prices of houses in Hong Kong are the highest in the world. The spike in prices, according to price indices between January to October 2017 is concerning as they rose by over 11%. This trend has been prevalent since as long as 2003. Is it possible to lower prices?

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Coca-Cola has been accused of dehydrating communities in its pursuit of water resources to feed its own plants.