Month: June 2012

South Sudan Has Fourth Highest Infant Mortality Rate in Africa

Editors

AN ARTICLE ON ALLAFRICA.COM states that South Sudan is facing a severe health crisis due to a 98% decline in government revenue after the country’s oil production was shut down.

Juba — South Sudan has the fourth highest infant mortality rate in Africa according to a report published by the African Development Banks last month.

Reacting to the banks Africa Development Report, which included South Sudan for the first time, Health Minister Michael Milly Hussein said his ministry was sparing no efforts to improve basic health services but was quick to point out that the country is “being caught up” between competing priorities.

Loosing 98% of government revenue, when South Sudan shutdown oil production due to a transit fee argument with Khartoum has meant that services in health and other areas are having to be cut back.

Despite this period of austerity minister said a lot of efforts were being exerted to “improve basic health services” in collaboration with development partners. READ MORE.

California Voters Approve Pension Cuts

Editors

IAN LOVETT WRITES IN THE NEW YORK TIMES:

LOS ANGELES — As Wisconsin residents voted on Tuesday not to recall Gov. Scott Walker — who has become an enemy of labor unions nationwide — two California cities dealt blows of their own to organized labor.

In San Diego and San Jose, voters overwhelmingly approved ballot initiatives designed to help balance ailing municipal budgets by cutting retirement benefits for city workers.

Around 70 percent of San Jose voters favored the pension measure, while 66 percent of San Diego residents supported a similar measure.

“This is really important to our taxpayers,” Mayor Chuck Reed of San Jose, said Tuesday night. “We’ll get control over these skyrocketing retirement costs and be able to provide the services they are paying for.” READ MORE.

CBO: US Entitlements Put Federal Debt on Unsustainable Path

Editors

PETER SUDERMAN WRITES IN REASON:

The latest long-term budget outlook from the Congressional Budget Office reads like a particularly dark noir: Things start out pretty bad. And then they get worse.

“Over the past few years,” the report’s first sentence explains, “the federal government has been recording budget deficits that are the largest as a share of the economy since 1945.”

Before the year is out, debt held by the public — the federal government’s outstanding debts to outside parties — will equal 70 percent of the total economy. That’s not a pretty picture. And it’s not likely to get better. It is a foregone conclusion that large entitlements, Medicare and Medicaid in particular, are destined to cost far more as a percentage of the economy due to the aging of the Baby Boomer generation, the rise in health costs, and long-term care expenses born by Medicaid. If today’s laws are kept on the books, “spending on the major federal health care programs alone would grow from more than 5 percent of GDP today to almost 10 percent in 2037 and would continue to increase thereafter.”

In a quarter century, entitlements, which currently account for about 10 percent of GDP, would alone chew up a full 16 percent of the economy. That would represent a massive historical shift: For the last four decades, the entire federal government, including entitlements, has consumed an average of 18.5 percent of the country’s economic output.  Relative to the size of today’s economy, that would be like spending an extra $850 billion annually on entitlements. In a growing future economy, it will be far more. READ MORE.

OR READ THE CBO’S FULL REPORT.

BCG: Demographics Drive Growth of ‘Experiential Luxury’

Editors

A new report from the Boston Consulting Group says that shifting demographics is one of the main drivers in the growth of experiential luxury, a subsector which caters to people who favor experiencing luxury (for example at a spa or safari) over owning luxury.

“The research behind the report shows that experiential luxury now makes up almost 55 percent of total luxury spending worldwide and, year on year, has grown 50 percent faster than sales of luxury goods.”

“Four trends are driving the move toward experiential luxury:

  1. The dictates of demographics. In developed economies such as the U.S., Japan, and Europe, consumers who drove the luxury boom in the 1990s are now beginning to retire. They have reached a stage in life when they no longer need nor want to own new “things”—so they are primary customers for experiential-luxury offerings.” READ MORE.

Ericsson: Mobile Broadband Subscriptions Will Rise Five-fold by 2017

Editors

Swedish telecom giant Ericsson released a Traffic and Market Report in which it predicts that 85% of the world’s population will be covered by high-speed internet as early as 2017. It estimates that the total number of mobile broadband subscriptions will quintuple from 1.1 billion today to 5 billion in 2017. In the same period, smartphone subscriptions will rise from 700 million to 3 billion.  READ MORE.

Uganda Third Fastest-Growing Population on Earth

Editors

ARNE DOORNEBAL WRITES AT RADIO NETHERLANDS:

With an increase of 1.2 million citizens every year, Uganda is the third-fastest growing country on earth. The population boom is causing bitter fights over land and may lead to food shortages, warn experts. Meanwhile, individual families feel the strain. “I love my children, but just wished I had fewer of them,” says a struggling mother of seven.

A focused conversation with Justine is not possible because a horde of children permanently surrounds her. The twin four-year-old sons scream for attention, while her three-year-old daughter tries to grab the notebook of a visitor.

“Ugandan women are extremely fertile,” says the 40 year old. “I love my children very much, but I fail to give everyone enough attention. I have to combine motherhood with my work as a hotel manager. The youngest children delay going to school because I use the money for school fees for the elder ones,” she explains.

Justine was married twice. Both men left her. Only the second ex-husband contributes to his children’s education. This scenario is commonplace in Uganda, where women give birth to an average of 6.2 children. READ MORE.

Pakistan: Small Declines in Population Growth and Fertility Rate

Editors

JAMILA ACHAKZAI WRITES IN THE NEWS:

The country’s population growth, crude birth, fertility and infant mortality rates have improved over the last one-year with the government attributing the phenomenon to better provision of health and population welfare services to people.

According to the latest Economic Survey of Pakistan, the country’s population growth rate declined from 2.05 per cent in 2010-11 to 2.03 per cent in 2011-12, while the crude birth rate dropped from 27.5 (per thousand) to 27.2 (per thousand) and the total fertility rate from 3.5 per cent to 3.4 per cent during the said period. READ MORE.