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We are now betting our money on water in the United States – for the very first time
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For the first time in the history of the United States, we are betting on the price of water on Wall Street, the country's stock market.
Why bet on water though?
Well, water is becoming more and more of a luxury product aka there is less and less left of it because of climate change. This changes the dynamic (remember 'supply and demand' in Econ class at school?). Currently, if a farmer wants to know what water will cost in California six months from now, it’s kind of a "best guess". Now, you can see "everybody's best guess".
Can I bet, too?
Yes, in a way. They're called futures contracts. The idea comes from the CME Group. Basically, you'd be betting on the availability of water in California which is a $1.1 billion local water market.
Why this matters: How much water costs and how much of it is available to whom matters a great deal, especially in places like California where there are more and more drought seasons (aka it is becoming difficult to predict how much water is available). This is a way to control the risks of water supply and demand.
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We decided that it's OK if Muslim girls wear headscarves to school in Austria
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Austria's highest court said, 'Muslim girls in school can now wear headscarves to school again.'
Why this matters: Freedom of Religion is a human right and it matters very, very much if a government chooses to respect it or not. Also, in 2018, it was estimated that about 4.2 percent of people in Austria were Muslims.
Tell me more
Before this court's decision, Muslim girls were not allowed to wear a headscarf at school. A law banned that, saying 'religious head coverings are taboo at school.' Strangely, Sikh boys or the Jewish skullcap were not affected by this; only Muslim girls.
Why did they ban the Muslim headscarf in the first place?
The law came to be last year – around the time when the government was full of conservative and far-right decision-makers. 'We just want to protect children from political Islam.' Now, the Austrian government is made up of conservative and left-leaning, climate-friendly people.
Why did the court take the Muslim girls' side now?
Basically, it (kinda) said 'I think if we as the government send the signal that 'headscarves are something illegal' to children, they might grow up thinking exactly that. Then this could make Austria a very dangerous place to live for Muslim girls. And we don't want to do that to them.'
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We said no to sexual abuse on one of the world's most visited websites
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P0rnhub (based in Limassol, Cyprus but MindGeek, the site owner, is in Montréal, Canada) will change a lot of rules for its users after everyone found out about the many illegal videos of child abuse and sexual violence on there.
Why this matters: This is one of the world's most visited adult websites. Meaning, it has billions of visitors and millions of videos are uploaded every year.
Tell me more
Well, if you wanted to watch videos of children having sex with adults or worse, getting abused, you could. Remember the story of Rose Kalemba? She was filmed while she was raped at the age of 14 and the video was uploaded onto the website. 'I just couldn't remove it from there.' Unfortunately, she's not the only victim.
How does P0rnhub make money?
Subscription and (mostly) advertising from/for companies of almost every industry such as Visa Inc. and Mastercard. Both two payment companies are now thinking about cutting ties with the website.
So, what are the new rules?
Only verified users can now upload videos. Nobody can download anything any longer. And, there will be a transparency report next year.
For my German readers: I talked about this on Die Wochendämmerung with Katrin Rönicke and Holger Klein.
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We are living longer but preventable disease is killing us more
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The World Health Organization published the top 10 causes of death in 2019 (number of deaths in million):
- Ischaemic heart disease (9) (world's leading cause of death for the last 20 years)
- Stroke (around 6)
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (3)
- Lower respiratory infections (some 3)
- Neonatal conditions (2)
- Trachea, bronchus, lung cancers (some 2)
- Alzheimer's disease and other dementias (almost 2)
- Diarrhoeal diseases (almost 2) (good news: it was almost 3 in
- Diabetes mellitus (almost 2) (since 2000, 70% more people die from this disease worldwide)
- Kidney diseases (almost 2)
Why this matters: It is important to know why people die to improve how people live. We can then look at how effective our health systems are and whether or not we're doing a good job making it better. Are we giving enough money to the right people, products and industries (like food or agriculture) that could have a positive impact?
Your take-away:
Almost 75% of the world's deaths last year were from non-infectious diseases like heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
- Worldwide life expectancy is now up to an average of 73 years — six years longer than it was in 2000.
- And chronic, and in some cases preventable, disease killing a lot of people, too. HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and lower respiratory diseases are killing mostly poorer people.
- COVID-19 will definitely be among the top 10 next year. We've already reached 1.5 million deaths.
Read the entire report here.
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Simi Bassi, new whlw member and journalist wrote about the discussion around abortion in Argentina right now.
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We are (probably) making it OK for women to get an abortion in Argentina
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One part of the government (the lower house of Congress) in Argentina said, 'yes to a law that allows for abortion!'. The other part (the Senate) hasn't said anything yet. If yes, it would make it legal to end pregnancies up to 14 weeks.
Why this matters: If the Senate in Argentina says 'yes!' too, then the country would become the fourth nation on the still-very-Catholic South American continent to legalize abortion – others are Uruguay, Cuba and Guyana. Right now, it’s only allowed in Argentina if the woman has been raped or if the mother’s life is at risk. This is how happy everyone was when they found out about this last vote.
Why now?
It has a lot to do with who is leading the country right now: President Alberto Fernández. Ever since he took office a year ago, he's been very passionate about creating better opportunities for the LGBTQ+ community and women in the country – even as the country is in a lot of financial trouble right now.
How likely is it that the Senate says yes to this now?
It's still unclear. The last time the country discussed abortion, in 2018, the government said ‘no, this is morally wrong.’ But I spoke to pro-choice Argentinian biologist Alberto Kornblihtt who actually testified in the lower house of Congress back then. He says he’s a bit more optimistic this time. We’re now discussing women’s safety, not “whether or not an embryo or fetus is a human being.”
- Btw, Kornblihtt’s testimony went viral in Argentina then. You can read more about him here.
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We gave Morocco the right to rule over Western Sahara
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As of last week, Morocco and Israel are diplomatic friends again and the United States said, 'Morocco, we accept and recognize that you rule over Western Sahara' – something the United States has been trying to avoid saying out loud for decades.
Why this matters: What's happening here in the Sahara desert was kind of a forgotten conflict. Not anymore. Some people are worried that this might start an actual war even (there's already been some fighting). Oh, and Morocco is the fourth Arab country to get all lovey-dovey with Israel in the last four months. Fun fact: only 4% of Moroccans think being friends with Israel is a good idea.
Is Western Sahara a country?!
Yes and no. 652,271 people (as of 2020) live on this place on Earth that's almost the same size as the United Kingdom. One third of the country is ruled by the Polisario Front (who are based in Algeria). And the other two-thirds? Morocco, for the past few decades. They get their phosphate from there and have already invested billions into housing and infrastructure, too.
Tell me more about the relationship between Western Sahara and Morocco
It's not good. After (colonial) Spain left, Morocco said, 'it's now mine' in 1975. Then, the local people, also known as the Sahrawi people or the Polisario Front, were like, 'nope, you wish' and fought for independence for 16 years. The United Nations in 1991 was like, 'stop fighting. sign this peace deal,' which they kind of did. The deal also called for an independence referendum, but it never happened for some reason. And now, with things looking the way they do now, it might never. 'We have to defend ourselves. With weapons,' said the Polisario Front.
- Did you know that Western Sahara is often called 'Africa's last colony'?
What does the international community think about this?
The international community never said that it is OK of Morocco to rule over Morocco — until last week. The United States is now the only Western country to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. Other countries, for example, are Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
What will or can Joe Biden do?
Nothing, really. He may do nothing because undoing this would probably cause a bigger headache than to just be totally flaky about it. In 2020 terms, he might 'ghost' this whole topic altogether and never talk about it again.
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Read "How our data encodes systematic racism" by Deborah Raji on MIT Tech Review.
- Short summary: Data is not perfect and we need to work harder on making sure that machine learning systems don't learn all the racism, sexism and other bad isms that already exist in society.
Listen to Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole's 2020 Spotify playlist or to the Bill Gates and Rashina Jones Ask Big Questions podcast episode "Is inequality inevitable?" (if you're not on Spotify, click here). Reader Leu Huang, student in Berlin, Germany, recommended it to me: "This episode makes you think about privilege and social mobility. I learned that it is not only important to provide access to healthcare, jobs and education, but how the *right* access can be established through empathy."
Taste the new Ben & Jerry’s Colin Kaepernick-inspired ice cream flavor, “Change the Whirled.”
Watch this to cry happy tears.
Organize a secret santa with Roboclaus without doing anything yourself.
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We finally made it OK to be homosexual in Bhutan. This is not the funny bit.
The funny bit is: In Bhutan, they're obsessed with dick pics. They've kind of always been. Images of the phallus are all over the place: on doorways, rooftops, painted on the side of homes, in all shapes and forms, hairy, with eyes, sometimes a dragon hugs it and other times, it is even ejaculating.
Congratulations to the Buthanese society for being a bit more accepting to itself.
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How did you like this issue? Talk to me.
Sham.
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