 |  | | Debt Crisis & West |
 YOU may recall the Latin
American debt crisis of 1982,
the Asian debt crisis of 1997,
the Russian debt crisis of 1998
- and you´ll certainly remember
the US sub-prime debt crisis of 2008.
Now we have a European debt crisis
and, horror of horrors, a US government
debt crisis.
That´s the word to keep hold of: debt.
Ignore the financiers´ jargon - bond
yields, credit default swaps, hedge
funds - which make finance sound like
quantum physics, a fearfully abstruse
subject beyond the grasp of ordinary
mortals. Financial crises occur when
people (or governments or companies)
can´t repay their debts. Or more precisely
when their creditors (or shareholders)
decide they aren´t likely to get
their money... |
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| |  | | US GRIPPED BY GREAT
CONTRACTION |
| IN the wake of the hugely disappointing
budget deal and
the S&P´s debt downgrade,
maybe we need to hang a new
sign in the immigration arrival
halls at all US ports and airports. It
could simply read: "Welcome. You
are entering the United States of
America. Past performance is not
necessarily indicative of future
returns."
Because our country is now finding
itself in the worst kind of
decline - a slow decline, just slow
enough for us to keep deluding ourselves
that nothing really fundamental
needs to change if our
future is to match our past.
Our slow decline is a product of
two inter-related problems. First,
we´ve let our five basic pillars of
growth erode since the end of the
Cold War - education, infrastructure,
immigration... |
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 | ´Over 100 diabetics call
QDA helpline every day´
THE Qatar Diabetes Association
(QDA) launched its
helpline for the holy month of
Ramadan. And the helpline
has already been widely appreciated
by diabetic patients.
"The phone-based emergency.
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| | Katara attracts children
with cannon contest |  KATARA, the cultural village,
has launched its Ramadan
Cannon Competition during
the Ramadan Festival on its
premises.
The competition, aimed at
children, provides a fun and
interactive way for visitors to
learn about the holy month
and a chance for three lucky
participants to win prizes at
the end of the month.
Running until August 24,
the cannon (located between
buildings 12 and 16) fires
hundreds of candy parachutes
with Ramadan-related
factoids attached on small
Katara-branded strips of
paper at 10pm daily. The
more strips the children collect
and keep over the course
of the month, the greater
their chance of winning the
competition... |
| | 13 schools participate in British
Council´s reading programme |  THIRTEEN independent
primary schools participated
in the Space Hop Reading
Challenge in the last academic
year.
Over 1,000 students
actively participated in the
challenge to read six books,
in a one month period in
their school library, the aim
of which was to encourage
reading for pleasure in
English.
For every book read, the
students received some kind
of incentive, for example a
pencil or stickers. The competitive
edge was high
among the students. One
student from Muraikh
Independent Primary
School read 16 books in the
four weeks and a group of
girls from Al Bayan Primary
2 challenged each other to
finish the six books within a
week... | | | ´WORLD TURNS A BLIND EYE AS HUMAN
DISASTER LOOMS LARGE OVER SOMALIA´ |
 The United Nations has declared a
state of famine in parts of Somalia —
the first in East Africa this century.
Two years of drought have displaced
25 percent of Somalia´s population,
while other countries in the region have also
been badly affected. A UN report estimated
that East Africa is experiencing the worst
drought in 60 years, with more than 10 million
people threatened by starvation in four
countries — Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and
Djibouti. It has been caused by the lack of
rainfall and the failure of governments to
adequately finance agriculture and irrigation
schemes. Somalia is the hardest hit,
with the UN declaring a famine in its Bakool
and Lower... |
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