Welcome to IKEA Beijing, where the atmosphere is more theme park than store.

When the Swedish furniture giant first opened here in 1999, it hoped locals would embrace its European brand of minimalism. A decade later, Beijingers have done just that. Perhaps too much.

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un article du NY Times sur l’emploi des séniors et plus précisément sur le chomâge des seniors aux USA.

Pour commenter un texte : allez voir là  et plus spécifiquement,

pour un article de presse : par là

et puis du vocabulaire d’analyse financière : là

De l’aide pour faire le rapport de stage ? Cliquez ici

Enfin, LE site de référence pour les BTS, une mine d’or !

To its European visitors, Disney sells fairytales. But the recent suicides of two park workers have exposed more sinister stories of a staff driven to breaking point.

Read more about it here

read more about it here

a great graph here

I hope you were spoilt for Xmas !

The aviation industry will tomorrow make a dramatic pledge to slash carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2050 in a move that will force up air fares and spark a green technology race among aircraft manufacturers.

Dan Milmo: Its a bit murky – a global trading system Link to this audio

The British Airways chief executive, Willie Walsh, will unveil an agreement between airlines, airports and aircraft companies to cut emissions to 50% below 2005 levels by 2050. In a bid to seize the initiative from environmental groups clamouring for higher taxes on the industry, the plan will be presented to world leaders at the United Nations forum on climate change in New York.

Airlines have been accused of dragging their heels over climate change, but the strategic shift reflects industry concerns that it could be ambushed at the global warming summit in Copenhagen in December if it does not address its growing emissions.

Writing in the Guardian, climate change secretary Ed Miliband says he is haunted by the possibility that politicians will fail to reach a global climate deal. Calling for a new urgency and spirit of co-operation in the negotiations, he writes: “The fate of every nation on earth hangs on the outcome of Copenhagen. It is too important to play the cards-close-to-your-chest poker games that marked diplomacy of the twentieth century.”

UN officials are hoping that China’s president, Hu Jintao, may break the deadlock in the negotiations by announcing in New York ambitious plans to reduce China’s carbon emissions.

If Walsh’s proposals are accepted by the UN, they will be on the agenda at Copenhagen, where world leaders hope to agree global emissions reduction targets. The pledges drawn up by members of the global airline body, the International Air Transport Association, are:

• To reduce net carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2050, compared with 2005 levels.

• To make all industry growth carbon-neutral by 2020.

• To cut carbon dioxide emissions by 1.5% per year over the next decade.

• To submit plans for joining a global carbon trading scheme to the UN by November 2010.

The 50% reduction target by 2050 goes further than the UK government’s target of limiting airline emissions to 2005 levels by the same deadline. Walsh’s presentation to UN delegates on behalf of IATA will be viewed by climate change campaigners as an attempt to pre-empt punitive measures at Copenhagen, amid fears among airline executives that the aviation industry will be singled out over its exclusion from carbon dioxide caps enshrined in the 1997 Kyoto protocols.

Walsh will say: “International aviation emissions were not included in the Kyoto protocol 12 years ago. Now we have a chance to rectify that omission, and we must seize it. Our proposals represent the most environmentally effective and practical means of reducing aviation’s carbon impact. They are the best option for the planet and we urge the UN to adopt them.”

Under the proposals, airlines would leave the EU emissions trading scheme, which they are due to join in 2012, and would buy carbon dioxide permits in a global market. Walsh warned earlier this year that a global scheme would add around £3bn per year to industry costs, which would be passed on to passengers through higher fares. According to the European commission, the EU trading scheme will add €9 (£8.16) to the cost of a return short-haul flight and €40 to a long-distance return flight. However, campaigners suggested the new pledge was undermined by its reliance on the industry funding emissions cuts elsewhere. “It is a real problem that this will include offsetting and buying carbon credits,” said John Sauven, director of Greenpeace. “It shows that Willie Walsh is not really taking the issue of climate change seriously.”

Aviation accounts for 1.6% of global greenhouse emissions currently, but will become the biggest emitter in the developed world if it grows unchecked. The government’s advisory body, the committee on climate change, warned ministers this month that aviation will account for a quarter of all emissions in the developed world even if it caps 2050 emissions at 2005 levels.

The committee also recommended state investment in the green technology. Cutting the industry’s emissions will require radical advances in technology that, if they are not achieved, would force airlines to make up the difference on carbon trading or offset markets. Airlines are expected to lose $11bn (£6.8bn) this year, according to IATA, and their weak balance sheets will be strained further by carbon permits, analysts say.

taken from : http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/21/airlines-carbon-emissions-cut

Up to a quarter of a million public sector workers have taken part in a national strike in the Republic of Ireland.

Civil servants, some medical staff and teachers are protesting at government plans to cut the public sector pay bill by 1.3bn euros next year.

They say they cannot take any more cuts in their wages after an emergency budget earlier this year.

Almost all public offices and schools were closed.

Hospital appointments for up to 16,000 patients were cancelled.

Thousands of people also faced delays in social security payments.

Irish police have said that no speeding fines will be issued because of the strike.

Trade unions said the government had refused to engage with them on ways of cutting the state pay and pensions bill by 1.3bn euros without cutting pay, pensions or services.

They said the government had forced the action by failing to negotiate a fair alternative to plans for a second huge pay cut this year.

However, a number of unions have deferred strike action in areas affected by recent floods.

The strike affected a wide range of the public sector:

• A majority of civil service employees took part;
• A limited customs service is running at ports and airports;
• Prison officers have been striking for an hour at different times – prisoners are being locked in their cells during the action;
• Emergency cover being provided by fire and water services;
• Most local authorities staff are on strike but staff at flood-hit areas are still working;
• Hospital staffing is at Christmas Day levels – only “genuine emergency” cases advised to show up at A&E departments, hospital appointments are being deferred and non-emergency procedures postponed, although strike exemptions were granted to key areas including palliative and intensive care;
• Police are forbidden by law to strike but members of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors have been instructed not to make themselves available for overtime; and,
• More than 50,000 teachers are on strike.

taken from : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8375745.stm

They journeyed to the desert emirate of Dubai by the tens of thousands. Laborers from small towns on the Indian subcontinent and white-collar executives from the capitals of Europe. They came seeking fortune, and they built a modern city unlike any the world had ever seen: a city with the world’s largest tower, an indoor ski slope and a honeymoon suite with a live whale shark in the window.

A city where anything was possible. Sand too hot? Then build a beach with underground refrigeration.

“I call the story an improbable fairy tale,” Ms. Greenfield said. “Anything that could be fantasized could be built. It really was the land of opportunity. It’s more Las Vegas than Las Vegas.”

At first glance, Dubai might seem an odd place to find Ms. Greenfield. She is best known for powerful photographs and films that explore the corrosive effect of modern consumer culture on American teenage girls, and also for her disquieting images of women with eating disorders.

But Dubai offered Ms. Greenfield, 43, the opportunity to further explore wealth and the effects of unbridled materialism. So after several months of research, she spent two weeks photographing there.

“Dubai is a cautionary tale in the same way as the foreclosure crisis — which I photographed — was,” Ms. Greenfield said last weekend, as the financial crisis in Dubai unfolded. “Dubai was this miracle of development with minimal planning and no infrastructure.”

Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest skyscraper, is still under construction, overlooking artificial islands shaped like palm trees. The tower is a useful symbol for considering Dubai. Is it the Tower of Babel? Is it Icarus, flying too close to the sun? It’s unclear whether this crisis will simply be a pause in Dubai’s ascent or whether Dubai’s story will itself become a cautionary tale of mythical dimensions.

taken from : http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/showcase-85/?hp

see pictures here

The number of Americans who lived in households that lacked consistent access to adequate food soared last year, to 49 million, the highest since the government began tracking what it calls “food insecurity” 14 years ago, the Department of Agriculture reported Monday.

The increase, of 13 million Americans, was much larger than even the most pessimistic observers of hunger trends had expected and cast an alarming light on the daily hardships caused by the recession’s punishing effect on jobs and wages.

About a third of these struggling households had what the researchers called “very low food security,” meaning lack of money forced members to skip meals, cut portions or otherwise forgo food at some point in the year.

The other two-thirds typically had enough to eat, but only by eating cheaper or less varied foods, relying on government aid like food stamps, or visiting food pantries and soup kitchens.

One figure that drew officials’ attention was the number of households, 506,000, in which children faced “very low food security”: up from 323,000 the previous year. President Obama, who has pledged to end childhood hunger by 2015, released a statement while traveling in Asia that called the finding “particularly troubling.”

Analysts said the main reason for the growth was the rise in the unemployment rate, to 7.2 percent at the end of 2008 from 4.9 percent a year earlier. And since it now stands at 10.2 percent, the survey might in fact understate the number of Americans struggling to get adequate food.

The food stamp rolls have expanded to record levels, with 36 million Americans now collecting aid, an increase of nearly 40 percent from two years ago. And the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed last winter, raised the average monthly food stamp benefit per person by about 17 percent, to $133. Many states have made it easier for those eligible to apply, but rising applications and staffing cuts have also brought long delays.

Problems gaining access to food were highest in households with children headed by single mothers. About 37 percent of them reported some form of food insecurity compared with 14 percent of married households with children. About 29 percent of Hispanic households reported food insecurity, compared with 27 percent of black households and 12 percent of white households. Serious problems were most prevalent in the South, followed equally by the West and Midwest.

taken from : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/us/17hunger.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimes