http://www.unhistoryproject.org/
The website provides comprehensive guides to physical and online sources on the United Nations. It also collates many of the research guides on the United Nations that already exist. In addition, leading scholars on the UN have written about their experiences working in UN archives and discuss further research possibilities.
The website offers a set of teaching materials for UN history. There are annotated bibliographies, timelines, and featured sources on thirteen major themes of UN history. There are resources from a course taught on the global history of the UN at Harvard in spring 2011 as well as a compilation of other syllabi on UN topics.
terça-feira, 9 de outubro de 2012
Do the dead outnumber the living?
February 2012
Do the dead outnumber the living?
The idea helps fuel fears that the population is expanding too fast.
It is true that if you delve back into the mists of time, the population of Earth was tiny in comparison to today and logically it might seem plausible that the living outnumber the dead.
It is agreed by most demographers that the UN figure for the number alive today is reasonably accurate. The problem is, how do you calculate how many have ever lived, and where do you start?
One group to have done the work is the Population Reference Bureau in Washington.
Wendy Baldwin from the Bureau says that the normal starting point is when Homo sapiens first walked the earth, about 50,000 years ago.
So you have a starting point and an end figure but it's the time in between that causes the problems. "For 99% of that time there is no data," she says.
In the 20th Century, the world's birth rate dropped from 40 births per 1,000 people per year to just 31 in 1995, and today it is only 23.
But long ago, humans needed a reproduction rate of about 80 births per 1,000 people per year in order to survive, Wendy Baldwin says, because people didn't live so long and far fewer of those born had children.
"Today, life expectancy is about 75-80 [years] and for most of human history that was not the case," she says.
"We have some estimates for the Middle Ages where life expectancy might have been 10-12, which means many people never made it out of childhood.
"Even if you had a lot of births, many of those never lived to actually bear children themselves."
In other words, it would be easy to underestimate the number of people who were born, lived and died, in the earlier part of human history. That estimate of 80 births per 1,000 people per year looks very high by today's standards - but in fact it is conservative, implying "a very slow population growth, much slower than anything we see today".
Added to this educated guess for the early period is much more accurate data from the modern era.
This written record means that you can be pretty confident about the final figure for the number of people who have ever lived, she explains.
Population growth has mostly happened in the modern period, she says, when records were kept, so if estimates for the early period are slightly out, this will not drastically change the overall ratio of "ever lived" to "living".
So what are the figures? There are currently seven billion people alive today and the Population Reference Bureau estimates that about 107 billion people have ever lived.
This means that we are nowhere near close to having more alive than dead. In fact, there are 15 dead people for every person living. We surpassed seven billion dead way back between 8000BC and AD1.
But Ms Baldwin points out he was not wrong.
"He was making his statement in 1968. There were maybe 3.5 billion people currently living on earth so if you use our method, that would be one living person to 29 dead."
And will we ever reach a point where there are more alive than dead?
This would imply a very high rate of population growth.
"Could we imagine a carrying capacity of the Earth of 100-150 billion? I find that quite unimaginable."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16870579
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx
Do the dead outnumber the living?
The population of the planet reached seven billion in October, according to the United Nations. But what's the figure for all those who have lived before us?
It is often said that there are more people alive today than have ever lived - and this "fact" has raised its head again since the UN announcement about the planet's population reaching a new high.The idea helps fuel fears that the population is expanding too fast.
It is true that if you delve back into the mists of time, the population of Earth was tiny in comparison to today and logically it might seem plausible that the living outnumber the dead.
It is agreed by most demographers that the UN figure for the number alive today is reasonably accurate. The problem is, how do you calculate how many have ever lived, and where do you start?
One group to have done the work is the Population Reference Bureau in Washington.
Wendy Baldwin from the Bureau says that the normal starting point is when Homo sapiens first walked the earth, about 50,000 years ago.
So you have a starting point and an end figure but it's the time in between that causes the problems. "For 99% of that time there is no data," she says.
- This means experts have to make an educated guess.
But long ago, humans needed a reproduction rate of about 80 births per 1,000 people per year in order to survive, Wendy Baldwin says, because people didn't live so long and far fewer of those born had children.
"Today, life expectancy is about 75-80 [years] and for most of human history that was not the case," she says.
"We have some estimates for the Middle Ages where life expectancy might have been 10-12, which means many people never made it out of childhood.
"Even if you had a lot of births, many of those never lived to actually bear children themselves."
In other words, it would be easy to underestimate the number of people who were born, lived and died, in the earlier part of human history. That estimate of 80 births per 1,000 people per year looks very high by today's standards - but in fact it is conservative, implying "a very slow population growth, much slower than anything we see today".
Added to this educated guess for the early period is much more accurate data from the modern era.
"Once you have written records, once you have censuses, when countries start to collect taxes, you start developing written record," says Wendy Baldwin.
From around 1800, and even a little before that, is where the data becomes much better. "It then becomes plausible to say [around this time] you have a billion people on earth." This written record means that you can be pretty confident about the final figure for the number of people who have ever lived, she explains.
Population growth has mostly happened in the modern period, she says, when records were kept, so if estimates for the early period are slightly out, this will not drastically change the overall ratio of "ever lived" to "living".
So what are the figures? There are currently seven billion people alive today and the Population Reference Bureau estimates that about 107 billion people have ever lived.
This means that we are nowhere near close to having more alive than dead. In fact, there are 15 dead people for every person living. We surpassed seven billion dead way back between 8000BC and AD1.
Fans of science fiction may be reaching for their copies of Arthur C Clarke's classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, at this point.
In that book, he makes the assertion: "Behind every man now alive stand 30 ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living."But Ms Baldwin points out he was not wrong.
"He was making his statement in 1968. There were maybe 3.5 billion people currently living on earth so if you use our method, that would be one living person to 29 dead."
And will we ever reach a point where there are more alive than dead?
This would imply a very high rate of population growth.
"Could we imagine a carrying capacity of the Earth of 100-150 billion? I find that quite unimaginable."
How many people have ever lived? | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Population | Births / 1,000 | Births since previous date |
| Source: Population Reference Bureau estimates | |||
| 50,000BC | 2 | - | - |
| 8,000BC | 5,000,000 | 80 | 1,137,789,769 |
| AD1 | 300,000,000 | 80 | 46,025,332,354 |
| 1200 | 450,000,000 | 60 | 26,591,343,000 |
| 1650 | 500,000,000 | 60 | 12,782,002,453 |
| 1750 | 795,000,000 | 50 | 3,171,931,513 |
| 1850 | 1,265,000,000 | 40 | 4,046,240,009 |
| 1900 | 1,656,000,000 | 40 | 2,900,237,856 |
| 1950 | 2,516,000,000 | 31-38 | 3,390,198,215 |
| 1995 | 5,760,000,000 | 31 | 5,427,305,000 |
| 2011 | 6,215,000,000 | 23 | 2,130,327,622 |
| Number who have ever lived: 107,602,707,791 | |||
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16870579
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx
domingo, 7 de outubro de 2012
Court upholds German Catholic Church membership tax
German Catholic Church Links Tax to the Sacraments
By MELISSA EDDY
BERLIN — It is a paradox of modern Germany that church and state remain so intimately tied. That bond persists more and more awkwardly, it seems, as the church’s relationship with followers continues to fray amid growing secularization.
Last week one of Germany’s highest courts rankled Catholic bishops by ruling that the state recognized the right of Catholics to leave the church — and therefore avoid paying a tax that is used to support religious institutions. The court ruled it was a matter of religious freedom, while religious leaders saw the decision as yet another threat to their influence on modern German society.
With its ruling the court also dodged the thorny issue of what happens when a parishioner formally quits the church, stops paying taxes, but then wants to attend services anyway. The court said that, too, was a matter of religious freedom, a decision that so rankled religious leaders fearful of losing a lucrative revenue stream that they made clear, right away, that taxes are the price for participation in the church’s most sacred rituals: no payments, no sacraments.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Germany issued a crystal clear, uncompromising edict, endorsed by the Vatican. It detailed that a member who refuses to pay taxes will no longer be allowed to receive communion or make confession, to serve as godparents or to hold any office in the church. Those who leave can also be refused a Christian burial, unless they “give some sign of repentance,” it read.
“Whoever declares they are leaving the church before official authorities, for whatever reason, impinges on their responsibility to safeguard the community of the church, and against their responsibility to provide financial support to allow the church to fulfill its work” before their death, it read.
The tussle highlighted the long-established but increasingly troubled symbiosis between church and state in Europe that, repeated polls have shown, grows more secular-minded as each generation moves further away from the church. Like many European countries, Germany’s churches are independent but function in partnership with the state, which collects taxes from members of established religions and then funnels the revenues back to the religious institutions, for a fee, in keeping with a 19th-century agreement following abolishment of an official state church.
Income from church taxes in Germany amounted to about $6.3 billion for the Roman Catholic Church in 2011, and $5.5 billion for the Protestant, mostly Lutheran, churches in 2010, official statistics show. The money goes to support hospitals, schools, day care and myriad other social services, but a sizable amount of the Catholic money is also channeled to the Vatican.
The German church tax — which is 8 to 9 percent of the annual income tax — is so steep, however, that many people formally quit the church to avoid paying, while nevertheless remaining active in their faith. That is what is angering Catholic Church officials.
To many faithful, the court ruling validated that choice, and the edict from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference amounted to a sharp response by church leaders against the government’s increasingly aggressive secularism taking root in society. They see it threatening the future of the religious institutions upon which Germany’s modern democracy was founded.
Unlike the United States, where politicians attend prayer breakfasts, and service as an altar boy is cast as a solid political credential, discussion of faith plays little role in German public discourse. Although Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party is called the Christian Democrats, and her father was a minister, the outward emphasis is far more on democracy than on Christianity.
The contrast could be seen starkly at a recent gala in Berlin honoring 30 years since the former leader Helmut Kohl’s first term as chancellor. Of a dozen international speakers, only three sought God’s blessing for Germany. Two were the American speakers, the elder George Bush and Philip D. Murphy, the ambassador to Germany. The other was a Catholic priest.
Even so, it is the United States, where churches are tax exempt, that prides itself on a constitutional separation between church and state, while most European governments continue to support their churches through a variety of means.
In Belgium, Greece and Norway, churches are financed by the state. Churches in Austria, Switzerland and Sweden all use the state to collect taxes from members, but the contributions are either predetermined amounts or, compared with Germany, a more modest 1 to 2 percent of the annual assessed income tax. Spain and Italy allow congregants to decide whether they would like a percentage of their income to flow to religious organizations or be earmarked for civic projects.
In Germany, roughly a third of its 82 million people are Roman Catholics, and about the same number belong to the country’s Protestant churches. All of these members, as well as the estimated 120,000 Jews, pay taxes to the state. Muslim organizations rely on donations or support from outside sources, often based in countries abroad.
Critics charge that the German bishops’ decree denying sacraments to tax dodgers was driven more by greed than necessity, pointing out that belonging to a congregation in neighboring countries like the Netherlands or France is based on tithes, not a predetermined charge levied by the government.
Indeed, the tax in Germany is blamed in part for driving about three million members from the ranks of the Roman Catholic Church over the past two decades, as disgruntled parishioners decided the payments were better spent on something else.
Norbert Lüdecke, a professor of canon law at Bonn University, said that while every disobedient Catholic is to be punished based on the sin committed, the bishops’ decree effectively placed refusal to pay church taxes nearly on par with the most severe offenses in the church.
“Now refusing to pay taxes is considered an offense only slightly less bad than denial that Jesus Christ is the son of God,” Mr. Lüdecke said. “While at the same time, there is no specific punishment for other offenses, such as, for example, the sexual abuse of minors by clerics.”
BBC
26 September 2012
Germany's Roman Catholics can only remain part of the Church if they pay a membership tax, a court has ruled.
All Germans who are officially registered as Catholics, Protestants or Jews pay a religious tax, worth an extra 8-9% of their income tax bill.
This had been challenged by a retired law professor who said he wanted to remain a Catholic but not pay the tax.
Last week, a new bishops' decree warned that anyone not paying the tax would be denied the right to religious rites.
The German church levy was introduced in 1803 in compensation for the nationalisation of religious property.
In 2011, the Catholic Church received 5bn euros (£4bn; $6.4bn) and the Protestant Church 4.5bn euros from taxpayers, each adding up to the bulk of the churches' income, the BBC's Berlin correspondent Stephen Evans said.
He added that this arrangement, whereby the state collects taxes on behalf of religious groups and then reimburses them, was unusual in Western secular societies.
Alarm over decline
Hartmut Zapp, a retired professor of church law, filed a legal challenge in 2007, arguing that under Catholic doctrine, Church membership was determined by a person's beliefs and not by a financial relationship.
Tax on Germany's Christians
- 25 million Catholics - tax worth 5bn euros (2011)
- 24 million Protestants - tax worth 4.5bn euros
- German population 82 million
The Freiburg University academic said he wanted to continue praying and receiving Holy Communion without paying the religious levy.
Judges at the Leipzig Federal Administrative Court, however, disagreed with Prof Zapp and ruled that there could not be partial Church membership.
Their verdict follows a new bishops' decree issued last week, according to which anyone failing to pay the tax will no longer have the right to Holy Communion and religious burial.
Already alarmed by declining congregation numbers, the bishops were also pushed into action by Mr Zapp's legal challenge.
They said refusal to pay Church tax should be seen as a serious act against the community.
Catholics make up around 30% of Germany's population but the number of congregants leaving the church swelled to 181,000 in 2010, with the increase blamed on revelations of sexual abuse by German priests.
"This decree makes clear that one cannot partly leave the Church," Germany's bishops' conference said last week, in a decision endorsed by the Vatican.
'Wrong signal'
Unless they pay the religious tax, Catholics will no longer be allowed receive sacraments, except before death, or work in the church and its schools or hospitals.
Without a "sign of repentance before death, a religious burial can be refused", the decree states. Opting out of the tax would also bar people from acting as godparents to Catholic children.
"This decree at this moment of time is really the wrong signal by the German bishops who know that the Catholic church is in a deep crisis," Christian Weisner from the grassroots Catholic campaign group We Are Church told the BBC.
But a priest from Mannheim in south-western Germany, Father Lukas Glocker, said the tax was used to do essential good works.
"With kindergarten, with homes for elderly or unemployed, we've got really good things so I know we need the tax to help the German country to do good things."
While the decree severely limits active participation in the German Catholic Church, it does hold out some hope for anyone considering a return to the fold.
Until now, any German Catholic who stopped payment faced eventual excommunication. Although the measures laid out in the decree are similar to excommunication from the church, German observers say the word is carefully avoided in the decree.
A influência da estupidez
COBERTURA NACIONAL
A influência da estupidez
Por Dirceu Martins Pio em 02/10/2012 na edição nº 714A desativação dessas estruturas – fulminante em alguns casos, lenta e gradual em outros – teve início no começo dos anos 1990, quando já se prenunciavam no Brasil as grandes transformações desencadeadas pelo desenvolvimento das novas e revolucionárias tecnologias de informação. A grande mídia brasileira entrava em crise. Cada qual viveu suas próprias circunstâncias. Umas se endividaram para investir em telefonia celular; outras por investir em internet e outras mais em função de planos mirabolantes em TV fechada. A chamada “economia de custos”, traduzida por redução atrás de redução da folha de pagamento, virou rotina nas empresas de mídia. As estruturas de cobertura nacional foram decepadas e ninguém parou para analisar os benefícios que elas traziam e poderiam trazer às organizações. Foi como matar a galinha de ovos de ouro.
O Grupo Estado de S.Paulo, por exemplo, tinha uma rede de sucursais e de correspondentes de primeira linha, esculpida que foi, ao longo do tempo, por Raul Bastos. Até o início dos anos 1990, essa rede oferecia material de qualidade para que o Grupo introduzisse diferenciais relevantes em seus dois jornais (Estado de S.Paulo e Jornal da Tarde); abastecia a Agência Estado, que começava a faturar alto com a venda de informações tanto para a mídia (reprodução simultânea com os jornais do grupo) como para mesas financeiras (consumo final); colaborava com a rádio Eldorado (pertencente ao grupo), que se posicionava em jornalismo de ótima qualidade; servia ainda como balcão de publicidade regional, que eram lucrativos porque o mercado de publicidade local respondia bem ao volume de informações regionais que os dois grandes jornais paulistas publicavam.
Noticiário concentrado
Quem decepou a estrutura, olhou apenas para o orçamento de uma das unidades do grupo (Estado de S. Paulo) e enxergou a rede como centro de custos, e não por sua excepcional condição de provedora de receitas (na metade da década de 1990, as receitas anuais obtidas pela Agência Estado com a venda de informações apenas para a mídia nacional ultrapassavam os R$ 10 milhões, ou seja, eram quase o dobro dos “custos” eliminados). Quer dizer, por estupidez, enxergou a árvore e não conseguiu enxergar a floresta.
A mutilação dessas estruturas ainda reverbera forte sobre a economia das grandes empresas de mídia. Perderam posição nos mercados regionais dinâmicos (interior Paulista, Paraná, Triângulo Mineiro para ficarmos em três exemplos eloquentes), perderam força institucional, perderam influência e perderam – o que tem gravidade maior – as condições básicas para concorrer no mercado de informações nos meios digitais. Não vai ser fácil para os grandes jornais brasileiros emular o bem sucedido programa de venda de informações na internet produzido pelo New York Times.
O Brasil que descentralizou seu desenvolvimento ficou descoberto pelos grandes jornais, cujo noticiário hoje está superconcentrado no triângulo São Paulo-Rio-Brasília. Eles precisam – e com urgência – resgatar essa cobertura, mas não sabem disso e não pensam nisso. A tiragem dos jornais de economia e negócios – Valor Econômico, Brasil Econômico – também não cresce talvez porque sua cobertura é restrita aos eixos tradicionais de desenvolvimento. A notícia que importa – oportunidades de trabalho, de negócio, novos investimentos, o andamento das obras governamentais, o desenho de um novo país – já está também fora desses eixos.
De costas viradas
Alguns espaços da internet, como o do portal do Google, tentam apresentar uma cobertura de Brasil via acordos com jornais regionais. Não é a mesma cobertura que o Brasil já teve via rede de sucursais e correspondentes dos grandes jornais. A hierarquia que um jornal regional estabelece sobre a informação é diferente. O jornal regional tem de perseguir o noticiário local pelo que possui, às vezes, de mais provinciano. Sucursais e correspondentes dos grandes jornais davam cobertura a fatos regionais que tinham importância nacional.
É claro que uma parte da cobertura nacional é suprida pelas grandes redes de TV, que têm emissoras coligadas e afiliadas bem distribuídas por todo o território nacional. Há que considerarmos que a prioridade de TV não está na relevância dos assuntos, mas em sua capacidade de produzir imagens em movimento. No noticiário nacional, as imagens de um pivete roubando a bolsa de uma mulher nas ruas centrais de Salvador tiram o espaço de uma notícia sobre atrasos numa das grandes obras do PAC. A bem da verdade, a TV continua a ser a mídia da rapidez e da superfície.
“A conta não fecha”, costumam repetir os financistas de plantão a serviço dos grandes jornais a quem pleiteia investir na captação de informações por fora dos antigos eixos da economia. Nos momentos de tempestade, como este, determinado pela pressão do mundo digital sobre os meios tradicionais, o destino da mídia não deveria ficar nas mãos dos financistas, se não tiverem olhos para enxergar os riscos desse caminhar em direção ao futuro sem conteúdos de qualidade e estratégicos. O jornalista empreendedor, com visão moderna de marketing, tem de ser o responsável pela definição da estratégia.
Quem viaja pelo país se espanta com a efervescência econômica de cidades como Jundiaí (SP), Curitiba (PR), Itapema (SC), João Pessoa (PB), Uberlândia (MG) etc., etc. etc. São cidades que hoje ninguém consegue fotografar sem que apareça, ao fundo, a imagem de pelo menos um edifício em construção. É provável que os grandes jornais brasileiros não sobrevivam por estarem de costas viradas para aspectos de tão grande relevância.
***
[Dirceu Martins Pio é ex-diretor da Agência Estado e da Gazeta Mercantil e atual consultor em comunicação corporativa]
http://www.observatoriodaimprensa.com.br/news/view/_ed714_a_influencia_da_estupidez
domingo, 30 de setembro de 2012
terça-feira, 25 de setembro de 2012
segunda-feira, 24 de setembro de 2012
The state of broadband 2012
1/3 população mundial online
International Telecommunications Union/UNESCO
http://www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/bb-annualreport2012.pdf
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