Iceland: Iceland hooked on anti-depressants
A new report released by the OECD has shown that Iceland is the world’s biggest consumer of anti-depressants per capita. One in ten Icelander now take medicine to cope with mental health anxieties.
Overall there has been a steady rise in the last decade, with many OECD countries in Europe seeing the rise double since 2000. Iceland has always had a relatively high consumption, leading the way in 2000, but latest figures show the problem is off the scale.
Other big consumers include its Nordic neighbors Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, as well as United Kingdom and even Canada, suggesting it’s related to seasonal affect disorder (SAD), resulting from short day light hours. However, sun-drenched Australia came in second on the list. ...
Ice News
Switzerland: Spotlight On Traditional Family Values In Switzerland
LAUSANNE—The idea that young people nowadays are more conservative than previous generations is a common cliché. Girls are said to be dreaming of becoming housewives while boys supposedly behave like old-style alpha-males, reproductive and career-obsessed.
As Switzerland is about to vote on an initiative that aims to use tax breaks to benefit a traditional family model, Le Temps asked a group of young people how they see gender and work roles.
These are students from Lausanne’s business school, aged 19 to 26. We chose this sector of the population because it is cut from the majority of the Swiss population. In May, their part-time training (which they do two days a week) will be over and they will be set to join the workforce, full-time.
Their answers to our first question reinforce the common preconception: “Who thinks that a woman should stay at home to raise the children?” we ask. Almost without hesitation, 10 out of 17 raise their hand. “That’s how I was brought up. My mom was at home to take care of us,” says Mafalda. “A mother is a role model. She passes on her values to us.” After a quick survey, it appears that almost every student of this class was raised by a stay-at-home mother.
Le Temps via Worldcrunch
Bhutan: Jurmey Joins the Mainstream
A remote gewog [group of villages], at last connected by road, looks forward to better days
Farmroad: With the formal opening of the 16km farm road to traffic in one of the remotest gewogs in Mongar, Jurmey, villagers said it is the opening of a door to other developmental activities.
Villagers of the remote gewog, who gathered at the inaugural ceremony, started discussing about an easier life ahead, which was evident from the experience in the last two months, when vehicle movement began.
Jurmey gewog, perhaps the least developed in the district, consists of five chiwogs with 319 households.
Until now, deprived of road, it took over three days walk from Mongar district to get there. This had rendered challenges in bringing development and services.
Kuensel Online
Mexico: Only 3 Million Monarchs Make it to Mexico this Year
The dismal state of the Monarch butterfly migration came into closer focus this week, as reports from Mexico suggest that only three million butterflies have arrived at the ancestral roosts in Michoacán.
The 2012 season, acknowledged as the worst year for the insects population wise, counted 60 million Monarchs. In prime years, they numbered 450 million. ...
Texas Butterfly Ranch via Banderas News
Jamaica: Wong Makes Right Move
After the closure of one of the island’s largest bauxite plants, Alumina Partners of Jamaica (Alpart), in May 2009, approximately 900 employees were made redundant.
With several challenges ahead and no clear way of conquering them, common sense kicked in. Some searched for another job, others migrated, and the entrepreneurially minded among the lot started their own businesses.
Laughton Wong, popularly known as ‘Chiny Man’, worked at Alpart for approximately 15 years.
“I was fresh and young when I started Alpart in 1990. I enjoyed the salary, the benefits were excellent, and it was through them (Alpart) that I owned my home and car and did all that I could financially,” Wong told Rural Xpress. So many of the workers depended solely on the salary from Alpart and had no avenue for income otherwise, but this was not so for Wong.
“I was always doing little work on [the] side - repairing houses, mechanical work and those things - so when I heard Alpart was closing, I wasn’t really worrying as to how I would maintain my lifestyle,” said Wong ...
Jamaica Gleaner
Canada: Exiled Tibetans start move to Canada under resettlement plan
Up to 1,000 exiled Tibetans are moving to Canada as part of federal program
The first group of Tibetans to relocate to Canada under a new federal program was expected to arrive by plane in Ottawa and Toronto on Friday.
When they met in 2007, Tibet’s spiritual leader in exile, the Dalai Lama, appealed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper for Canada to invite in more Tibetan exiles. That meeting prompted a rebuke from the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa.
Three years later, Jason Kenney, the immigration minister at the time, announced that Canada would take in as many as 1,000 Tibetans living in exile in the northern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. ...
CBC
UK: UK officials burned, dumped ‘embarrassing’ Kenya colonial documents
British officials burned and dumped at sea documents from colonies that were about to become independent in a systematic effort to hide their “dirty” secrets, newly released files showed on Friday.
Under “Operation Legacy”, officials in Kenya, Uganda, Malaysia, Tanzania, Jamaica and other former British colonial territories were briefed on how to dispose of documents that “might embarrass Her Majesty’s Government”.
Newly declassified Foreign Office files reveal how the “splendid incinerator” at the Royal Navy base in Singapore was used to destroy lorry loads of files from the region.
AFP via Kenya Daily Nation
*Image of monarch butterflies via Shutterstock
Friends Read Free