Monthly Archives: August 2018

Africa, Aid, Britain, Business, Economic, G7, Government

Britain: Aid cash to be used in boosting trade with Africa

FOREIGN AID BUDGET

THERESA May has pledged to use Britain’s overseas aid budget to boost post-Brexit trade with Africa.

She told an audience in Cape Town that she is “unashamed” of her ambition to ensure the multibillion-pound pot “works for the UK”.

The Prime Minister said that from now on Britain’s foreign aid budget will not only help combat poverty, but support “our own national interest”.

It comes after the bloated aid budget – now standing at almost £14billion a year – has come under fire as officials struggling to spend the money quickly enough have donated to a series of increasingly controversial projects.

Mrs May said funds will be specifically used to “support the private sector to take root and grow”. This means Britain will employ its aid to help create the conditions for UK businesses to have confidence to invest in Africa.

She also said the funds should go towards boosting security and tackling terrorism in the continent – a move to which she insists will make the UK safer.

The money will also be used to encourage potential migrants to stay in Africa so they are not tempted to make the dangerous journey to Europe.

The commitment comes amid the UK’s huge foreign aid budget struggling to maintain public support. Critics have long opposed David Cameron’s controversial policy and target of spending 0.7 per cent of national income on overseas aid.

The target has meant huge increases in aid spending in recent years – and guarantees it will continue to grow.

Public anger has grown given some of the examples of how the money is spent. These include a £5.2million grant to girl band Yegna, nicknamed the “Ethiopian Spice Girls”, whose funding was only halted last year.

Downing Street will now hope that the announcement of a realignment of spending will help convince voters of its worth.

The Department for International Development gives around £2.6billion a year in bilateral aid to Africa. The Prime Minister has also announced a new ambition to make Britain the G7’s largest investor in the continent within four years.

At present the U.S. is the largest contributor to African investment, but Mrs May aims to leapfrog it by 2022.

In Cape Town, the Prime Minister talked about changing the face of the UK’s aid spending in Africa both to reflect the continent’s rapid growth and to benefit Britain. There is a huge opportunity for British trade in a post-Brexit world. Mrs May’s three-day trip to the African continent will also take in visits to Nigeria and Kenya.

The PM said: “It is the private sector that is the key to driving that growth – transforming labour markets… And the UK has the companies that can invest in and trade with Africa to do just this.

“The private sector has not yet managed to deliver the level of job creation and investment that many African nations need.

“So I want to put our development budget and expertise at the centre of our partnership as part of an ambitious new approach – and use this to support the private sector to take root and grow.

“I am unashamed about the need to ensure that our aid programme works for the UK.

“I am committing that our development spending will not only combat extreme poverty, but at the same time tackle global challenges and support our own national interest.

“This will ensure that our investment in aid benefits us all, as is fully aligned with our wider national security priorities.”

The Prime Minister also set out why working with Africa to deliver jobs, investment and long-term stability is in the interests of Britain and the wider world.

Mrs May pointed out that Africa needs to create millions of new jobs every year to keep pace with its rapidly growing population, adding: “The challenges facing Africa are not Africa’s alone.

“It is in the world’s interest to see that those jobs are created, to tackle the causes and symptoms of extremism and instability, to deal with migration flows and to encourage clean growth. If we fail to do so, the economic and environmental impacts will swiftly reach every corner of our networked, connected world.

“And the human impacts . . . will be similarly global.”

Addressing the issue of British trade, Mrs May said: “As Prime Minister of a trading nation whose success depends on global markets, I want to see strong African economies that British companies can do business with in a free and fair fashion.

“Whether through creating new customers for British exporters or opportunities for British investors, our integrated global economy means healthy African economies are good news for British people as well as African people.

“I want the UK to be the G7’s number one investor in Africa, with Britain’s private sector companies taking the lead in investing the billions that will see African economies growing by trillions.”

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Arts, History, Philosophy

(Philosophy) Marx: On Religion and Faith

“Religion is the sign of the oppressed . . . it is the opium of the people.” Karl Marx (1818–1883)

THE philosopher, social scientist, historian and revolutionary, Karl Marx, is, for good or ill, the most influential socialist thinker to emerge in the nineteenth century. Although he was largely ignored by scholars in his own lifetime, his social, economic and political ideas gained rapid acceptance in the socialist movement after his death in 1883. Until quite recently almost half the population of the world lived under regimes that claimed to be Marxist. This very success, however, has meant that the original ideas of Marx have often been modified by the forces of history and his theories adapted to a great variety of political circumstances, for the most part detrimental to those upon whom they have been enforced. In addition, the fact that Marx delayed publication of many of his writings meant that it has been only recently that scholars have had the opportunity to appreciate Marx’s intellectual stature.

Marx, and his associate Friedrich Engels, developed a philosophy known as dialectical materialism. This essentially is the merger of the ideas of dialectics and materialism, which surmise that all things in the universe are material, that evolution is constantly taking place at all levels of existence and in all systems, that defined boundaries are manmade concepts that do not actually exist in nature, and that the universe is an interconnected unified entity in which all elements are connected to, and dependent upon, each other. The philosophy holds that science is the only means by which truth can be determined.

TO understand Marxism, you must understand the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Enlightenment. Marx was part of a larger movement in German Enlightenment philosophy; his ideas didn’t come out of nowhere, they were an extension of the theories that had been developing in Europe throughout the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s. Marx was a member of the Young Hegelians, which had formed after the famous German philosopher Hegel’s death. Hegel’s philosophy was based on the dialectic.

After Hagel’s death, his philosophy continued to be taught in Berlin and an ideological split occurred among the students of Hegel’s teachings. Eventually a right, centre and left branch of the ideology emerged, the Young Hegelians taking up the leftist branch of Hegelian thought. They began using Hegel’s dialectical method to openly criticise Hegel’s own work, attempting to prove that Hegel’s own philosophy, when fully extended, supported atheistic materialism. The Young Hegelians criticised religious institutions and, as a result of this, many of them were denied professorship at institutions around what was to become Germany and further afield. Thus began Marx’s period of disassociation from his relatively wealthy origins and his move towards the austerity that was to last the rest of his life. He ended up living and writing his greatest work, Das Kapital, in London and is buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Marx’s own contribution to Hegelian debate was to write the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, which contained in its introduction the oft-paraphrased paragraph: “Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

MARX viewed religion as a consequence of man’s relationship to the means of production. It was a result of man’s unhappiness with life and man’s lack of understanding of social and economic forces. Therefore, the Marxist position on religion is: 1) that criticism of religion and the advance of science are important weapons for combating religious views; and 2) that religion will never be fully eliminated until man has control over the economy and man is no longer alienated from productive forces.

It is a misconception to believe that Marx was saying that religion was a metaphorical drug, created, maintained and tolerated by the ruling class to keep the masses happy. Marx was actually concerned with far more weighty problems. Among other things, he was describing the basic human conditions under which an abstract human being could exist. “Man is the world of man, state, society,” he concluded, and the concept of God was a necessary invention in an “inverted world”. Once the world was right side up, the idea would not be needed. In other words, religion was a requirement of the proletariat to deal with their living conditions. Once the revolution had created a just and purposeful society, the need to believe in anything other than that which “is” or that which has material existence would be gone.

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Health, Medical, Research, Science

Lifestyle factors in keeping dementia at bay

MEDICAL RESEARCH

DOCTORS have identified seven lifestyle factors in middle age which have a significant influence on the risk of developing dementia in later life.

A major study suggests each of the seven elements – weight, diet, exercise, cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure and smoking – contributes to the chance of getting dementia.

Scientists at the University of Bordeaux tracked more than 6,600 French people from Bordeaux, Dijon and Montpellier.

The participants, who were at least 65 at the start of the study, were tested for the seven elements and then monitored for an average of eight and a half years.

For each of the seven tests that they “passed” as healthy, the risk of developing dementia over the following years went down by 10 per cent.

The scientists, whose findings were first reported and published in the JAMA medical journal, said their study demonstrates the link between cardiovascular health and the resilience of the brain.

“These findings may support the promotion of cardiovascular health to prevent risk factors associated with cognitive decline and dementia,” they wrote.

Experts in Britain say the findings from the research highlight the fact that the risk of dementia can be reduced with a healthy lifestyle.

A spokesperson for Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “Although age is the largest risk factor for dementia, the condition is not an inevitable part of getting older and there are things we can all do to help reduce our risk.

“This large study of over 6,000 older people in France adds to a wealth of existing evidence indicating that what is good for the heart is also good for the brain.

“We know that the diseases that cause dementia can begin to develop in the brain up to 20 years before symptoms show so it’s never too early to take steps to reduce your risk.

“As well as these seven aspects of healthy living, drinking within recommended guidelines and staying mentally active and socially engaged have also been linked to better brain health in later life.”

Dr Doug Brown, chief policy officer at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Of all the diseases in the UK dementia is now the biggest killer, so exploring potential factors which could reduce the risk of developing this devastating condition is fundamental to beating it.

“Taking care of your cardiovascular health… may help slow cognitive decline and reduce your risk of getting dementia.

“Although this study stopped short of examining whether participants had healthy hearts in earlier life – which might have contributed to fewer of them getting dementia in later life – everyone should take steps from an early age such as eating a balanced diet, avoiding smoking and heavy drinking, and exercising regularly.”

The Seven Lifestyle Factors

. Weight – Have a body mass index (BMI) of less than 25

. Diet – Eat fish twice a week and fruits and vegetables at least three times a day

. Exercise – Walk more than two hours a day or take part in intensive sport more than twice a week

. Cholesterol – Levels need to be less than 200 mg/dL (milligrams per decilitre)

. Blood Sugar – Should be less than 100 mg/dL

. Blood Pressure – Should be less than 120/80 mmHg

. Smoking – Not smoking

MANY adults put off going to see their GP because they do not like being told what to do, research suggests.

Data from 4.300 Britons saw nearly one in five admit they had delayed making an appointment to avoid being lectured about lifestyle changes.

Experts say patients stay away for fear of giving away control – even when they are already showing worrying health symptoms – and warns this poses a considerable threat to public health.

The report, by experts at University College London, the University of Bedfordshire and thinktank 2020 Health, says many people also have a “fear of finding out” they are unhealthy and so avoid their doctor.

This can lead to major issues in the long term because minor problems missed at an early stage can escalate into far more severe issues. Many people – especially the rising number who know they do too little exercise or are overweight – do not report health complaints for fear of being lectured about their lifestyle.

GPs are encouraged by the NHS to ask patients about their weight and how much exercise they do, and are often given financial incentives to give weight-loss advice.

A spokesperson for 2020 Health, said: “It’s easy to think that consumers are wilfully refusing to change unhealthy habits, but the truth is, we are bombarded by conflicting health advice and mixed messages everywhere we turn.

“This is both confusing and dangerous as it can lead to important, evidence-based health information and guidance being lost or overlooked.

“Not only are lifestyle changes undermined, but the importance of getting specific symptoms checked out early are obscured.” Some 18 per cent of participants in the study – nearly one in five – said they had delayed an appointment because they were worried they might be pressured to change their lifestyle.

With 68 per cent of men and 58 per cent of women in Britain now overweight or obese, many may have reason to fear being lectured.

A quarter of participants said they had avoided a doctor because they did not want to be physically examined. A fifth said they were anxious about treatment that might be required, and another fifth were worried about the impact a diagnosis may have on family members.

The report, funded by pharmaceutical firm AbbVie, said patients who go to their doctor when they have a problem actually have a smaller impact on the NHS.

It said: “The model of the ‘good patient’ [is] one who adopts a healthier lifestyle, sees the doctor promptly if they notice what could be the early signs of illness and turns up to routine health checks and screening appointments.”

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