#united nations statistical division

[southsouthcooperationday]

Multi-stakeholder round table 9: Data, monitoring and follow-up.

8th Plenary meeting - Round table at the First Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 22-26 July 2024. Data, including data on financing, is crucial for assessing progress and guiding actions towards achieving th...

Watch the Multi-stakeholder round table 9: Data, monitoring and follow-up!

[worldstatisticsday]

7th Meeting - 55th Statistical Commission.

The 55th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission is scheduled to be held in New York from 27 February - 1 March 2024.

Watch the 7th Meeting - 55th Statistical Commission!

[fatehbaz]

Chicago, Illinois is often considered to be on the periphery of the plantation. William Cronon's famous narrative of Chicago's relationships with the "Great West" positions the burgeoning city at the edge of American expansion into plantation agriculture in the Midwest and industrial farming on a national scale. [...] [W]e could also characterize the city as an anticipatory hub between the twin plantation figures of the pre-war American South and America's 20th century colonies [in Central America, the Philippines, and beyond]. During the Reconstruction years, Chicago emerged as a logistical center, channeling America's railroads and telegraph lines into itself. As parts of this communications node, Chicago newspapers and military police served to convert white anxieties about Black migration from the plantation South into new techniques and technologies of prediction that became transportable across a newly imaginable informational plane of US imperialism. [...] [I]n Chicago between 1875 and 1890, [...] white anticipations of African American migration from plantations in the South were translated into new information sciences and policing techniques that made their way to plantations in places like the Philippines. [...] [S]uch feelings were fundamental to linking plantations which at first seem so spatially and temporally distant. [...]

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On May 3, 1879 the Chicago Tribune published a greatly anticipated investigatory series entitled, “The Negro Exodus: Causes of the Migration from the Negro’s Point of View” [...] the latest in a long sequence of deeply uneasy reports dating from 1860. From its location at the communicative center of all major US rail and telegraph lines, the Chicago Tribune undertook an imagined responsibility to inform its Midwestern audience of Black peoples’ movements and behaviors. [...] At the climax of the “Negro’s Point of View” series, [...] May 3, the Chicago Tribune presented its showstopping report from its correspondent in Vicksburg, Mississippi entitled “Letters Written by Negroes in Kansas to their Friends South”. In this report, the writer discusses his skepticism of earlier methods of [...] interviews with Black migrants. [...] [The newspaper] conducted its fact-gathering through the mass surveillance of Black peoples' letters [...] [to assess] inner motivations [...] about Black peoples’ “perceptions, enjoyments, and reasons” [...]. Such informational appetites became the anticipatory basis for 20th century enumerative practices. As Colin Koopman argues, informational fastening, or the atomization and separation of facts from Black peoples’ bodies, became commonplace during the Great Migration in the practice of racial statistics, criminology, and health policy directed at Black migrants [...]. [T]his desire for packaged information was itself made transferable into geographies beyond Chicago, and beyond the United States.

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White Chicagoans’ prolonged concern over predicting Black behaviors and intentions materialized in 1877, when the city became a central hub of militarized response to a nation-wide railroad strike. Adjutant General Richard C. Drum, who commanded the Military Division of the Missouri (Western Frontier) in Chicago from 1873 to 1878, took control of Chicago’s military response to the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. In 1879, after his final year in the city, Drum moved to Washington, DC and proposed the establishment of the Military Information Division (MID) [...]. The MID, which formally established in 1885, maintained close ties to Chicago's local information collection system, adopting a Bertillon identification system of collecting and storing intelligence cards at the time that the National Association of Chiefs of Police established their central bureau of identification in Chicago in 1896 [...]. By the tun of the 20th century, Chicago's police force had expanded tenfold [...], and Drum's MID had amassed over 300,000 intelligence cards [...].

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The affective atmosphere into which the MID intensified its own predictive techniques later traversed the Pacific Ocean into the Philippines. Alfred McCoy argues that the American introduction of communication technologies and surveillance techniques in governing the Philippines constituted the United States’ first information revolution (McCoy 2009: 18). Colonial police trained in the anxious habits of the MID, rendered the Philippines a laboratory for securitized speculation. McCoy further contends that these informational “capillaries of empire” embedded themselves into the Philippines’ plantocratic-security state as well as US domestic surveillance practices. I add to McCoy’s argument by suggesting that trained feelings of white apprehension translated into imperial mechanisms for governing the Philippines through systems of intelligence cards, telecommunications infrastructure, policing units, and management sciences. Reminiscent of the psychological investigatory projects that saturated Chicago’s public life, the MID and its successors developed techniques for psychological examination and personality typing led by another Chicagoan, Harry Hill Bandholtz. [...] Bandholtz sharpened the MID's informational sciences by training Philippines police forces in the neurotic art of collecting every imaginable fact about Filipino behaviors [...].

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Ultimately, the US colonial plantocracy in the Philippines built its authority around information infrastructures which had been trained on apprehensive practices and feelings emanating from Chicago’s racialized geography. [...]

[T]he informational networks that extended from the image of the American South, through the anticipation of Chicago's public, [...] animated the governance of colonial plantations in the Philippines [...].

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All text above by: Jolen Martinez. "Plantation Anticipation: Apprehension in Chicago from Reconstruction America to the Plantocratic Philippines" (2024). An essay from an Intervention Symposium titled Plantation Methodologies: Questioning Scale, Space, and Subjecthood. The symposium was introduced and edited by Alyssa Paredes, Sophie Chao, and Andrés León Araya. The symposium was hosted and published by Antipode Online, part of Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography. Published online 4 January 2024, at: antipodeonline.org/2024/01/04/plantation-methodologies/ [In this post, bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[womenaremypriority]

This is very interesting. Trigger warning for rape, specifically of children.

In the city of Makeni, a three-hour drive east of Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, a young mother sits outside her home with her three-year-old daughter. 

Anita, which is not her real name, describes the day in June 2023 when she found her toddler with blood dripping from her nappy. 

"I worked for this woman, and she gave me an errand that Saturday morning to go to the market," she says, explaining that she then left her child with her employer and her 22-year-old son. 

"He took my child, he said, to buy sweets and biscuits for her. It was a lie." 

When she got back, she realised her daughter was missing. After searching for her for some time, they were reunited but the 22-year-old mother could see that the toddler was bleeding. She took her to the hospital and after two rounds of stitches, it was confirmed she had been raped. 

"The nurses began checking the child, and they said: 'Oh my God, what has this man done to this child?' The doctor who was treating my child even cried." 

Anita went to the police but the man fled and a year on the police have not been able to find him. 

"The president created a law so that whoever rapes children, should be arrested and sent to jail," she says, angry that nothing appears to have been done.

She is referring to a tougher sexual offences law created five years ago after President Maada Bio declared the emergency over rape.

It followed protests in December 2018 when hundreds of people wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Hands off our girls" marched through Freetown.

News of another child rape had shocked the nation - a five-year-old girl who was left paralysed from the waist down. It was reported at the time that cases of sexual violence had almost doubled within a year, a third involving children. Sierra Leoneans had had enough.

The four-month long state of emergency from February 2019 allowed the president to divert state resources into tackling sexual violence.

An updated Sexual Offences Act brought in stricter penalties for sexual assault. 

Rape sentences were increased to a minimum of 15 years, or life if it involved a child. A Sexual Offences Model Court to fast-track trials was created in Freetown the following year.

There appears to have been some progress - reported cases of sexual and gender-based violence have gone down by almost 17%, from just over 12,000 in 2018 to just over 10,000 in 2023, according to police statistics.

Creating increased awareness and new structures is one thing, but making sure that people, like Anita's daughter, get justice is another. 

The Rainbo Initiative is a national charity that works with survivors of sexual violence. It says that in 2022 just 5% of the 2,705 cases it handled made it to the High Court.

One of the issues is the resources available to those who are supposed to enforce the law. 

At the police station in Makeni where Anita reported her daughter's rape, Assnt Supt Abu Bakarr Kanu who leads the Family Support Unit (FSU) says they get around four cases of child sexual assault each week.

The big challenge his team faces is a lack of transport to physically go and arrest suspects.

He co-ordinates all seven police divisions in the region and between them they do not have a single vehicle. 

"There are times the suspect is available but because of lack of vehicles you can't reach that suspect to arrest him or her," says Assnt Supt Kanu. 

"Doing the right thing at the right time is a challenge." 

Like many in Sierra Leone, he was impressed with the government action that followed the state of emergency. 

"We have enough… good laws and policy, but the structure and personnel are the challenge for us to holistically address the issues of sexual and gender-based violence in Sierra Leone."

Even if an alleged perpetrator is apprehended, to get them before a judge is an even bigger struggle.

In order for the case against a rape suspect to be heard, there is only one person in the country who can sign the documents - the attorney general. It was meant to speed up the process and get the cases straight to the courts, but it has created a different bottle-neck.

"Presently it is not possible to have any other law officer or any other counsel to sign an indictment for sexual-related offences," says State Counsel Joseph AK Sesay, a lawyer employed by the government. 

"The 2019 amendment stipulates that it is only the attorney general that can rightly sign an indictment. So that has been posing a challenge when it comes to getting the indictments to courts."

Information Minister Chernor Bah admits this is not a perfect process but says it is "a process that we'll continue to improve on". 

Challenged on the question that many believe little has changed when it comes to getting justice for rape survivors, he acknowledged that "in some communities people feel that way".

But he rejects the idea that there has been no progress.

"I think the systemic reforms that we've put in place are there. The new laws are there. And those steps, I think, have led to the overall feeling that we're not in the deep, dark days of 2019."

For Anita, back in Makeni, it has been nearly a year since her toddler was raped. 

She has had no new information from the police, so has resorted to posting the alleged suspect's photo on Facebook. 

"I want people to help me search for the boy. I'm tormented and I am not happy. What has happened to my child, I don't want it to happen to any other child."

[whencyclopedia]

Embattled Nation: Canada's Wartime Election of 1917

In the midst of one of the most turbulent periods in Canada’s history, Patrice Dutil and David Mackenzie delve into what they deem as the most significant and tumultuous elections since confederation. Their work, 'Embattled Nation: Canada’s Wartime Election of 1917 ', meticulously explores the 1917 election between Conservative leader Sir Robert Borden and the Liberal opposition of Sir Wilfred Laurier.  

Patrice Dutil and David MacKenzie provide a detailed and well-researched account of Canada's political and social landscape during World War I, focusing on the 1917 election and the issue of conscription. The book is commendable for its extensive use of evidence and meticulous documentation of events, offering readers a thorough understanding of the period's complexities. Their use of diary entries and personal accounts from Borden, Laurier, and those around them gives a sense of authenticity to the events being described. The book also provides a thorough context for the period with extensive maps, statistics, election information, and statistics of the war effort that effectively paint the scene of 1917. Finally, this book helpfully contextualizes the existing linguistic and cultural divides between French and English Canada which would aid readers greatly in future discussions.

However, despite its solid evidentiary foundation, the book falls short in convincingly arguing that the 1917 election was the most contentious in Canadian history and that it nearly saw the collapse of the confederation. The authors emphasize the deep divisions between English and French Canadians and describe how conscription became a central and divisive issue. Yet, they also acknowledge that there was majority support for the Union government and conscription, which complicates their argument about the election nearly breaking up the country.

Portraying the election as a moment that almost led to the dissolution of Canada seems somewhat overstated. While the authors provide ample evidence of French-Canadian opposition and the resulting social unrest, they do not fully reconcile this with the broader national support for the Union government and the conscription policy. This oversight weakens their central thesis about the election's unparalleled contentiousness. While it is true that perhaps this election did deepen the divide between French and English Canada, it did not do so to the extent to which one could say that the country was near collapse, at least not with the way this book presented its evidence.

While it is true, by the provided evidence, that much of French Canada vehemently opposed conscription, they did not oppose the country as a whole, with a referendum to succeed, having only marginal support and never actually making it to a vote on the Quebec parliamentary floor. There were indeed protests and riots during the time. Still, they were fed by feelings of alienation and betrayal by the Borden government, not the Confederation, with Laurie receiving much support from French Canada. It is accurate to say that both the Liberal and Conservative governments were almost torn apart, yet, in the end, both parties survived relatively unscathed under the united leadership of Laurier and Borden, respectively.

Patrice Dutil is a Professor in Toronto Metropolitan University's Politics and Public Administration Department while David Mackenzie is a Professor in the university's History Department. Overall, Embattled Nation is a valuable resource for understanding the political dynamics of wartime Canada and the cultural rift between English and French Canadians. It provides an often unexplored context to the First World War in Canada, giving insight into the French-English divide, one of Canada's most prevailing conflicts. To understand the impacts of the First World War on Canada, one must first understand how the war impacted the home front. However, its assertion that the 1917 election was the most divisive in Canadian history could have been more convincingly articulated, given the authors' admissions of widespread support for the Union government and conscription from a majority part of the Country. Perhaps refining the thesis to focus more on the French-English connection rather than the election itself with an increased focus on the protests and riots would make for an overall more convincing argument. Meanwhile, it is accurate to say that the 1917 election was pushed by issues surrounding conscription; the election itself was fairly unanimous thanks to the political maneuvering by the Borden government. With more focus on those aspects and a closer examination of the reactions to said maneuverings, the argument that this period in Canadian history was the most tumultuous becomes more evident and more convincing.

Continue reading...

[pedropascalunofficial]

Why aren't you speaking up about the vile fans that are harassing Pedro, his friends and family. I am devastated that no one has put these fake fans in their place. I thought you of all people would.

I must preface this by mentioning that I'm Irish. We're biased on this issue. We have had help to find relative peace after years of division and terrorism. We are all too aware of how lucky we now are.

Why arent I speaking about the "vile fans" that are harrassing Pedro?

I report the twats in this fandom who he can't see pulling bullshit that affects his and his friends' personal lives so they can better protect themselves from it. I only call them out publicly when their bullshit over flows into my life.

Fans asking Pedro to call for a ceasefire are not pulling bullshit.

They're commenting on his replies to posts because they are frustrated by his silence on an issue that WILL affect all of our lives, and their passion is showing in disruptive ways that aren't to everyones taste. Replying to his comments is futile, but please don't shame people for trying to act in a time of desperation. Do I like it? No. Will it change his opinion? Probably not.

Their timelines are full of images of dead children, injured children being pulled from rubble to be labelled WCNSF (Wounded child. No surviving family), kidnapped people or murdered families. They're willing him to call out the same issues that the United Nations and many other governments are because people have lost their humanity.

We all know he used to love sounding off about political issues in support of the underdog but Pedro has been quiet since the Gina episode. Whether he would be in the right or not on political issues, Disney and Lucasfilm will not take kindly to him creating any controversy.

However much I would love to see him asking for a ceasefire, it isn't going to happen for a multitude of reasons. He's not going to be the person we tell him to be. He has free will. We must respect that. We need to manage our expectations with regards to what we see as the role of celebrities in political issues. It isn't in their job description and they usually fuck it up and the noise caused from that drowns out the credible sources trying to break through.

And yes, I've noticed how fake some of the fans are. The phrase "you're doing great girl" comes to mind. (Bless that man's sassy interactions with fair weather fans) Some are posting about his sexuality in the same cycle of stories as calls for him to denounce war crimes. It's completely fucked up.

Oh, and holding his fucking stalkers up as if they're the beacons of hope around here?! Those delusional psychos only posted saying they wouldn't talk about the gala AFTER ppl threatened to call them out if they posted about it. Never fall for their clout chasing bullshit! Their only motivation is social engagement, not the future of humanity. You can tell coz when they aren't virtue signalling, they're dehumanising a man for likes.

Since you've read this far..... if Pedro can't/won't speak, we can. Share international news outlets! Share factual information from countries who aren't financially supporting the war! Seek it out. Share it. Some people still haven't seen the full story. Some are choosing to pretend there aren't humans involved on both sides. Some are keeping quiet for personal reasons. Some because their employer will fire them or sue them for speaking out.

If any fans have questions around the issue of asking for a ceasefire and denouncing the current war crimes before the whole world descends in to a sea of international incidents of domestic terrorism at the request of Hezbollah and Iran, supported by Russian government, giving China the opportunity to fucking go to town, please feel free to educate yourselves below.

THE UNITED NATIONS HAS CALLED FOR A CEASEFIRE

BASIC BREAKDOWN OF STATISTICS (Nov 7, 2023)

PODCASTS THAT EXPLAIN THE IMPLICATIONS AND HISTORY OF THIS CONFLICT

NEWS OUTLETS

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[dailyanarchistposts]

I.5.1 What are participatory communities?

A key concept in anarchist thought is that of the participatory community. Traditionally, these participatory communities are called communes in anarchist theory (“The basic social and economic cell of the anarchist society is the free, independent commune” [A. Grachev, quoted by Paul Avrich, The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, p. 64]).

The reason for the use of the term commune is due to anarchism’s roots in France where it refers to the lowest level of administrative division in the Republic. In France, a commune can be a city of 2 million inhabitants (hence the Paris Commune of 1871); a town of 10,000; or just a 10-person hamlet. It appeared in the 12th century from Medieval Latin communia, which means a gathering of people sharing a common life (from Latin communis, things held in common). Proudhon used the term to describe the social units of a non-statist society and subsequent anarchists like Bakunin and Kropotkin followed his lead. As the term “commune”, since the 1960s, often refers to “intentional communities” where people drop out of society and form their own counter-cultural groups and living spaces we have, in order to avoid confusion, decided to use “participatory community” as well (anarchists have also used other terms, including “free municipality”).

These community organisations are seen as the way people participate in the decisions that affect them and their neighbourhoods, regions and, ultimately, planet. These are the means for transforming our social environment from one disfigured by economic and political power and its needs to one fit for human beings to life and flourish in. The creation of a network of participatory communities (“communes”) based on self-government through direct, face-to-face democracy in grassroots neighbourhood assemblies is the means to that end. As we argued in section I.2.3 such assemblies will be born in social struggle and so reflect the needs of the struggle and those within it so our comments here must be considered as generalisations of the salient features of such communities and not blue-prints.

Within anarchist thought, there are two main conceptions of the free commune. One vision is based on workplace delegates, the other on neighbourhood assemblies. We will sketch each in turn.

The first type of participatory community (in which “the federative Alliance of all working men’s associations … will constitute the commune”) is most associated with Bakunin. He argued that the “future social organisation must be made solely from the bottom upwards, by the free association or federation of workers, firstly in their unions, then in communes, regions, nations and finally in a great federation, international and universal.” [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170 and p. 206] This vision was stressed by later anarchist thinkers. For example, Spanish anarchist Issac Puente thought that in towns and cities “the part of the free municipality is played by local federation … Ultimate sovereignty in the local federation of industrial unions lies with the general assembly of all local producers.” [Libertarian Communism, p. 27] The Russian anarchist G. P. Maximoff saw the “communal confederation” as being “constituted by thousands of freely acting labour organisations.” [The Program of Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 43]

This vision of the commune was created during many later revolutions (such as in Russia in 1905 and 1917 as well as Hungary in 1956). Being based on workplaces, this form of commune has the advantage of being based on groups of people who are naturally associated during most of the day (Bakunin considered workplace bodies as “the natural organisation of the masses” as they were “based on the various types of work” which “define their actual day-to-day life” [The Basic Bakunin, p. 139]). This would facilitate the organisation of assemblies, discussion on social, economic and political issues and the mandating and recalling of delegates. Moreover, it combines political and economic power in one organisation, so ensuring that the working class actually manages society.

Other anarchists counterpoise neighbourhood assemblies to workers’ councils. These assemblies will be general meetings open to all citizens in every neighbourhood, town, and village, and will be the source of public policy for all levels of confederal co-ordination. Such “town meetings” will bring people directly into the political process and give them an equal voice in the decisions that affect their lives. Such anarchists point to the experience of the French Revolution of 1789 and the “sections” of the Paris Commune as the key example of “a people governing itself directly — when possible — without intermediaries, without masters.” It is argued, based on this experience, that “the principles of anarchism … dated from 1789, and that they had their origin, not in theoretical speculations, but in the deeds of the Great French Revolution.” [Peter Kropotkin, The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 210 and p. 204] Anarchists also point to the clubs created during the 1848 Revolution in France and in the Paris Commune of 1871 not to mention the community assemblies created in Argentina during the revolt against neo-liberalism at the start of the 21st century.

Critics of workers’ councils point out that not all people work in traditional workplaces (many are parents who look after children, for example). By basing the commune around the workplace, such people are automatically excluded. Moreover, in most modern cities many people do not live near where they work. It would mean that local affairs could not be effectively discussed in a system of workers’ councils as many who take part in the debate are unaffected by the decisions reached. In addition, some anarchists argue that workplace based systems automatically generate “special interests” and so exclude community issues. Only community assemblies can “transcend the traditional special interests of work, workplace, status, and property relations, and create a general interest based on shared community problems.” [Murray Bookchin, From Urbanisation to Cities, p. 254]

However, such communities assemblies can only be valid if they can be organised rapidly in order to make decisions and to mandate and recall delegates. In the capitalist city, many people work far from where they live and so such meetings have to be called for after work or at weekends (thus the key need is to reduce the working day/week and to communalise industry). For this reason, many anarchists continue to support the workers’ council vision of the commune, complemented by community assemblies for those who live in an area but do not work in a traditional workplace (e.g. parents bringing up small children, the old, the sick and so on). It should be noted that this is something which the supporters of workers’ councils have noticed and some argue for councils which are delegates from both the inhabitants and the enterprises of an area.

These positions are not hard and fast divisions, far from it. Puente, for example, thought that in the countryside the dominant commune would be “all the residents of a village or hamlet meeting in an assembly (council) with full powers to administer local affairs.” [Op. Cit., p. 25] Kropotkin supported the soviets of the Russian Revolution, arguing that the “idea of soviets … of councils of workers and peasants … controlling the economic and political life of the country is a great idea. All the more so, since it necessarily follows that these councils should be composed of all who take part in the production of natural wealth by their own efforts.” [Anarchism, p. 254]

Which method, workers’ councils or community assemblies, will be used in a given community will depend on local conditions, needs and aspirations and it is useless to draw hard and fast rules. It is likely that some sort of combination of the two approaches will be used, with workers’ councils being complemented by community assemblies until such time as a reduced working week and decentralisation of urban centres make purely community assemblies the more realistic option. It is likely that in a fully libertarian society, community assemblies will be the dominant communal organisation but in the period immediately after a revolution this may not be immediately possible. Objective conditions, rather than predictions, will be the deciding factor. Under capitalism, anarchists pursue both forms of organisation, arguing for community and industrial unionism in the class struggle (see sections J.5.1 and J.5.2).

Regardless of the exact make up of the commune, it has certain key features. It would be free a association, based upon the self-assumed obligation of those who join them. In free association, participation is essential simply because it is the only means by which individuals can collectively govern themselves (and unless they govern themselves, someone else will). “As a unique individual,” Stirner argued, “you can assert yourself alone in association, because the association does not own you, because you are one who owns it or who turns it to your own advantage.” The rules governing the association are determined by the associated and can be changed by them (and so a vast improvement over “love it or leave”) as are the policies the association follows. Thus, the association “does not impose itself as a spiritual power superior to my spirit. I have no wish to become a slave to my maxims, but would rather subject them to my ongoing criticism.” [Max Stirner, No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 17]

Thus participatory communities are freely joined and self-managed by their members with no division between order givers and order takers as exists within the state. Rather the associated govern themselves and while the assembled people collectively decide the rules governing their association, and are bound by them as individuals, they are also superior to them in the sense that these rules can always be modified or repealed (see section A.2.11 for more details). As can be seen, a participatory commune is new form of social life, radically different from the state as it is decentralised, self-governing and based upon individual autonomy and free agreement. Thus Kropotkin:

“The representative system was organised by the bourgeoisie to ensure their domination, and it will disappear with them. For the new economic phase that is about to begin we must seek a new form of political organisation, based on a principle quite different from that of representation. The logic of events imposes it.” [Words of a Rebel, p. 125]

This “new form of political organisation has to be worked out the moment that socialistic principles shall enter our life. And it is self-evident that this new form will have to be more popular, more decentralised, and nearer to the folk-mote self-government than representative government can ever be.” Kropotkin, like all anarchists, considered the idea that socialism could be created by taking over the current state or creating a new one as doomed to failure. Instead, he recognised that socialism would only be built using new organisations that reflect the spirit of socialism (such as freedom, self-government and so on). He, like Proudhon and Bakunin before him, therefore argued that ”[t]his was the form that the social revolution must take — the independent commune… [whose] inhabitants have decided that they will communalise the consumption of commodities, their exchange and their production.” [Kropotkin, Anarchism, p. 184 and p. 163]

In a nutshell, a participatory community is a free association, based upon the mass assembly of people who live in a common area, the means by which they make the decisions that affect them, their communities, bio-regions and the planet. Their essential task is to provide a forum for raising public issues and deciding upon them. Moreover, these assemblies will be a key way of generating a community (and community spirit) and building and enriching social relationships between individuals and, equally important, of developing and enriching individuals by the very process of participation in communal affairs. By discussing, thinking and listening to others, individuals develop their own abilities and powers while at the same time managing their own affairs, so ensuring that no one else does (i.e. they govern themselves and are no longer governed from above by others). As Kropotkin argued, self-management has an educational effect on those who practice it:

“The ‘permanence’ of the general assemblies of the sections — that is, the possibility of calling the general assembly whenever it was wanted by the members of the section and of discussing everything in the general assembly… will educate every citizen politically… The section in permanence — the forum always open — is the only way … to assure an honest and intelligent administration.” [The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 210–1]

As well as integrating the social life of a community and encouraging the political and social development of its members, these free communes will also be integrated into the local ecology. Humanity would life in harmony with nature as well as with itself — as discussed in section E.2, these would be eco-communities part of their local eco-systems with a balanced mix of agriculture and industry (as described by Kropotkin in his classic work Fields, Factories and Workshops). Thus a free commune would aim to integrate the individual into social and communal life, rural and urban life into a balanced whole and human life into the wider ecology. In this way the free commune would make human habitation fully ecological, ending the sharp and needless (and dehumanising and de-individualising) division of human life from the rest of the planet. The commune will be a key means of the expressing diversity within humanity and the planet as well as improving the quality of life in society:

“The Commune … will be entirely devoted to improving the communal life of the locality. Making their requests to the appropriate Syndicates, Builders’, Public Health, Transport or Power, the inhabitants of each Commune will be able to gain all reasonable living amenities, town planning, parks, play-grounds, trees in the street, clinics, museums and art galleries. Giving, like the medieval city assembly, an opportunity for any interested person to take part in, and influence, his town’s affairs and appearance, the Commune will be a very different body from the borough council … “In ancient and medieval times cities and villages expressed the different characters of different localities and their inhabitants. In redstone, Portland or granite, in plaster or brick, in pitch of roof, arrangements of related buildings or patterns of slate and thatch each locality added to the interests of travellers … each expressed itself in castle, home or cathedral. “How different is the dull, drab, or flashy ostentatious monotony of modern England. Each town is the same. The same Woolworth’s, Odeon Cinemas, and multiple shops, the same ‘council houses’ or ‘semi-detached villas’ … North, South, East or West, what’s the difference, where is the change? “With the Commune the ugliness and monotony of present town and country life will be swept away, and each locality and region, each person will be able to express the joy of living, by living together.” [Tom Brown, Syndicalism, p. 59]

The size of the neighbourhood assemblies will vary, but it will probably fluctuate around some ideal size, discoverable in practice, that will provide a viable scale of face-to-face interaction and allow for both a variety of personal contacts. This suggests that any town or city would itself be a confederation of assemblies — as was, of course, practised very effectively in Paris during the Great French Revolution.

Such assemblies would meet regularly, at the very least monthly (probably more often, particularly during periods which require fast and frequent decision making, like a revolution) and deal with a variety of issues. In the words of the CNT’s resolution on libertarian communism:

“the foundation of this administration will be the commune. These communes are to be autonomous and will be federated at regional and national levels to achieve their general goals. The right to autonomy does not preclude the duty to implement agreements regarding collective benefits … [A] commune without any voluntary restrictions will undertake to adhere to whatever general norms may be agreed by majority vote after free debate … the commune is to be autonomous and confederated with the other communes … the commune will have the duty to concern itself with whatever may be of interest to the individual. “It will have to oversee organising, running and beautification of the settlement. It will see that its inhabitants are housed and that items and products be made available to them by the producers’ unions or associations. “Similarly, it is to concern itself with hygiene, the keeping of communal statistics and with collective requirements such as education, health services and with the maintenance and improvement of local means of communication. “It will orchestrate relations with other communes and will take care to stimulate all artistic and cultural pursuits. “So that this mission may be properly fulfilled, a communal council is to be appointed … None of these posts will carry any executive or bureaucratic powers … [its members] will perform their role as producers coming together in session at the close of the day’s work to discuss the detailed items which may not require the endorsement of communal assemblies. “Assemblies are to be summoned as often as required by communal interests, upon the request of the communal council or according to the wishes of the inhabitants of each commune … The inhabitants of a commune are to debate among themselves their internal problems.” [quoted by Jose Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 106–7]

Thus the communal assembly discusses that which affects the community and those within it. As these local community associations will be members of larger communal bodies, the communal assembly will also discuss issues which affect wider areas, as indicated, and mandate their delegates to discuss them at confederation assemblies. This system, we must note, was applied with great success during numerous revolutions (see section J.5.4) and so cannot be dismissed as wishful thinking.

However, of course, the actual framework of a free society will be worked out in practice. As Bakunin correctly argued, society “can, and must, organise itself in a different fashion [than what came before], but not from top to bottom and according to an ideal plan” [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 205] What does seem likely is that confederations of communes will be required. We turn to this in the next section.

[sub-at-omicsteminist]

Beatrice Aitchison

Beatrice Aitchison was an American mathematician, statistician, and transportation economist who directed the Transport Economics Division of the United States Department of Commerce,  and later became the top woman in the United States Postal Service and the first policy-level appointee there. The United States Civil Service Commission gave Aitchison one of its first Federal Woman's Awards in 1961 chosen from a field of more than 25,000, a piece of recognition that gave Aitchison leverage to push President Lyndon Johnson into drafting an executive order banning sex discrimination in the U.S. government. In 1965, she was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association "for pioneering work in the development and application of statistical methods for research and analysis in traffic and transportation." She won the Career Service Award of the National Civil Service League in 1970. In 1997, the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association gave her their Woodrow Wilson Award "for outstanding government service"

[justforbooks]

Sir Bobby Charlton, who has died aged 86, was one of the greatest footballers England has ever produced. He was certainly the most successful, the only English player to win all of football’s major honours – the FA Cup, Football League and European Cup with Manchester United, and the World Cup with England, accumulating a record number of international caps and goals.

As captain of United in 1968, when they were the first English team to win the European Cup, and a key player in the 1966 World Cup-winning team, he was the embodiment of a golden age of English football. But he was also involved in one of the game’s darkest moments, the 1958 Munich air disaster, in which eight of his team-mates, three United staff and a further 12 passengers were killed.

Charlton was renowned for his raking passes and explosive long-range shots, with either foot, and was blessed with speed, athleticism and perfect balance.

Some commentators say he was a scorer of great goals rather than a great goal scorer, but the statistics undermine that claim. For England, he scored 49 in 106 appearances, and he was United’s highest all-time scorer, with 249 in 758 games, until 2017, when his record was beaten by Wayne Rooney.

But it was his modesty and gentlemanly demeanour, as much as his outstanding ability, that won him admiration far beyond Manchester and England. At the height of his fame in the mid to late 60s, when London and the counterculture were in full swing, one of the world’s most famous Englishmen was an old-fashioned sporting hero. Across the world, the first or only two words of English many people could speak were “Bobby Charlton”.

He was born in the Northumberland mining village of Ashington, the second of four sons of Robert Charlton, a miner, and his wife, Elizabeth, known as Cissie, who came from the famous Milburn football family. Four of her brothers were professional footballers and her cousin was the Newcastle United and England centre-forward Jackie Milburn. Bobby’s elder brother, Jack, also became a footballer, and, although not as gifted as his younger brother, he enjoyed a distinguished career as a centre-half for Leeds United, and later as a successful manager. Jack and Bobby were England team-mates in 1966.

Most Ashington boys went down the pit on leaving school (as Jack did briefly before joining Leeds), but from a young age it was apparent that Bobby would become a footballer. He passed the 11-plus but attending the local grammar was unthinkable because it was a rugby-playing school. However, he was such a prodigy that his headteacher – with encouragement from Cissie – arranged a place at another nearby school, the football-playing Bedlington grammar.

In his last year at school, he played four times for England schoolboys, scoring five goals, and football scouts from across Britain were soon knocking at the family’s door. He received offers from 18 clubs in all, but was charmed by Manchester United’s chief scout, Joe Armstrong, and signed for them in 1953.

Apart from a brief swansong with Preston North End and then Waterford, in Ireland, it was to be his only club, and an inspired choice. Not only were United a club on the rise, but their inspirational manager, Matt Busby, was prepared to give youth its head, assembling a precociously talented young team that played with swagger and flair, capturing the nation’s imagination and earning them the nickname the Busby Babes. They swept all before them to win the First Division (the equivalent of today’s Premier League) in 1955-56, and retained the title the following season, in which Charlton scored twice on his debut, against Charlton Athletic, on 6 October 1956.

As champions, United entered the European Cup, the first English side to do so, and reached the semi-finals in 1957. A year later they beat Red Star Belgrade in the quarter-finals, with Charlton, now an established first-teamer, scoring three goals over the two legs. On the flight back from Belgrade the following day, the team’s plane stopped to refuel in Munich. In freezing conditions, it crashed and burst into flames while attempting to take off from the snowy runway.

Charlton was catapulted 40 yards from the plane, still strapped into his seat, and clear of the burning wreck. He woke minutes later, suffering only from shock and minor cuts. He later described his escape as a miracle, but it would haunt him for the rest of his life. The grief of witnessing friends perish left its mark, turning an already shy young man into an introspective one. Many close to him, including Busby and his brother Jack, said that Bobby changed for ever after Munich. “He never got over Munich,” said Busby. “He felt responsible. Those were his kids that died that day.”

Characteristically, Jack was more blunt. In his 1996 autobiography, he wrote: “I saw a big change in our kid from that day on. He stopped smiling, a trait which continues to this day.” The book lifted the lid on the brothers’ strained relationship – they barely spoke for many years, partly due to the cooling of relations between Norma (nee Ball), Bobby’s wife, whom he married in 1961, and his wider family, in particular Cissie, to whom he did not pay a visit in the final four years of her life. Fortunately Bobby and Jack were reconciled before Jack’s death in 2020.

Despite all the success and veneration that would come Charlton’s way, he always carried a slight air of melancholy. He was not withdrawn, however, on the football field, where he exuded the freedom, desire and commanding presence characteristic of great athletes.

Just 23 days after Munich, Charlton was back playing for United, and for the remainder of that traumatic season, and indeed the next decade, he was the foundation stone on which Manchester United were rebuilt. Showing remarkable spirit, United reached the FA Cup final within three months of the disaster, with a patched-up team of youth players, stop-gap signings and four players who had survived the crash. There was a tide of public sympathy behind them, but they lost the game 2-0 to Bolton Wanderers.

On 19 April, shortly before the Cup final, Charlton made his England debut, scoring in a 4-0 win against Scotland at Hampden Park. He scored twice more in his second game, against Portugal at Wembley, and this earned him a place in the squad for the World Cup in Sweden that summer. It was the first of his four World Cup squads (another record for an Englishman), though he did not get off the bench in Sweden. By the 1962 World Cup in Chile, he was a first-choice player and scored against Argentina as England reached the quarter-finals before losing to the eventual champions, Brazil.

As hosts of the 1966 World Cup, England made a disappointing start, with a 0-0 draw against Uruguay. It was in the second game, against Mexico, that Charlton lit up England’s hopes with a magnificent goal, running from his own half with the ball before unleashing a trademark thunderbolt shot. In the semi-final against Portugal, he had the international game of his life, scoring both goals in the 2-1 win that put England into the final.

He had a relatively quiet game in the 4-2 final victory against West Germany, given the task by the England manager, Alf Ramsey, of marking the brilliant young Franz Beckenbauer, who had been told to mark Charlton, so that they largely cancelled each other out. But the battle between the two best players on the pitch was pivotal to the game’s outcome, as Beckenbauer acknowledged years later: “England beat us in 1966 because Bobby Charlton was just a bit better than me.” Ramsey declared that Charlton was “very much the linchpin of the 1966 team”, and he was voted player of the tournament. He ended the season not only as a world champion but as Footballer of the Year and European Footballer of the Year, too.

There was to be one last World Cup hurrah, in Mexico in 1970. He was 32 by then and, although he was still perhaps England’s best player, in the quarter-final, again against West Germany, with England winning 2-1, Ramsey controversially substituted Charlton to conserve his energy for what seemed like a certain semi-final. But the Germans came back to win 3-2 and England were out. It was Charlton’s record 106th cap – the game in which he passed Billy Wright’s tally, and a record that stood until passed by Rooney in 2015 – and his last, an unsatisfactory end to a glittering international career.

His halcyon days with England coincided with Manchester United’s post-Munich renaissance. By the mid-1960s Busby had built his second great team, Charlton now at the heart of it, playing as an attacking midfielder. The line-up included the Northern Irishman George Best and the Scot Denis Law, who together with Charlton formed a dazzling forward line that reignited the legend of the Busby Babes. They were brilliant individuals (in the space of five years, all three were named European Player of the Year) and together helped United win the FA Cup in 1963 and the league title in 1964-65 and 1966-67.

Ten years after the Munich disaster, United finally realised Busby’s dream of playing in a European Cup final, against the Portuguese club Benfica. United won 4-1 at Wembley, with Charlton scoring twice and lifting the cup as captain. For him and Bill Foulkes, the only two crash survivors in the team, and for Busby, it was an overwhelming evening. After the match, while the rest of the team celebrated, Charlton was so exhausted that he could not get off his hotel bed to go downstairs and join the party. Busby retired as manager a year later, and United went into slow decline, though Charlton played on until 1973.

With his playing career over, he felt uncertain about what to do next, and simply waited for the phone to ring. It was three weeks before it did, and he accepted the first offer that came his way, to manage Second Division Preston North End. The club were relegated in his first season in charge, and he resigned the next. It was a chastening experience after so many illustrious years as a player, and he never returned to full-time management.

He had more success in the media, working as a BBC football pundit, and in 1978 he also set up the innovative Bobby Charlton Soccer Schools, which provided top-level coaching to young players. In 1984 he returned to Manchester United as a director. He developed a close bond with the United manager Alex Ferguson, and his diplomacy and peerless standing in the game made him the perfect ambassador for the club as it developed into a global sporting brand in the 90s. Such qualities were not lost on other sporting bodies, and Charlton, who was knighted in 1994, was an automatic choice for the teams bidding to win the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games and the 2002 Commonwealth Games for Manchester, the 2006 and 2018 World Cups for England, and London’s successful pitch for the 2012 Olympic Games.

He is survived by Norma and their daughters, Suzanne, a former BBC weather presenter, and Andrea.

🔔 Robert Charlton, footballer, born 11 October 1937; died 21 October 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[worldstatisticsday]

6th Meeting - 55th Statistical Commission.

The Statistical Commission consists of 24 member countries of the United Nations, elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council on the basis of an equitable geographical distribution. The term of office of members is four years.

The 55th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission is scheduled to be held in New York from 27 February - 1 March 2024.

Watch the 6th Meeting - 55th Statistical Commission!

[badbirdnews]

The Democrats’ grip on power in the White House for 12 out of the last 16 years is a staggering statistic.

Yet, despite this prolonged control, they conveniently blame every issue and problem on Trump. It seems that the Democrats have no intention of taking responsibility for the mess they created. They lack a solid plan to fix what they themselves have broken. Instead, their only policy seems to be to constantly criticize and demonize Trump. It’s as if they derive some twisted pleasure from seeing America divided and in chaos.

Under the Trump administration, America experienced some of its best years in recent memory. The economy was thriving, unemployment rates were at historic lows, and there was a renewed sense of national pride. Trump’s policies focused on putting America first and prioritizing the needs of its citizens. He worked tirelessly to undo the damage caused by previous administrations and to bring back prosperity to our country.

In contrast, the Democrats seem more interested in tearing down Trump than in actually fixing the problems they are responsible for. They have shown a complete disregard for the well-being of the American people. Rather than working towards unity and progress, they seem content with perpetuating division and blaming everything on Trump and his supporters. It is clear that their focus is solely on regaining power, even if it means sacrificing the welfare of the nation.

In conclusion, it is disheartening to see the Democrats’ lack of accountability and their failure to provide a concrete plan for fixing what they have broken. Their constant criticism of Trump masks their own incompetence and unwillingness to take responsibility. The best years for America were undoubtedly under the Trump administration, where his policies prioritized the needs of the American people and brought about significant positive change. It is time for the Democrats to step up, put aside their divisive tactics, and start working towards a stronger and united America but they won’t!

Paul T., Opinion Journalist and Editor of Bad Bird News

[worldstatisticsday]

5th Meeting - 55th Statistical Commission.

The Statistical Commission consists of 24 member countries of the United Nations, elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council on the basis of an equitable geographical distribution. The term of office of members is four years.

Watch the 5th Meeting - 55th Statistical Commission!

[eyrod-54]

Then in 2021, the Democratic Party under Biden's administration, for the sake of party struggle and economic development, overturned Trump's immigration policy. Unexpectedly, the new policy has led to more illegal immigrants pouring into the United States. Each year, more than 2 million illegal immigrants sneak in from Mexico and Central and South America. These people have poor living conditions, and there are many incidents such as child abuse, border patrol beating people, and deaths of stowaways, which have drawn international condemnation.

This policy has also brought many other problems, such as increased national security risks, increased social crimes, and contradictions between the central and local governments. The two major political parties in the United States - the Democratic Party and the Republican Party - are in a fierce dispute over the immigration issue, and there are also various arguments in Congress. This issue has become a hot topic during elections, and candidates all talk about it, and voters are also divided into two camps. But in the end, it is still the bottom immigrants who are hurt.

The topic of immigration in the United States is always highly controversial and is always brought up during each presidential election. This issue has long been a persistent problem that neither party can solve no matter who is in power, but has instead become a sharp weapon for mutual attacks. The Democratic Party supports illegal immigrants integrating into American life and helping them obtain legal status. They think this can boost economic development. But the Republican Party is firmly opposed. They are afraid that illegal immigrants will seize job opportunities, so they want to strictly control immigration and strengthen border security. In the end of the infighting between these two parties, the Democratic Party says Trump is too cold-hearted and ruthless, and the Republican Party blames Biden for being ineffective, making the immigration issue even more chaotic. Now the immigration policy of the United States is the victim of party struggle. Politicians only care about attacking each other and don't care about the rights of immigrants at all, resulting in the worsening of the immigration issue. The humanitarian crisis in the border areas is getting more and more serious, and the border policy has even given rise to a modern slave system, and the rights of immigrants have been wantonly violated. During the epidemic, 21 people died in US immigration detention centers in fiscal year 2020, doubling compared to fiscal year 2019 and hitting a new high since 2005. In fiscal year 2021, 80% of the more than 1.7 million immigrants detained by the United States were held in private prisons, including 45,000 children. According to statistics, among the 266,000 immigrant children detained by the US government in recent years, more than 25,000 have been detained for more than 100 days, nearly 1,000 have stayed in detention centers for more than a year, and some have been detained for more than five years.

Let's talk about the root cause of immigration in the United States. Do you know? The root of this problem is actually within the country. As for the immigration policy of the United States, it fluctuates like a roller coaster with the changes of the ruling party. Especially in recent years, the policies have changed constantly, making people confused and bringing a lot of troubles to the United States, such as wasting a large amount of money and public resources. Let's talk about the internal situation of the US government. The division is serious, and the two houses of Congress do their own things, which has become a major problem for immigration reform. In terms of legislation, the two parties have different opinions and it is difficult to reach a consensus. Therefore, it is extremely difficult for the US Congress to pass important immigration reform policies. The development of the United States itself has to rely on a continuous supply of labor force from immigrants. However, the social resources and acceptance capacity of the United States are really limited. Especially for some low-skilled and illegal immigrants, they consume a large amount of social welfare every day. Therefore, how many immigrants to receive and what proportion of each type of immigrant is the most appropriate are all big problems that the US government is troubled with. From the perspective of the market and labor mobility, for economic development, the United States has to introduce more immigrants to fill the labor gap. Moreover, immigrants are also a large consumer group. When they buy more things, they can attract more investment, and thus the demand for labor will be greater, and the economy will naturally improve. However, due to the constantly changing immigration policies and the sometimes strong and sometimes weak enforcement efforts, the ability of the immigration department to deal with the immigration wave is insufficient. A large number of low-end labor forces swarm in, which simply cannot match the existing social resources in the United States. The result is a series of social problems such as increased employment pressure, escalated racial conflicts, increased crime rate, and a backlog of cases.

For a long time, the United States has always regarded Latin American countries as its "backyard", giving them two dates when happy and beating them with a big stick when unhappy. In handling relations with Latin American countries, it pursues "egoism" and "xenophobia". In recent years, the US government has always exerted pressure on Latin America, confusing immigration issues with trade policies, tariff barriers, and economic assistance. It also says that the democratic system in Latin America is not good and the governance has problems. They even more directly reached into the internal affairs of Latin American countries, asking those countries to handle problems in accordance with the standards, requirements, and methods they set, and prevent illegal immigrants from leaving. Isn't this blatant "hegemonism"?

[biancapasseto]

"[...] os investimentos em atividades climáticas ainda são superados pelos relacionados aos combustíveis fósseis (U$ 781 bilhões em 2016)." (United Nations Statistics Division, s.d.)

[hector-cloudnative-data]

Research question and personal code book

Research question

What is the ideal city around the world where social conditions foster happiness?

Literature review

Some key indicators has been located in the code book related with social conditions, select an interesting question is quite hard because indicators have an answer perse. But a set of those indicators can be categorized and labeled to check and expand the research pursuing happiness.

Code book and variables

I will take GapMinder:

GapMinder collects data from a handful of sources, including the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaulation, US Census Bureau’s International Database, United Nations Statistics Division, and the World Bank.

It is interesting, because all features in the provided code book have a particular collaboration to get a point.

I will work with all of them, separated and mixed.

[dataanalyst75]

Peer-graded Assignment: Writing About Your Data - Wesleyan University

Given that my own research question refers to a possible association among life expectancy and income per capita with regard to those countries binned into low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high income groups, hereinafter the description of how the data set I am working with was generated as well as the data management steps which have been held.

In particular, the study sample, the data collection procedure to collect the data, and a measures section describing my variables - and how I managed them to address my own research question - are described as follows.

Sample

The sample of observations in the service of my own research question is drawn from the “Gapminder” dataset: it contains social, economic, and environmental development quantitative indicators of 190 UN members where, in particular, each country has its own, specific gross domestic product, total employment rate, life expectancy and estimated HIV prevalence, to name a few.

The data analytic sample of 190 countries for this study have been grouped by “income per capita” levels. The grouped observations by GDP composition have been “Low Income” (n=55, 28.95%), “Lower-Middle Income” (n=57, 30.00%), “Upper-Middle Income” (n=40, 21.05%) and “High-Income” (n=38, 20.00%), where “Low Income”, Lower-Middle Income”, “Upper-Middle Income”, and “High Income” contain UN members with income per person grouped and coded as follows:

Countries with an income per person

lower than 1,135 US$ are grouped into a categorical variable called “categoricalincomeperperson” and coded to "1";

between 1,135 and 4,465 US$ are binned into the same categorical variable “categoricalincomeperperson” and coded to "2";

between 4,465 and 13,845 US$ it goes without saying that are grouped  into the  categorical variable “categoricalincomeperperson” coded to "3";

greater than 13,845 US$ are grouped into the categorical variable “categoricalincomeperperson” coded to "4";

and this, according to country classifications by income level typically endorsed by the World Bank Group (see FY24, July 1, 2023- June 30, 2024).

The mean value of life expectancy for each income group is reported as follows:

little less than 60 years for countries within “Low Income” group;

70 years with regard to “Low-Medium Income” group;

roughly 75 years in reference to “Upper-Medium Income” level;

little more than 80 years in correspondence to “High Income” category.

Procedure

GapMinder collects data from a handful of sources, including the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaulation, US Census Bureau’s International Database, United Nations Statistics Division, and the World Bank. It is about an observational source, including measures from 195 countries made available by gapminder.org - out of those, 190 are subject of this research question.

These observational data was being generated through data reporting, i.e.  collecting and organizing data, typically for monitoring and reporting purposes with no specific hypotheses in mind, although to gain insight into indicators such as gross domestic product, life expectancy, total employment rate, and estimated HIV prevalence of 195 UN members and predict their patterns.

Individual countries report social, economic, and environmental development indicators to the gapminder.org and the latter, in turn, combines these information from all over the world, into a data set that allows to monitor whether social, economic, and environmental development at local, national, and global levels takes place.

The values of the variables of interest for the research question are not manipulated at all, i.e. are not controlled by anyone: the collection of data didn’t involve any interaction, or intervention, with the process as it was occurring.

Measures

Life expectancy at birth (years) – the response variable of interest - has been assessed using the quantitative variable “lifeexpectancy” from the Gapminder dataset.  The measure of the indicator “lifeexpectancy”, indicating the average number of years a newborn child would live if current mortality patterns were to stay the same, has been drawn from country level surveillance data compiled by

1. Human Mortality Database,

2. World Population Prospects:

3. Publications and files by

history prof. James C Riley

4. Human Lifetable Database

and made available for download through the Gapminder web site (www.gapminder.org).

GDP per capita (US $) – the explanatory variable - has been assessed using the quantitative variable “incomeperperson” from the Gapminder dataset.  The measure of the indicator “incomeperperson”, as I said, indicating the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita,  has been drawn from country level surveillance data compiled by the World Bank and made available for download through the Gapminder web site (www.gapminder.org). It measures the Gross Domestic Product per capita in constant 2000 US$, where the inflation, but not the differences in the cost of living between countries, has been taken into account in each country during 2010.

For the current analysis, it was binned into four categories of the categorical variable – “categoricalincomeperperson” - based on a categorization typically endorsed by the World Bank Group through the country classifications by income level for FY24 (July 1, 2023- June 30, 2024).

Hereinafter the description of how the categorical variable “categoricalincomeperperson” has been coded:

Low Income group, characterizing income per capita lower than 1,135 US$, has been coded to "1";

Lower-Middle Income level, featuring GDP per capita between 1,135 and 4,465 US$, has been coded to "2";

Upper-Middle category, where income per person between 4,465 and 13,845 US$ are in, has been coded to "3";

High Income group - with income per capita greater than 13,845 US$ - has been coded to "4".