GLOBAL AFFAIRS

Christians head for USA, Muslims to KSA

Christians far outnumber Muslims as migrants around the world, including in the European Union where debates about immigration usually focus on new Muslim arrivals, according to a new study. Of the world’s 214 million people who have moved from their home country to live in another, about 106 million (49 percent) are Christians while around 60 million (27 percent) are Muslims, the study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life said. Only 3.6 million Jews around the world have moved across international borders, the study said, but that is 25 percent of the world’s Jewish population, by far the highest proportion on the move of any faith group. “Many experts think that, on the whole, economic opportunities — better jobs and higher wages — have been the single biggest driver of international migration,” it said. “At the same time, religion remains a factor in some people’s decisions to leave their countries of birth and their choices of where to go.” The study defined migrants as people living in another country in 2010 for over a year, including estimates of illegal immigrants and long-term refugees including Palestinians and their descendants. “Perhaps contrary to popular perception, Christian immigrants outnumber Muslim immigrants in the European Union as a whole,” the report said, indirectly referring to far-right parties that have long campaigned against Muslim newcomers.
Of the 47 million migrants in the EU, 26 million (56 percent) are Christians, double the 13 million Muslim migrants, who make up only 27 percent of the total, it said. The gap narrows when intra-EU migration - for example, Christian Greeks to Germany or French-born Muslims to Britain — is excluded, but Christians migrating from outside the EU still outnumber non-EU Muslim migrants by about 13 million to 12 million. While Christians head for USA, Muslims to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The United States is the leading destination for Christian migrants, who account for 32 million (74 percent) of its 43 million-strong foreign-born population. Two-thirds of them are from Latin America. “The United States has received about as many immigrants from Mexico alone (more than 12 million, including both legal immigrants and unauthorized ones) as any other nation has received from all sources combined,” the study said. The US is also the world’s top destination for Buddhists, many from Vietnam. “About five percent of US immigrants are Muslims, a much lower share than in Europe,” it added. Saudi Arabia is the top destination for Muslim migrants, mostly workers from other Arab countries, the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia and the Philippines. While nearly half of all Muslim migrants come from the Asia-Pacific region, the largest single group — over five million — is made up of migrants and their descendants from the Palestinian territories, the study said. Israel takes in the most Jewish migrants, many of them from Russia and Ukraine, followed far behind by the US, Canada and Australia.
The United Nations estimates that about three percent of the world’s population are migrants. “If the world’s 214 million international migrants were counted as one nation, they would constitute the fifth most populous country on the globe, just behind Indonesia and ahead of Brazil,” the study said.
(Reported by Tom Heneghan) (REUTERS)

This man has done more than anybody else to make clean and safe toilets accessible to one and all.

Jack Sim is a citizen of Singapore. He has dedicated his life to the cause of providing basic sanitation facilities to 2.6 billion people who do not have access to safe and clean toilets. Most of us think that talking in public about toilets is taboo, yet do not hesitate to hold hankies to our noses while passing by a site where people defecate in public. Localities closer to such sites are anathema.
Jack Sim was son of person who worked in a grocery store and a mother who emerged as a hugely successful entrepreneur beginning as a beautician for low-cost weddings and later as an event manager. Jack also set up his business at 24 and gained financial success and quit as the CEO of his company at 40. He began to concentrate on how to achieve the goal of providing access to sanitation to 2.6 billion people around the world. He says 160 million people have intestinal worms because of poor hygiene, and one-point-six million children die of diarrhea each year - often because of poor sanitation facilities, such as pit latrines.He founded the Restroom Association of Singapore (RAS) in 1998 and later World Toilet Organisation in 2000. Through RAS, Jack’s vision was to put Singapore on the “world map” by taking the initiative to provide clean public toilets. His movement for safe and clean toilets saw immense improvement in restrooms in Singapore, a city state. He proceeded to convene International Toilet Summit and still later succeeded in designating November 19 as International Toilet Day. He has also set up the World Toilet College (WTC).
Sanitation plays an important role in ending poverty, creating gender equality, and keeping children in school. If we hope to sustain the progress made in attaining the Millennium Development Goals it is crucial that the international community pays more attention to the sanitation gap. Sanitation is part of the seventh Millennium Development Goal (ensure environmental sustainability). Jack’s work has been recognized wide across the globe. In 2004, he was awarded the Singapore Green Plan Award. He was also termed Hero of the Environment by Time Magazine.

Jack SimSpeak
• Capitalism and consumption are not bad per se but wantone, unrestrained demand certainly is.
• Buy all that you need and little what you want.
• Do not compare and you will be free to be happy.
• If you can act on something without the need for approaval, then do it.
• Self-fulfilling is often more fulfilling than praise from others.
• Unless it’s expressly forbidden, immoral or against public interest, consider the possibility that things can be done.
• Not making use of our ability to wonder and think could mean losing the ability to innovate.
• See your task as a mission instead of a mere job or chore.
• Losing face by admitting an error is not as bad as not rectifying a problem early on.

Five Southern African nations agreed to form the world’s largest international conservation area in an effort to protect nearly half of the continent’s elephants and a vast range of animals, birds and plants, many endangered by poaching and human encroachment. At a ceremony in Namibia, last month, government ministers from Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe put their official seal on a cross-border treaty set to combine 36 nature preserves and surrounding areas. The World Wildlife Fund said the countries will cooperate on measures to allow animals to roam freely across their borders over 170,000 square miles (440,000 square kilometers), almost the size of Sweden. The Kavango Zambezi area includes the Victoria Falls World Heritage site in Zimbabwe and Botswana’s famed swampland of the Okavango Delta. Conservationists say historical migration routes of animals have been curtailed by national borders and man-made conflict. The decades-long civil war in Angola saw elephant herds, notoriously skittish to gunfire, fleeing far from their own habitats. According to the treaty put into effect, the Kavango Zambezi Trans-frontier Conservation Area, known as KAZA, is home to about 45 percent of Africa’s elephants. Along with other game animals, it has a rare heritage of at least 600 species of birds and 3,000 species of plants.
(The Associated Press)

In a first of its kind, a leading producer of dairy products in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is planning to introduce a new variety of ice cream created from camel milk. The Al Ain Dairy said it will be the first such product made out of camel milk in the UAE. We have spent a lot of time creating flavours that we feel are different and most importantly not available in the market,” said Abdullah Saif Al Darmaki, chief executive officer of Al Ain Dairy. Camel milk, which is slightly saltier than cow’s milk, is an integral part of the traditional Arabian diet. The milk has numerous health benefits. Al Darmaki said the technology for making camel milk ice cream was exactly the same as that made from cow’s milk. “But we wanted to do something completely different. The ice cream will be produced with pure camel milk, with no additives.