Europe

1. How is the EU leading the fight against climate change?

The EU is working very hard in this matter, that's the reason is very committed right now in working for a global agreement so they can control climate change by the time is a leadership in this matter.
For instance, the European Union has been at the front of international efforts to combat climate change, so they are an important member in the two major treaties that are: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997. This last one is world wide recognized and is a way to control de CO2 emissions.
Also they are dedicated to producte energy by different alternatives as are the biofuels and solar energy in order to transform themselves as a highly energy-efficient low carbon economy, additionally they are creating new cleaning methods that are more kind with the environment.
The EU, has some objectives by 2020 to cut the greenhouse gas emissions by 30% of developing nations and 20% less carbon emitted.

As well they set three key targsts to be met by the same year (2020):
a. 20% redction in energy consumption
b. Increase to 20% in renewable energies' shar of total energy consumption
c. Increase to 10% the share of petrol and diesel from sustainably produced biofuels.

The problem for renewal energies, is that the low carbon alternative is the nuclear energy, which these last days was permited again in countries as Italy and France. This option is not as safe if we remember the terrible accident of Chernobyl.


2. How is Europe managing its migration flows?

It’s important to mention that the European Union migration is the source of the population growth (EU receives approximately 1’600.000 migrants per year), each year a lot of immigrants (legal and illegals) enter to the E.U because it’s a very attractive place to set up and because have many points of entry making easier the "job".

Taking this into account,the EU decided to implement some politics to manage migration as a whole with 2 different strategies:

1. Promote Legal Migrations Channels: EU governments promote legal migration and decided to assist migrants on finding jobs, give them advices, give them all the information they need about money transfer (Migration also brings benefits for the origin country: Remittances helps the developing of home economies) and knowing all of this, they can decided if they want to stay at the home country or migrate to other country but legally.

2. Global approach to migration: Border management that seeks the prevention of illegal migration, the EU governments has institutionalized the Detention Centers, which have as objective to support migrants in transit: they receive protection, legal assistance, advice, guidance and help to going back home

3. What are the main challenges for an aging workforce in Europe?

Over the last decades Europe has been facing a decline of its birth rates and a longer life expectancy of its population. Like that comes a huge dilemma for Europe since “the average age of the working population will increase and the number of people of working age will decline”(Naegele and Walker, 2006).

One of the main problems with it lays in the stability and continuation of the Welfare State that many European States hold and for the ones working people able to pay taxes are essential. And the other difficulty is concerning the social security systems (how pensions can be sustainable).


So around this problematic in Europe there are, according to the EUROFOND at their “Employment initiatives for an ageing Workforce”, three main challenges which are:
How to maintain the health and working capacity of the workers as they age
How to develop skills and employability of the older workers
How to provide suitable working conditions as well as employment opportunities for the ageing workforce.

And these challenges need the private sector and governmental policies in order to improve the conditions for the workers and like that establish a longer working life. In that way, not only the working conditions will be better, but it would allow future economic growth, an adequate labor supply, and benefits for the companies and sustainable retirement conditions (EUROFOND).

In order to face these challenges the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions proposes some other challenges that also need to be faced in the work system and those are:

The reduction of age-related labor costs
Good reaction to changes in the external labor market conditions
Solutions for labor market bottlenecks
And have a proper age management at work which considers 8 dimensions:
Job recruitment
Learning, training and lifelong learning
Career development
Flexible working time practices
Health protection and promotion, and workplace design
Redeployment
Employment exit and the transition to retirement
Comprehensive approaches ”(Naegele and Walker, 2006)

Nonetheless, personally we think that there is also a need to consider the young workers and how to engage them with the current system and the companies, since many young people in Europe prefer to work in the United States or elsewhere in order to avoid the high taxes they would have to pay if they stay in Europe, and many of them consider unfair the idea of paying for the elders pension and not have the certainty that future generations will be able to guarantee them the same level of life standards during their retirement.

And the second thing to have into account is the role of women. In some European countries, as Germany, there are some discussions around the role of women as mother or as worker. And finally, the woman is one of the core stones for solving this ageing workforce situation. Nowadays some women realize that they won’t be able to have enough possibilities for raising their kids if they are working (not enough kindergartens or very expensive ones, not enough time for being with them and do basic things as going to the school meetings…) or that they have to sacrifice their studies and just stay at home, so they prefer not to have kids at all. Like that the birth rate has decreased and by not giving them fair opportunities to be mothers and workers they are also leaving behind the potential many women have to do both.

4. How European business could overcome the challenges of balancing the interests of cultural diversity and nationalist interests?

Several different cultures or subcultures are usually brought together into every individual nation. That is how nationalism and cultures are both terms to group people sharing some similarities, but whilst the first one stresses more on a feeling of belonging and being part of a nation, the latter covers a wider range of features of a group of individuals that makes it a more transcendental affiliation, even thought, from time to time, either can be contained in the other.
It is important to acknowledge the differences existing on one another but also, it is even more important to learn how to deal with both, especially in times when integration and globalization is making the world a smaller place.
In the document “The Future of European Business Leadership” by Manfred Kets de Vries and Konstantin Korotov (2006) the authors rely on these facts to explain in a way, the current situation throughout Europe is passing by. Mobility of peoples and capitals all around the Union has began a strong process of migration of companies that pursue better value for their inversion. So the authors relate how this phenomenon has brought up the differences of particular cultures when compared to a general nationalism, like in this case the European Union. The question that arises is where the line is drawn for a European or a German company. This scenario is generating several difficulties among citizens because from time to time they are just pushed into accepting a European nationalism, forgetting the particular aspects and details of each country’s culture. Europe, as a big pluralist community, pretends to encourage diversity and cooperation between different cultures, but they must make bigger efforts to gather all that amount of peoples, without homogenizing the society, which would end up being unnatural.


References:

• Gonzales-Perez, M. A. 2009. Presentation "Europe" part of the subject Organizations and Cultures at the University EAFIT

• European Commission. Climate Change. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/home_en.htm
• Italia recupera energía nuclear de la mano de Francia tras 21 años de rechazo. Diario El País. (2009) http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Italia/recupera/energia/nuclear/mano/Francia/21/anos/rechazo/elpepiint/20090225elpepiint_6/Tes
  

• EUROFOND. 2009. Employment initiatives for an ageing Workforce. http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/research/0296.htm. Accessed 5 May 2009.
• Naegele, G. & Walker, A. 2006. A guide to good practice in age management. Luxenbourg: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions
• Kets, M. Korotov, K. 2006. The Future of European Business Leadership. European Business Forum, 24: 37 – 42.
  

Middle East

The place were all the religions gather, were they were born. is a crucible of religions, Muslim chiitas, sunnitas, Judaism and Christianism for the same reason receives a lot of peregrines coming for all over the world specially in the case of Muslims.

Its economy goes around its precious oil, the same that countries as United States want in anyway, it doesn't matter if it has to be by giving explanations with no arguments to "save" that land from violence and terrorist government in order to have a piece of that treasure.

Continuing with their economy, as I said before, the tourism here is very important, as well as the agriculture sector. With ahead large economies are Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Known mainly because its permanent fighting mood, the Holy land conflict is the most heard. And really because of medias we only know bad things about this region, as the same that could be happening to us in other parts of the world, only here Colombia for describing a massacre, violence, poverty, guerrilla and of course drugs.

But leaving that fame behind, how are national medias handling this?

This aspect is even hard to handle for nationals, in the case of Iran the freedom for journalists is so limited because of the Ayatollahs regime, they control the national and international news publications. This last one requires creativity and that's when they decide to capture and put in jail women journalists. And because the police and the legal power is on their hands, is not difficult to maintain them for months by the crime of espionage, even foreign journalists.

Though, for Iran's journalist is not better. The Human Rights Watch Organization established independent journals, and Iran journalists suffer detentions with no reason and attacks with judgments that are really affecting their performance in their labor, and freedom of speech. Some Iranians blogger say that there have been some cases were journalists have been kicked, jailed and even killed just for publishing something that is not accepted by the religious authorities of Iran.

In one organization, said that there are 6 journalists and two blogger in Iranians jails, there is a case of a Canadian blogger and the known case of Roxana Sabari a 31 year-old American journalist with Iran nationality was working for some networks as FOX and BBC, she has lied in Iran for the past six years and was accused of been doing espionage, but international laws says Saberi was sent to prision with no reasons since January of 2009. She is one of other Americans that were detained while they were visiting or working Iran.

According to Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "In fact, Iran continues to be one of the biggest jailers of journalists worldwide."

In conclusion, is not an easy issue to improve, cause here are involved all those religion problems, their cultural behavior where they got used to manage punishment with pain and extreme actions, is the religious background the one that for them has all the explanations and reasons, and with a west sight for us, our believes and customs this has no logic and we describe those acts as orthodox and unconscious as well the treatment they have toward women rights, and sexuality. A complicated culture, that doesn't led too much space to get into their shoes and think like them.

But all of those procedures are an expression of their culture, as well as their architecture, customs, clothing, women treatment, among others issues. Religion, history, climate and uncertainty marks the tendency for their functioning patterns.

References

* Medio oriente con ojos de mujer. Roxana Saberi, la punta de un monumental iceberg (2009) http://roxanalevinson.wordpress.com/
* Iran: Illegal Detention of Iranian-American Journalist. (2009) http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/03/13/iran-illegal-detention-iranian-american-journalist

Images

* War in the Middle East. http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewf/270941650/
* The US gift of peace to the Middle East. Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/barrybar/1205109673/
* http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=iran&w=all

The mysterious case of Africa

This presentation was a review of what know about Africa. This continent is occupied by a large extremely but extremely arid zone that is in the north part of the territory. This land is dry and each day more impossible for living because of the climate change.
Africa is suffering, is struggling and fighting against a lot of evils. Is a place where hunger is present, is the poorest place in all the world, with bad nutrition, they don't have enough clean water for drinking or bathing, has the problem of the blood diamonds, with an extreme climate, but with very dense jungles in the central and southern areas, and the world's largest combination of density and "range of freedom" of wild animal and diversity.

Diversity too when talking about more than 2000 ethnic groups live in Africa, each one with its own diverse culture and ideology. Africa has 54 sovereign states within the continent, therefore to generalize and try to come up with an universal answer or view of Africa is absurd and very difficult.

A continent that had a colonization history that in some ways at the end brought many problems and differences between towns and entire countries. So, the colonizers went there brought things they never had seen, as guns and then share the territories with such libertinism that they never thought about the problems that would exist then only because they had separated ethnic groups without taking a moment to study their culture and likes. Barely a territory that had learned to defend themselves and more of this people are prevent to the outside world, that's why the Central Committee that was gathered on September 1999, determined three big issues as a basical framework for the Reconstruction Program of Africa, it talks about:

1. The war and conflicts (governability, kids and women in armed conflict
2. Economical justice, that includes the mundialization and doubt (human rights and human dignity)
3. Spirituality and ethic values that dignify life

Other aspect that I really want to talk about and that will be my question, is about the HIV problem. The epidemic of this virus, has Africa as its favorite place to spread itself and it requires of a big economic and cleanness help to avoid that in the next 20 years, can exist 43 millions of new infected and that deaths reach in 2025, 80 millions of people.

The silent, slow and painful death produced by HIV is a new way of violence. Now days, the pandemic in Africa is the most terrible genocide though is silent. In a lot of communities are old people who are burying the young and the cultural consequences and physiologic are unknown.
And is sad to be conscious that death had became a normal experience that happens each day, without even thinking.

Plus, is known that in every country in the world corruption is present, in this continent is like a cancer, and in many societies of Africa, corruption and bribe are institutionalized and are accepted generally as a way to advance. And in this matter of HIV help, some cases about corruption are heard too, one was by the movie the Constant Gardener that showed Africa as an abandon zone and invisible for the rest of the world. The pharmaceutic industry, talking about big corporations, shows the reality that this continent live day by day where in many cases Africans are used as little rats of laboratory to prove if the medicines are good enough for the HIV or not and this people is not conscious of this, causing more deaths and even causing deformations in users body.

So who's managing this so they can stop trying on africans as if they were just animals?

References

• Martinez. E. & Restrepo. A.M. & Salazar. M. A. 2009. Presentation "Africa". Organization and Cultures Subject. Universidad EAFIT
• http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/africa/index-s.html
• The constant gardener. (2005) http://www.cineismo.com/criticas/jardinero-fiel-el.htm
• ¿Es solo ficción el jardinero fiel? (2007) http://www.eleconomista.es/empresas-finanzas/noticias/232385/06/07/Es-solo-ficcion-El-Jardinero-Fiel-Africa-pone-a-las-farmaceuticas-en-el-punto-de-mira.html
  

Images

• Breathless. Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/colloidfarl/63643221/
• Stag Ficght. Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hvhe1/3281462823/
• Uk Film council. http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/media/image/r/j/Constant_Gardener_-_Premiere_1_1.jpg
• http://www.wbla.com/resources/movies/overall/img/ficha_the_constant_gardener.jpg
  

The case of China

"The sleeping lion" the other name that describes this Asiatic country. The same lion that waked up and reached an incredible and unexpected economic growth.

This country that lived so many years under a communist ideology, decided to mixture all their beliefs, customs and religions with capitalism tendencies that influenced their economic policy, in a way that is perceivable in their infrastructure seen in cities as Shanghai and Beijing with their skyscrapers, and when they affirm that their Chinese national bird is the lift, machinery used for construction. Also, is possible to see many expensive car stores as Alfa Romeo, Lamborghini, Ferrari among others, which indicates that now days is a market more able to buy this non cheap cars.

[Guangzhou, Shanghai China]

This economic tsunami generated a new economic class, named the "new rich" located in the coasts and at the same time, as every progress conducted to less medical access for poor. And while others still scared about China's progress and competitive import product's prices, this country internally is leaving a contradiction between capitalism and communism. A controversial topic that Chinese are living. A country that supports its competitive advantage in low prices sustained by its labor force because has the largest population in the world, but in the other hand is the way that they have been treated, just as workers of XIX century of the industrial revolution, where workers had their time counted and the goal was the maximum quantity of production but no their rights and duties. The Chinese employees are living in the factories, earning more than working in rural terrains of course (to argue the movement of young people to the main cities), but with a controlled life, where the company is mostly the possessor of their time also in weekends with prepared activities of "entertainment" sponsored by them.
But the most strange thing of all of these is that the majority of Chinese are used to it and do not complain about that lifestyle, it seems to be very normal. The same thing happens with the information domain that government has over Chinese, the recognized Google case, the prohibition of having a Gmail account, blogs, free press, only for the benefit of the Government, so they only see one truth, theirs.

Is reason of all of these the high collectivism that Chinese have? the argument of sacrificing themselves for next generations in order to accomplish the objective of having a medium class?
I really do not have an explanation for these questions and no academic resource will give me the answer.
The other day, in the International management class a Chinese girl went to explain us more of their national culture, what we should do or not in a negotiation with Chinese and other details, too and when one of us asked her, what do they think about the censured information from government, she didn't answered. She just began to talk about other issues, so again, do they support this idea? or just she didn't wanted to talk about it?

Bibliography

• Gonzalez, M.A. 2009. Presentation "China" Organization and Cultures Subject, Universidad EAFIT.
• Video: How Does Google Work and Google in China. Retrieved on March 18, 2009. http://interactiva.eafit.edu.co/ei/
  
• Kelly, S. (2006) La Revolución China se vuelve tecnológica. BBC News. Retrieved on March 29, 2009. http://lnx.videotutoriales.com/revolucion.htm.