Hasta La Gadget!

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The number of Afghans internally displaced by conflict has “dramatically” doubled to 1.2 million in just three years, Amnesty International said on Tuesday, warning that a lack of basic services was putting people on the brink of survival.

The rights group said that situation of people uprooted from their homes in Afghanistan has deteriorated in recent years as global attention and aid money have been diverted to other crises.

“While the world’s attention seems to have moved on from Afghanistan, we risk forgetting the plight of those left behind by the conflict,” said Champa Patel, South Asia director at Amnesty International.

“Even after fleeing their homes to seek safety, increasing numbers of Afghans are languishing in appalling conditions in their own country, and fighting for their survival with no end in sight,” she said in a statement.

The insurgency in Afghanistan has gained strength since the withdrawal of international troops from combat at the end of 2014 and the Taliban are stronger than at any point since they were driven from power by U.S.-backed forces in 2001.

The Taliban launched a spring offensive in Afghanistan last month, vowing to drive out the Western-backed government in Kabul and restore strict Islamic rule.

Amnesty said displaced Afghans lacked proper shelter, food, water, access to healthcare, employment and education.

“Even an animal would not live in this hut, but we have to,” Amnesty quoted a 50-year old woman living in a camp in the western Afghan city of Herat as saying.

“I would prefer to be in prison rather than in this place, at least in prison I would not have to worry about food and shelter.”

With food being scarce, some people were struggling to have a one meal per day, Amnesty said.

“We mostly live off bread or spoiled vegetables from the market,” Raz Muhammad, a community leader in Kabul’s Chaman-e-Barbak camp, told Amnesty.

Access to healthcare was limited to mobile clinics operated by charities or the government, which were only available occasionally, forcing displaced people to seek private care which they could hardly afford.

“If we are ill, then I have to beg and find some money to go to the private clinics,” a 50-year-old woman in Herat told Amnesty. “We have no other choice.”

The rights group said the international community and the Afghan government must address the needs of the displaced people “before it’s too late”.

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Computex is, of course, all about computers and computing. While analysts and pundits point out how the personal computer is dying, the one area where it still has a firm hold on is gaming. So aptly, ASUS has unveiled, in addition to its more professional and suave ZenBook products, a whole host of ROG, short for Republic of Gaming, desktops, … Continue reading

I’ve said before that Computex is ASUS’ show — and what better demonstration than having the recently-elected President of Taiwan “talk” to your newly announced home robot? Crowd noise necessitated several repeated commands to ASUS’ Zenbo play some…

Gdansk has been currently experiencing a great time for its economy and labor market. The number of employed persons in the Pomorskie region grew by more than 40% between 2006 and 2016. It is an unprecedented growth in the EU and a proof of our rapid economic development. The city of Gdansk and the whole region becomes one of the most interesting places in Europe for investment.

For years labor market has been a sore spot of European economy. High rates of unemployment, precarious conditions and stagnation have been unfortunately its distinctive features in many countries. Also Poland suffered high rates of unemployment in the beginning of the transformation towards a free market economy in the 90s.

Now Poland, the Pomorskie region and Gdansk are experiencing the time of dynamic growth. Eurostat has already reported that the total number of employees in our region grew from 679,000 in 2006 to 971,500 in 2015, which is more than 40% growth in just 10 years (Employment by sex, age and NUTS 2 regions)! The whole EU, 28 countries, on average, noticed almost no growth (213m in 2006 vs. 215,6m in 2015), the same like the Euro-zone (169,9m vs. 171,3m).

There are not many European regions getting close to the numbers of the Pomorskie. Scottish region of Highlands and Islands and Luxembourg noticed growth of 30% each. Poland’s Mazowieckie region with the capital city of Warsaw grew by about 28%.

The numbers confirm what we see daily in Gdansk: new construction sites, new investments announced and a lot of people relocating to Gdansk for better career opportunities. As a first-choice city for business (among others, ICT, financial services, shipbuilding, logistics), Gdansk boasts its great location at the Baltic sea coast, skilled labor and talented graduates. Students and employees are attracted not only by a great labor market, but also by conditions of living here.

Shipbuilding industry is one of the strongest assets of Gdansk economy. Photo: gdansk.pl

As the mayor of the biggest city in the region, I have always struggled for improving our economy and labor market. Building trust and cooperation with city’s stakeholders has always been my goal. Creating friendly environment for investment, policies and strategies supporting labor market based on knowledge, effective use of the EU funds and open approach were tools we used for developing local economy.

Infoshare – a great event for technology sector takes place in Gdansk on May. Photo: J. Pinkas

It was a long way from the troubled economy of the 90s. to the current days of flourishing labor market in Gdansk and the Pomorskie. We had to take many hard decisions, but Eurostat data proves we chose a right direction.

Night life in Gdansk. Photo. G. Mehring

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If you need raw power in your desktop PC, Intel’s new CPU will be just the ticket. The new Extreme Edition of its regular Core i7 chip has 10 cores, each running at up to 3.5GHz—but it’ll cost you.

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