Word: urbanism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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They found me on an average stroll through Urban Outfitters. With no luck in the clothing department, I began mindlessly thumbing through the racks of neon sunglasses. One pair in particular beckoned me, though it was the plainest of the bunch: they were faux reading glasses with black frames and clear lenses. I pulled them on like armor. My metamorphosis had finally arrived. I was no longer the airhead, I was the coveted, feared, admired intellectual. I immediately bought them...
...true - and all, for the most part, beside the point. After decades of investment in an educational system that reaches the remotest peasant villages, the literacy rate in China is now over 90%. (The U.S.'s is 86%.) And in urban China, in particular, students don't just learn to read. They learn math. They learn science. As William McCahill, a former deputy chief of mission in the U.S. embassy in Beijing, says, "Fundamentally, they are getting the basics right, particularly in math and science. We need to do the same. Their kids are often ahead of ours." (See pictures...
...seem an unlikely destination for refugees. But the effects of war in faraway lands have now trickled into this impoverished country. In fact, according to the U.N., developing nations like Nepal now host 80% of the world's 15.2 million refugees, nearly 20% of whom are designated as urban refugees living outside refugee camps. Unlike refugees living in established camps, who are provided with food, homes, medical services, training and education, urban refugees live in cities they have fled to, at once more integrated with their new homelands and more vulnerable to them. Though the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees...
...refugees - does not recognize the other nationalities living in its borders as refugees. According to Basanta Raj Bhattarai, deputy coordinator of the National Unit for Coordination of Refugee Affairs at the Ministry of Home Affairs, the government has requested the UNHCR not to recognize any more cases of urban refugees living in its borders. There are fears, he says, that the country might turn into a safe haven for illegal immigrants. "We don't want Nepal to be a hub for human-trafficking," says Bhattarai. The government recently imposed a ban on issuing on-arrival visas for the residents...
...cross its borders seeking refuge on humanitarian grounds. A year ago, the nation's Supreme Court ordered the government to formulate new legislation to ensure, in keeping with international laws, the rights for refugees after a lawsuit was filed by a local NGO on behalf of a Pakistani urban refugee. But the government has yet to act on the ruling, citing a lack of resources to manage the refugees and arguing that such legislation could provide impetus for more refugees to go to Nepal. Goodman and others watching the situation are aware of the Somalis' desire to return home...