A focused recap of international news stories by Newsendip: Chinese entrepreneurship, cocoa in Ghana, child marriages in Mexico, and more.
- Soon the end of child marriages in Mexico?
- A virus disrupting the chocolate industry
- China and entrepreneurship, or a disguise for unemployment
- Shortage of alcohol in Zanzibar
- Loneliness in Spain
- The German constitution and the word “race”
- Free condoms in Thailand
- Argentina’s inflation cooled in January
Child marriages in Mexico
The Mexican Senate voted unanimously to abolish the practices of child marriage in indigenous communities in Mexico. The constitutional reform has been sent to the Chamber of Deputies. Forced marriages persist as a cultural practice in Latin America, with Mexico being a noteworthy example. In 2023, 300,000 girls under the age of 18 were sold into marriage in the State of Guerrero, shedding light on issues of gender inequality and poverty.
A mysterious virus in West Africa on cocoa trees
The world’s two largest cocoa suppliers, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are grappling with a significant decline in their cocoa production, which is attributed to the cocoa swollen shoot virus. The total cocoa production of Côte d’Ivoire is expected to drop 24% for the 2023⁄24 season from last year. Ghana eradicated over half a million hectares of plantations, nearly one-third of its total production area. Prices of cocoa soared last year and experts anticipate that consumers will witness another significant rise in prices this year.
Can entrepreneurship boost China’s economy?
A total of nearly 124 million sole proprietorships were registered across China by the end of 2023, accounting for an 11% increase on the previous year amidst the challenges of a complicated economic recovery. Since May, China has been releasing a series of measures to boost one-person companies and entrepreneurship as a way to “stabilize growth, promote employment and improve people’s livelihoods.” However, companies seeking to optimize their employment structure outsource workloads to freelancers or sole traders. For Shuting Xia, a sociology researcher at Cambridge University specializing in the study of self-employment in China, self-employment is often more a way of “subsistence” than a company: “It is no exaggeration to claim that the rise of self-employment in China is just disguised unemployment.” The unemployment rate reaches 14.9% among 16–24-year-olds, while it is 5.1% in the country’s urban areas.
Zanzibar’s Tourism Minister resigned because of a lack of alcohol
Renowned for its dream beaches and rich cultural heritage, the island of Zanzibar, a jewel of African tourism, is facing what some local media are calling an “alcohol crisis.” Beer and spirits are in such short supply that the tourism industry is worried it could lose tourists and revenue: “It’s high season and a large part of our turnover depends on alcohol sales,” a hotel owner in Paje, a seaside resort in the east of the island, told Newsendip. Tourism contributes to 27% of Zanzibar’s gross domestic product.
1 in 4 young Spanish people feel alone
A survey of 1,800 Spanish people between the ages of 16 and 29 shows that 1 in 4 young people feel alone and that isolation from the COVID-19 pandemic was a primary cause of loneliness for only 20% of cases. Unwanted loneliness was the most prevalent between the ages of 21 and 26. Further, 1 in 3 lonely youths suffer from mental health problems and 51% of young people who feel lonely have had suicidal thoughts. But a global study also shows that figures place Spain within the average across 142 countries.
Germany will not remove the word “race” from its constitution after all
Germany has abandoned plans to remove the word “race” from its constitution due to legal problems and reservations from the Jewish community. Following the Black Lives Matter movement, German politicians called for removing the word “race” from the constitution. After the first bill in 2021, the parliamentary groups of Germany’s three ruling parties agreed to put this project “on the back burner” because no alternative could be found to “guarantee the same level of protection” from a legal perspective. In France, the term “race” was replaced by “sex” in 2018, with the new article stipulating that all citizens are equal “without distinction of sex, origin or religion.” Although the term was removed from the 1958 Constitution, it still appears in the 1946 Preamble, which is still in force in French law.
A spike in syphilis cases in Thailand
Syphilis infections in Thailand have more than doubled in five years, from 11 cases per 100,000 people in 2018 to 24.8 per 100,000 in 2023. Among young people, the syphilis infection rate grew threefold. Alarmed by the data, the Thai government announced late last month that it would distribute 95 million condoms for free. At the beginning of February, about 50 million Thai citizens were eligible to receive 10 condoms a week for one year. Authorities have also implemented the distribution of free condoms via vending machines in Bangkok.
Inflation in Argentina cooled in January. But for how long?
Argentina’s inflation rate cooled in January at 20.6%, which President Javier Milei sees as a notable achievement thanks to his controversial shock therapy economic plan. Assuming office in November, the president started by devaluing the peso by more than 50%, then slashed state subsidies and removed price controls. But the inflation may also experience a significant rebound as the OECD foresees inflation at 251% in 2024, up from its 135% forecast in November. Javier Milei also failed to pass 300 reforms packaged in a single “Omnibus bill” that included cutting resources for the environment and culture, increasing penalties for social protests, and changes to divorce laws, among others, which led to significant criticism and resistance from both legislators and the public. The far-right president called some members of Parliament “traitors” and now plans on governing by decrees without the Parliament.
