HeForShe. By Rebecca FORREST-EVANS

Emma Watson: spokesperson of HeForShe

Emma Watson, who was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women in 2014, is one of the three key people who initiated HeForShe. This campaign for gender equality encourages men and boys to fight for women's rights.

It is during her speech at the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York on the 20th of September 2014 that Emma Watson launched the HeForShe movement.

Here's a quote from her speech: "How can we effect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feels welcome to participate in the conversation?"

This is a new way of thinking about gender equality because here, men are encouraged to get involved. Emma Watson has asked the world to take action to build a new solidarity movement for gender equality because women and girls continue to be victims of discrimination and violence everywhere in the world. She says that this is not just a women's issue, it's a human rights issue.

During this speech, a call was made for the first 100,000 men to sign up to HeForShe. Barack Obama and Matt Damon were amongst those who signed.

On the 23rd of January 2015, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, a new initiative was launched: the Impact 10x10x10 initiative. Its goal was also to promote gender equality and women's empowerment but within companies, governments and universities. It is, once more, Emma Watson who launched the movement with a speech.

To celebrate International Women's Day on the 8th of March 2015, a live conversation in the offices of Facebook in London with Emma Watson was organised and broadcast live on her Facebook page. The actress responded to questions about the campaign but also about her point of view on feminism.

The strong-willed Hermione Granger has grown up to become Emma Watson, the woman who fights for women's rights!

Rebecca FORREST-EVANS wants to work for the UN.

IoT. By Baptiste PETITJEAN

Cloud cuckoo land?

The Internet has become an integral part of our lives. Almost everyone has a personal computer, a Smartphone or a tablet. Everyone uses email for work, and many of us are connected on and off the whole day long to various social networks. We are living as connected people…

The “connected objects” revolution started in 2015. We are now thinking about connecting all the objects we use in our daily lives like our fridge, washing machine, or oven, but also our clothes!

The leaders of this revolution are some of the giants of the new technologies, like Samsung, Apple, and Google. They feel that it is very important to show their ability to create new things. Samsung, for one has created a virtual platform that will connect together all the connected devices to create a kind of “Internet of Things” (IoT).

These devices were put on the front lane at Las Vegas’ CES in January 2016.  In the great halls of the event, thousands of these devices were on show, with hundreds of different uses, from health to the house. The aim of this event was to promote the new gadgets and find investors.

The experts in this topic are planning that the connected tings and IoT will be up and running within three years and that all the devices we use will all be connected to each other by the years 2020.

However, IoT raises security problems. Indeed, devices must be very secure so that the private life of the user is not vioalated; nobody wants all his personal data to be hacked! So, if they want their connected objects to be a success, the inventors and constructors have to inssure the consumers a high level of security first.

Links:

http://www.information-age.com/it-management/strategy...

http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/business/university-s-leading-role...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things

http://www.archos.com/fr/products/objects/index.html

http://www.connect-object.com/

http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/11/the-internet-of-things-bigger/

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/internet-of-things

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21606420-perils-connected-devices-home-hacked-home

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/category/internet/internet-of-things/?_r=0

Baptiste PETITJEAN will be a famous scientist!

A burning issue… By Anita VIDAL

California fires are on the increase, why?

I think it is vital to be aware of the causes and effects of climate change…

According to the IPPC EU directive, global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the oceans and the atmosphere on a global scale over several years; since the late nineteenth century, global temperatures have increased by 0.6 °C...

According to a Washington Post journalist, governments think that there should be a slowdown of global warming over the next twenty years. So far, however, it has increased year on year. 2015 was the hottest on record. Climate change has repercussions: natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes. The journalist ends his article by saying that it is not a purely scientific problem but rather a political one.

An article in la.curbed.com discusses the effects of the global rise in temperatures on California. In this State, temperatures can reach  40°C. Fires are becoming more common because of the resulting drought, and pollution has increased. If people do not change their bad habits, the situation can only get worse, though some scientists say it is too late…

Links:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/24/top-scientists-insist-global-warming-really-did-slow-down-in-the-2000s/

http://la.curbed.com/2015/8/26/9926742/the-many-terrifying-ways-global-warming-will-soon-be-ravaging

Anita VIDAL wants to work for an environmental NGO.

The migrant crisis in Europe. By Hugo DOS SANTOS

Testing the limits...

Since 2010, the flow of migrants coming to Europe has kept increasing because of the numerous conflicts. Between January and August 2015, 350,000 people have entered illegaly the Schengen area, and the HCR has counted 437,384 applications for asylum. Countries and politicians seem unable to agree on the way to deal with the problem…

The 26 member states of the Schengen area have no internal borders but reinforced outer borders. The member state which receives an application for asylum has to deal with it; this has been criticized because it gives too much to do to the border countries such as Greece, Italy or Hungary. The EU has had several meetings to try and resolve the problem.

The European Commission has spent over a billion Euros setting up “hotspots” in the countries most involved in the migrants’ arrival.

Some countries want the powers of Frontex, the European borders security organization, to be increased. The European Commissioner Dimitri Avramopoulos wants a coast and border guard system to ensure better control.

The refugee crisis has given rise to many controversies. Countries like Hungary are building fences in order to stop the incoming migrants. Others, like Germany, want the migrants to be distributed, using a quota system, among the EU member states. But the polls show that 56% of Europeans are not convinced by this idea. Public opinion is divided. In Prague and Bratislava, people demonstrated against welcoming migrants. The situation is overwhelming and reveals the shortcomings of the EU...

Sources :

Le JDD.fr

Le Monde 24 Septembre 2015

Alternatives Economiques Hors-séries n°107

The Economist.fr

Libération.fr

Géopolitique de l’Europe, édition Nathan

Hugo DOS SANTOS wants to be a lawyer.

Crisis, what crisis? Should LVMH invest more in France? By Louis TOLEDO

La Fondation Louis Vuitton

LVMH is top dog of the booming luxury sector. Since 1987, this company has continued to prosper, with today more than sixty brands including haute couture, leather goods, wines and spirits, champagnes, watches, jewelry and perfume. It is an empire run by the powerful billionaire Bernard Arnault. Magically, this French multinational has escaped the crisis…

The luxury business, valued at 150 billion euros, traditionally caters to wealthy customers of course, but nowadays it also has “occasional” customers (about 200 million people world-wide). Around 60% of Europeans, Japanese, and Northern Americans, have bought a luxury product at least once.

The shareholders of LVMH put pressure on their Board to increase profits. The result is that goods have to be made more cheaply in developing countries rather than in France. Rising unemployment for us is the result…

One tenth of the active French population has no employment, but Bernard Arnault had a new museum built in Paris, designed by Frank Gehry, costing €500 million… Arnault earned almost €3.5 million in 2014, 200 times more than the basic wage. All this money should surely be better used, namely to employ people in France. But, it is shareholders who decide in private companies, not our government…

Louis TOLEDO wants to work as a manager in international trade...

The urban landscape of Paris needs modernizing! By Louis JANOT

The Tour Triangle, a well-inspired project?

Paris is famous for its historic buildings and monuments; it is a kind of open-air museum. This is obviously an asset for the tourist industry, but it is also a disadvantage because Paris is losing out to rival world cities which are continuously modernizing…

This architectural challenge is in all Parisian architects’ minds; they have to deal with the laws that protect these buildings. While in London, the high-tech “Gherkin,” for one, has become part of the cityscape, Paris is struggling to erect modern constructions, mainly because the city doesn’t want to sacrifice any of its historic sites in the process. It takes years for architects to get their works built. Even if some do succeed in their fight with the authorities and with bureaucracy, like the LVMH Foundation, there are still too few projects. It’s such a shame that Paris is so reactionary regarding urban development...

Jean Nouvel’s Philharmonie de Paris, an amazingly beautiful building, is located to the north-east of the city; there are no recent buildings of any note in the actual centre of Paris.

I took a closer look at those draconian Parisian urban-planning laws and I discovered that most of the regulations concerning for example height and types of materials are almost the same as they were 200 years ago, i.e. they apply to the Haussmann era!

Another obstacle to architectural innovation is the inhabitants themselves. For example: 56% of Parisians disapprove of the Tour Triangle project… This attitude is almost traditional. The Eiffel tower itself was considered by many “a stain” on Paris after its opening! The Pompidou Centre is still disliked by some. Mind you, when you see the ghastly Montparnasse building, you have to admit that not all contemporary architecture is brilliant…

Good news: the Tour Triangle project (180m tall) has finally been approved by the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo. She is proud to sponsor “the most ecological building in the world”; at last, a Paris council leader who believes in urban renewal?

Louis JANOT wants to become an architect and town-planner.

One giant leap too far? By Pierre-Etienne PION

Attacking Mars...

JFK said, in 1962: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

In 1969, Neil Armstrong of the Apollo 11 space mission walked on the Moon. It was the outcome of a decade of scientific research and the realization of Kennedy’s dream. But it also put an end to the space race, which brought into competition the United States and the USSR for ten years during the Cold War. It’s mostly because of the space race that Americans did the impossible in only nine years. After this major event, NASA became the first space institution in the world, the emblem of the conquest of space and scientific ambition. So, logically, after the moon, Mars became the next goal…

But, though NASA wants to pursue its objectives, they are dependent on government money, and the interest for space has really waned since Apollo 11. Mars was put on standby by NASA.

But, for the last 5 years, with investments from private companies, the project is back in vogue. In 2015, NASA announced the creation of the JOURNEY TO MARS to pioneer the next steps in space exploration. They have presented to the world the scientist impact of such a journey.

But, the journey is difficult: 500 million kilometres between the Earth and Mars, a 520-day round trip. A Russian mission has simulated 500 days in confinement in a space craft for six people called ‘Mars 500’ to see how the crew reacted to a such long period alone; the results were encouraging. Another difficulty is communication: the crew will receive instructions only 14 minutes after they are sent, and ground control will get the crew's answer 14 minutes later. If an accident were to occur, the communication delay makes emergency communication difficult, so the crew will have to basically manage alone.

From a technological point of view, NASA is ready to send humans to Mars, but the cost of such a long journey is so high that it requires cooperation between many countries and institutions, which is complicated, for political reasons.

The project, announced last year, is ambitious: NASA hopes to put a man on Mars before 2025…

http://www.mars-one.com/mission

https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-journey-to-mars

http://www.rdmag.com/articles/2016/01/can-nasa-get-mars-official-report-questions-journey-mars-mission

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nasa-mars-exploration-by-ellen-r--stofan-2016-01

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Mars500

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/mars-article/

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/journey-to-mars-next-steps-20151008_508.pdf

Pierre-Etienne PION has chosen engineering as a career.