China manufacturing workers earn 7 times more than some workers in Africa

“China stopped being a low-cost manufacturing country many years ago,” Apple CEO Cook told the Fortune Global Forum in Guangzhou, capital of the southern Guangdong province, on Wednesday. He said the key for China and other developing countries facing rising labor costs was advanced manufacturing expertise, which meant fostering a highly skilled workforce and building …

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Using 64 watts instead of 10,000 for a solar power cellular base station to connect the last billion people

The next billion cellular connections will come from rural areas in developing markets. However, building the cellular infrastructure in these regions presents radically different challenges from building networks in urban areas: The power grid in these areas is unreliable, if it exists at all. There is no wired telecom infrastructure to run the network backbone …

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Elon Musk is concerned about peak population of developed countries

Half the world’s nations have fertility rates below the replacement level of just over two children per woman. Countries across Europe and the Far East are teetering on a demographic cliff, with rates below 1.5. On recent trends, Germany and Italy could see their populations halve within the next 60 years. The world has hit …

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Origin of Homo Sapiens is at least 300,000 years ago based on new fossils instead of 200,000 years

New finds of fossils and stone tools from the archaeological site of Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, push back the origins of our species by one hundred thousand years and show that by about 300 thousand years ago important changes in our biology and behavior had taken place across most of Africa. The first of our kind. …

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Japan will cooperate with China’s One Belt One Road if various conditions are met

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday that Japan is ready to cooperate with China’s “One Belt, One Road” cross-continental infrastructure development scheme, under certain conditions. Speaking at a forum in Tokyo on Asia’s future, Abe said those conditions would include “harmony with a free and fair Trans-Pacific economic zone,” alluding to the terms of the …

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World population 7.5 billion now and 10 billion in 2050

The World population is about 7.5 billion today and should reach 10 billion in 2050-2055. Africa’s population is 1.25 billion today and will reach 2.5 billion by 2050. The number of people in the Americas will rise by only 223 million to 1.2 billion. Asia will gain about 900 million to 5.3 billion, while Europe …

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Japan’s total births in 2016 drops to lowest level in nearly 120 years

The number of babies born in Japan fell below 1 million in 2016 for the first time since records began in the 19th century, underscoring the demographic challenges facing the nation with an aging and declining population. There were 976,979 babies born last year in Japan, the fewest since the government started tracking the data …

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Malaria vaccine trials will start next year

The World Health Organization called today for accelerated scale-up of efforts to prevent malaria and save lives. In sub-Saharan Africa, which shoulders 90% of the global malaria burden, more than 663 million cases have been averted since 2001. Insecticide-treated nets have had the greatest impact, accounting for an estimated 69% of cases prevented through control …

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Africa will triple its urban population 500 million to 1.5 billion in 2050 will need China to help avoid mass slumification

The proportion of Africans living in urban areas soared from 15 percent in 1960 to 40 percent in 2010. It’s projected to hit 60 percent in 2050. Against that backdrop, the big challenge for government policymakers is how to harness urbanization for sustainable and inclusive growth. “There is a high rate of rural-urban migration, and …

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Israel hit Syrian targets using conventional fighters, missiles and electronic jamming

The Israeli strike on Syria was probably with conventional fighters and missiles. There had been reports and speculation that Israel used new F35 stealth fighters for the attack. Israeli jets have been able to operate almost freely in or close to Syria, hitting targets across the country with guided weapons without the Syrian Arab Air …

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