Denmark is the Best Place for Women

Denmark has earned the title as the best place for women to live based on the Women, Peace and Security Index. It uses 13 indicators that span women’s inclusion from education to justice in order to generate scores. Denmark continues to lead the rankings, while Afghanistan performs the worst. Notable the USA dropped in the rankings as they are removing healthcare and attempting to remove voting rights from women. Hopefully for those living in the USA the shame of falling down the rankings will help change things there for the better. Many developed counties are in the top 20 and we can also hope that they all do as well as Denmark next year, after all the wellbeing of women is directly connected to the wellbeing of nations.

  1. Denmark
  2. Iceland
  3. Norway
  4. Sweden
  5. Finland
  6. Luxembourg
  7. Belgium
  8. Netherlands
  9. Austria
  10. New Zealand
  11. Australian
  12. Estonia
  13. Ireland
  14. Slovenia
  15. Lithuania
  16. Canada
  17. Latvia
  18. Singapore
  19. Switzerland
  20. United Arab Emirates

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Hungary’s Democracy Starts Its Revival

vote sign

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Democracy requires ongoing maintenance and that comes in the form of civic engagement by the people within the democracy. In Hungary, the now former prime minister Viktor Orban, has lost this past weekend’s election thanks to the hard work of civil society. This all happened despite the support of other authoritarians like Putin, and even a rally lead by alt-right symbol JD Vance. For years Hungary has a beacon of hope for politicians and corporate elites that wanted to control people rather than work with them. Former Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper has praised Orban and tried to influence elections around the world in the hopes of eroding democracy.

With this context in mind, you can start to understand why it is good news that Orban lost: it gives hope to the scores of people fighting against authoritarians hope.

Turnout in the election reached a record 79.50%, according to the near-complete vote count.

Orban, who was seeking a fifth straight term, has transformed his country into a model of “illiberal democracy,” clashing with Brussels over rule-of-law issues, as well as over support for war-torn Ukraine.

Magyar burst onto the scene just two years ago, promising to fight corruption and offering better public services. He drew support against a backdrop of economic stagnation, and despite an electoral system skewed in favor of Orban’s Fidesz party.

Congratulations for Magyar poured in from around Europe, with France and Germany urging him to work together for a “strong Europe.”

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Giant Rat Statue Unveiled in Cambodia

Picture of a rat statue

Cambodia was plagued with landmines and the efforts to remove all the mines have been rather impressive. The country is still digging up landmines as clearing them will take a long time due to the sheer number of mines and cluster munitions dropped on the country. On April 4th the world recognized Mine Awareness Day and in Cambodia they commemorated the efforts of rats in the finding and destruction of landmines.

Rats have been trained to sniff out the explosive material in landmines so landmine removal experts can then disarm (or otherwise deal with) the mines. Without a doubt many rats have died in their landmine removal efforts. Don’t worry though, most rats are too light to trigger the mines with one rat uncovering 109 landmines. The statue located in Siem Reap is dedicated to all the rats, but is modelled after the most successful one.

Magawa, an African giant pouched rat, was trained by the Belgian charity Apopo before moving to Cambodia to begin his bomb-sniffing career in 2016.

Using his acute sense of smell and training to detect a chemical compound within explosives, Magawa would then alert human handlers of mines that could be later safely removed.

During his time, Magawa cleared more than 141,000 square metres (1,517,711 sq ft) of land – the equivalent of 20 football pitches – and could search a field the size of a tennis court in just 20 minutes.

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If you want to know more about landmines and how countries remove them then I highly suggest looking into the Mines Advisory Group, who have an excellent information centre in Laos.

Canadians Don’t Want Cars

Driving a car is an annoying experience because all one does is sniff the tailpipe coming form the car in front while not moving because there’s too many people stuck in cars. The irony that a car is supposed to be freedom is palpable. Everyone knows that cars are not a good thing, and it’s clear that younger people know that better than the boomers as young Canadians are bemoaning anything to do with cars. Car ownership and the desire to even own a car have decreased dramatically in the last decade, hopefully backwards-looking conservative politicians will start to realize that we need our country to support all sorts of non-car transportation options.

We’re experiencing a generational shift, and attitudes towards car ownership are reflected in that shift. According to the poll, half of Canadians are responding to escalating costs by doing things like driving less (32%), shopping their insurance providers more often (21%) and, more alarmingly, delaying maintenance (18%).
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Something else to keep an eye on: the pandemic work-from-home shift saw many Canadians ditch their second cars. Families weren’t committing to two vehicles because they wanted to, they were doing it because they had to. The return to work orders across the country are facing pushback, with many pointing the finger at politicians desperate to protect their corporate real estate sectors and premiers like Ontario’s just wanting people to buy their lattes again instead of making them in their kitchen.

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Cleaning Urban Air is Simple and These Cities Have Already Done it

Person riding a cargo bike while on delivery

Since 2010 19 major cities have “remarkably” reduced their pollution so much that it some people are shocked by it. The tracked pollutants have dropped by 20% or more in the cities, which include Paris, San Francisco, and Beijing. The commonality between the cities achieving a remarkable reduction in pollution is thanks to reducing cars, reducing cars that burn fossil fuels, adding green space, and ensuring that people can choose sustainable transportation options. It’s so simple that any city anywhere can follow these solution to clean their own air.

The analysis found interventions such as cycle lanes, uptake of electric cars and restrictions on polluting vehicles had helped to drive the improvements.
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“Air pollution is often presented as a problem that is too difficult to solve and one that is politically unpopular,” said Dr Gary Fuller, an air pollution scientist at Imperial College London, who was not involved in the report. “This report shows that bold policies can improve the air that we breathe.”

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