Week: 1

The “Week” section of this blog is basically a quick informative section for people like me who find watching, reading, or listening to the endless parade of death and destruction which is the news a tad depressing. In these posts I aim to give a rapid round-up of some of the main stories on the news in the past week, focussing mostly on those bits I personally find the most interesting.

The good news is that the economy is very slowly getting back on its feet – on Wednesday the World Bank said that the global economy is at a turning point, with the global GDP set to grow by 3.2% this year – huzzah! Also home sales rates are at their highest since March 2008 and the number of graduate jobs is set to rise this year as well, which has done no end of good for my blood pressure.

Thailand and Egypt have both witnessed people exercising their democratic right, to the extreme annoyance of many in the former’s case. Huge protests have been taking place in Bangkok in attempts to oust the government before elections at the beginning of February. And  on Tuesday a referendum began in Egypt to change the constitution, a move which has been backed by 98.1% of voters.

It has been quite a week for children’s issues as well, with a UN panel set to hear the Vatican over child abuse cases, a Chinese doctor who sold babies to traffickers undergoing trial and the excellent news of a paedophile ring in the Philippines being smashed. For more information on that last one, I would HIGHLY recommend you watch this video. Technology can do some incredible things.

Speaking of incredible things, Google has just brought out a proto-type for a “smart contact lens” which can monitor your glucose levels. It’s still being developed but, if it were to come to market, this device could make the lives of thousands of diabetes-sufferers so much easier. Other brilliant eye-related news: new studies have shown that gene therapy could be used to treat blindness. Also in the early stages of testing, this new method has already had several successes.  As well as curing your eyes, it has been revealed this week that your genes could be responsible for your sleeping patterns or – as the BBC put it – whether you are an “owl” or a “lark”.

I reckon I’m a lark so – if you’ll all excuse me – I’m going to go watch some “Orange is the New Black” (always so late on the bandwagon...) then fall into bed. But before I do, I thought I’d leave you with a brilliant opinion piece by Adam Gopnik about Hollande’s love life and why it’s very slightly our business. Bye!