Oh, the days when this news would have both enraged and surprised me…..

The New York Times reports a UN study found women in the United States rank 27th in terms of access to power.

How is such a broad term like “power” defined? The study examined literacy, acccess to education, health, and positions in government.  Although American women are certainly nearing parity moreso than at any time in history, we still rank a dismal 27th on the list — far behind Norway, Finland and Sweden.

Writes the Times:

The United States ranked 27th, above Russia (42nd), China (57th), Brazil (73rd) and India (113th). But the United States was ranked below Germany (11th), Britain (13th), France (15th), Lesotho (16th), Trinidad and Tobago (19th), South Africa (22nd), Argentina (24th) and Cuba (25th).

“The world’s women are nearly as educated and as healthy as men, but are nowhere to be found in terms of decision-making,” said Saadia Zahidi of the World Economic Forum.

But the U.S. isn’t the only country that I’m concerned about.  In case you missed it yesterday, I blogged about how over a dozen young Afghan girls had acid squirt-gunned in their faces — simply for being female and going to school.

Thanks to Voice scribe Lizza Dwoskin for bringing this NYT article to my attention.

After a hurricane wiped out Blake Whisenant’s Florida tomato farm in 1992, he began designing the handy Earthbox, a self-contained organic gardening system that is now being used by the U.N. sustainable food program, The Growing Connection.   These funky little boxes allow gardeners and farmers to grow a variety of crops in certified organic soil just about anywhere, and they conveniently water and fertilize themselves, while keeping out weeds.   The Earthbox and The Growing Connection have helped bring much-needed fresh food and flowers to a wide-range of communities including at-risk youth in Chicago and New York, as well as schools and farms in Central America, Mexico, Ghana, and even Google Headquarters.

Listen to Vint Cerf, Google’s Vice-President explain the magic of the Earthbox, and watch him get his hands dirty:

takepart by helping The Growing Connection teach kids worldwide how to grow healthy, organic food.   And get growing yourself with your own Earthbox!

This Thursday marks the 27th anniversary of World Food Day, a global event orchestrated to raise awareness and understanding of hunger, and to seek solutions to alleviate this worldwide problem.   This year’s theme is ‘World Food Insecurity - the challenge of climate change’ and events are expected to take place in over 150 countries, and in cities across the U.S. The focus of World Food Day is particularly vital now as we are seeing a dramatic rise of food shortages and sharp increases in food prices that are effecting people everywhere.   There are a multitude of factors that have led to these dire circumstances, and World Food Day brings together communities and organizations to coordinate dynamic and localized responses to the problems.

takepart by attending an event in your community or organize an event if there isn’t one planned already.

As concerns grow over the cost and safety of our food, people are increasingly looking for more reliable, local sources to feed themselves.   But as much as I love gardening and encourage others to get their hands dirty, I realize that sourcing all of your food from your backyard is not realistic for most people, especially for us city dwellers.   While community and rooftop gardens are sprouting up all over, people are starting to look up for alternatives with what is known as vertical farming, which Nicole wrote about earlier this year. Skyscraper farms?  Amazing.   And building plans are in the works everywhere from New York to Dubai, and San Francisco to Shanghai.   Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier envisions:

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Taking a bold and admirable stance, the U.N. has announced that subsidies and production of biofuels are contributing to increased food prices and food shortages.   Echoing the warning call of environmentalists and many scientists, the U.N. argues that the recent mad dash to produce biofuels, has pushed farmers to plant commodity crops like corn to create ethanol, leaving little room for food people can eat, including wheat.   Food supplies go down, prices shoot up, and more forests are cleared to plant biofuel crops. The U.N. report says that biofuel policies should be:

urgently reviewed in order to preserve the goal of world food security, protect poor farmers, promote broad-based rural development and ensure environmental sustainability,

We obviously want to end our addiction to fossil fuels, and while plants sounded like a very green replacement, the approach that has been taken is more like covering your body with nicotine patches to quit smoking:  

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World Day Against Child Labor is today. Long outlawed in the United States, child labor is still a major issue throughout the world, particularly in poverty stricken regions where the lure of cheap, easily exploited children is often taken advantage of by employers while at the same time many children living in poverty tragically feel forced to work in order to contribute to their family’s wellbeing. Currently the UN International Labor Organization estimates that 165 Million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are involved in child labor practices throughout the world.

This year the focus of the annual event is on education as a route to reduce child labor and on gender equality between boys and girls. Countries throughout the world from Africa to Asia to South America to the Middle East to Europe and beyond are staging events to reduce the unfair exploitation of children.

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Fareed Zakaria is bringing a new hour long program on foreign affairs and policy to CNN with GPS, an acronym for Global Public Square. The show, airing Sundays at 1PM, will feature Newsweek International Editor and Foreign Affairs expert Zakaria interviewing prominent figures from around the globe on current events and issues that affect the United States.

The purpose of the program is to fill the gap in US press coverage of international news and how it affects us here at home, which is obviously no small task given the enormous crater in American public knowledge about life outside the 50 states created by our infotainment news culture. But if anyone is up to the job, it’s Fareed Zakaria with his deep understanding of world affairs and vast experience covering international news around the globe.

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Tom Cruise has a fancy new website in honor of his 27 years of Hollywood film making. 27 years! That’s a long time to be a successful actor. Check out http://www.tomcruise.com/ featuring a cool video look at his career made by the Museum of the Moving Image.

I can’t embed the Museum of the Moving Image video here but I can embed this infamous clip from Risky business which is also celebrating it’s 25th anniversary.

to get involved with the United Nations Children’s Fund , a charity Tom Cruise supports.

Singer Ricky Martin recently visited a Cambodian shelter in Siem Reap where a teenage rape victim performed a song she wrote about her ordeal as a trafficking victim. Martin was representing his Ricky Martin Foundation when he visited the Cambodian shelter that houses 65 victims.

The Ricky Martin Foundation works as advocates of children’s rights focusing their our work in benefiting this most vulnerable population around the world by supporting structured, equal opportunity initiatives that will secure children the right to be children, and provide them a more promising life. Check out this AOL video where Martin discusses his activist work.

According to the United Nations, about 2.5 million people are involved in forced labor as a result of trafficking, with most victims between the ages of 18 and 24. The US State Department has called Cambodia a country that is a source, destination and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for sexual exploitation and labor. and get involved with The Ricky Martin Foundation by visiting www.rickymartinfoundation.org

Actor George Clooney is speaking out on behalf of China’s foreign policy in Sudan. Omega Watches is one of the worldwide Olympic partners for the Beijing games and Clooney is a promoter of Omega.

“I have talked with Omega (about China) for over a year and will continue to talk to Omega,” Clooney was quoted as saying on the BBC Web site on Tuesday. “I have and will go to the places I and China do business and ask for help.”

Clooney has publicly spoken several times about the crisis in Darfur, Sudan, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and about 2.5 million people displaced in three years of fighting between African rebels and government troops allied with Arab militia known as janjaweed.

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