Marcus

United Kingdom The United Kingdom is made up of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The U.K. has had a fairly good economy for most of the time the country has existed. Currently it has the 3rd best economy in Europe, behind France and Germany. Since 2008, the country has been having some tough economic problems like their debt and the housing market. Near the end of 2008 they got into a recession. The government has implemented a few things to try and get the economy stimulated again, they’ve lowered taxes, nationalizing certain parts of their banking system, and suspending their public sector borrowing rules. As of 2010 the CAMERON government issued a five year austerity program due to burgeoning public deficits and high debt. The program intends to lower London’s budget deficit from over 10% of the GDP in 2010 to 1% by 2015. The current GDP is 2.178 trillion dollars. The type of government that the United Kingdom has is a constitutional monarchy and commonwealth realm. The monarchy is entirely hereditary. Their Chief of State has been Queen Elizabeth the II since 1958 and her heir is Prince Charles. The head of the government is Prime Minister David Cameron. The prime minister is elected. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom was brought about fairly recently, 2008. The different political parties in the U.K. are Conservative, Democratic Unionist (DUP), the Labor party, Liberal Democrats, Party of Whales, Scottish National Party, Sinn Fein, Social Democratic and Labor Party (SDLP), and the Ulster Unionist Party. The population of the United Kingdom is 62,698,362, as of 2010. 80% of those people live in rural areas. Their main religion is Christian. The national language is English. The average life expectancy of a person in the U.K. is 80 years old, which is higher than most countries. The main ethnicity of everybody in the country is Caucasian, the other ethnic groups each make up less than 8 percent of the total population. The literacy rate of the country is 99%. The currency that the country uses is the Euro and the pound. The Euro exchange rate for U.S. dollars is 1.33 Euros to the dollar, and the exchange rate for the pound is 1.56 pound per dollar.

Jamaica The economy of Jamaica mainly depends on services. Services account for 60% of the GDP in the country. Tourism also counts for quite a bit of the GDP, about 10%. Many people go to Jamaica because of a lot of the things that deal with water such as swimming with dolphins and water tubing. The main agricultural exports of Jamaica are bananas, yams, rum and coffee. A high crime rate in the country and problems with drugs and gangs keep the economy low. Another problem with the economy is the fact that there are not many jobs open and 12% of the population is unemployed. Jamaica’s has one of the highest public debts per capita in the world (It ranks as the 4th highest in the world right now). The ratio of debt to GDP is over 120%. The government has bailed out sectors of the economy that were failing. Recently the government has created a program to retire high-priced domestic bonds and significantly decrease the annual debt servicing. The program is called The Jamaica Debt Exchange and was started in early 2010. The Jamaican government also signed a 1.27 billion dollar, 27 month plan Standby Agreement with the International Monetary Fund for payment support balance in February 2010. They have gotten a lot of money from grants and loans. The economy has slightly improved but it still does not have enough money to afford spending of infrastructure and social programs. The GDP is 23.27 billion dollars. The type of government that Jamaica has is called a constitutional parliamentary democracy and a commonwealth realm. The prime minister of Jamaica is Bruce Golding. The country’s population is 2, 868,380 people. The Chief of State is Queen Elizabeth II, who calls herself the Queen of Jamaica when she visits the country. The current constitution of Jamaica was established in 1962, after Jamaica gained independence from the United Kingdom. The Parliament of Jamaica is bicameral, consisting of the House of Representatives (Lower House) and the Senate (Upper House). Members of the House (known as Members of Parliament or MPs) are directly elected, and the member of the House of Representatives who, in the Governor-General's best judgement, is best able to command the confidence of a majority of the members of that House, is appointed by the Governor-General to be the Prime Minister. Senators are nominated jointly by the Prime Minister and the parliamentary Leader of the Opposition and are then appointed by the Governor-General.

United Kingdom: Gender Gender really is not that big of a problem in the U.K. because there are many laws enforced to make males and females equal in all places but the military. The Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 and The Equal Pay Act of 1970 made it illegal for specific genders to be discriminated at in the workplace in areas such as pay and just general discrimination is workplaces and education. The country also has one of the best maternity leave programs, started in 1975 with the Maternity Leave and Pay Regulations act, that let woman be gone from their job for up to 12 months while pregnant and up to 2 weeks following the birth of the child, with full pay, and they are guaranteed their job back when they are done with leave. It is illegal for women to serve in the military on the front lines fighting, they are restricted to being nurses and holding lesser jobs, not fighting. Women were not always equal though, before 1832 they were allowed to vote but the right was taken away because of the 1832 Reform Act which took away women’s suffrage. Nobody really fought the movement until 1872 when the National Union of Woman’s Suffrage Societies was formed to help fight to get suffrage for women. In 1918 the move was exchanged for a better one that allowed women rights to vote if they were over 30 years of age and were landowners. After more fighting the move was finally installed so that all people of at least 21 years of age were able to vote. The most recent issue of gender is one that deals with royalty. The English parliament is trying to have gender rules changed where if the first born of the Royal family is a female and she has any brothers, than she cannot become a princess, instead the male must become a prince. The rule hasn’t been changed yet and many think that it should be changed because it doesn’t seen fair that they aren’t allowed to be princesses or queen simply because they have siblings. Other than that gender really is not that big of a deal in the U.K. because of all the laws that they have set up specifically to not have issues.

Jamaica: Gender

Jamaican legislation prohibits all discrimination based on race or religion, but does not make any reference to gender. The government is reviewing a draft charter on fundamental rights that would specify gender on the list of prohibited discriminations. Jamaica’s Civil Code and Penal Code still contain numerous discriminatory measures, and the language used in the country’s laws is not gender-neutral. Traditional gender stereotypes are institutionalised within Jamaica’s Education system, the media, religion and the family. Although tradition is strong in Jamaica, the country’s Family Code upholds the principle of equality for women. The minimum legal age for marriage is 16 years for both men and women; minors below 18 years of age need their parents’ consent to marry. Early marriage occurs, but is rare: a 2004 United Nations report estimated that 1% of girls between 15 and 19 years of age were married, divorced or widowed.

The physical integrity of Jamaican women is not sufficiently protected. Violence against women, including domestic violence and sexual abuse, is common, especially in rural areas. In fact, the high incidence of physical, sexual and psychological violence considerably reduces women’s independence. In 1995, the government passed a law that recognised domestic violence as a crime; however, the authorities are having difficulty addressing the problem and the legislation is slow to have any positive impact on women’s lives. The Bureau of Women’s Affairs has proposed an amendment to the 1864 Offences against the Person Act to include spousal Rape as a crime. The World Bank has found a close correlation between economic dependence and violence, and states that the main cause of men’s Violence against women is financial, emotional or sexual insecurity.

Jamaican law and tradition create obstacles to women’s financial independence. Jamaican women have the right to hold title deeds, as the relevant policy contains no gender-contingent articles. In reality, social stereotypes limit women’s Access to land and they have difficulty obtaining mortgages.A law dating back to 1887 regulates married women’s access to property other than land. It contains numerous discriminatory clauses, including a regulation that refers to “fraudulent investments made by a wife with her husband’s money without his consent”. The government is revising this legislation and has recommended that the opposite case be included. A law on family property and spousal rights was adopted in 2004, stipulating that men and women have an equal legal capacity to sign contracts and administer property. Women have more difficulty than men in obtaining Access to bank loans, primarily because they are more likely to live in poverty. Married women do not have access to mortgages. Women can obtain low-rate loans through micro-credit programmes, and several such initiatives have been launched in recent years. In general, women have better access to loans for small sums than for larger amounts.

Terrorism in the United Kingdom 1970’s Terrorism in the United Kingdom has existed since the 1970’s. Many of the attacks are car bombs planted by terrorists. In January 1971 the United Kingdom reinstated a bomb squad in Scotland Yard to help with those types of attacks. Over 25 car bombs exploded within a two month period in 1970, killing many and injuring more. The most famous car bombing that year was two cars exploded outside the house of Government Minister Robert Carr. In a bombing by the Official Republican Irish Army in 1972, seven civilians were killed. In 1974 a bomb was planted in the house of parliament by the Provisional IRA that injured 11 people and had major destruction to the building. Another bomb that was planted by the IRA was aimed at Christmas shoppers in Bristol injures seven civilians. Airey Neave was killed after a bomb was placed under his car and the Irish National Liberation Army claimed that they had pulled off the killing. A famous political activist and T.V. personality, Ross McWhirter, was assassinated by IRA gunmen. 1980’s An animal rights activist group sent a letter bomb to Margaret Thatcher, injuring one person. A bombing in Hyde Park and Regents in London by the IRA kills eleven members of the Household Cavalry and the Royal Green Jackets. A siege in the Iranian Embassy was carried out by a six man team who took hostages, the men were captured by after a raid by the SAS, all on national T.V. live. A Pan-Am flight, a suitcase bomb blows in mid-air and kills over 270 civilians. Another attack on Margaret Thatcher, this time by the IRA, happened in a hotel that she was in. A bomb blew up and killed 5 and injured several, Thatcher was safe. An attack on Christmas shoppers in a West London department store killed six and injured over 90 people. A bombing in the barracks of the Royal Marines killed eleven bandsman and injured 22 others. Terrorist Attacks Prevented In 1985 the police found grenades and bombs in the home of former Group Development Director for British National Party leader Tony Lecomber. After a bomb exploded at a signal post near a railway station in Reading, Berkshire, police found 5 pounds of semtex in the toilets of another station, police then evacuated the area and took care of the threat. In 2000, police arrested Moinul Abedin in his house after police learned of possible terrorist activities. They found bomb-making instructions and equipment. The police later found out about a lockup of his that contained 100 kg of chemical components for HTMD.

Terrorism inside the country of Jamaica and to countries around Jamaica, is a pretty large concern. The country is considered to be one of the most murderous in the world based on the amount of deaths in the country attributed to murder per year. The country is in some way linked to many of the worlds terrorist attacks as of recent. The country has a small and largely peaceful Muslim population. The main cause would be Sheikh el-Faisal who is in Jamaica and is a Islamic extremist who is linked to many terrorsit accounts. Jamaica isn’t widely known to be a source of terrorism, but upon further investigation of terrorist attacks in the past few years, many have been able to be traced back in some way to Jamaica. In April 2009, Jamaican Stephen Fray bypassed security with a handgun and entered a Canadian charter flight at Sangster international airport. Fray held 160 people hostage with the pistol and was eventually arrested with a minimum of 20 years in prison. Fray is Muslim and had just visited a mosque before the incident. That attack shows how little the security is in the nation that’s largest industry is tourism. In December 2001 a Jamaican born man was attempted to detonate a shoe bomb aboard an American Airlines flight. In October 2002 Jamaican born Lee Boyd Malvo went on a shooting spree in Washington D.C. with a sniper rifle, killing ten people over a three week period. Suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay was born in Jamaica and moved to the U.K. when he was five. He studied Muslim faith and became very radical about his religious views. He died in London bombings that he participated in in 2005.

United Kingdom Poverty

The United Kingdom is a developed country with comparatively large income differences. As such, those at the lower end of the income distribution have a relatively low standard of living. However, the severe privations of those in the developing world are scarcely to be seen due to the more advanced social infrastructure (health services, welfare and so on). Discussions surrounding poverty in the United Kingdom tend to be of relative poverty rather than absolute poverty.

In the early Fifties, it was believed by numerous people that poverty had been all but abolished from Britain, with only a few isolated pockets of deprivation still remaining.[1] Much of this assumption was derived from a study of poverty in York carried out in 1951 by Joseph Rowntree and his colleague G. R. Lavers, which showed that in 1950 only 1.5% of the survey population lived in poverty, compared with 18% in 1936 when a previous study had been conducted in that town by Rowntree. Rowntree and Laver cited full employment policies, rises in real wages and the expansion of social welfare programmes as the key factors behind this positive development.

Over the course of the Fifties and Sixties, however, a “rediscovery” of poverty took place, with various surveys showing that a substantial proportion of Britons were impoverished, with between 4% and 12% of the population estimated to be living below the Supplementary Benefits’ scales. In their 1965 study on poverty, Professors Peter Townsend and Brian Abel-Smith decided on measuring poverty on the basis of the Supplementary Benefit scales, plus 40%. Using this poverty line, Townsend and Abel-Smith estimated that some 14% (around 7.5 million) of Britons lived in poverty, i.e. living on incomes that were below 140% of the Supplementary Benefit scales.[3] Townsend and Abel-Smith also estimated that since the mid-Fifties the percentage of the population living in poverty had risen from 8% to 14%.