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Geopolitics

Obama Calls For Calm After Zimmerman Verdict, Violence Continues

BBC (UK), CNN (USA)

Worldcrunch

WASHINGTON- In a statement released on the White House's website, US President Barack Obama has called for calm as protests continue following a Florida jury's not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case, reports the BBC.

In his statement, Obama called Martin's death a tragedy, but said that America was “a nation of laws and a jury has spoken.”

Zimmerman was accused of murdering Martin in February 2012 during a nighttime neighborhood patrol, with prosecutors arguing that Zimmerman had racially profiled the African-American victim before shooting him. Zimmerman, who considers himself Latino, was officially cleared of all charges after a widely covered Florida trial.

After the acquittal Saturday, protests spread across the country. Even though most of the protests were peaceful, some parts of Los Angeles grew tense when protesters threw objects toward police forces. LAPD spokesman said at least nine people were arrested during the night from Sunday to Monday, reports CNN.

Thousands of people have demonstrated in the streets of major US cities, including San Fransisco, Chicago, Denver, Baltimore, Detroit and New York.

In New York, demonstrators marched through Manhattan, chanting slogans such as: “This is what democracy looks like” and “No Justice, No Peace!”

Here is the CNN's report on the protests:

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Society

What's Spoiling The Kids: The Big Tech v. Bad Parenting Debate

Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a "hostile" world. It's a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.

Image of a kid wearing a blue striped sweater, using an ipad.

Children exposed to technology at a very young age are prominent today.

Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — A 2021 report from the United States (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) found that 42% of the country's high-school students persistently felt sad and 22% had thought about suicide. In other words, almost half of the country's young people are living in despair and a fifth of them have thought about killing themselves.

Such chilling figures are unprecedented in history. Many have suggested that this might be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but sadly, we can see depression has deeper causes, and the pandemic merely illustrated its complexity.

I have written before on possible links between severe depression and the time young people spend on social media. But this is just one aspect of the problem. Today, young people suffer frequent and intense emotional crises, and not just for all the hours spent staring at a screen. Another, possibly more important cause may lie in changes to the family composition and authority patterns at home.

Firstly: Families today have fewer members, who communicate less among themselves.

Young people marry at a later age, have fewer children and many opt for personal projects and pets instead of having children. Families are more diverse and flexible. In many countries, the number of children per woman is close to or less than one (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong among others).

In Colombia, women have on average 1.9 children, compared to 7.6 in 1970. Worldwide, women aged 15 to 49 years have on average 2.4 children, or half the average figure for 1970. The changes are much more pronounced in cities and among middle and upper-income groups.

Of further concern today is the decline in communication time at home, notably between parents and children. This is difficult to quantify, but reasons may include fewer household members, pervasive use of screens, mothers going to work, microwave ovens that have eliminated family cooking and meals and, thanks to new technologies, an increase in time spent on work, even at home. Our society is addicted to work and devotes little time to minors.

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