New statistics show there are 2.8 million unemployed young people in South Africa. The country’s unemployment is now above 40 percent if you count working- age people who have given up on finding work, making it the only country in the world that has fewer employed workers than people on welfare, according to economist Mike Schüssler. Such worrying figures have fueled speculation that the country faces the possibility of greater social upheaval in the near future. “This is a crisis. We call it a ticking bomb,” Cosatu’s general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, warned in February. “We think that one day there may be an explosion.” Bible prophecy predicts that rioting and chaos will soon erupt in South Africa and across the Anglo-Saxon world. -more-
Spain suffers double-dip recession as GDP falls 0.3% The Instituto Nacional de Estadistica has announced that the Spanish economy shrank by 0.3% in the first three months of 2012. That follows a 0.3% contraction in the final three months of 2011. That puts Spain back into recession for the first time since it returned to growth at the start of 2010. The 0.3% contraction is actually slightly better than analysts had forecast. On an annual basis, Spain shrank by 0.4% in the last quarter. Britain also slipped back into a double-dip recession last week. By my reckoning, there are now eight eurozone countries in recession. The other six are Belgium, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece and Slovenia -- whose economies all shrank in the third and fourth quarters of 2011. Looking outside the eurozone, but within the EU, we can include the UK, Denmark and the Czech Republic. Spain and the UK are among the first countries to report data for the first three months of 2012. 8.20am: The news of Spain's recession (see 8.05am) has long been expected. This graph shows how it only managed weak economic growth through 2010 and most of 2011, before beginning to contract last autumn. -more-
A roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan has killed 10 members of the country's security forces, officials say. Wardak province officials said the dead belonged to the Afghan local police - part of a government-sponsored militia. Elsewhere, two suspected Taliban militants were shot dead just outside the governor's office in southern Kandahar province. The men were killed in a 30-minute gun battle in which a guard was also injured, a spokesman told AP news agency. -more-
Farc rebels kill eight in Colombia attacks - 4/28/12
Spain's unemployment rate hits record high at 24.44 percent - 4/27/12
Newly released figures show Spain’s unemployment rate hit a new record high at the end of March, reaching 24.44 percent. With the highest rate since 1996, the data released by Spain's National Statistics Institute indicate that some 5.6 million people are now jobless, AFP reported. This comes hours after the New York-based Standard & Poor’s ratings agency downgraded Madrid’s long-term sovereign credit rating from A to BBB+, giving it a negative outlook. Earlier this month, Spain’s Labor Ministry had announced a rise in the country’s jobless rate for March, saying an estimated 4.75 million people were unemployed. In the first quarter of the year, some 37,000 jobs were lost in Spain. The eurozone’s fourth largest economy has announced spending cuts of more than 11-billion dollars as well as tax increases to reduce the country's deficit to avoid seeking a financial bailout like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. Battered by the global financial downturn, the Spanish economy collapsed into recession in the second half of 2008, destroying millions of jobs. -more-
