Our eyes on the world

A last thought on globalization:

Some people's ways to tackle bad labour practices within the global economy is to take up the same icons perpetuated through globalization.

Examine how the same brands can be used both ways. :)

Hey, look at how protest should actually look like. We have quite a lot to learn..

With this, all the best for your final assessment.

Here are some anti-nike websites to get you started on your last class activity for this module.

Have fun exposing Nike. :)


http://www.geocities.com/Athens/acropolis/5232/links.html


http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/jan98/nike2.html


http://www.mail-archive.com/leftlink@vicnet.net.au/msg03133.html


http://www.le.org/pipermail/vnforum/2002-October/000143.html


http://www.mallenbaker.net/csr/CSRfiles/nike.html


http://www.counterpunch.org/ballinger02082006.html


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike,_Inc.



http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/3932.html

As mentioned in lessons, you are not expected to 'define' globalization per sec, but you can read about it and make your own decision on what is 'globalization'.

There is a pretty good website to start from:

http://www.globalisationguide.org/

As I tried to word it for a proposal I am writing, hope the following excerpt makes some sense to some of you:

"The globalized world today has resulted in increasingly unregulated financial and labour markets in different regions and countries that are unevenly integrated in the world economy. There is increasing income disparity between economies as well as the uneven accumulation of capital between global regions. The same processes have also increase the fluidity of the movement of people across and between national borders. The globalization phenomenon is seen as a virtually unstoppable process that can only be accommodated rather than resisted (Ohmae, 1990). The world is now flattened by globalizing technologies (Friedman, 2006) and is responsible for integrating the world closer through space-shrinking and time-compressing technologies.

This has led to the blurring of political boundaries and the seemingly homogenizing of a global landscape where notions of the nation-state is contested and even argued as ‘dead’ (Guehenno, 1995; Knoke, 1996). The new complexity of global causality visibly exceeds the capacity of nation-states to maintain effective control as the distinction between the global and the local is ‘resignified’ (Pensky, 2005) and [globalization] is played out in the apparent fluidity of material practices across space and time, constructing imaginations of the world as a nestled world of opportunities for people in its circulatory flows of goods, people, capital and ideas. In essence, globalization as a force from ‘outside’ is re-aligning and re-defining the nation-state’s capacities as political bodies (Held & McGrew, 2002; Dicken, 2003).

*References to be inserted later.*

Dear students,

The internet is a maze of information, and I understand your frustrations in not knowing how a "1 TEU" looks like.

1 TEU = a 20 feet equivalent unit container

This means 20 feet containers like the container below is 1 TEU.



So what's the biggie about calling it 1 TEU?

TEU refers to the capacity of container ships while the container is, well, simply a container when the people doing the packing look at it!

Why have different names? Well, this is because of the 2 TEU!

2 TEU can mean a 40 feet container like the one below or 2 20-feet containers.



So using TEU is a lot simpler. Of course, the world of containers have become a lot more exciting with containers that open both ways, containers with refigerators called reefer containers and open top containers that can accomodate tractor or special mining vechicle's kind of super big wheels. It's very exciting.

Imagine you have to stack containers in a container ship with the exact precision you stack Uno stacko cards, and you need to program a software that communicates with the cranes lifting the containers in and out when the ship docks into your berth, and you need to co-ordinate trucks and trailers on standby to move the incoming and outgoing containers around. You need a computer to do that okay? Don't fry your brains, little ones. Especially the maths whizzes in our midst!

Check out such a system at this website!
http://www.jp.com.sg/container/ctms.htm

To streamline your burning desire to know more about containers - shipping is a very good industry to go into, make sure you are good at programming or with math or just have good plain commonsense with training in geography (pay attention in class huh), google "shipping" or "logistics" and read about it.

To know about the world of containers, read this website!

http://www.mrbox.co.uk/

All container photos on this post was taken from Mrbox.co.uk. website. :)

I love the logistics and shipping part of this module. So fun!

I am covering transport technologies in Globalization now and an article on this beautiful container ship caught my eye as I was reading the newspapers.

It is on Emma Maersk, the world's biggest container ship in the world, with a capacity of 11000 TEUs!! Oh my goodness! That's very big!

The largest ship before Emma was Shenzhen shipping line's OOCL with 8068 TEUs.

Check out the beauty!


Photo taken from:
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=109670&ran=87860


The shipping gazette carries a feature on it:

http://www.shipgaz.com/english/magazine/issues/2006/16/1606_article.asp

What difference big gal makes in globalization:

Updated: 6 Nov 2006




Christmas is around the corner and according the the graph that I placed in 2006 Sem 2 paper Q7, exports from Asia to other regions, especially Europe and US, usually hit sky-high around this time.

Here are a few articles on people in Europe who are veru concerned with the huge export of goods Emma Maersk is bringing over from China.

News from UK

Christmas is coming

Canada covering the news too.

Christmas ship embarks on Santa-like voyage

So who says globalization doesn't affect people? Don't underestimate this giant gal. She brings big news where ever she goes.