How valuable are sanctions?

Google defines diplomacy as “negotiations between nations,” and nations are “a politically organized body of people under a single government.”  That’s all straightforward and uncontroversial until one tries to increase or open diplomatic ties with a rogue nation, like Burma, Iran, Sudan, or North Korea.  Then, the idea isn’t so positive, and some might even suggest that diplomacy with a rogue nation is impossible. In the past, the US has relied on a stance of non-engagement.   It’s not possible to be diplomatic with illegitimate governments, right?  Current US President Barack Obama incited anger when he suggested that his administration would be willing to engage Iran in talks about various policy matters. Was he wrong to suggest such a thing? 

New HIV strain discovered in Paris

The discovery of a “gorilla strain” of HIV, known as Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), in a Cameroonian woman residing in Paris, France has scientists and researchers cautoining that HIV could be evolving.

Source.

South Africa Still lagging behind

“Countries around us with fewer resources, both human and financial, are able to achieve more,” said Dr. Quarraisha Abdool Karim, the first director of South Africa’s national AIDS program in the mid-1990s under President Nelson Mandela. “I wish I understood why South Africa, which has an enviable amount of resources, is not able to respond to the epidemic the way Botswana and Kenya have.”

- Excerpt from an article in today’s New York Times about the growing number of male Africans having circumcisions in an effort to reduce the chances of contracting HIV.

Yet, South Africa, despite knowledge of the positive benefits of circumcision, has been lagging (again) in offering services to its citizens. Why?

Hasn’t previous international ridicule over ignorant and ancient health policies taught the South African government anything?  Besides the point, if the government is purposefully ignoring international opinion, they should have learned to stop ignoring science and fact. I’m quite confused about why Africa’s economic powerhouse still holds so firmly to traditional and superstitious beliefs.  What sort-of logic is involved in being skeptical, or flat-out rejecting, medical advancements (particularly ones which have been tested in neighboring countries AND have been successful?

Source.

Seeking asylum on the basis of abuse

Interesting article in today’s New York Times considering I recently came across an LSAT reading passage (June 2001) about refugees.

The Obama administration has opened the way for foreign women who are victims of severe domestic beatings and sexual abuse to receive asylum in the United States. The action reverses a Bush administration stance in a protracted and passionate legal battle over the possibilities for battered women to become refugees.

Currently, in the United States, a person must demonstrate “a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or ‘membership in a particular social group.’” This language is similar to the definition given in the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees which purposefully allows for women to be grouped under the category of “social group.”

The Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status defines “social group” as persons of similar background, habits, or social status.  One factor in the debate regarding women seeking asylum based on physical or sexual abuse is whether they fall under the “social group” category.  Another, is how this new policy will affect immigration in the United States.

Women are a social group; they share a similar social status in many nations (viewed as property, or worse) and there are certainly common habits and similar backgrounds that women share.  Under the law, women have a right to seek asylum in the United States if they’ve been persecuted. The main reason that the Bush administration was concerned with changing the language in the law was out of fear about a large influx of female refugees seeking protection in the United States not a concern about the fate of these female refugees’ lives if they stayed in their home countries.

But the Obama administration understands what loose language can cause and that’s why the policy has set these guidelines for seeking asylum on the basis of abuse:

…abused women will need to show that they are treated by their abuser as subordinates and little better than property… [and] that domestic abuse is widely tolerated in their country. They must show that they could not find protection from institutions at home or by moving to another place within their own country.

What irks me about this article (or mainly the comments section) is that many people find no fault with the law, and are deeply supportive of assisting abused women, but these same individuals are upset by the idea of  persecuted women finding solace in the US.  If people are worried about an influx of refugees, the solution is not to re-word the policy to the Bush administration era, but to take a closer look at how women are treated in other “sovereign” nations and figure out how the situation can be remedied before it needs to spill over into the US.  How can the US ignore tales of persecution, physical, and sexual abuse on the grounds of population control?

Source.

“The problem that Africa is really suffering from is negative PR. If there is a criticism I would level against celebrities – they have tended to perpetuate negative stereotypes. They always tend to portray Africa as a horrendous basket case. They want to portray the war, the poverty, the disease, the corruption. As an African, I’m tired of it.”

- Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian economist, formerly of Goldman Sachs and educated at Harvard and Oxford, in an interview with Newsweek magazine ahead of the New York launch of her new book, “Dead Aid.” Moyo writes that foreign aid (a trillion dollars over the past 60 years) is a waste: it’s bad for Africa, she says — and for Africans – keeping the continent in a supplicant’s role when its governments need to become self-sufficient. Moyo believes this dependency relationship is perpetuated by Western governments and glorified by the celebrities who have made Africa their cause du jour. “Taking a picture with a starving African child — that doesn’t help me raise an African child to believe she can be an engineer or a doctor,” she said. Moyo recommends shutting off all foreign aid to African within 10 years.

If you don’t have anything truthful to say, shut your mouth

A few weeks ago, one of my roommates who is a teacher was telling me a story about a student who told her that he had recently learned in church that condoms were bad.  My roommate teaches 7th graders and I was asking her about sex education classes in public schools.  The ignorant comment from the (12?) year-old boy made me really upset because he was sexually active and now had a justifiable reason–from his priest–to not use condoms.

Last week, while in Cameroon, Pope Benedict repeated a similar ignorant statement when he said that, “[AIDS] cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”.  Since when does using a condom increase and/or aggravate the chances of contracting HIV or AIDS?

People around the world are justifiably concerned about the effect Pope Benedict’s comments could have. Non-profit Avaaz has started a petition urging Pope Benedict and The Vatican to not undermind proven AIDS prevention strategies.

On a personal note, I was also saddened that Pope Benedict made his comment in Cameroon.  I saw pictures of the millions of individuals who showed up at the stadium to listen to the Pope’s speech.  What if even one of them took Pope Benedict’s words literally and decides to engage in unprotected sex because one is more suseptible to contracting AIDS if he uses a condom?  The first time I visited Cameroon, I visited the grave of a young family member who had passed away from “tuberculosis.” No one seemed to know how he had contracted HIV but with misinformation being spread by the likes of the leader of the Catholic church it’s not hard to imagine how many die from a lack of accurate information.

Malnutrition in India

A World Food Program report last month noted that India remained home to more than a fourth of the world’s hungry, 230 million people in all.

India has had noticeable economic growth in the last decade but a significant portion of its population is literally and figurately not growing.  China–India’s competitor in terms of economic growth–has been able to reduce its pediatric malnutrition rate to 7 percent.  In India that figure is 42.5 percent.

Read the full article from The New York Times here.

Stay tuned

The Intertional Criminal Court is expected to announce today whether  it will issue an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.

-Update-

An arrest warrant has been issued, read more here, and check out my previous post here about why this warrant is a good thing.

How the other half lives

It’s well known that the global economic crisis is affecting everyone around the world.  But, sadly, it’s affecting those in the developing world much harder.  As an American citizen I have the benefit of collecting unemployment if I loose my job (and many other social benefits) but such is not the case for people living in some of the world’s poorest areas.  I truly understand the importance of charity during hard times and now is one of the most grave periods in modern history when people are in dire need of free/cost reduced services.  If people are loosing their homes, jobs, and life savings in the West imagine being deported back to a developing nation where you have zero chance of obtaining employment, shelter, and infrastructure (health services) is severely lacking.  I’m able to write this blog on a computer using wireless internet in an apartment that is warm and has a refrigerator stocked with food.  Despite being unemployed I’m still very lucky; things are much worse for many individuals around the world.

Who to blame for the financial crisis? What about the media

A few days ago I came across a Tweet from TIME.com about an article entitled, “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis.”  Here’s the list (ordered by votes from web readers):

1. Phil Gramm
2. Christopher Cox
3. Angelo Mozilo
4. Joe Cassano
5. Franklin Raines
6. Kathleen Corbet
7. Ian McCarthy
8. Dick Fuld
9. Bernard Madoff
10. Herb & Marion Sandler
11. Stan O’Neal
12. John Devany
13. Sandy Weill
14. Jimmy Cayne
15. George W. Bush
16. The American Consumer
17. Alan Greenspan
18. Hank Paulson
19. David Lereah
20. Lew Ranieri
21. David Oddsson
22. Fred Goodwin
23. Bill Clinton
24. Wen Jiabao
25. Burton Jublin

Most of the names on this list are completely unrecognizable to me except for the former US Presidents, the current President of China, Madoff, Greenspan, and “The American Consumer.”  But, if TIME is going to call out the American consumer they should have also put “The American Media” on their list.

I believe that the mass media, broadcast in particular, has contributed to the current economic crisis.  Either by presenting information in a biased manner, an untimely manner, or through non-informing/sensational news  pieces. The mass media (print, radio, web, broadcast), which is supposed to serve as a government watchdog, hasn’t been performing its duties.  I get the sense that many publications and stations are reveling in the fact that many Americans are very anxious for information and they can manipulate people’s emotions.  For several months the media said that the data to determine whether or not the US was in a recession wasn’t available.  Then in December we were told that the US had been in a recession for over a year. Oh really?

It’s hard, but sometimes it’s necessary to step away from the TV or newspaper and take a look at our personal realities and decide what’s good and what’s wrong.  I feel okay with the fact that I’m unemployed until I go to NYTimes.com and read the headlines and then I wonder if my life is over.  Some of the scandals linked with the financial crisis (Madoff, SEC, etc) should have been exposed (prior to 2008) by the media.  The cost of Bush’s policies should have been properly documented by the media.  The job of the media is to inform the public of news in as unbiased a manner as possible.  If the American Consumer wasn’t making the right choices it’s because they were being misinformed, or kept ignorant by the American Media.