Archive for April 19th, 2005
Developed Countries Should Lower Trade Barriers, Period
In the wake of the devastating tsunami that parts of Asia in December, the World Trade Organization’s Supachai Panitchpakdi urged developed nations to lower trade barriers with nations hit by the tsunami.
How pathetic. The developed world should eliminate their ridiculous trade barriers with developing nations permanently. Such barriers have done far more long-term damage to the developing world than the tragic — but one-time — horrors created by the December 2004 tsunami.
Along with further worsening poverty in those countries, trade barriers directly contribute to corruption and other problems in developing nations by making it difficult for enterprising individuals to succeed in the market.
Anti-free traders shouldn’t worry, however — special interest groups here in the United States were quick to defend their particular fiefdoms from liberalization.
Deborah Long, the hack in charge of speaking for the Southern Shrimp Alliance, argued that suspending duties on Asian shrimp imports would be unfair. Lloyd Woods, who serves the same role with the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, argued that the best way to help Sri Lanka, Thailand and India wasn’t to eliminate textile tariffs against those country, but rather impose import quotes on Chinese textiles!
Straight from the land of the tariff and the home of the scared s–tless by the prospect of truly free trade.
Source:
Rich nations are urged to ease trade with affected countries. Elizabeth Becker, The New York Times, January 15, 2005.
Tags: Free Trade, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, World Trade Organization
Will Polio Ever Be Eradicated?
The World Health Organization maintains that it will eradicate polio worldwide, but the disease is beginning to re-emerge in African countries that had previously been polio-free. Will anti-polio campaigners ever manage to eradicate polio?
The current outbreak in Africa is directly traceable to a decision by religious extremists in northern Nigeria to suspended polio vaccinations in 2003.
Shortly after that decision, polio cases in Nigeria began to spike. That was soon followed by cases popping up in nearby countries including Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, and Sudan. All five of those countries had been free of polio until 2003. Along with Nigeria, polio still persisted prior to 2003 in Egypt and Niger.
Polio has since spread to an additional seven African countries that had been free of polio, and the disease could spread further.
Admittedly the number of cases is still very small — Nigeria reported the most cases in Africa in 2004 at 763, but the outbreak of cases in previously polio-free countries is jacking up the costs of immunization. According to Dr. David Heymann, who heads up WHO’s polio eradication program, the resurgence of cases in polio-free countries will add at least $150 million to immunization efforts on the continent.
Source:
Health Officials Say They’ll End Polio In Africa, Despite Its Spread. Lawrence Altman, The New York Times, January 16, 2005.
Tags: Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Polio, Sudan, World Health Organization
Research Suggests Close Link Between Cholera Outbreaks and Phage Levels
Research published in the February 2005 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science provides intriguing insight into cholera outbreaks, and may someday lead to a method of predicting or even preventing such epidemics.
After studying levels of cholera bacteria (Vibrio cholerae) in water, researchers at the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research and Harvard Medical School noticed a relationship between the level of cholera bacteria and the presence of phage — a virus that uses bacteria to reproduce itself.
There was an inverse relationship between the two: as the level of phage increased, the number of cholera bacteria declined. Similarly, when phage levels fell, cholera bacteria levels increased.
It is somewhat of mystery why cholera plagues are self-limiting and tend to end of their own accord. This research provides one possible answer, namely that cholera outbreaks might begin when phenomena such as monsoons dilute the amount of phage in water, and then end of their own accord once phage levels again increase.
Much more research needs to be done to establish the precise relationship between phage and cholera bacteria, but this study provides intriguing clues that may help to predict and ultimately prevent cholera outbreaks.
Sources:
Cholera understanding ‘improved’. The BBC, January 16, 2005.
New insights: Why are cholera epidemics self-limited?. Press Release, International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, March 7, 2005.
Tags: Cholera, International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research
2004 Was Deadly Year for Journalists
At least 129 journalist and other media workers were killed in 2004 — likely the largest number since the International Federation of Journalists kept keeping records of media killings in the 1980s. That number is expected to rise as more information about journalist deaths is collected.
According to the IJF’s annual report (emphasis added),
The IFJ casualty toll includes all employed staff, including freelance who work in all sections of the media industry. Our list includes all journalists and support staff as well as employees who are in the firing line and who are victims because their media have been targeted. We include personnel such as drivers, fixers and translators who died during newsgathering activities. We also include people who have been killed because of
accidental causes while on duty. We recognize that other organizations do not include some of the victims we have identified. We believe that by ensuring all media employees involved in the support and promotion of journalistic activity are covered by this report it is possible to give a fuller picture of the extent of casualties within the media workforce.
Iraq was, not surprisingly, the most dangerous place for media workers, with almost 50 reporters and other media workers killed in that country. Most of those killed were the victims of terrorist attacks that indiscriminately target civilians, but the IFJ also criticized the United States for failing to conduct thorough and open investigations of killings of media employees by its soldiers.
The next most dangerous place for journalists was the Philippines where 13 reporters were killed in 2004. Not a single person has been detained in the murders of journalists in that country according to the IFJ.
In the United States, the IFJ recorded just a single on-the-job death — a journalist who was killed in Texas when a mobile news van’s broadcast mast collided with powerlines and 23-year-old Matthew Moore was electrocuted.
Sources:
‘Deadliest’ year for journalists. Chris Morris, The BBC, January 18, 2005.
Journalist and Staff Killed in 2004. International Federation of Journalists, 2005.
Tags: International Federation of Journalists, Iraq, Philippines, United States