According to the United Nations’ Integrated Regional Information Networks, the earthquake in Pakistan at the end of last year was used as an opportunity to steal land and other property from unmarried women.
Typical of such victims is Zumera Bibi. The IRIN report describes how Zumera and her four daughters left their house temporarily after the […]
A study in the January 7 edition of The Lancet claims that the ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is killing as many as 38,000 people each month, largely by magnifying the levels of malnutrition and preventable disease in that country.
Based on surveys conducted in 19,500 homes in the Democratic Republic of […]
In January, China’s National Statistic Bureau released a report revising its GDP growth for the past several years upward significantly.
The NSB reviseed upward GDP growht estimates for every year from 1993 to 2004 except for 1998. Based on the new figures, China’s economy grew an average of 9.9 percent annually from 1993-2004.
And these new figures […]
At one time, organizations like WorldWatch said that countries such as China and India were doomed to poverty and starvation unless drastic action was taken to reduce the population of such countries. Instead, what has happened is that China and India are gradually pulling themselves out of poverty. Rather than be glad their doomsaying predictions […]
In early January, Chian released journalist Jiang Weiping after he served five years of a six year sentence for daring to publish details about official corruption in China.
In 2001, Jiang was sentenced to six years in jail for publishing details about alleged corruption by Liaoning provincial governor Bo Xilai as well as details of corruption […]
Just randomly web surfing the other day I ran across a page promoting Lester Brown’s latest book, Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. According to a promotional page at the Earth Policy Institute,
“Environmental scientist have been saying for some time that the global economy is being slowly undermined […]
In late December the United States followed through on a promise by writing off $280 million in debts owed to it by Zambia.
In all, Western countries and NGOs wrote off over $1 billion in debt owed by Zambia. When all is said and done, according to the BBC, Zambia’s debt is likely to fall […]
Patrick Smith wrote an insightful analysis for BBC News on the trend that keeps Africa in poverty — the continent’s illiberal and anti-democratic governments.
As Smith notes, at the beginning of 2005 British Prime Minister Tony Blair focused on debt relief as a means of lifting African nations out of poverty, but debt relief will do […]
China has started making moves toward liberalizing its currency market, though not fast enough for some in the U.S. government who bizarrely complain that China keeps the yuan artificially low.
In December, China announced that it approved 13 foreign and domestic banks who would be market movers for the yuan. If it follows through, this will […]
Researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have discovered how malaria parasites evade the human immune system on their way to infecting people. Their discovery was published in Nature in late 2005.
Essentially, the parasite has a number of cloaking mechanisms, and keeps most of them in reserve. As it encounters resistance from the human immune […]