Day: January 24, 2002

Honor Killing Outrage in Jordan

The BBC reported yesterday that women activists in Jordan are outraged over yet another light sentence for a man convicted of an honor killing. In this case, a man murdered his daughter with “an implement similar to a meat cleaver” after he learned she had premarital sex. For this crime, the man was sentenced to only six months in jail.

Although the Jordanian government has claimed over the past few years that it wants to crack down on honor killings, so far it has been all talk.

Last July, for example, CBS reported on the case of Sirhan Abdullah. Abdullah’s 16-year-old sister, Yasmine, was raped. Yasmine feared for her life and so turned to police who placed her in protective custody. After forcing him to sign an agreement that he would not harm Yasmine, she was released to her father.

By his own account, Sirhan Abdullah waited only about 15 minutes after Yasmine arrived home before shooting her in the head four times. He spent six months in jail. Abdullah told CBS that he didn’t think his sentence was fair. According to Abdullah,

I shouldn’t have been in prison for a minute. If she had stayed alive, everyone in our family would have hung his head in shame.

A bill to set mandatory jail terms for honor killings was defeated by Jordan’s parliament in 2000, and a new proposed bill that would require at least a 5-year sentence for such murders has almost no chance of being enacted into law.

Sources:

Jordanian women fight ‘honour killings.’ Caroline Hawley, The BBC, January 23, 2002.

Honor Crimes. CBS News, July 14, 2001.

Bidding War Over Mediocre Media Talent

Yesterday I skipped over a story in USA Today noting that CNN was hiring Connie Chung at a salary of $2 million a year. No surprise, as news programs are all about entertainment not news reporting (that Paula Zahn add CNN briefly ran was the most honest ad campaign every by a news organization).

But today USA Today has a bit of a follow-up analysis with a hilarious quote by a commentator who opines that there is now “a bidding war over mediocre TV personalities.” The amusing thing is the person making that statement is Jon Katz, who is certainly a bonafied expert on mediocre media personalities.

Nineteen Years After the Apocalypse, WorldWatch Keeps Going and Going

The WorldWatch Institute recently released its 19th State of the World Report — that has to be some sort of record for continuous publication of apocalyptic literature. Somehow the famines and other calamities that WorldWatch predicted never seemed to come true, but it keeps plugging away like some failed prophet who re-examines his tea leaves and proclaims he’s made a mistake — the end of the world will come next year.

Ronald Bailey reviewed their latest tome for Reason. He takes them to task on a number of issues, but the most bizarre part of the latest State of the World report is that apparently WorldWatch is openly advocating the world switch to organic agriculture (intensive agriculture relying on pesticides and other chemicals causing cancer and other problems according to WorldWatch).

This is downright insane. As Bailey points out, organic agriculture is not as productive as intensive agriculture. To produce the same amount of food as the world now produces using only organic methods would require increasing the amount of land used for farming by as much as 50 percent. One of the most important trends in the Green Revolution and other advances in farming over the last 40 years has been that the amount of food available has dramatically increased while the amount of land used for agriculture has stayed roughly the same. Who in their right mind would wan to reverse that trend. Oh, right, WorldWatch would.

Bailey unearths an excellent quote from the Hudson Institute’s Dennis Avery who said, “One continent, Africa, practices organic farming and it is the only continent in which hunger is increasing.” Of course Africa is largely prevented from using intensive farming due to government instability, poverty and other problems — all of which tends to prevent them from adopting intensive agriculture and ensures difficulties in producing enough food.

Source:

Still wrong after all these years. Ronald Bailey, Reason, January 16, 2002.

African Brain Drain — Cause or Effect?

The BBC ran a story in October about a study of the African brain drain. The study, conducted by the Pollution Research Group at Natal University in South Africa, claimed that a third of all skilled professionals in Africa have left that continent to pursue careers in the West. The study put the total cost to African countries of this brain drain at $4 billion. But the study seems to have cause and effect reversed.

Specifically, the report claims that as a result of the brain drain, African economic growth has been hampered and poverty increased. No, sorry, but it’s the other way around. Lack of economic growth and rampant poverty — often caused by political repression and a lack of freedoms — is what motivates African professionals to flee their own countries.

Consider South Africa. In 2001 South AFrica’s Education Minister Kadar Asmal accused Great Britain of unfairly raiding South Africa for teachers, and president Thabo Mbeki himself has called for a reversal of the outflow of scientists and engineers from South Africa to the West. This from a man who has defended pseudoscientific ideas such as the notion that HIV does not cause AIDS, and whose political party has tried to clamp down on criticism from South Africa’s press.

The amazing thing is not that Africa loses about 23,000 qualified academic professionals each year, but rather that even more don’t choose to leave given the sorry state of African governance. When are people like Mbeki and Asmal going to stop blaming others for their predicament and start focusing on righting their own ship?

Source:

Brian drain costs Africa billions. The BBC, October 17, 2001.

Zimbabwe Beginning to Experience Sharp Grain Shortage

With grain production falling from 2.04 million tons in 1999-2000 down to a mere 1.48 million tons in 2000-01, Zimbabwe is beginning to feel the effects of the grain shortage created by Robert Mugabe’s tyrannical policies.

Mugabe urged the seizure of white-owned farms despite warnings that this would create massive grain shortages. Then Mugabe pretended that there really was not going to be any grain shortage at all. As a result, Zimbabwe did not stock up on grain for the inevitable emergency.

Now, even if Zimbabwe could afford to buy grain from its neighbors — and it does not have the money to do so since Mugabe has driven the economy into the ground — most of the grain surplus in southern Africa has already been allocated.

So, Zimbabwe has now joined that exclusive group of nations to go begging for food from liberal democracies in the West to prevent it from falling into starvation thanks to the result of its illiberal policies. Robert Mugabe gets to hold on to power and the United States, Great Britain and France get to feed Zimbabwe’s hungry.

The World Food Program is asking for $60 million to feed 600,000 people in Zimbabwe’s countryside. And don’t worry, the World Food Program will almost certainly be back asking for a new round of money to prevent starvation in Zimbabwe next year.

Source:

Grain shortages bit in Zimbabwe. The BBC, January 22, 2002.

Bacteria Could Increase Crop Yields

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced this month they had found several strains of bacteria which increase corn yields anywhere from 5 to 10 percent. The scientists have licensed their find to Agribiotics Inc. which hopes to have a product ready for commercial release within a few years.

Research conducted by microbial ecologist Eric Triplett is scheduled to be published in the Australian Journal of Plant PHysiology. Triplett tested the bacteria on corn crops planted in five states, with each planting resulting in increased crop yields. The bacteria increases crop yields by increasing the amount of nutrients, such as nitrogen, available to the growing plants.

Triplett told OsterDowJones that he plans to use any royalties from the bacteria to fund his ultimate goal which is finding a bacteria that could be used to provide crops such as corn with all the nitrogen they require. This would result in enormous savings in the cost of producing food, and a likely fall in world grain prices if Triplett could ever make such a technology viable.

Source:

ODJ bacteria strains increase corn yields 5-10% in tests. Tim Todd, OsterDowJones, January 15, 2002.