personal political

bangladesh: climate change speaking tour

Bangladesh is one of the countries that will be most dramatically affected by climate change. A one metre sea level rise is expected to affect between 25-50 percent of the population, or up to 70 million people. Much of southern Bangladesh is already experiencing water-logging and salinity problems.

Despite this, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is considering funding what will be one of the largest coal mines on earth in northern Bangladesh.

fistula

I've always liked Natalie Imbruglia and my admiration has increased after reading that she's a big fundraiser for schemes to help African women recover from childbirth-caused fistulae.

iwd - death in childbirth

For International Women's Day, I could write nothing more thought-provoking than this account and thoughts on death in childbirth in Indonesia.

dakar

Cross-posted at Larvatus Prodeo, where the very first commenter called me "stupid".

It’s not often that the Vatican and I agree on anything, but I was pleased to read that they have criticised - I might even go so far as to say “attacked” - the Dakar rally as “a bloody, irresponsible, violent and cynical attempt to impose questionable Western tastes on the developing world”.

It’s not the first time they’ve criticised it - the Wikipedia link above has a reference to a 1988 Vatican article which called the rally a “vulgar display of power and wealth in places where men [sic] continue to die from hunger and thirst”. (And from being run over by rally vehicles.)

Now they go further and say that an “undeniable component of violence … lies behind every attempt to export Western models to human environments and ecosystems that have little to do with the West”.

Motor racing in general has no appeal for me at all, but whenever I see news clips of rally vehicles ploughing through the Sahara, it does always look like a violent imposition of metal on sand, of noise on silence, of arrogance onto people unknown.

A year ago Australian motorbike rider Andy Caldecott was killed in the Dakar Rally. In the days immediately following his death two children were killed by rally vehicles. Their deaths didn’t make headlines.

madonna's new child

I almost hate to join in with the chorus of criticism of Madonna - not that I haven't said and written critical things about her in my time (I was an early fan and have seen her in concert more than once but have had strong misgivings about her in recent years). But it's pretty hard to defend the bringing of one African child who has a live African parent into a mega-rich celebrity home in the first world. Just giving the money spent on that airfare to the boy's father would probably have made him rich in Malawian terms.

International adoption is a fraught area, politically speaking (and of course, emotionally too.) I would have been interested in adopting from another country if such adoption were not closed to lesbians, so hypothetically I've given some thought to the issue. And I know people who have adopted from China and some who are in the process of adopting from China, a process which usually takes two years. I don't think there's any hardline position to be taken on the issue as a whole. But in this case it just doesn't feel right. However, if the adoption goes ahead, legally, then I hope Madonna and Guy are up to the task of parenting this child inside a pressure cooker.

fat world

Last night I watched a French-made documentary on SBS called It's a Fat Fat World. I thought I might have seen it all before, but this was a very new perspective - obesity in the developing world. The culprit? For the main part, globalisation, the spread of hypermarkets and fast food (McDonalds and KFC know no national boundaries) and reliance on motorised transport.

In Egypt, apparently 60 percent of adult women are obese! Essentially because of inactivity, because they are confined to the domestic sphere. These women are like walking manifestations of boredom and oppression.

In Mexico, what had been a healthy traditional diet has been adulterated so that now people eat multiple tortillas deep fried in lard, without beans or vegetables. I think they said that one out of every two adults is overweight if not obese in that country.

The dimensions of the problem are quite overwhelming. It was horrible to watch people eating themselves sick, served up a diet of what amounts to poison masquerading as modern luxury. Of course, that's all around us here too. In fact, we went to a child's birthday party today and, feeling sensitised to the issue after watching this program, I couldn't help but see the sheer amounts of food as totally over the top.

[And now I'm off to cook dinner!]

east timor perspective

I've been struggling to understand what lies beneath the troubles in East Timor. (Perhaps this is reflection of the inadequacy of the mainstream media as much as my own ignorance.) So I found this backgrounder very useful.

ballet

Something about the 'ballet not turning boys gay' references in this tale of South African children learning ballet from a Russian master make me uncomfortable. Of course I understand that people say such things and have such fears but the writer could have been a little more sensitive with the framing.

Apart from that, I also have qualms about the tears and pain these children undergo. I didn't do ballet as a child but my son does. For him there are no tears, no pain. I don't think tears and pain are a good sign, even if in a good cause.

one and only

What an African woman thinks about being the only woman and/or the only black African in meetings for the 'faith-based' organisation she works for.

the bird flu panic

Looks like we're on the cusp of a don't-panic pandemic.

Some doctors are sending out a reminder to get real.

"Every three seconds a child dies," Dr Nils Daulaire of the Global health Council told a briefing sponsored by the National Press Foundation. "They die from pneumonia. They die from diarrhoea. They are dying from neonatal causes. They are dying from malaria.

"And yet we have all these terrific interventions that could save lives today."

If the richer nations contributed not much more money towards a basic public health infrastructure in the developing countries which coincidentally (or not) are the locus for bird flu, not only would millions of children's lives be saved but the avian pandemic itself could be considerably dampened down.

Hand-washing will probably also help.