Another Dog & Pony Show
Mood:
don't ask
Topic: The World in Pictures
Hello, Avid Readers!
Today begins with sunlight, fresh air, and a lot of murky substance in my chest. I can breathe and smell just fine and no longer have a temperature; in fact, occasional checks have indicated that I'm not warm enough but putting on a sweater causes new and immediate hot flashes. I have an impressive, intermittent cough and a drippy nose.
A pair of assholes owe me money but I think I'm getting through to them. I'm not worried; I'm loosely related to somebody who works on the docks. The distribution of money throughout the world has been a constant aggravation to those at the end of the trickle. What to do? Sadly, this isn't one of God's sick days so I can't help.
The G8 Summit is starting today in Gleneagles, Scotland where violence has sullied the work of the largely peaceful demonstrators. Christopher Williams, an Oxford student, is keeping a journal of events during G8 and is a participant of the BBC's interactive panel.
The countries who comprise the G8 are the top 8 industrialised nations of the world; France, Italy, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US were the original members when the consortium was established in 1975. Canada and Russia joined in 1976 and 1998 respectively.
What do you suppose happens when these elite nations get together to discuss the world's problems? Grim faces and hand-wringing no doubt. Here they'd thought globalisation was the answer to the world's financial distribution issues but it turns out that despite the vast sums of capital available there are still people, women like Joyce Mbwilo, a Tanzanian mum of 5, who have to spend 10 hours a day just gathering water to keep their families alive.
Other issues that the G8 conferences have addressed, to whatever degree, include global warming (the Bush administration does not endorse the Kyoto Protocol), AIDS/HIV, and various debt relief schemes. How does any of this make a damn bit of difference to somebody like Joyce Mbwilo?
Africa is being treated with special concern at this latest summit, particularly with respect to mounting debts, health concerns, and increasing foreign aid. The trouble is, many African governments are rife with corruption, tyranny, and callous indifference so it's miraculous that aid ever reaches its intended recipients.
Comprised of 53 countries, the continent is riddled with political, health, social, and economic troubles. Not all of its countries are in the same dismal shape. Tanzania, for example, home to Mt. Kilimanjaro, has had little political upheaval and has managed to gain a few economic breaks with donors and outside investment. They have a flourishing tourist industry. On the downside, average life expectancy is about 43 years of age and the GNI (Gross National Income)is about $290 US.
The western nation of Burkina Faso, where Prime Minister Martin visited earlier this year, has faced countless droughts, military coups, and is one of the most destitute of Africa's countries. They have considerable gold reserves but gold is a mutable commodity. The life expectancy is about 45, and the GNI is about $300 US.
Egypt, which tends to be primarily described as a Middle Eastern country, is part of Africa, too. Famous for pyramids, Egypt's warring with Israel has ceased although internal mayhem within Egypt's Islamic population has resulted in periodic, significant violence against tourists. So much for sight-seeing. The life expectancy is a whopping 71 years for women and 67 for men, and they enjoy a GNI of about $1,390 US.
In a list of the world's 25 poorest countries, 16 of them are west African. Surprisingly, Italy tops the list of world debtors to the tune of $868.5 billion US while Egypt owes $30.34 billion US and is the only African country in the list.
AIDS/HIV deaths are highest in Africa. Topping the list is Nigeria, with 310,000 casualties for 2003. From there, just fill in names of Nigeria's neighbours: Kenya: 150,000 in 2003; Ethiopia: 120,000 in 2003; Mozambique: 110,000 in 2003. Canada had 1,500 AIDS/HIV deaths in 2003.
Providing assistance of any sort to struggling African countries is compounded by political instability. A list of the 25 countries considered to be the most corrupt (ie. law enforcement, governmental, all-around) includes 8 representatives from Africa: Nigeria, Cameroon, Angola, Kenya, Libya, Congo Republic, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Sudan, with ratings from 8.6 to 7.7 out of 10. Poland musters a hefty score of 6.4 whilst Finland, home of the annual Wife Carrying contest, barely registers at .03. Canada comes in at 1.3.
Joyce Mbwilo's children look well-dressed, healthy, and happy. She says, however, that they will probably never obtain even high school educations because they simply cannot afford it. Joyce's children are lucky to have survived infancy, and one wonders how they view their personal futures. Career planning seems an obscene notion considering the hardships that they and their brethren face.
You might wonder why, if there are so many dangerous governments contributing to their peoples' hardships, stealing from and slaughtering their citizens, that more intervention doesn't take place. If you have a choice between assisting an oil rich nation who's going through a bad patch, or one that chronically ekes by and doesn't seem to have much in the way of assets, who will you pick? It's the enticement of reward, friends, that gets attention. The spoils of war.
There is better news, however. Trade is the lynchpin of a nation's success. Its polar opposite is the embargo. The world works in a similar fashion to the popular computer game Civilization in which one of your first tasks is to make contact with other countries so that you can establish financial ties. What you really want is fair trade.
I am not an economist, but let me try and work out how trade functions. Nation A produces goods and sells them to Nation B. Nation B has its own stuff to sell right back. Everybody wants the highest price for their stuff and they don't want stuff from the other country competing with their own in their home market. If Nation A is financially better off than Nation B, should they be commanding the same price for their stuff as Nation B? You'd think so. How does Nation B afford Nation A's stuff? That's where subsidies come in. Richer nations get paid a subsidy to allow them to sell their goods cheaper without losing money, thereby keeping trade going. However, I've been reading where these richer nations employ tariffs and other economic barriers to keep out or restrict competing stuff from other countries. Sounds like greed, doesn't it? Who sets the standards for how much stuff costs in the world?
This reminds me of a discussion about old computer parts I had with my dad in which I decried the practise of charging an arm and a leg for antiquated items that appeal to a minority of people. Dad reckoned that there was a premium to be charged for the burden of storing the old parts and that's what makes a rarer 6 GB hard drive more expensive per megabyte than a commonly available 180 GB drive. Well, it still sounds like greed to me, as one of the dozen people on the planet who could find a good use for a 6 GB drive. Dad thinks I'm missing the point of capitalism.
We can be reasonably sure that the participants in future G8 summits will never have people like Joyce Mbwilo or her children sitting at the table. People with nowt, countries with nowt, are not viewed as part of the solution to their own problems even though they are probably best equipped to see what needs doing. Future summits will be like this one, protected by barricades, police, anti-terrorist units, you name it, so that politicians, by design a temporary ruling class, can solve the world's woes.
This year's summit is all of two days. As usual, the US trumpets its own purported achievements in glossy brochures and reports proving again that no matter who you vote for, the government always wins. There are Development Campaign representatives from several agencies, such as Save the Children, attending. Outside, ordinary citizens bark at the gates and protest in the streets demanding to be listened to.
Huge problems! How to fix them? Here's a chilling comment from an article by the BBC's Steve Schifferes:
And many of Mr Bush's initiatives also involve an enhanced role for the private sector, especially in the pharmaceutical sector.
I guess a few drugs won't go amiss when the ozone layer finally melts.
Posted by Jetta
at 11:31 AM PDT
Updated: Wednesday, 6 July 2005 3:31 PM PDT
energetic
not sure