Barder on the "Robin Hood tax", aka the "Class Warfare Tax": The development industry is right to say we should spend more on aid, but we are losing the argument. Instead of addressing the criticisms by demonstrating how aid is effective (and taking steps to make it more effective where it isn’t) we are turning to a Robin Hood tax apparently in the hope of bypassing public opinion."Poverty News reports that "The second stage of Haiti's medical emergency has begun, with diarrheal illnesses, acute respiratory infections and malnutrition beginning to claim lives by the dozen."
And if you like your cartoons over the top, we have today's feature: the West is God.
Aid Thoughts on loans and debt relief: "until we address the incentives at work in the development system, many of the worst problems we encounter will prove resilient to our attempts to change them."
Blattman informs me that the DRC is launching rats into space. Video available. Best quote: "Everything starts this way, by a little intellectual adventure, a dream. ... Small budgets but high ambitions." They video notes that the third rocket didn't go in the direction planned. In fact, it went sideways instead of up.
Aid Watchers' Laura Freschi reviews a new book on China and Africa, finding that China fearmongering is a bit overdone. Regarding some of the stories, Deborah Brautigam finds that some are true, some aren't, and sometimes 'it depends.' Nice to see balanced approaches every now and then.
With a hat tip to Wronging Rights: ways the internet empowers Saudi women without breaking religious concerns. Says a professor of banking (and couldn't they get someone with a little more religion cred?) "Women are free to do anything they want as as long as they aren’t seen, heard or spotted doing it by men." The one preacher the Global Post quotes says, "Facebook is the door to lust."
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