500 consumers were surveyed about their attitudes on how likely they were to purchase domestic chicken, versus Tyson (US), Brazilian, European, or Asian chicken. 56% were likely to buy Made in the USA, and 72% to buy Ghanaian. Asian chicken did not score very highly. More than 80% recognized COOL chicken. (That's Country of Origin Labeling, not the fellow on the right.)A single serving provides 34 percent of the recommended daily allowance of protein, 43 percent of calcium, 99 percent of iron, and high percentages for a dozen vitamins and minerals for children under 5 years old. ...LDS efforts to help those suffering from the famine in the Horn of Africa:
In 2010, 645,000 pounds of Atmit were shipped by LDS Charities to four countries. Depending upon the age and size of the children, that's enough to feed 100,000 to 130,000 children for one month. The cost? Less than $6 (USD) per child.
In Ethiopia, projects to aid more than 100,000 refugees are under way, including water tanks, trucking services, sanitation supplies and hygiene training for 15 villages; supplementary food for 8,700 malnourished children; nutrition centers and sanitation facilities for Somali refugees in Dollo Ado; and 5,000 hygiene kits.Other projects in Kenya, Uganda, and Somalia are also underway and briefly described at the link.
The Church also plans to provide water catchment and storage structures, as well as soap and washbasins to serve tens of thousands of other residents in the communities surrounding the Dollo Ado camps.
the central challenge for power holders is often not economic, but political. Former rebels continue to use the informal mechanisms that suited them so well when conspiring outside government. Power consequently resides in a shadow state, characterised by the personal and reciprocal arrangements which developed in the struggle. … though optimists point to economic progress, the reality is one of intense intra-elite competition with incredible violent potential, as has been witnessed in all three countries in the past and as might soon occur again in Rwanda and South Sudan.
“Satellite images released by US pressure group the Enough Project, appear to back up claims of troop reinforcements and northern ‘fortified encampments inside Abyei.’ … With the referendum over, [former peace] deals [between southern groups] are now falling apart as groups jockey for power.”The ‘consensus’ still seems to be that outright war is unlikely, that enough people want to avoid it … but they don’t yet have the trust and social capital to make it a nonissue.
For instance, on the plus side the Somali government prevented the trafficking of a pair of endangered lion cubs. See, occasionally the news in Africa really is about lions!the proportion of the population of sub-Saharan Africa affected by famine averaged less than three-tenths of a percent. The proportion who were refugees in 2005 was five-tenths of a percent. The number who died in wars between 1965 and 2001 averaged one one-hundredth of a percent.
The Economist reports on a survey of people around the world with university degrees who are reasonably well-off for their age group which asked them how much they agreed with Milton Friedman that "the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits." Among the winners are the United Arab Emirates ("not surprising for a small, business-oriented country") and Japan (stakeholder capitalism fatigue?). The role of government among the countries is remarkably different: the article postulates that Sweden scores highly because the government takes care of people well enough that business doesn't need to, but China and most of the EU score much lower.Gettleman discusses Somalia on NPR's Fresh Air:Sounds like TiA has discovered Libertarianism. Bolding added.
But the problem is when you have these places that remain mired in the state of anarchy for that long, every day that's like that, it gets harder and harder to reimpose authority. In Somalia, people adapt. They get used to the fact that there's no central government. Businessmen start schools. Neighborhoods band together to provide their own generators. I even saw, during my first visits to Mogadishu, a privatized mailbox where you buy a stamp from a businessman, stick it on a letter and stick it in a mailbox and they deliver it for you. And then you have this young generation in Somalia. These kids who haven't been in school for their entire lives, if they're 25 years or younger, basically this is all they know. They don't know what a functioning government does. They don't know the need for it.I frequently pick on Gettleman for stereotyping the African continent as a land of disease, distress, and despair. While there's certainly some of that in this discussion, on this point about state authority, he's right. Here we get a glimpse of the incredible strategies with which people in collapsed states come up in order to survive. This is key to understanding life in extremely weak states. People don't sit around waiting for help to arrive. They use their talents and skills to make what needs to happen, happen.
That said, I'm not sure that young Somali adults who've grown up without government "don't know the need for it." Most people of about the same age in the DRC are acutely aware of the need for an entity that can protect the territory, enforce public order, and guarantee contracts. Somali survival strategies are remarkable, but in the end, life in a collapsed state is hard. Most of us would prefer the alternative.
