Monday, December 3, 2007

Two Things to Make Me Wonder

1. Brand-new Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made his first move as an elected official to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. This move makes the United States the only "Developed Nation" still boycotting the international climate agreement.

2. Malawi is seeing its way out of famine, not only feeding its people but those of other African nations with a bumper crop of corn. This a result of ignoring the "donor prescription" (wow, an amazing euphemism!) that calls for eliminating government fertilizer subsidies for farmers (a practice widely used in the West). A classic case of "do as I say, not as I do."

I imagine one Malawian who died of starvation as a result of our strings-attached aid. And my full stomach hurts.

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