What was the Muslim perspective after World War II? At first, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen agreed with Britain's suggestion to form an Arab League to protect their independence from outside threats, especially from the Soviet Union. But a common opposition to the new Israeli state proved to be a stronger unifying force. Muslim countries that had no part in murdering Jewish prisoners in the Holocaust were unwilling to recognize Israeli independence. They responded with a declaration of war, when a UN resolution ended Britain's Palestinian Mandate and created the new state of Israel on May 15, 1948. The United States, with the largest concentration of Jewish people outside of Israel, went to the aid of Israel.
After Mohammed's death, Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims took different directions and became bitter enemies (For an explanation of the rift, see the section, Mohammed's Legacy, in the earlier post, "This We Believe."). Both Muslim sects had splinter groups determined to annihilate Israel, and, by extension, Israel's ally, the United States. The new fundamentalist Shi'ite regime that took over in Iran in 1979 permitted militants to hold 62 Americans in the U.S. embassy for over a year. Israel viewed exiled Palestinian Sunnis and Iranian-backed Hezbollah Shia in Lebanon as terrorists. To rid its northern border of the threat posed by both groups, Israel supported the 1982 raid by Maronite Christian militias that resulted in a refugee camp massacre.
Seen as an ally of the Israeli forces behind the 1982 raid, the United States became an Hezbollah target. After a suicide bomber drove a truck full of explosives into the U.S. embassy in Lebanon in April, 1983, Iran directed another suicide operation that killed 241 at the U.S.Marine barracks there in October. Tel Aviv, which had destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, pressured Washington to see that Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear bomb would not succeed.
Only because of a blatant invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990 was President George H.W.Bush, with UN backing, able to assemble the international force that took just four days to defeat Iraq and liberate Kuwait. In other circumstances, the U.S. was a target in 1993 for Muslim terrorists who set off a bomb in the garage of the World Trade Center in New York and for the terrorists, trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, who bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. With a successful "business plan" in hand, the Muslim mastermind behind these attacks traveled to Sudan in 1995 to remind Osama bin Laden how effective suicide bombers could be against Americans. (For additional information about the Muslim perspective, see the earlier post, "Why Do They Hate Us?")
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Friday, July 29, 2016
Muslim Perspective: Part 2 of a 3-Part Series
In a continuing effort to learn more about the Muslim perspective, the second part of a 3-part series follows:
After defeating Napoleon, England was not willing to stand by while massacres and atrocities by Turkish oppressors in the Ottoman Empire led to revolts that gave outside powers reason to intervene. France's Emperor Napoleon III and the Russian Tsar both vied to protect Christians living under Turkish rule. Tsar Nicholas I, who called the Ottoman Empire's Sultan the "sick man of the East," was intent on liberating fellow Slavs in Bulgaria and other Balkan areas that the Turks controlled. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, which also saw an opportunity to expand into the Balkans, annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. Britain had no interest in the Balkans, but London was determined to prevent Russia from interfering with its profitable spice trade in India and, eventually, its access to Middle Eastern oil. Knowing that revolutions in 1848 had weakened both Austria's and Hungary's ability to prevent Russian expansion toward Constantinople and the Dardanelle Straits, Britain was willing to prop up Turkey and to join France in what became known as the 1856 Crimean War.
Although the Ottoman Empire survived the Crimean War, a little over 20 years later, Russia forced the Sultan to recognize the independence of his Balkan possessions in Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro. The Ottoman Empire's North African territories were victims of the European scramble for colonies in the late 19th century. France claimed Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco and, by 1869, opened Egypt's Suez Canal.
Britain, which viewed France as its major colonial rival in Africa, saw the canal as a vital link to India. When Egypt's Turkish ruler needed funds to pay interest on the European loans that had financed canal construction, England eagerly bought shares in the Suez Canal Company. As a result of Britain's financial interests, Egypt became a British Protectorate in 1882. Throughout half of the 20th century, Great Britain continued to maintain a strategic military base in the Suez Canal Zone.
During World War I, Britain captured Palestine, Iraq, and Iran. It was in 1917 that Lord Balfour, Britain's foreign minister, first raised the possibility of carving an Israeli state, what he called "a small notch," out of Palestine. By making Palestine a British Mandate on September 11, 1932, the League of Nations took the first step to implement Lord Balfour's plan. After World War I, the UK also won League of Nations support in its dispute over the Mosul oil fields in northern Iraq, but England's position in the Middle East deteriorated following World War II. In 1951, Iran's government nationalized the joint Anglo-Iranian oil company on the Persian Gulf at Abadan.
After defeating Napoleon, England was not willing to stand by while massacres and atrocities by Turkish oppressors in the Ottoman Empire led to revolts that gave outside powers reason to intervene. France's Emperor Napoleon III and the Russian Tsar both vied to protect Christians living under Turkish rule. Tsar Nicholas I, who called the Ottoman Empire's Sultan the "sick man of the East," was intent on liberating fellow Slavs in Bulgaria and other Balkan areas that the Turks controlled. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, which also saw an opportunity to expand into the Balkans, annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. Britain had no interest in the Balkans, but London was determined to prevent Russia from interfering with its profitable spice trade in India and, eventually, its access to Middle Eastern oil. Knowing that revolutions in 1848 had weakened both Austria's and Hungary's ability to prevent Russian expansion toward Constantinople and the Dardanelle Straits, Britain was willing to prop up Turkey and to join France in what became known as the 1856 Crimean War.
Although the Ottoman Empire survived the Crimean War, a little over 20 years later, Russia forced the Sultan to recognize the independence of his Balkan possessions in Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro. The Ottoman Empire's North African territories were victims of the European scramble for colonies in the late 19th century. France claimed Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco and, by 1869, opened Egypt's Suez Canal.
Britain, which viewed France as its major colonial rival in Africa, saw the canal as a vital link to India. When Egypt's Turkish ruler needed funds to pay interest on the European loans that had financed canal construction, England eagerly bought shares in the Suez Canal Company. As a result of Britain's financial interests, Egypt became a British Protectorate in 1882. Throughout half of the 20th century, Great Britain continued to maintain a strategic military base in the Suez Canal Zone.
During World War I, Britain captured Palestine, Iraq, and Iran. It was in 1917 that Lord Balfour, Britain's foreign minister, first raised the possibility of carving an Israeli state, what he called "a small notch," out of Palestine. By making Palestine a British Mandate on September 11, 1932, the League of Nations took the first step to implement Lord Balfour's plan. After World War I, the UK also won League of Nations support in its dispute over the Mosul oil fields in northern Iraq, but England's position in the Middle East deteriorated following World War II. In 1951, Iran's government nationalized the joint Anglo-Iranian oil company on the Persian Gulf at Abadan.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Muslim Perspective: Part 1 of a 3-Part Series
When I was writing about the effort Nelson Mandela and Ali Soufan made to understand their enemies (Blog post: "Fight, Flight, or Something Else"), I realized: 1) Muslims are not my enemies, 2) Some terrorists act on their interpretation of Islam, and 3) I want to learn more about the Muslim perspective. What I have learned thus far follows in the first of a 3-Part Series.
Muslims can look back on historic conquests over the fractured Balkan states north of Greece, the eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, Spain, and the islands off Italy. Just northwest of the nearby ruins of Babylon, the ancient home of Hammurabi, Nebuchadnessar II, and Alexander the Great, Baghdad was part of the sprawling 7th century Islamic empire conquered after Mohammed's death in 632. Aside from paying taxes to their Arab conquerors, life for those in this vast area remained largely unchanged. Cosmopolitan Baghdad, which may have had a population of two million by the ninth century, resembled a city in ancient Rome. Traders from India, China, and the East Indies brought their luxury wares of spices, sugar, gems, silks,and porcelains to the wealthy port.
In lands conquered by early Muslims, citizens who were Arab, Persian, Byzantine, Greek, Hindu, and Christian shared a peaceful co-existence. Famous biblical sites in Egypt and Palestine had begun to attract Christian pilgrims as early as the second century. According to fourth century sources, both women and men reported they had faced theft, murder, and other dangers on their way to see where Jesus had lived, but there was no mention of Muslims blocking their way.
By the eleventh century, everything changed. Newly converted, fervent Muslim Seljuk Turks began attacking Christian pilgrims en route to the Holy Land. In response, Pope Urban II called for the Crusade that recovered Jerusalem in 1099. Missionaries attempted to convert Muslims in North Africa and western Asia, but Saladin, the Iraqi-born Sultan of Egypt and Syria, retook Jerusalem in 1187 by defeating the Third Crusade led by Richard the Lion Hearted. The last territory recaptured by the Crusaders was lost in 1291.
A new band of Turkish converts to Islam replaced the Seljuk Turks during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Named for their leader, Osman, they set out to establish the Ottoman Empire. First to fall were Slavic Serbia and Bulgaria on the Balkan Peninsula. Constantinople was defeated in 1453 and Romania in 1500. Control of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, most of North Africa, and Tigris-Euphrates valley followed.
By 1700, the Muslim Empire began two centuries of decline. In the east, Russia's power was on the rise just as corruption riddled the Ottoman Empire's government and its army failed to keep up with military advances. At the end of a six-year war in 1774, Russia won better treatment for Christians in the Ottoman Empire, dominated the northern Crimean coast of the Black Sea, and secured a warm water port with free passage to the eastern Mediterranean through the Dardanelle Straights, the canal-like sliver of water between the Black and Aegean Seas. Success was cut short by Napoleon's victories over Russia, Austria, and Prussia in 1805 and 1806. By 1815, however, Napoleon's army was outnumbered by the combined forces of Moscow's allies: Britain the Netherlands, Austria, and Prussia.
Muslims can look back on historic conquests over the fractured Balkan states north of Greece, the eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, Spain, and the islands off Italy. Just northwest of the nearby ruins of Babylon, the ancient home of Hammurabi, Nebuchadnessar II, and Alexander the Great, Baghdad was part of the sprawling 7th century Islamic empire conquered after Mohammed's death in 632. Aside from paying taxes to their Arab conquerors, life for those in this vast area remained largely unchanged. Cosmopolitan Baghdad, which may have had a population of two million by the ninth century, resembled a city in ancient Rome. Traders from India, China, and the East Indies brought their luxury wares of spices, sugar, gems, silks,and porcelains to the wealthy port.
In lands conquered by early Muslims, citizens who were Arab, Persian, Byzantine, Greek, Hindu, and Christian shared a peaceful co-existence. Famous biblical sites in Egypt and Palestine had begun to attract Christian pilgrims as early as the second century. According to fourth century sources, both women and men reported they had faced theft, murder, and other dangers on their way to see where Jesus had lived, but there was no mention of Muslims blocking their way.
By the eleventh century, everything changed. Newly converted, fervent Muslim Seljuk Turks began attacking Christian pilgrims en route to the Holy Land. In response, Pope Urban II called for the Crusade that recovered Jerusalem in 1099. Missionaries attempted to convert Muslims in North Africa and western Asia, but Saladin, the Iraqi-born Sultan of Egypt and Syria, retook Jerusalem in 1187 by defeating the Third Crusade led by Richard the Lion Hearted. The last territory recaptured by the Crusaders was lost in 1291.
A new band of Turkish converts to Islam replaced the Seljuk Turks during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Named for their leader, Osman, they set out to establish the Ottoman Empire. First to fall were Slavic Serbia and Bulgaria on the Balkan Peninsula. Constantinople was defeated in 1453 and Romania in 1500. Control of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, most of North Africa, and Tigris-Euphrates valley followed.
By 1700, the Muslim Empire began two centuries of decline. In the east, Russia's power was on the rise just as corruption riddled the Ottoman Empire's government and its army failed to keep up with military advances. At the end of a six-year war in 1774, Russia won better treatment for Christians in the Ottoman Empire, dominated the northern Crimean coast of the Black Sea, and secured a warm water port with free passage to the eastern Mediterranean through the Dardanelle Straights, the canal-like sliver of water between the Black and Aegean Seas. Success was cut short by Napoleon's victories over Russia, Austria, and Prussia in 1805 and 1806. By 1815, however, Napoleon's army was outnumbered by the combined forces of Moscow's allies: Britain the Netherlands, Austria, and Prussia.
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Car Companies Match Colors to Country Moods
Automobile companies don't throw darts at color wheels to choose the shades to paint new cars. They turn to BASF (Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik) to spot the global trends and regional differences they match with the German company's technical ability to mix pigments and create new coatings. Looking ahead to 2018, BASF expects blue to be a hot color in the North American market. Not only is it calming, but it reflects a growing need to be connected to others and a community.
Paul Czornij, head of design at BASF's Color Excellence Group, sees dual forces pulling at drivers in the global market and finds color shifting metallics an excellent way to express conflict. Metallic blues capture the tension between a car owner's emphasis on authentic self-expression and a fascination with the virtual world.
In 2016, BASF travelers in North America picked up a can-do, no-excuse determination to master the complex challenges of change. They considered combining two or more colors with metallics as a way to reflect this attitude and developed:
In contrast, fresh light colors reflect the Asian-Pacific market's confidence in the future and traditional elegance. A sand beige metallic color and playful blue-greens are used to reveal optimism.
Look at what you choose to wear today. What do the colors say about your mood?
Paul Czornij, head of design at BASF's Color Excellence Group, sees dual forces pulling at drivers in the global market and finds color shifting metallics an excellent way to express conflict. Metallic blues capture the tension between a car owner's emphasis on authentic self-expression and a fascination with the virtual world.
In 2016, BASF travelers in North America picked up a can-do, no-excuse determination to master the complex challenges of change. They considered combining two or more colors with metallics as a way to reflect this attitude and developed:
- Raingarden: Like a multipurpose smartphone serving as secretary, personal trainer, and medical monitor, this coating enables a soft metallic silver to appear subtly bluish or greenish depending on a viewer's angle.
- Primordial soup: Instead of a vague greenish-brown, Czornij connected primordial soup with the movie, music, and other personal preferences at the heart of an individual. Heart as seen by BASF colorists equals a deep, blood red color.
- Aerialist wish: A black which is silvery and mysterious is designed to capture the life young artists, designers, musicians, and professionals are bringing back to once undesirable downtown city centers.
In contrast, fresh light colors reflect the Asian-Pacific market's confidence in the future and traditional elegance. A sand beige metallic color and playful blue-greens are used to reveal optimism.
Look at what you choose to wear today. What do the colors say about your mood?
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Life on Jupiter's Moons?
Instead of globalization, should we be thinking about solarization, life in the solar system? A NASA photo just showed us 3 Jupiter Galilean moons: Io, Europa and Ganymede. They all are named for Greek myths.You might have guessed that they are called Galilean moons, because Galileo discovered them. But you need to do some research to find out if Jupiter has any more Galilean moons or any more moons at all.
Of the three Galilean moons in NASA's photograph, Io is the closest to Jupiter and Ganymede is the farthest away. What does gravity have to do with these different distances? What else might influence these distances?
You'll also have to do some research to find out if any of these moons could support life and what kind of life it would be. Knowing how far Jupiter and these moons are from the sun, we might think any life would have to be able to survive in very cold temperatures. But these moons have other interesting elements to consider. Io has 400 active volcanoes. Europa has shifting plate tectonics similar to those on Earth. Photos also show it has "water plumes" that signal the possibility of vast oceans under its surface. Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, is larger than Earth's moon, and it is the only moon with a magnetic field similar to Earth's.
All in all, there's an interesting science project waiting here.
Of the three Galilean moons in NASA's photograph, Io is the closest to Jupiter and Ganymede is the farthest away. What does gravity have to do with these different distances? What else might influence these distances?
You'll also have to do some research to find out if any of these moons could support life and what kind of life it would be. Knowing how far Jupiter and these moons are from the sun, we might think any life would have to be able to survive in very cold temperatures. But these moons have other interesting elements to consider. Io has 400 active volcanoes. Europa has shifting plate tectonics similar to those on Earth. Photos also show it has "water plumes" that signal the possibility of vast oceans under its surface. Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, is larger than Earth's moon, and it is the only moon with a magnetic field similar to Earth's.
All in all, there's an interesting science project waiting here.
Saturday, July 9, 2016
Africans Learn to Play the Game
Whether a child is playing Candy Land or trading Pokemon cards, an innocent young child can be tricked into trading a valuable card for one less useful. But as they learn how to play the game this kind of trickery no longer works. Africa has a lot of valuable "cards," and Africa will learn, and is learning, not to be fooled by those who take advantage of corruption, questionable land titles, promises of employment, and pretend friendships.
Since Africa has valuable mineral deposits, the continent has been a target of questionable mining deals. After the Democratic Republic of the Congo seized First Quantum Minerals, the close relationship of an Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) partner with Congo President Joseph Kabila caused First Quantum to question the financial deal that enabled ENRC to purchase its seized copper assets. The legal dispute did not end after Luxembourg-based Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) acquired ENRC and strengthened its position in Africa's copper belt. In fact, ERG's stake in the former ENRC became even more valuable after the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and China's Export-Import Bank provided $700 million to build the copper and cobalt project that made ERG the world's largest producer of the cobalt used in batteries. The UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) continues to investigate ENRC's original deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In Hia, Ghana, Bishop Afoakwah walked through mounds of dirt and deep puddles to do his own investigation of a gold mine digging a massive pit on church land. Earlier, after one of the mine's earthmoving machines cut an electrical line that left the town without power, Bishop Afoakwah had met with local chiefs. He understood the church held a legal deed to the land that had been donated by a chief for the purpose of building a clinic and nursing school. During his meeting, the bishop learned various chiefs claimed to protect land for other chiefs and, taking advantage of the interwovern land rights and the high per ounce price of gold, a Chinese mine owner provided a payoff to secure a mining concession on the church's land. At the gold mine, workers said a "Mr. Kumar" owned the Hia site. Two Chinese engineers dashed into the bush, when they saw the bishop approaching. Ghana's Minerals Commission only has eight officials to investigate the country's illegal mining and an incomplete database of mining concessions. President Nana Akufo-Addo, who took office in January, 2017, put Ghana's Chinese miners on notice that he intends to enforce laws governing gold mining.
Not only have gold mining operations destroyed agricultural land that has fed local farmers for generations, but heavy machinery has buried and severely injured untrained workers and health-damaging cyanide and mercury used to extract gold from stone have contaminated air and water. Farmers who sell their land to miners enjoy only a short-term gain that lasts a few years. Even if the land is returned to them after the mine is exhausted, the three feet of top soil are destroyed and the poor quality clay soil underneath cannot support a family. Yet, workers who fear losing salaries from mining jobs willingly risk their health and ignore environmental consequences. In fact, miners have thrown rocks at inspectors and even killed a fleeing official by rolling over him with a car.
The path to legal mining in Ghana and in other developing countries is a difficult one. It requires learning "to play the game" without corruption and payoffs, with only those foreign investors willing to train employees and commit to some community development, and with activists like Bishop Afoakwah who are willing to take on lengthy court battles for damages done to the land by illegal miners. In the end, Africans will come to the same conclusion that Cardinal Peter Turkson, archbishop emeritus of Cape Coast, Ghana, did. "It is...unjustifiable for developing countries to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future."
While Ghana continues to sort out land ownership issues affecting local gold miners, a group of 33 illegal gold miners in Uganda spent four years forming the first gold mine the UK's Fairtrade organization certified in Africa. The Syanyonja Artisan Miners Alliance (SAMA) now boasts: 1) a timbered pit unlike the dangerous open pits where dirt walls collapse, when heavy downpours swamp quarries and whole families of miners, and 2) gold extraction processes that employ proper handling of mercury and cyanide. SAMA's certified gold mine offers small-scale coop members the prospect of premium prices, savings, a local health center, and subsidized school fees. Now that the association pays taxes SAMA members find they have more government influence. SAMA also benefits from the "I Do" campaign sponsored by the Fairtrade Foundation's focus on commodities campaign in the UK, which alerts couples to choose Fairtrade Gold wedding bands.
Earlier posts involving Africa's resources include:
Since Africa has valuable mineral deposits, the continent has been a target of questionable mining deals. After the Democratic Republic of the Congo seized First Quantum Minerals, the close relationship of an Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) partner with Congo President Joseph Kabila caused First Quantum to question the financial deal that enabled ENRC to purchase its seized copper assets. The legal dispute did not end after Luxembourg-based Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) acquired ENRC and strengthened its position in Africa's copper belt. In fact, ERG's stake in the former ENRC became even more valuable after the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and China's Export-Import Bank provided $700 million to build the copper and cobalt project that made ERG the world's largest producer of the cobalt used in batteries. The UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) continues to investigate ENRC's original deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In Hia, Ghana, Bishop Afoakwah walked through mounds of dirt and deep puddles to do his own investigation of a gold mine digging a massive pit on church land. Earlier, after one of the mine's earthmoving machines cut an electrical line that left the town without power, Bishop Afoakwah had met with local chiefs. He understood the church held a legal deed to the land that had been donated by a chief for the purpose of building a clinic and nursing school. During his meeting, the bishop learned various chiefs claimed to protect land for other chiefs and, taking advantage of the interwovern land rights and the high per ounce price of gold, a Chinese mine owner provided a payoff to secure a mining concession on the church's land. At the gold mine, workers said a "Mr. Kumar" owned the Hia site. Two Chinese engineers dashed into the bush, when they saw the bishop approaching. Ghana's Minerals Commission only has eight officials to investigate the country's illegal mining and an incomplete database of mining concessions. President Nana Akufo-Addo, who took office in January, 2017, put Ghana's Chinese miners on notice that he intends to enforce laws governing gold mining.
Not only have gold mining operations destroyed agricultural land that has fed local farmers for generations, but heavy machinery has buried and severely injured untrained workers and health-damaging cyanide and mercury used to extract gold from stone have contaminated air and water. Farmers who sell their land to miners enjoy only a short-term gain that lasts a few years. Even if the land is returned to them after the mine is exhausted, the three feet of top soil are destroyed and the poor quality clay soil underneath cannot support a family. Yet, workers who fear losing salaries from mining jobs willingly risk their health and ignore environmental consequences. In fact, miners have thrown rocks at inspectors and even killed a fleeing official by rolling over him with a car.
The path to legal mining in Ghana and in other developing countries is a difficult one. It requires learning "to play the game" without corruption and payoffs, with only those foreign investors willing to train employees and commit to some community development, and with activists like Bishop Afoakwah who are willing to take on lengthy court battles for damages done to the land by illegal miners. In the end, Africans will come to the same conclusion that Cardinal Peter Turkson, archbishop emeritus of Cape Coast, Ghana, did. "It is...unjustifiable for developing countries to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future."
While Ghana continues to sort out land ownership issues affecting local gold miners, a group of 33 illegal gold miners in Uganda spent four years forming the first gold mine the UK's Fairtrade organization certified in Africa. The Syanyonja Artisan Miners Alliance (SAMA) now boasts: 1) a timbered pit unlike the dangerous open pits where dirt walls collapse, when heavy downpours swamp quarries and whole families of miners, and 2) gold extraction processes that employ proper handling of mercury and cyanide. SAMA's certified gold mine offers small-scale coop members the prospect of premium prices, savings, a local health center, and subsidized school fees. Now that the association pays taxes SAMA members find they have more government influence. SAMA also benefits from the "I Do" campaign sponsored by the Fairtrade Foundation's focus on commodities campaign in the UK, which alerts couples to choose Fairtrade Gold wedding bands.
Earlier posts involving Africa's resources include:
- Wood: Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels, Uncover the Economic Value of Wood
- Coffee: Invest in Africa's Agricultural Future; Coffee Prices Going Up; Allowances Going Down?
- Cocoa: Become A Discriminating Chocolate Consumer, Chocolate Tasting Party and More; Chocolate's Sweet Deals
- Palm oil: Can Small Farms End Poverty?
- Oil: Nigeria's New Beginning
- Diamonds: Diamond Flaws
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Poor Man Prays for the Success of the US
This weekend I met a man from Telangana, one of the poorest states in India. He told how he prayed for the continued economic success of the United States, because he realized he owed his education to U.S. aid.
In Telangana, only about 55% of the population can read. Nearly all villagers are farmers who depend on rainfall, and the monsoon season has been late this year. Consequently, almost half the population could drop below the poverty level.
In this country of over one billion people, non-government organizations (NGOs) in Telangana try to provide education for poor children; children in orphanages; tribal children (banjaras), many who move from place to place; and children who have dropped out of school. Without an education, these children become child workers with no future. NGO aid also funds work programs for women and other unemployed adults.
Meeting someone from one of India's poorest areas put a human face on the education, water shortage, lack of electricity, and unemployment problems Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are addressing by welcoming foreign investment, in part from the successful U.S.
In Telangana, only about 55% of the population can read. Nearly all villagers are farmers who depend on rainfall, and the monsoon season has been late this year. Consequently, almost half the population could drop below the poverty level.
In this country of over one billion people, non-government organizations (NGOs) in Telangana try to provide education for poor children; children in orphanages; tribal children (banjaras), many who move from place to place; and children who have dropped out of school. Without an education, these children become child workers with no future. NGO aid also funds work programs for women and other unemployed adults.
Meeting someone from one of India's poorest areas put a human face on the education, water shortage, lack of electricity, and unemployment problems Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are addressing by welcoming foreign investment, in part from the successful U.S.
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