This isn't true at all. Remember commodities boom in the "70s. It was similar like today. Since then usage of oil increased 50%, usage of coal doubled and usage of natural gas quadrupled.
Rate of oil extraction is going probably to drop, but there are lot of new sources of natural gas and it is going to be cheaper. Nuclear energy should also be cheaper than it is.
Finally there is coal. Have you heard about low income countries? You know what they want? Construction sector! They want houses made from bricks, with glass in the windows and running water in the bathroom. You need large quantities of energy to produce that fast (look at China). And they want this energy using cheapest method possible. If this method would use local resources of coal, it can be coal burning.
I haven't got slightest idea how much coal deposits are in Democratic Republic of Congo, but we will probably know, when they burn it all.
BTW, You want decrease world's CO2 emissions? Build Grand Inga Dam. This will produce same amount of electricity as 50 000 000 rooftop solar panels. Build there aluminium smelters, steel mills, rotary kilns. Show them 38 MW electric arc furnace. I bet they will be pleased.
Otherwise expect Congolian forests burned to the ashes.Current rate of deforestation in Congo basin isn't very fast, but with population growth can accelerate. Dominican Republic have forests, Haiti don't. Haiti also doesn't have power
Not only Norway-Netherlands electricity connection is longest power bridge of this kind in the world, but wasn't working for three months last year. Considering maintenance costs and technical difficulties, it possible that both Norway and Denmark would be better off with two power plant on their respectable shores.
2 billion Euro for electricity cable , 1400 MW...
This doesn't make any sense. Karsto power plant costed 300 million Euro and is producing 420 MW of electricity.
You would be much better with 3 more natural gas power plants in Scotland and 1 cool billion Euro in your pocket.
If you build more natural gas plants you can build even more windmills and still have some of these 2 billion left. How good is that?
2 x 2MW wind turbines
Electrolyser
Compressor
Storage for 1.350 kg of hydrogen
When you are thinking, this can't possibly work, there are two two 340 kW combined heat and power units running on wood from neighboring sawmill.
This is similar power plant running in Dortmund (sans windmills and hydrogen).
This is fine at all, but when we propose 1 GW of electricity dispersed at 1400 power plants, costing 30 billion Euro in China we will get laugh at. In Tanzania (where whole country's budget is less than 3 billion Euro) they will die from laughter.
BTW, electrolyser produces equivalent of 20, maybe 30 kg of oil running at maximal power.
AFAIK, in Germany fuel cell capable of storing so much hydrogen and compressor for it costs about 1 million dollar (600 000 Euro). So don't dream about hydrogen powered cars.
South Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan, Indonesia, Maldives, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Ethiopia, Burundi, Malawi, Ghana, Mali, and many others become democracies recently.
Last year these were Kyrgyzstan and Guinea.
Danger is that Libya is on the short list worst regimes in the world in terms of human rights violation. It has also islamist opposition. Think about Iraq in the times of Saddam Hussein lite (smaller country and overall better performance), but without any history of democracy whatsoever.
This may result in insurgency and humanitarian crisis. Currently Libya has worst rule of law, personal safety, economic opportunity, corruption, gender equality and in the same time highest income in North Africa.
It has good infrastructure and public management, but this isn't anything what few bombs can't take back.
This was kind of unexpected in Egypt. That government with very little money and very good results have fallen.
I think first thing you can do is educate yourself about Bahrain.
Here is nice overview.
Opinion article - The Rise of Shia Petrolistan
France and UK stopped export of arms to Bahrain. You can advocate same ban in your country, if it does sell such equipment. Especially, if it is USA which sell lot of weapons to Bahrain, even provide money to buy them. US has naval base there, BTW.
Most of people in Cote d'Ivoire don't relay very much on international financial institutions, army does.
As soon as Gbagbo will loose army support, he is out of office.
Central Bank,
commercial banks,
stock exchange,
cocoa exporters,
ports,
oil sector
This is quite historical event, because first time UN, EU, USA and AU have same opinion on something. Although there were dissenting opinions, notably from Russia and Uganda.
It is country with almost $20k of income per person. Richest country on the continent beside Seychelles.
It is abnormality. In terms of accountability it is below Zimbabwe. Most corrupt country in Africa, besides Somalia. It has worse track record of human rights abuses than Libya, Sudan, Zimbabwe (and almost every country on earth). It has one of the worst gender disparities on the continent. It has one of the worst opportunities for private sector. It has awful environmental abuses. It has one of worst healthcare in Africa.
This is perverse country.It is very rich, but only 40% of population has access to safe drinking water. There is no another such place.
If you care about facts tell me how do you feel about that:
1) Equatorial Guinea doesn't receive economic aid,
2) Do you understand that cheap, healthcare intervention can make remarkable difference? We are talking about cutting down 2/3 of child deaths in 4 years.
Promoting economic growth in Equatorial Guinea may be misguided, but you want to left children to death, because their government is irresponsible. In the name of what?
This shape and form of Human Rights Council was created by voting and can be changed by voting.
It is intergovernmental elected comity dominated by Muslim countries.
Secretary General and High Commissioner for Human Right, European Union, United States and number of human rights NGOs criticized it.
Despite their name panel is concern mainly about Israel and Islam.
This is not a serious body. Real work is done in Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, big independent agency.
BTW, There is also Third Committee of General Assembly. I say only that this is open forum.
P.S. In my opinion it is much better to give people of the whole world forum to express their opinion than not to. Otherwise we will be hearing how human rights abuses in Arab are "white man fault" or even something more ridiculous.
Notice that all of these "ghost cities" are build in poorer provinces.
While they may become massive failures, investing in construction sector and building modern infrastructure seems like useful idea of development. Especially considering abundant resources and cheaper labor in poorer provinces.
It's not like building pyramids. Encouraging development in internal areas may be good strategy.
then you might as well have just burned the money
This is surely not true, even if there is nobody to use the constructions it leaves more experienced workers, engineers, planners, developers and building companies.
It is a matter of return on capital invested. This is Guiyang, capital of Sudan-level poor province. This is actual Khartoum, capital of Sudan.
Knowing that Guiyang has immense mineral reserves and plenty of hydroelectricity i can assume that building it was much cheaper than Khartoum. Even if thirst is underused and second is overcrowded Guiyang can hope for better future.
Map of main cereal importers.
These countries should be most affected.
Colors wouldn't be so visible. Humans understand areas much easier. For example, this is apparent that Arab Peninsula dominate continental Asia and most of remaining continent goes to South Korea.
Europe consist mainly of Iberian Peninsula, Mexico outweighs rest of Americas, Hispaniola is huge at the Caribbean.
Taiwan is bigger than South Asia and Central Asia combined.
tl;dr
Spend more on food and agriculture.
Invest in a 21st century Green Revolution.
Get the basics in place.
Focus on small farmers.
Improve access to social protection.
Immediately:
Consider an IEA for food.
Improve technical assistance on long term security of supply agreements.
Push ahead with developed country agricultural liberalisation.
Integrate security of supply into global trade rules.
Agree on a comprehensive global deal on climate change.
They are changing their policies, because IMF is becoming irrelevant.
Under USA supremacy it was by far largest lender of the world.
This is changing, after Japan, UK, EU emerged. This was reflected by creation of G7.
Some years later this was G7 countries, which became borrowers and China, Brazil became largest lenders. Then G W Bush understood that there is need for change and G20 was born.
Today largest investment bank in China lends more money to low income and middle income countries than whole IMF. Using SDRs more than dollars and engaging in dialog with Chinese, Indians, Brazilians will guarantee that IMF become more relevant.
There was something like 100 people, who set themselves ablaze last year in Afghanistan alone.
Much more in Pakistan and India.
Iran is center of deliberate self-inflicted burnings of the world with hundreds cases every year.
This is popular custom in Middle East and South Asia. Most of victims are women. They often complain about marital conflicts. There is nothing unusual in this. I'm pretty sure that you can enter today any burn center in Iran and find woman who burned herself and is now dieing.
Well, it is always great courage to end own career and "live amongst mortals", but there could be other incentives.
Ibrahim Prize is 5 million dollar plus lifelong pension $200 000 for African leader, who will step down and give away power in democratic way.
Mubarak obviously don't deserve it, but there is not much .
Here is Jaruzelski last Polish communist leader. He is living for $1000 a month, very ill. Rather lonely and forgotten. Although he was invited for 20th anniversary of Berlin Wall Fall.
Gorbatchev made some money playing in advertisements, was still able to travel around the world.
Even Gaddafi would be welcomed in several countries after resignation.
Alertnet - humanitarian foundation derived from Reuters. Probably best news source.
Opinion peaces:
to date USA spent millions dollars for de-concentration of power and democratization, it resulted in nothing,
Americans put lot of effort to gain popularity in Egypt (especially former president Carter), it is ineffective,
Egypt is becoming first Arab country signing peace with Israel,
Conclusions:
any pressure putted on democratization or transparency will be seen as an insult,
Egyptians see themselves as rising international power, who resents US and don't need foreign aid,
US doesn't have any control over Egypt and wont have any leverage to force Egypt to do anything against its will,
Egypt will not slide into chaos, even after change of regime,
Prescription:
Sending aid to transform the country without conditionalities, expect benefits from growing economic relation and no sympathy from Egyptians.
Year 1980, under-five child mortality per 1000 born:
Egypt 176,
Bolivia 170,
Cameroon 168,
Yemen 189,
Madagascar 173,
Lao 188,
Tanzania 176,
India 143,
Brazil 90,
China 59,
USA 15,
Year 2009:
Egypt 21,
Bolivia 51,
Cameroon 154,
Yemen 66,
Madagascar 58,
Lao 59,
Tanzania 108,
India 66,
Brazil 21,
China 19,
USA 7.8.
I cannot say it any other way, healthcare development in the last 30 years of Egypt was remarkable success. Almost unprecedented in history.
Well, there are many historical dictatorial figures, who are remembered as beneficial for their countries.
Gayoom - most benevolent dictator, IMO.
Egypt remember Nasser, who in my opinion had much much worse track record than Mubarak.
Neither of these persons had much democratic legitimacy to speak of. All of them were repressing their political opponents. Nevertheless they are highly regarded in their respectable nations.
Who exactly is illegally fishing in Somalia?
You have seen one of these movies "Shooting has stopped for the first time in 20 years."
No it hasn't. For logistic reasons you cannot support military operation during civil war for several years straight. You need to make breaks. You can expect that there will be some period this year, when someone is going to make next movie. He will be probably blaming Uganda and Djibouti for needless intervention and praising Front for Unity of Somalia for "stabilization" of Mogadishu.
Waste dumping happened sometime around 1991 and there is no evidence it continues in your links. There is nothing about illegal fishing in Somalia in your link.
Sorry but how much of the country Islamic Courts Union controlled?
ICU hasn't controlled Al-Shabaab, in effect hadn't got control in Southern Somalia, hadn't got any control in separatist North, controlled by warlords West and much of Central Somalia. They had control over Hizbul Islam, but Al-Shabaab didn't like it, so there is no HI.
I don't think you understand what ICU is. This is lose coalition of sharia juries. These people are going to remain at their role even under TFG and don't have any healthcare, foreign or education policy, I don't think anybody was targeting ICU. Basically every sheikh was speaking for himself.
OK, let's watch this movie.
It may be even same Journeyman Pictures, as your story. Similarly agitated and with west guilt. But this is the year 2000. Government, which don't have USA support is Transitional National Government, predecessor of TFG.
Transitional Federal Government isn't most excellent organisation, but it manages to gather representatives from all parts of the country, presents some policies and show coherent friendly vision.
More urbanization usually brings malaria down. Similarly economic growth.
In 90's it was South-East Asia has similar level of malaria as Sub-Saharan Africa. Between 1990 and 2006 in Vietnam number of death from malaria has gone down by 99%. There is 100 times less deaths from malaria and I really don't understand how is it so bad.
Compare Pakistan and Bangladesh. Bangladesh has higher population density and lower urbanization and in result more malaria.
I don't think that packing more people together without proper sanitation system or other utilities is bringing development. Vietnam was putting lot of resources in sanitation, similarly Pakistan. Nigeria not so much.
People don't understand that, but for me this is very definition of "superpower".
It has "special relation" with virtually every country. Which makes it ridiculous. On many occasions bilateral agreements depends only on personal connections between leaders.
For example. There are two countries in Western Africa, which were bloody awful some years and now its governments has improved greatly: Togo and Liberia.
US foreign assistance for Liberia is regularly above $200m a year. It's less than $0.2m for Togo. There is absolutely no merits in this. It's Togo, which has better rule of law of these two.
There are "special relation" with France or UK too, of course. USA is amazing in its refusal to accept any super-national cooperation. Doesn't matter is it convention about women's rights or biodiversity. you can always expect that USA won't ratify it.
Same history was with USSR, but it has disappeared. Having two superpowers was awful, but having no superpowers would be better.
Does Mexico has superior public management, infrastructure, healthcare, education and environment practices compared to its own region?
Do Mexico has same president for 23 years and glaring human rights violations?
Don't be mistaken. Mexico doesn't have similar problems to Tunisia. You would find in Tunisia probably all government services better and much more personal intimidation.
Let me give you an example of Sweden. 50 years ago it has crude death rate about 10 per thousand per year, one of lowest in the world. Today it has one of the highest, 10 per thousand per year.
There is number of countries with crude death rate below 5/1000 per year, like Mexico. It can have no newborn baby for next 20 years and its population will decrease by 10%. But its population increased by 11% in the last 9 years.
Let me reiterate this. If Mexico will have no children whatsoever until 2030 it will have population from 2001.
Japan has fertility rate below 2 for 50 years and in this time its population increased by 34 millions. It will take at least another 50 years for population to decrease to 1960 level, assuming fertility level lower than today, 1 child per woman.
OK. This is crude simplification, but here we go:
This is a map of countries by prevalent political association. [Croatia, Albania and Turkey should be light blue also). Actually Europe is larger, but essentially all Eastern Europe consist of Russia. Let me just say about EU eastern border:
medium is Belarus, last dictatorship in Europe, its tyrant love Russia without reciprocation,
larger is Ukraine, smallest is Moldova; they are part of GUAM (with Azerbaijan and Georgia), group countries opposing Russia, but its economies are dominated by Gazprom,
Now lets talk about parties:
dark blue - conservatives, they don't want to be in Europe at all, they love America, but cannot even agree within themselves what do they represent, generally oppose to anything,
light blue - centrists, mostly without ideology, "green", pro-education, try to attract workers from outside EU,
red - socialists, working for creating more jobs, green economy, strengthen labor unions and that someone else should pay for this all,
dark red - communists, they still believe in communism,
yellow - liberals, pro-market and pro-freedom,
In Serbia, Ukraine or Russia parties are somehow vehicle to win an elections. They basically shun from extremism. They don't integrate gladly, lets say they are conservatives.
Norway has same party for last 80 years and really doesn't compare to any other European countries. It's politically frozen in the year 1930.
In Switzerland referenda are essence of power, so political parties don't matter much.
I'm pretty interested in Nigerian struggle for better governance.
This is amazing, because reformers fighting the crooks really put their lives at stake.
More important Haliburton agreed to pay $579m for alleged brides. This is a matter of establishing rule of law in Nigeria. They are creating form of personal responsibility for higher official and chiefs of big companies, people who tend to pillage resources of Nigeria.
In the last 6-7 years Nigeria puts great efforts into its anti-corruption campaign. Nevertheless starting point for it was miserable, just ahead of Cambodia and Bangladesh (way worse than Iraq or Afghanistan), so it would take 10 years of reforms to be as little corrupted as China or India.
Related: Interview with Nuhu Ribadu, first chief of economic and Financial Crime Commission.
Well, there is something called enlightened self-interest.
We can find that HIV originated in Democratic Republic of Congo between 1888 and 1924. We can track choloroquine-resistant Plasmodium to Laos-Cambodia border and early 70's. We can find that Polio virus remains endemic at India-Pakistan and Pakistan-Afghanistan borders.
I'm not sure that world is a better place with kidnappings, shipping cocaine and spreading bubonic plague in Sahel.
Several neglected tropical disease can be treated very cheaply. We are talking about 50c per person per year for 7 diseases. Filariasis for example.
Cysticercosis causes millions cases of epilepsy.
Children who are blinded because of measles today will be alive in 2050.
I can argue that there is considerable difference between productivity of person, who is blind and healthy one and social aid could be cost-effective in the longer view. More than improving modern computer, which gives modest return of investment. You can treat 1.4 billion people for 7 popular neglected tropical diseases for less money than Steve Jobs is receiving in shares every year. This presentation from Mayo claims that you can raise GDP in Kenya alone by billions of dollars just by deworming.
I've grabbed low hanging fruit, because neglected tropical diseases are for definition neglected. Part of them don't need any complicated research. They don't need buying drugs either. Pharmaceutical companies give away them for free.
Sorry guys, but what would rejecting Saudi Arabia accomplish?
This isn't any award for excellence. Actually is doing very little to end injustice against women. Publicly promised end system of male guardianship, criminalise domestic violence and ban marriage of young women. Saudi Arabia haven't fulfilled this promises.
You could reject Democratic republic of Congo, Pakistan or Ethiopia on the basis of gender inequalities in those countries.
I say that inclusion of Saudi Arabia could do more help than harm. For once this is occasion to remind Saudi representatives on every meeting about their promises.
Here is assistant secretary of state Johnie Carson explaining US role in Somalia.
It's worth your time.
BTW, that part of war in Somalia (phase 4) ended in 2009 with withdrawn of Ethiopian troops and seizure of large part of Southern Somalia by Islamists, primarily al-Shabaab.
Firstly I don't believe Islamic Courts Union would establish sound governance in the country. Simply because they couldn't stop Islamic militia. Secondly They would try to support insurgency in Ogaden and North Kenya. Could you imagine Ogaden as independent state? Small, inland economy surrounded by another impoverished countries. from the other perspectives Somaliland's separatists are utterly convinced they can live without sharia law, so creating government without representatives of most sensible region of country was pointless.
This wasn't unilateral Ethiopian action. African Union has clear stance that current countries shouldn't be divided and some of its members suffered gravely from attacks by organisations originated in Somalia. Noticeably Uganda, which has largest contingent of troops currently in Somalia.
I don't believe anybody is serious about Somali pirates. why not establish naval blockade?
Maybe TFG wasn't good way to go, but ICU won't go anywhere, so they can impose sharia on any new government in the country with or without US support,
Arguably international and Ugandan efforts in Karamoja and Southern Sudan were successful in bringing some stabilization. Arbitrage between Eritrea and Ethiopia or Eritrea and Djibouti was even more successful. Some US diplomats had their role in this affairs.
Well, neglected tropical diseases are neglected, but I don't see any concentrated effort on those three. Although there were notable successes.
Largest organization fighting with them - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - still waits for promised money.
They are low-profiled diseases, because they kill lot of less people, are mostly local and attack disadvantaged people.
Besides, even with NTDs there were some positive stories.
Prime example is dracunculiasis, which fallen from 900 000 cases in 1989 to 3000 cases in 2009. Currently every village, where the parasite remains is monitored.
African tripanosomiasis fallen from 28 000 in year 1999 to 10 000 in 2008.
668 million of people were covered by preventive chemotherapy.
This is purely researched article. Lets say something about chosen neglected tropical diseases:
dengue - insect-borne outbreaks in Americas ans South-Eastern asia,
rabies - global disease, livestock killer, major economic problem,
trachoma - makes your lashes grow inward your eyes, blindness causes loses in productivity, 8 million cases a year, there is effective strategy for elimination,
buluri ulcer - large ulcers on legs and arms in children,
yaws, bejel, pinta - ulcers and in case of yaws destruction bones, easily treatable,
leprosy - 122 countries, but steadily decreasing, most of cases in South-East Asia,
Chagas disease - insect-borne, this blood-sucking bug lives only in Americas, 10 000 death a year, in decline,
sleeping sickness - expensive and dangerous treatment, remains in Central and Western Africa,
leishmaniasis - visceral (attacking liver) and cutaneous forms;
first is real killer, over 50 000 deaths, mostly India and Bangladesh,
second is causing scars in more than a million people a year, mostly Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Brazil,
cysticercosis - global, parasites living in a brain, millions of cases a year, tens of millions of people living with epilepsy, causes loses in livestock, China is only country, which has extensive elimination program, diseases causes hundreds millions of dollars lost in pork,
dracunculiasis - giant subcutaneous worm, hopefully will be eradicated soon,
echinococosis - worm transmittable by dogs, live in liver and lungs, global, endemic regions even in Europe,
Clonorchiasis, opisthorchiasis, fascioliasis and and paragonimiasis - causes by long-lived worms, first three like liver, last lungs, all are food-borne, people are slowly collect them, estimated tens of millions of cases, preventive chemotherapy applied, where available,
lymphatic filariasis - over 100 million of people living with infection, in worst cases - elephantiasis, ongoing elimination, Africa and South-East Asia,
liver blindness - insect-borne disease, larvae may happily live 14 years under the skin, then they mature and female spawns thousands of of new larvae travelling through body, large scale prevention in place, tens of millions infections treated and hundreds of thousand cases of blindness prevented, 25 million hectares of arable land reclaimed over the years, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, 605 coverage of endemic area,
schistosomiasis/bilharziasis - water-borne worm living in veins of the pelvis, millions of cases, over 10 million treated, very cost-effective prevention, below$1 a year per person,
helminthiases - soil-borne diseases, global, over billion cases a year, mostly school kids, internal bleedind or rectal prolapse may cause decrease in school attainment, treatment,
