Jeffrey Horowitz, writing for TheAtlantic's new food channel, gives a great rundown of the ultra-Orthodox Israeli Deputy Health Minister's refusal to call a swine a swine. The Minister, Yakov Litzman, has said, while chomping on freedom fries, that Israel will call swine flu "Mexican flu" because, of course, pigs aren't kosher (boy would he hate Corby).
Who cares what they call it...beside the fact that it's generally ridiculous, the virus is now transmitted by humans not swine, and that crazed stances like these lead to pork shops being "firebombed out of certain neighborhoods"? Horowitz makes the argument that the general refusal to acknowledge a porcine presence in Israel makes for unregulated hog farming practices, the exact kind that are now being questioned at Smithfield Foods in Mexico. He concludes:
By refusing to recognize the source of the problem and regulate irresponsible farm practices in Israel, future swine viruses could emerge from Israel, and could wind up bearing an Israeli moniker--a much more humiliating prospect.
UPDATE: Israel's not the only one that's got beef meat-related issues with the name of the disease. The other objector: the U.S. pork industry.
(image from flickr user David Blaine under a Creative Commons license)
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) released a new report on the human rights situation in Iraq. According to the summary, gender based violence remains one of the "key unaddressed problems throughout Iraq." Honor killings, female genital mutilation and even female self-immolation have occurred with problematic frequency over the last year.
UNAMI has reported 139 cases of gender based violence 15 in the last six months of 2008 in five governorates in northern Iraq16. Out of the total number, 77 women were seriously burned, 26 were victims of murder or attempted murder and 25 were cases of questionable suicide.
[snip]
UNAMI... has been alerted by local advocates for women's rights in the [Kurdish Regional Government] of the frequency of the so-called "honour killings" and cases of female self-immolation in the Kurdish region, despite efforts from the KRG to raise public awareness regarding violence against women. In cases reported to UNAMI, women have been attacked, wounded and left to die and the death characterised as "accidental" by family members. For example, in the village of Pangeen Qushtapa sub-district), 16-year-old Kanyaw Maghdid and her sister 22-year-old Lafaw were shot by their father on 23 September. Lafaw told police that her father shot his daughters to "protect their honour" when he found out about the relationship one was having with a boy.Kanyaw died on the spot while Lafaw was admitted to a hospital but later died. At the writing of this report, an investigation has been open but no arrest made yet. It has also been reported to UNAMI that the suspected killer of D'waa Aswad Khalil, a 17-year-old Yezidi girl publicly stoned to death in April 2007 in the village of Bahzan in the Ninawa governorate17 was seeking traditional reconciliation with the victim's family to avoid criminal charges.
The Obama administration on Tuesday revoked a rule enacted toward the end of the Bush administration that it said undermined protections under the Endangered Species Act.
Federal agencies must "once again consult with federal wildlife experts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the two agencies that administer the ESA — before taking any action that may affect threatened or endangered species," the Interior and Commerce departments said in a statement.
"By rolling back this 11th hour regulation, we are ensuring that threatened and endangered species continue to receive the full protection of the law," said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, whose department oversees Fish and Wildlife.
This is a huge victory for endangered species throughout the United States, and a huge victory for conservation groups, including Audubon, that argued strongly that the Bush Administration changes dangerously weakened protections for birds and other wildlife on the verge of extinction.
NPR is sure doing its due diligence on the "smart grid." This week they're running a 10-part series -- every day both on Morning Edition and All Things Considered...now that's dedication.
This morning, while moving my car to a legal spot, I caught Part 5: Getting Constant Current From Fickle Winds, which explores the chicken and egg problem that potential wind farmers face in South Dakota. They are slow to build wind farms because there are no power lines to take the energy to market, and they won't build power lines because there is no power generation yet. Seems like a deal could be worked out...
This is just amazing. The Sri Lankan government denied a visa to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, apparently fearful that Bildt would add his voice to the growing international chorus condeming the military's counter-insurgency tactics that have claimed at least 6,000 civilian lives since January. The AFP has a startling quote from an un-named Sri Lankan foreign ministry official who exhibits a troubling animosity toward Europe.
"The Swedish minister also wanted to jump on that bandwagon and we said no," the official said.
"Some think they can land up at our airport and expect a red carpet treatment. We are not a colony and neither a bankrupt Third World country. Our main donors are in Asia, not in Europe," the official added.
In fact, the International Monetary Fund is currently in negotiations with Sri Lanka over a $1.9 billion loan. I imagine that the un-named government official is miffed that the loan has not been approved quicker. Still, playing hostile with the Europeans may not be the best way to get that loan approved.
The UN and AU's joint special representative to Darfur, Rodolphe Adada, recently opined that Darfur is a "low-intensity conflict." Lest this comment be construed to mean that the crisis in western Sudan is no longer much of a big deal -- which I doubt it will, largely because of the domestic issue that Darfur has become, but also because the term "low-intensity conflict" has a very specific definitional meaning, and is not a value judgment on the severity of a conflict -- but it's worthwhile to point out the obvious: Darfur has been a "low-intensity conflict" for a long time now -- four years, some might argue -- but that does not diminish the importance of solving the crisis one iota. Rather, as the terrifying example of the Democratic Republic of Congo attests to, a "low-intensity conflict" is just the kind that can be the most consistently deadly, and the easiest for the international media to ignore.
That said, I don't share Nick Kristof's worries that the Obama Administration's policy toward Darfur thus far amounts to "appeasement." Without relegating Darfur to the backseat of international priorities -- and he did appoint Scott Gration as his Special Envoy relatively quickly -- it's important to address the crisis based on an accurate reading of the current situation. This does not mean swallowing Khartoum's propaganda, or being guilelessly led astray by its prevarications and obstructionism, too feckless to wield sticks. But it does mean that if some sanctions are not contributing to a political solution that will solve the region's root problems, then, yes, they should be reassessed. And it certainly means that if bombing Sudan would prove counter-productive (and it would), then we should look to other means of ensuring that Sudan does not conduct further bombing raids on its own population.
The fact is, Darfur in 2009 is not the same as Darfur in 2004, and recognizing this is imperative to formulating a sensible policy toward it.
The National Security Network has compiled an impressive list of Barack Obama's top 100 foreign policy achievements in his first 100 days in office. We at UN Dispatch are particularly partial to #56.
UN expert Stephen Schlesinger zeroes in on the smaller foreign policy universe of Obama's interactions with the United Nations and, citing accomplishments like paying back peacekeeping debt, restoring funding to UNFPA, and pushing to ratify important nuclear non-proliferation treaties, gives the Prez a solid A-.
And, the indefatigablyanti-UN Anne Bayefsky has a nearly 2000-word anti-Durban screed (I know, the topic is surprising, huh?) in Forbes. Her attempts to capture the history of the conference seem to be growing ever more desperate and more personal, such that she needs to cite her own writings as a martyred example of the propaganda that the UN human rights commissioner praised the less partisan press for resisting. Hopefully this will be her last such tirade, though I seriously doubt it (my thoughts on the memorialization of the conference here and here).
The World Health Organization is getting a lot of attention these days, and rightfully so. The organization is an independent body of the United Nations system responsible “for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.” Its 193 member states form the WHO's governing body, called the “World Health Assembly” that meets every May. The WHO’s director general is Dr. Margaret Chan of Hong Kong/China/Canada.
The last time the WHO got this much play in the press was amidst the 2003 SARs outbreak, which affected people from Hong Kong to Toronto. Back then, the WHO was largely forced to improvise its way through the crisis--and did so successfully. The experience, however, lead member states to devise a more formal regulatory framework for dealing with similar situations in the future. So, in 2005, the World Health Organization passed a sweeping set of reforms called the 2005 International Health Regulations, which set mandatory procedures by which member states and the WHO would respond to sudden international public health emergencies. The Swine Flu outbreak is the first major test of the new system.
Julie Fischer, head of the Henry L. Stimson Center’s Global Health Security program, offered a quick assessment (via email) of how the newly empowered WHO is responding to the crisis.
Thus far, the system seems to be working as planned. The only immediately apparent concern is what appears to have been an unnecessary delay in intraregional communications among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, which reflects both bilateral/trilateral communications issues but also calls into question whether [Pan-American Health Organization], the regional WHO office, served its role adequately. That would not be an issue of WHO reform, but more of staffing and function.
So, it would seem that formal frameworks for international cooperation are a net plus when it comes to responding to these types of emergencies.
If the response were coordinated by a global agency, those local officials would not be so empowered. Power would be wielded by officials from nations that are far away and emotionally aloof from ground zero. The institution would have to poll its members, negotiate internal differences and proceed, as all multinationals do, at the pace of the most recalcitrant stragglers.
Brooks has constructed an entirely fatuous false dichotomy: the uniform, heavy-handed, slow, and weak response of a global agency, versus the rapidity, efficiency, and experimentation fostered by multivarious national efforts. The point is not that the response to swine flu can be carried out only through either a centralized or uncentralized response. The WHO coordinates individual countries' responses, making sure that no efforts are ineffective, wasted, or not in line with what must take the form of vigorous international action.
Brooks' mean-spirited (what is "emotionally aloof from ground zero" supposed to imply?) caricature of his WHO stand-in is entirely exaggerated. Far from a plodding bureaucracy struggling to mount a response, WHO has garnered accolades from various quarters for its handling of the situation. And, more importantly, it's the only organization around to fulfill the broad transnational coordination role that's needed in the case of a global pandemic threat.
It doesn't help Brooks' case that he evidently misread international relations giant G. John Ikenberry, whom he cites as the proponent of Brooks' fictional monolithic central response schema. According, at least, to international relations giant G. John Ikenberry (in an email to Dan Drezner):
The problem with David's analysis is that he thinks the two strategies - national and international - are alternatives. We need both. National governments need to strengthen their capacities to monitor and respond. International capacities - at least the sorts that I propose - are meant to reinforce and assist national governments. This international capacity is particularly important in cases where nations have weak capacities to respond on their own or where coordinated action is the only way to tackle the threat. When it comes to transnational threats like health pandemics everyone everywhere is vulnerable to the weakest link (i.e. weakest nation) in the system, and so no nation can be left behind. [emphasis mine]