- Observing the evolution of the theory of evolution
- Via Marginal Revolution, a video on wine and cereal pairings. I can't quite decide whether to be intrigued or absolutely mortified, or whether to simply laugh it off given that all food and wine pairings are allegedly a scam, anyway
- Sub-Saharan African states are falling behind other regions in terms of competitiveness. While there have been some improvements in the past year (with Uganda registering as most improved), sub-Saharan states as a whole have slipped down the global rankings since they were first listed in 2000
- Freakanomics has a great piece on African entrepreneurship, which highlights the creative ingenuity present across the continent
- Bilateral relations between China and Cuba are at their best time in history, according to Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo. Oh, and the U.N. has declared Castro a "World Hero of Solidarity." Makes you stop and think, doesn' it?
- Think your DSL is faster than a pigeon? Think again
- On this September 11, 2009 please take a moment to remember all those who sacrificed their lives eight years ago today. We will never forget
North Korea is going too far.... even for China
Until recent days China has rebuffed all U.S. and Japanese calls for more stringent sanctions against North Korea, in part weary of the consequences of a destabilized regime in Pyongyang. Perhaps even further to the point, China has in many ways been supportive of North Korea's missile testing, as suggested by Anne Applebaum in her recent op-ed:
Despite the risks, though, there are good reasons for the Chinese to prod Kim Jong Il to keep those missiles coming. By permitting North Korea to rattle its sabers, the Chinese can monitor President Obama's reaction to a military threat -- without having to deploy a threat themselves. They can see how serious the new American administration is about controlling the spread of nuclear weapons -- without having to risk sanctions or international condemnation of their own nuclear industry. They can distract and disturb the new administration -- without harming Chinese American economic relations, which are crucial to their own regime's stability. And if the game goes badly, they can call it off altogether.
While the Chinese are not quite yet willing to call if off altogether, there is reason to believe that they are growing increasingly frustrated by Kim's behavior. Not so much because it stands in clear defiance of attempted (though - if we're going to be perfectly honest - altogether meaningless) U.N. resolutions, but because an increasingly active North Korea will likely signal rapid military buildup in Japan, threatening stability in the region. North Korea's missile tests have also begun to step on the toes of the increasingly disgruntled Chinese leadership, leading one to believe that a change in Chinese policy may be nigh.
Zhu Feng's recent piece is the first sliver of evidence suggesting such a shift (or at the very least the possibility of one). The piece is significant not only for what it says, but also because of who is saying it: Zhu is a top dog in Beijing, serving as he does as the Deputy Director of the Center for International & Strategic Studies at Peking University. China, he writes, has long been of the opinion that North Korea's nuclear efforts was a negotiable item:
As long as its regime security and economic demands could be met, Pyongyang might be willing to give up its “nuclear car”. For the time being, it seems to me that all evidence points in the opposite direction. In fact, the recent nuclear testing by DPRK is not merely a slap in the Chinese face, but a sobering wake-up call for Chinese leadership to face up to the malign nature of their N. Korean counterparts.
This slap in the face may well "bring about the fundamental change of China's long-time policy of DPRK quickly." What this change will look like and what it will entail are not yet known. While I doubt that China will engage in measures such as the cutting off of oil and coal supplies, which would indubitably cripple the North Korean economy, it will find other ways to take a hard stand against North Korea's behavior. (Hopefully) it's just a matter of time.
Note to China: sooner would be better than later.
mHealth data from the Humanitarian Technology Challenge
Via UN Dispatch, Matthew Cordell writes:
Ken Banks, the brilliant creator of FrontlineSMS is now delivering a Lawrence-Lessig-style presentation at the Humanitarian Tech Challenge. It's all interesting and worth comment, but right now he's talking about a friend of his who took "a laptop and 100 used cell phones" to St. Gabriel's Hospital in Malawi.
That small amount of equipment served 250,000 people, saved $3500 in fuel costs and saved 1,000 hours in travel time. Incredible.
The Humanitarian Technology Challenge is a partnership between the IEEE and the UN Foundation & Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, and seeks to define and develop sustainable solutions to humanitarian challenges in the developing world. These solutions should be able to be implemented locally and "within the environment, cultural, structural, political, and socio-economic conditions where they will be developed."
Nigeria's booming entertainment industry
I confess to be just as surprised as the next person (sadly my knowledge of African pop culture doesn't quite measure up to what I know of the continent's politics): Nigeria's music and film industries are booming. So much so, in fact, that the country's film industry (known as Nollywood) has surpassed Hollywood (!) to become the world's second largest after Bollywood:
According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) survey, Bollywood – as the Mumbai-based film industry is known – produced 1,091 feature-length films in 2006. In comparison, Nigeria’s moviemakers, commonly known as Nollywood, came out with 872 productions – all in video format – while the United States produced 485 major films.“Film and video production are shining examples of how cultural industries, as vehicles of identity, values and meanings, can open the door to dialogue and understanding between peoples, but also to economic growth and development,” said UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura.
“This new data on film and video production provides yet more proof of the need to rethink the place of culture on the international political agenda,” he added.
To gain a better appreciation of the Nollywood industry, I strongly suggest you watch Franco Sacchi's film, 'This is Nollywood.' 'This is Nollywood' shows not only how the introduction of digital technology has revolutionized (loosely stated) one of the world's poorest (and by some accounts failing) countries, but also speaks to the very theme of culture highlighted in the UNESCO report. Ethan Zuckerman blogged about the film back in 2007 (I'm a bit behind, it would seem).
But there's more: according to CNN, Nigeria's hip hop industry is also growing. Like the film industry, Nigerian hip hop is regarded as a cultural alternative to Western music and in some sense serves as a unifier in what is a most ethnically diverse state:
While no one is so naive as to suggest that the film and hip hop industries are the panacea to Nigeria's problems, their respective success may nevertheless be a small, albeit important, step on the road to economic growth and development. One can only hope and, indeed, enjoy.
North Korea launches missile; China shrugs shoulders
Despite much international pressure to the contrary, North Korea launched a long-range missile this past Sunday. Though perhaps not particularly successful (wasn't it? I'm not so sure...) the launch has managed to stir some excitement (and not the good kind) among the international community, and has likewise lead many an analyst to raise an eyebrow or two over China's rather blasé response (the Chinese merely stated that they "took notice" of the launch, with no further commentary. As per usual, Danwei does a great job summarizing the Chinese headlines on the event).
To be perfectly honest, I don't see what all the huff and puff is about as far as the Chinese response is concerned. Does anyone really expect the Chinese to come forward and condemn North Korea for its actions? China is North Korea's most important ally, main source of food, fuel and arms, and its biggest trade partner. Trade between the two nations has been growing rapidly in recent years which, as the WSJ's China Journal observes:
is funded through credit from Beijing, which fears an influx of North Korean refugees if economic conditions in the isolated, poverty-ridden state worsen.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Chinese were quick to block any formal U.N. condemnation of the launch, and are not about to make any pronouncements of their own. Moreover, I hesitate to agree with analyses that posit this recent fiasco as evidence of China's waning clout over the regime in Pyongyang. I'd rather be inclined to believe that the Chinese have by now learned the delicate balance between exerting pressure and keeping their lips sealed when it comes to their comrades to the North. It would appear they've opted to pursue the latter strategy this time around.
[Image: YaleGlobal Online]
mHealth for Development
mHealth (shorthand for 'mobile health') is a topic about which I admittedly know quite little, yet am beginning to gain interest in through various friends and colleagues active in the field. To the best of my knowledge, at the forefront of mHealth initiatives is the UN Foundation and Vodafone Group Partnership created in October 2005. Together they've recently released a report, mHealth for Development: The Opportunity of Mobile Technology for Healthcare in the Developing World, in which is examined the potential for mobile phones in improving health in the developing world; future health needs in developing countries; and potential roadblocks for sustainable mHealth programs.
Mead Oliver offers a rather critical analysis of the report, addressing some of the pressing questions surrounding mHealth. Perhaps most importantly (at least from my humble perspective) is the question of how to design incentives for truthful data collection by cell phone:
The problem in using cell phones for flu surveillance is that of incentives. How does one induce the general public to accurately report outbreaks of flu? People might under-report for fear that an intervention would be draconian. This fear could be offset with a campaign describing the nature of the intervention and perhaps by rewarding those who report with free cell phone minutes. On the other hand, If one gives away cell phone minutes for reports of flu episodes, people might over-report. The [UN/Vodafone] report suggests that these incorrect reports were entirely due to a misunderstanding based on language, when intentional misreporting in hopes of receiving the promised reward may have instead been the problem.
Despite such persisting challenges, there are presently upwards of 50 active mHealth projects, the majority of which are in sub-Saharan Africa. Among the most promising of these is Project Masiluleke, a mobile health project started in South Africa in 2008 which uses text messages to reach people in the most remote areas of the country to encourage them to get information and counseling on HIV/AIDS. The project delivers approximately 1 million HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis texts each day to personal cell phones providing contact information for the national AIDS helpline:
Callers to the national helpline can ask questions about HIV, get information about where to get tested and receive counseling.The project takes advantage of a popular form of texting across Africa, called a "please call me" message, that can be sent for free from a phone even if it is out of pre-paid minutes. The empty characters on the free text are used to convey the health message.Future phases of the project will allow users to text health questions, if they prefer not to call the line, and will provide an internet portal of information accessible by cell phone for people to learn about HIV. The ultimate goal, says the group, would be to provide free home HIV testing kits that would be supported by mobile counseling, so that people who aren't willing to visit a clinic can find out their status.
For now, much of such mHealth programs appear quite confined to sub-Saharan Africa, with a few projects scattered throughout Latin America and Southeast Asia. It will be most interesting to track the success of these projects to uncover whether they might prove equally successful elsewhere. Jumping the gun a bit, Nokia Research has already begun working with humanitarian agencies in India and psychiatrists in China to identify the potential m-technology might hold for remote populations there.
A man is known by the company he keeps. So is a country.
Earlier this week, China's human rights record came under scrutiny before the U.N. Human Rights Council. As expected, China denied that it censors the news media, maintain hidden prisons, persecutes minorities or gives an excessive number of prisoners the death penalty. This surprised no one.
What's perhaps most interesting, though, is the litany of nations that came forth to congratulate China, and laud its social policies - censorship, death penalty and beyond. From Tim Johnston:
The Egyptian envoy said "we understand the need of China to keep the death penalty and recognize that in China it is strictly controlled and applied with extreme caution.” He praised the fact that pregnant women and minors are not executed.
Iran congratulated China's "efforts to promote and protect human rights for all" but in referring to the internet added that "its negative impact can never be underestimated.” It encouraged China to tighten censorship to prohibit "defamation of religion" and “pornographic websites.”
Cuba praised China for being an "exceptional country," and urged it to enforce "strict compliance with law. . . to prevent people disguised as human rights activists from trying to destroy the state."
Singapore said China’s sustained economic growth is little short of a miracle.
Pakistan suggested foreign countries butt out of China’s affairs: “China does not require external advice on securing the rights of its people.”
Sri Lanka said his country “rejects the malign criticisms of China made by the same quarters … who tore China into little pieces during the period of colonialism and … actually forced the habit of opium upon the Chinese people.”
If you're keen to watch the entire three-hour session, you can do so here.
China to own up to its human rights record. Wait, what?!
From the CS Monitor:
China will face unprecedented scrutiny of its human rights record Monday in a key test of Beijing's readiness to answer international criticism over its treatment of political opponents.
Beijing has sent a large, high-level delegation to Geneva to defend China's human rights performance in the face of questioning from members of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
"This is an important test both for China and for the United Nations," says Nicholas Bequelin, a China expert with Human Rights Watch.
Some observers doubt that the formal and generally nonconfrontational UN body will actually put China on the spot for the wide-ranging human rights violations of which its authoritarian government stands accused [...] Monday's meeting "will be a kabuki dance, a farce," argues Brett Schaefer, an analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, unless China takes foreign criticism more seriously than it has done until now.
Human rights activists here and abroad, however, express hopes that Monday's meeting will indeed help speed China's efforts to improve its rights record.
Hmmm... well I certainly have a few questions I would love to ask the Chinese (see here and here and here, and oh, well heck... here too). Though if their answers will be in any way analogous to the ones I received during my own fieldwork, I'm not quite sure how worthwhile this meeting will actually be.