So-called free trade strikes again. It's "free" as in "free handouts" to US cotton farmers but to the rest of the world, it is destructive and destroying their business. This is exactly what countries are talking about when they ask for an even playing field instead of handouts. Americans and Europeans will easily complain about giving money to countries in need but too often fail to look at the full picture. Government handouts appease corporate farmers but this also means destroying any hope of building or sustaining business opportunities such as agri-business around the world. In this specific case, the issue is over $3 billion in subsidies to US cotton farmers. That is an amazing number when everyone else is being asked to tighten their belts.
Besides the business and personal impact such policies also feed into the sentiment that Americans and Europeans are hypocrites in terms of free trade. It's always "free trade" when it favors the rich countries but a long, costly battle at the WTO when the rich countries are called out on dumping.
Much too often the role of women in the developing world is dismissed or ignored in the Western media. On the ground you see a story that is stark contrast to the preconceived ideas people have about poor countries. It's often women tilling the fields in Africa or Asia. It's women working in factories, such as Bangladesh or Vietnam. It's women weaving carpets in the Middle East or Asia. Jobs that provide the backbone of family finance or food are very often women. Unfortunately, being the bread winner hardly equates with social equality. To that end, it's the women that are leading the "Rice Revolution" in Bangladesh.
Last month, about 20,000 garment workers defied a government ban on demonstrations to demand higher wages and protest skyrocketing food prices, especially on such staples as rice, which have doubled in price since last year. Some of the workers, mostly women, hurled rocks and bricks at police and vandalized factories in what the local media dubbed the start of the "Rice Revolution."
Troops from the Bangladesh Rifles, a paramilitary force that normally patrols the country's borders, now operate and guard the crowded government-subsidized rice shops. Dressed in fatigues, they send the stern message that the government wants to ensure stability.
Bangladesh is among at least 33 countries, many with shaky governments and destitute populations, that are at risk of serious political unrest if food prices keep rising, according to a recent World Bank study.
As middle class people in wealthy countries such as the US and Europe already know, the cost of food has skyrocketed in the last few years for a variety of reasons. Sure, some of that has to do with crop failures related to bad conditions though the more serious problem has been related to diverting food to biofuels (where the money is better) and the increasing cost of fuel, that has risen dramatically since the war mongering and invasion of Iraq.
For decades Republicans in the US have preached a tough-love approach to foreign aid but while this simplistic response appeals to a certain crowd in America it ignores the realities of the world around us. For example, a substantial percentage of the population across southern Africa eats mealy-meal, which is cooked corn meal. If they are lucky, maybe they will be able to afford a sauce to splash on this. This is what people eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner if they can even afford three meals. This is it. All of the extras that we're used to just don't exist as an option on a regular basis. With over one billion people around the world surviving on $1 per day, cost increases for basics such as corn and wheat have an enormous impact. It's really time to step back and look at where we are and how we came to this situation.
Governments have not tackled the problem and pharmaceutical companies are burying the issue, afraid that any publicity given to their medicines being faked will lead to a fall in the sale of the genuine product, according to a documentary.
The problem has been particularly acute with the treatment of malaria in Africa, with anti-malaria drugs faked on an industrial scale. Professor Nick White, of Oxford University, one of the world's leading experts on malaria, said: "We estimate that there are more than one million deaths each year - which is the equivalent of seven jumbo jets going down every day. And 90 per cent of those deaths are in children."
Since the fake drug industry generates tens of billions of dollars per year, there are enablers everywhere who are ready to help.
Nigeria's campaigning drugs regulator, Dora Akunyili, described counterfeiting as "mass murder". She told the documentary, which will be aired today on The Business Channel, a satellite station: "The fake drug racket and the silence associated with it have led to the resurgence of malaria... The companies kept quiet. The regulators were paid off and everybody was helpless. Drug counterfeiters operated in this country and in most developing countries for almost three decades, unchallenged."
