Endangered Languages
A loss of language is a loss of indigenous knowledge: history, rituals, even farming and medicinal (healing) practices. According to the UN and UNESCO there were between 7,000 and 8,000 distinct languages. Now, over 50% of the world's 6000 languages spoken today are endangered. Half of those languages have fewer than 10,000 speakers, a quarter have fewer than 1,000 and 96% are spoken by only 4% of the global population, mostly by indigenous groups.
The Foundation for Endangered Languages reports that Africa - linguistically the least known continent - is one of most affected, where 250 languages could be lost for ever. And of the 1,400 languages - used by the continent's 700 million population - at least 500 are on the decline.
What is an endangered language: definitions
See which languages are endangered around the world: UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages
Read a story about the last speakers of Kawesqar: New York Times

Back to our Roots
Our hunting-gathering roots, that is, back to the time of pre totalitarian agriculture (as Daniel Quinn calls it), when our ancestors' diet consisted of numerous edible weeds and fruits collected from the forest. Today, after the collapse of the Argentinian economy in late 2001, research institutions are urging communities to explore the wild-growing fauna as a source of nutrition. IPS reported that scientists of the National University of Comahue have been classifying edible wild plants and have been providing instructions on how the plants can be cooked and prepared. The research found that in part of the southern region of Patagonia alone, there are 200 native species of edible wild-growing plants and around 100 edible exotic plants, many of which are consumed in other countries . Although, the nutritional value of many of those plants in still unknown, the scientists have determined that some have higher nutritional value that their cultivated cousins. For example, the dandelion has three times more protein, seven times more fat, four times more carbohydrates, five times more calcium, four times more iron and a much greater amount of vitamins B1, B2 and C than lettuce. But for poverty stricken people the most important benefit of the weeds is that they are free and abundant.

Children Death Toll in Developing Countries
The World Bank Group reported that among the 10.5 millions children under five who died in 1999, all but 1 per cent were from developing countries. Of these children 36 per cent died in Asia, and 33 per cent in Africa. More than 50 per cent of all deaths are due to just five communicable diseases: pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles, malaria and HIV/AIDS. Malnutrition is an underlying factor that increases the risk of dying from these diseases.
Read more: Child Health

News from Mother Russia
Eager Putin couldn't wait another month, when the people of Russia will officially re-elect him, to reorganize his government and in a surprise move yesterday the President of Russia sacked his government on national television. No, this isn't another profession of "controlled democracy", an euphemism used widely today to characterize Russia's shaky steps towards pluralistic society. The Russian President has a constitutional right to ask his government for resignation (although the Constitution doesn't stipulate that it has to be done on live TV). BBC reported that Putin's decision did not reflect on the government's performance, which was satisfactory "on the whole". The move is a preparation for the economic and political changes he will initiate after his re-election. I've always thought that Russians, although not religious, are very superstitious. Well, we can't really say that Putin is jumping the gun, with voter rating 80% and rising, his re-election is a sure thing.
Listen to NPR analysis

Global Warming is Upon Us
In an article of the Guardian, Mark Townsend and Paul Harris reveal details from a secret Pentagon report painting a dramatic future. The Bush administration has been ignoring the global warming issue, but according to the Pentagon report the climate change issue is not a problem of the distant future any longer: "As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions."
BBC reported that according to a new report by the Queensland University's Centre for Marine Studies, the Great Barrier Reef will be largely destroyed by 2050 because of rising sea temperatures. Scientist found little evidence that corrals could adapt quickly enough to cope with even the lowest projected temperature rise of 2 degrees centigrade.

New UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has nominated Canadian Justice Louise Arbour as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Once the nomination is approved by the General Assembly, Justice Arbour is expected to retire from the Supreme Court of Canada in June 2004. The former High Commissioner, Sergio Vieira de Mello from Brazil was killed in Baghdad bombing on August 19, 2003, while serving as Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Iraq.

African Science Produces Results - Rice for Africa: NERICAs
Rice is a staple crop for Africans but many farmers had given up on the traditional African varieties as they have a very small yield. Asian varieties were introduced to Africa but differences in humidity and plant structure require farmers, primarily women and children, to spend more hours weeding.
In 1991, in the Africa Rice Center (WARDA) in Bouake, Cote d'Ivoire, Monty Jones initiated a biotechnology-based program to combine the best traits of the Asian and African rices, using gene banks that hold seeds of 1500 African rices, which had faced extinction as farmers abandoned them for higher-yielding Asian varieties. By mid-1990 scientiststies have developed New Rices for Africa (NERICAs).
WARDA reported that genetic differences in the two species made breeding difficult but also gave the new rices high levels of heterosis or hybrid vigor. The NERICAs inherited wide, droopy leaves from their African parent, which smother weeds in early growth. The new rice varieties are taller, have higher yield by 25-250%, grow better on on infertile, acid soils, and also have about 2% more body-building protein than their African or Asian parents.
More than 1300 farmers planted the new rices in Guinea in a 1998 program and in 2000, the rice varieties were introduced to other West Africa countries.
Read more:
http://www.warda.cgiar.org/publications/KBtext.pdf
http://www.warda.cgiar.org/publications/NERICA8.pdf
World Bank News

Internally Displaced Persons
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are people who have been forced to suddenly flee their homes in large numbers. Even though some of the IDPs are displaced because of natural disasters, such as earthquakes or volcano eruptions, the majority are forces to leave their home to avoid armed conflicts or gross human rights violations. According to UNDP, the displaced are often among the poorest in their societies, both before their displacement and almost certainly afterward.
By definition, IDPs remained within the borders of their country of origin but were unable to stay in their homes. This adds complexity to the provision of aid. According to international law, the primary responsibility for assisting IDPs lies in the hands of the home government. Unfortunately, national governments are often unable (even in some cases non-existent) or unwilling to deal with the issue. NGOs can get involved only after government approval is granted.
According to the UN Economic and Social Council Commission of Human Rights IDP Report of 2003, while refugees outnumbered IDPs by a factor of 10 to 1 in 1982, today there are twice as many IDPs as there are refugees. Currently, there are about 25 million IDPs in 50 countries around the world.
Global IDP Project reports that more people are internally displaced on the African continent than in the rest of the world put together. At the end of 2003, Africa was home to an estimated 13 million IDPs, over half of total IDPs around the world. In contrast, Africa's refugee population was estimated at approximately 3.5 million (2002). Recent conflicts in the DR Congo, Uganda, Sudan, Liberia, and in the Central African Republic added to the plight of African people. Sudan has the largest IDP population in Africa of 4 million, followed by the DR Congo with 3 million and Uganda with 1.2 million.
Currently, over a quarter of a million Palestinians are IDPs.
Read more:
The Brookings Institution
United Nations Development Programme
Human Rights Watch
International Committee of the Red Cross

Improving Effectiveness of Development Assistance
Realizing that something could be done to improve the effectiveness and coordination of development assistance provided to developing countries, representatives from development agencies and developing countries met in Marrakesh, Morocco on February 3-4, 2004. The delegates agreed on 7-point plan to improve development assistance.The first roundtable of this kind was held in 2002 in World Bank headquarters.

Doha Development Round - the Useless Banter Continues
The EU announced its plan to provide support to African cotton and coffee growers in an effort to revive the stalled global talks. Cotton is not one of the crops for which the EU offers lavish agricultural subsidies but the US happens to. Is this a stab at the US or just a simulation of action?
Read more:
EU press release

Wasn't the War on Afghanistan also a War for Human Rights?
Yes, the war on Afghanistan, that most of world conveniently forgot, was a war against terrorism and gross infringement of human rights. But today, two years later, Osama bin Laden is still loose and the plight of women in Afghanistan has not improved. In a commentary in The Guardian, Mariam Rawi, a member of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan, reveals the appalling situation of Afghanistan women. They are raped, forced into marriage at a young age, subjected to humiliating "medical" examinations, denied adequate schooling and work. In the new country, where the warlords now impose Taliban-like rules, even more girls commit suicide than before the US led intervention.
At least former children soldiers receive some benefits:
On Feb 8, 2004, UNICEF announced that 2,000 former underage soldiers will be offered the opportunity to return to school and learn a trade. Read more at: http://www.unicef.org/media/media_19165.html

Reading Material
Check out Developments, international development magazine:
http://www.developments.org.uk/

Bringing the price of AIDS treatment down
Only three years ago the price of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment was over $2,000 per person per year. Generic drugs manufacturing brought the price down to about $500 per person per year. Efforts of UNAIDS, World Health Organization (WHO), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and recenty of the Clinton Foundation, brought the price down to under $140 per person per day for victims of AIDS in some Caribbean and African countries. In October 2003, the foundation of the former president of the US, Bill Clinton, brokered a deal with South African and Indian manufacturers of ARV drugs that guaranteed a preferential price of for AIDS patients in the countries where the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative is working with governments and organizations to set up integrated care, treatment and prevention programs. In January 2004, the Clinton Foundation reached a deal with companies such as Bayer Diagnostics and Beckman Coulter, that will likely cut costs of HIV/AIDS tests by up to 80 percent. These efforts are part of the integrated "3 by 5" initiative that aims to provide ARV drugs to 3 million people in developing countries by 2005.
These announcements preceded announcement of failing efforts of individual counties. The Guardian reported that the Nigerian government plan to provide cheap Aids drugs had failed, threatening the lives of people with HIV who began taking the drugs 2 years ago, only to be told now that the supply had run out.
Read more:
SAHIMS
Sacramento Observer
The Guardian

Focus on Crazy Ideas
A few days back, at a conference, while listening to a speaker describing the immense obstacles to confining the spread of AIDS in Africa, I was thinking that there must be a way to overcome the numerous cultural barriers. Then suddenly I thought: traveling theatre that uses drama to teach people AIDS prevention and slowly change cultural perceptions. The power of entertainment is massive: draws attention, creates great impact and it is already present in many cultures. When I went back home and did a search on the Internet, I realized that I had discovered the hot water. The idea is that good that many international development agencies are already using it successfully. Here is an example of one, ArtCorps.

IT helping Karnataka farmers
Bhoomi project - Computerisation of Land Records - of the Karnataka State is using IT to bring accountability in the city administration and utility agencies. Land taxes are the largest sources of revenues of India's state budgets and the whole bureaucratic process was used for personal enrichment of some of the local administration clerks. The use of computers and biometrics authentication system for updating of land records have freed farmers from the worry of probable manipulation of their records by sometimes unscrupulous officials. The land record delivery system is now operational in nearly all sub districts of Karnataka.
It is not surprising that this project was created in Karnataka. Bangalore, the province's largest city, is known as the software capital of the developing world. Big IT corporations like IBM, Microsoft and Oracle have offices and training facilities there.

Poverty Dynamics in Uganda: 1992 to 2000
Uganda is one of the few African countries that has shown progress eradicating poverty. In their research, John A. Okidi, Economic Policy Research Centre, Kampala, Uganda and Andrew McKay, School of Economics, University of Nottingham, UK show that even though the Uganda's market-oriented development policies, which have led to macroeconomic success, have benefited large number of poor households, an equally large number of "chronically poor" have been left behind.
Visit Chronic Poverty Research Centre for more research papers about poverty in Uganda and other developing countries

WB, WTO & IMF, the Real War Criminals?
The World Bank Group, the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund found their way on the face of 3 of the Aces in the War Profiteers card deck. The deck is a spoof of the US Army deck used in Iraq to help soldiers memorize the faces of the most wanted Iraqi war criminals. War Profiteers created the deck to expose the real war criminals in the USA's endless War of Terror: oil, gas, and energy companies; US government officials, military and defense contractors, heads of industry, finance, media, policy, and hype; and the court jester himself: "the Jerk", pardon me, the Joker, Mr. George W. Bush.

Belief in Hell Makes You More Productive
Religion and Economic Growth, Robert J. Barro and Rachel M. McCleary, Harvard University
The study analyzes the influence of religion on a country’s rate of economic growth. Barro and McCleary argue that religion affects economic performance mainly by fostering religious beliefs that influence individual traits that enhance productivity, such as honesty, work ethic, thrift and openness to strangers. The study shows that religious beliefs—notably in hell, heaven, and an after-life—tend to increase economic growth. The results also give some indication that the fear of hell is a more powerful stimulus for growth than the prospect of heaven.

Launch of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS (GCWA)
AIDS is single-handedly slowly destroying entire continents. Because of the biological characteristics of the disease and the role of women in some societies, they are more susceptible to AIDS. The United Nations AIDS program reports that existing HIV prevention and protection efforts are failing to stem infections among women and girls because they do not take into account such issues as gender relations and sexual behaviour. Over 50% of the people infected with AIDS are women.
"Because of their lack of social and economic power, many women and girls are unable to negotiate relationships based on abstinence, faithfulness and use of condoms. It is precisely to address these inequalities and reduce women's vulnerability to HIV that the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS has been created", said Dr Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) at the launch of the new organization.
The goals of the Coalition are to improve prevention for women and girls and to address societal and legal inequalities which compound the impact of HIV and AIDS on women and girls. Notable members of GCWA are British actor Emma Thompson and the former Irish president and UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, Mary Robinson.

Book Review: Guns, Germs, and Steel - the Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond
A must read book for everybody who is interested in international development!
The book reviews 13,000 years of human history to illustrate why history evolved differently on different continents, resulting in European and not native American, for example, domination of the world. The book starts with the intriguing question of a native New Guinean, Yali, who wonders "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo [articles which were introduced to the local population by the first European sailors] and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?", and takes you on a journey of the origins of food production, animal domestication, germs, writing, religions, empires and guns.