State Of The World
I'll try a very different post today; a summary of some of the important international/worldwide events that are developing today.
Human Rights:
Few have made good on promises to stop or limit the genocide in Darfur, Russia is reverting to state control, the governments of southeast Asia have almost no interest in spending their own money to recover from the tsunami, few nations in South America show any promise (Columbia has some chances, and has received the US's favor because of it), and the majority of Africa and the mid-east fail to acknowledge even the concept of human rights – much les women's rights or the rights of different ethnic/religious groups. On the other hand, there is hope for better relations between Israel and Palestine, China is improving overall living conditions, South Africa is developing – economically, politically, and socially – and may provide hope for much of Africa by becoming a regional leader, former USSR states are advancing toward democracy and modern economies, Iraq is getting better in almost every way (still has problems, of course), Nelson Mandela has taken notable efforts for African AIDs-awareness (even announcing his son died of HIV, which has an incredible stigma in Africa), parts of Mongolia are modernizing, and the mid-east is/will realize that it needs to learn what human rights are.
Overall, the world has many of the same bad conditions as before, but many parts are improving, even if those parts are small or their improvement is slow. There is a chance that a competent and dedicated nation in South America – with the help of considerable international support – and become a leader in the region, but such would take more than a decade. Further, there is good reason for optimism that South Africa will be successful.
World Order:
Russia shows signs of reverting to a system of state control, especially after the clearly illegal government takeover of the Yukos oil giant, Chirac of France has proposed a global tax to "combat AIDs" (the tax is a 'test tax', which means it will only grow over time), the world is assigning the US the prestige it deserves as the sole superpower, the UN is faltering in the mind of the US but Europe has – for the most part – ignored its scandals, Canadian and European medical systems could be taken down if the US gets the misguided impression that foreign drugs are cheaper for some supernatural reason.
Time for a bit of elaboration. On the Chirac world tax issue, there is an article here. I'll be shocked if such a world tax comes anywhere near a reality. On the specific issue of AIDs, a main cause of its spread is the lack of care in Africa to stop it. In Africa, people think they have HIV because god wants them to have HIV, not because they got the disease from someone else. Thus, people think the disease can be cured through quasi-religious (and quite disgusting) measures. That "god gave me HIV" mentality is what gives the disease its stigma. The only thing that I can image a global tax for is some type of space station which would need a huge, reliable supply of funds, and such a project would never be controlled by the UN.
On this foreign drug issue, Europe and Canada have cheap drugs for one real reason: federal price controls severely limit the amount drug companies can charge, and therefore almost all the expense of research and development is pushed onto the US. An average prescription drug can take $800 million and 12 years to develop, according to what I believe is the most credible study on the subject. If the US starts to re-import the drugs which Canada can buy cheaply, then either drug companies will stop selling to Canada (or limit supply to barely cover Canadians) or the Canadian government will raise drug prices so the US stops buying cheap drugs from Canada and, therefore, the Canadian government stops the problem before drug companies take it into their own hands. A decent, apparently credible article on the subject is here.
This, of course, is not complete. A summary of world events takes far longer than a page and a half. So, I hope to include other editions of this later, as I really want to bring up the issues with China (especially get a good analysis of the China-Taiwan conflict). I must admit, this style is enjoyable; it gives me the freedom to branch my argument out as I see necessary, and I can show some of the inter-relatedness of world events.
Human Rights:
Few have made good on promises to stop or limit the genocide in Darfur, Russia is reverting to state control, the governments of southeast Asia have almost no interest in spending their own money to recover from the tsunami, few nations in South America show any promise (Columbia has some chances, and has received the US's favor because of it), and the majority of Africa and the mid-east fail to acknowledge even the concept of human rights – much les women's rights or the rights of different ethnic/religious groups. On the other hand, there is hope for better relations between Israel and Palestine, China is improving overall living conditions, South Africa is developing – economically, politically, and socially – and may provide hope for much of Africa by becoming a regional leader, former USSR states are advancing toward democracy and modern economies, Iraq is getting better in almost every way (still has problems, of course), Nelson Mandela has taken notable efforts for African AIDs-awareness (even announcing his son died of HIV, which has an incredible stigma in Africa), parts of Mongolia are modernizing, and the mid-east is/will realize that it needs to learn what human rights are.
Overall, the world has many of the same bad conditions as before, but many parts are improving, even if those parts are small or their improvement is slow. There is a chance that a competent and dedicated nation in South America – with the help of considerable international support – and become a leader in the region, but such would take more than a decade. Further, there is good reason for optimism that South Africa will be successful.
World Order:
Russia shows signs of reverting to a system of state control, especially after the clearly illegal government takeover of the Yukos oil giant, Chirac of France has proposed a global tax to "combat AIDs" (the tax is a 'test tax', which means it will only grow over time), the world is assigning the US the prestige it deserves as the sole superpower, the UN is faltering in the mind of the US but Europe has – for the most part – ignored its scandals, Canadian and European medical systems could be taken down if the US gets the misguided impression that foreign drugs are cheaper for some supernatural reason.
Time for a bit of elaboration. On the Chirac world tax issue, there is an article here. I'll be shocked if such a world tax comes anywhere near a reality. On the specific issue of AIDs, a main cause of its spread is the lack of care in Africa to stop it. In Africa, people think they have HIV because god wants them to have HIV, not because they got the disease from someone else. Thus, people think the disease can be cured through quasi-religious (and quite disgusting) measures. That "god gave me HIV" mentality is what gives the disease its stigma. The only thing that I can image a global tax for is some type of space station which would need a huge, reliable supply of funds, and such a project would never be controlled by the UN.
On this foreign drug issue, Europe and Canada have cheap drugs for one real reason: federal price controls severely limit the amount drug companies can charge, and therefore almost all the expense of research and development is pushed onto the US. An average prescription drug can take $800 million and 12 years to develop, according to what I believe is the most credible study on the subject. If the US starts to re-import the drugs which Canada can buy cheaply, then either drug companies will stop selling to Canada (or limit supply to barely cover Canadians) or the Canadian government will raise drug prices so the US stops buying cheap drugs from Canada and, therefore, the Canadian government stops the problem before drug companies take it into their own hands. A decent, apparently credible article on the subject is here.
This, of course, is not complete. A summary of world events takes far longer than a page and a half. So, I hope to include other editions of this later, as I really want to bring up the issues with China (especially get a good analysis of the China-Taiwan conflict). I must admit, this style is enjoyable; it gives me the freedom to branch my argument out as I see necessary, and I can show some of the inter-relatedness of world events.
posted by Chris at
1:06 AM
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