Month: September 2009

Categories
Future

Moving world borders

world-mapBasic political geography is a problem that we have not yet solved, according to geopolitical expert Parag Khanna in a talk given at the TED conference in July. Border conflicts justify most of the world’s military expenditure and often derail economic progress. In 1945 there were 100 countries in the world; today there are 200 countries. Numerous border changes are currently happening without being recorded on maps.

Russia is the largest country geographically, but Russians are moving out of eastern Russia, while Chinese are moving in, taking advantage of eastern Russia’s vast areas of land to send agricultural products back to China. China has become the anchor of trade in the East Asia region. China is also exporting its culture through migration in the region. National cultures are emerging in the Far East in a much more fluid imperial zone.

In the Middle East, improved infrastructure could help to bring peace. Commuter railroads and other links between West Bank and Gaza can make Palestine an economically viable state. A century ago, during the Ottoman Empire, there was a rail link all the way from Istanbul to Medina via Damascus. Reconstruction would lead to greater peace in the region.

Categories
Present

Progress on Millennium Development Goals

goalNine years ago this month, world leaders came together at United Nations Headquarters in New York to commit their countries to a number of poverty reducing targets known as the Millennium Development Goals, with a deadline of 2015 for achieving those goals. The UN has recently released The Millennium Development Goals Report 2009, giving an update on progress to date. Significant advances have been made, but the world is well behind schedule to meet the targets.

Between 1999 and 2005, the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 per day in Sub-Saharan Africa fell from 58% to 51%. Over the same time period the same proportion for South-Eastern Asia fell from 35% to 19% and for Eastern Asia from 36% to 16%. The proportion of undernourished people in Sub-Saharan Africa increased from 28% in 2004-2006 to 29% in 2008, reflecting a global increase in food prices.

The proportion of primary-school age children enrolled in a school in Sub-Saharan Africa increased from 58% in 2000 to 74% in 2007. Child mortality (the number of children dying before age 5) for Sub-Saharan Africa fell from 183 per 1000 live births in 1990 to 145 per 1000 live births in 2007. This compares with a rate of 6 per 1000 live births in developed regions. Maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in Sub-Saharan Africa fell from 920 in 1990 to 900 in 2005; this figure is 100 times as high as that for developed countries.

Categories
Past

The last invasion of England

black-knightOn this day 943 days ago, William the Conqueror landed at Pevensey Bay in Sussex to launch the last successful invasion of England (if you do not count the Glorious Revolution of 1688). William’s invasion force of 600 ships and 7000 men had set sail to cross the channel from Normandy on 12 September 1066, but they were driven back by a storm. Meanwhile a rival invasion force led by Harald III of Norway had landed near York, so the English King Harold marched his army to York to defeat the invaders on 25 September.

On 27 September the wind conditions became favourable for William’s fleet, and they landed in England the next day, marching to Hastings where they built a prefabricated wooden fort and awaited the arrival of King Harold’s army. Harold’s army, weakened by their recent battle, marched almost 400km from York to Hastings to engage with William’s forces, with the conflict finally occurring on 14 October for a period of nine hours until William’s cavalry and archers finally prevailed over Harold’s foot soldiers.

William’s conquest resulted in French becoming the language of government in England for nearly 300 years. Many elements of Norman culture became permanently included in English culture. William and his descendants ruled an empire which included England and various parts of France, but the right to rule many of these territories remained disputed for the next seven centuries.

Categories
Faith

Faith as a power grab

simon-the-sorcererLife is full of things that you cannot control. You cannot control the weather. You can influence the thoughts and behaviour of other people, but you cannot control it. You cannot control your own mortality. You cannot control most of the things that happen to you in life. Some people wish that there was some magic way for them to get a bit more control, and Simon the Sorcerer thought he had found a way when he saw the power of the Holy Spirit, as reported in Acts chapter 8.

What Simon did not understand was that the power of the Holy Spirit comes only when people join God’s agenda. The Holy Spirit is not something or someone that you can harness to fulfil your own agenda. In fact, why was Simon so keen to get more power in the first place? Apparently so that more people would fear or respect him and so that he could get more power and fame, at the cost of everyone else.

God is not in the business of helping us out in our own little power struggles. Jesus did not come to lord it over others, but to serve them. He commanded us to love our neighbours and to do good even to our enemies. Being a part of God’s mission to save the world, fulfilling the very jobs that we were created to do, is so much more than the maximum that any of our own selfish petty ambitions could ever amount to.

Categories
Books

Knockout Entrepreneur, by George Foreman

knockout-entrepreneur-coverWhat does a former boxing Heavyweight Champion of the World have to offer in the way of advice on running a business? Quite a bit, as it turns out. The cheerful man who brought us George Foreman’s Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine also brings us a book full of homespun entrepreneurial wisdom. See what can be, by finding a need and filling it. Get competent advisors who have integrity into your corner, and listen to them. If your name is on it, make it good. Set your standards and be willing to walk away from a deal. Build relationships and make people love you. Celebrate your success by becoming a giver.

The book tells numerous stories both from George Foreman’s boxing days and also from his subsequent life as a preacher and business entrepreneur, leveraging his fame in marketing numerous different types of goods, some successfully and others unsuccessfully. The narrative flows naturally from the challenges faced in a boxing match to the challenges faced in running a business. You will face pain, but you must not let it keep you down. You must know your foe. If you want to succeed you must always answer the bell at the start of a new round, even when you are tired, thirsty and hurting.

I initially found various references to “the Good Lord” and “the Good Book” somewhat confusing, perhaps intended for an exclusively Christian audience. Subsequently it became apparent that Foreman credits his coming to faith in Jesus as the primary reason for the change in his attitude as a boxer and then for the positive attitude and infectious enthusiasm which has led to his business success. While the book is not a complete textbook for entrepreneurs, those who have ever plucked up the courage to try something daring and different will find the contents positive, encouraging and entertaining.

Disclosure: This review has been prepared as part of Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Blogger program.

Categories
Poverty

When hard work goes unrewarded

unrewarded-workRichard Stearns, the president of World Vision US, makes an interesting observation in chapter 10 of his book The Hole in Our Gospel. One of the fundamental assumptions of our worldview is that there is a connection between how hard we work and how much we get paid. This makes sense to us because it is roughly how the world works in the West. Some people get better opportunities than others, but within our individual contexts we can usually see a greater reward for greater effort.

But what would happen if the relationship between reward and hard work was completely severed? That is the situation for a large proportion of the world’s poor today. “They are trapped within social, cultural, political and economic systems that do not reward their labor.” If they work hard to grow more crops, the soldiers or the bandits will come to reap the rewards. If they struggle to earn extra income, corrupt officials will extort the rewards.

A country cannot work its way out of poverty unless it has systems in place which encourage people to engage in productive efforts (that is, allowing people to earn greater rewards for working harder and producing more goods or services) and discourage people from engaging in anti-productive efforts (for example by enforcing laws which punish people for stealing or extortion).

Categories
Future

Protecting crop diversity

crop-diversityThe diversity which we have within crops – all the different kinds of wheat, rice, etc. – is a genetic resource which stands between us and starvation on a catastrophic scale we cannot imagine, according to Cary Fowler in a TED talk given in July. Crop diversity is the biological foundation of agriculture, and that foundation has been crumbling, with a mass extinction of varieties now occurring. In the 1800s in the US, farmers were growing 7100 named varieties of apples, of which 6800 are now extinct.

Why do we not just save the “best one” of each type of crop, rather than trying to save all of them? There is no such thing as a best one; today’s best variety may be vulnerable tomorrow to an insect or disease. Also, a variety which is not economical now may possess some quality that others do not, that will make it useful in the context of climate change. We need to be saving different varieties as raw materials which we can use in the future.

Diversity gives up options, and we need options to adapt to climate change. In many countries the coldest growing seasons are going to be hotter than the hottest of the growing seasons in the past. Climate change is going to be worst in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Anticipated climate change in South Africa over the next 20 years will result in a 30% reduction in crop yields for current maize varieties. We have to get climate-ready crops into the fields quickly.

Categories
Present

Australia’s employment outlook

unemployedLast week the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published the 2009 OECD Employment Outlook, an annual assessment of labour market developments in countries which are members of the OECD. Australia fared better than many other countries in the report, but there are still causes for concern. Australia’s unemployment rate in July 2009 of 5.8% was lower than the OECD average of 8.3%, but still 40% higher than Australia’s unemployment rate in February 2008.

Unemployment is a key cause of poverty in Australia, with 55% of jobless households in Australia living in relative poverty, compared with the OECD average of 37%. The unemployment benefit (“Newstart Allowance”) for a single Australian adult with no children is $228 per week, compared with the average weekly earnings for full-time employment of $1,197.50 as at May 2009, meaning that unemployment benefits are around 19% of average weekly earnings.

Disability benefits and the age pension for retirees are slightly more generous than unemployment benefits. The age pension for a single person over the age of 65 is $334 per week, and the maximum disability support pension, available to people who are unable to work for two years as a result of illness, injury or disability, is the same amount.

Categories
Past

International Day of Peace

peace-doveIn 1981 the United Nations General Assembly resolved to make the third Tuesday in September the International Day of Peace, with the first such day being observed in September 1982. Since 2002 the day has been celebrated on a fixed date, the 21st day of September. According to the official website, the “International Day of Peace provides an opportunity for individuals, organizations and nations to create practical acts of peace on a shared date.”

Countries in which there are ongoing violent conflicts include Somalia, which has been in a state of civil war since 1991, Afghanistan, which has been in a state of conflict for many years, but with casualties intensified since the US-led military operation started in 2001, Iraq, which has suffered insecurity since the US-led military operation began in 2003, North-West Pakistan, where fighting has continued since the Pakistani Army started searching for al-Qaeda members in 2004, and Mexico, where drug wars have caused many thousands of casualties.

Other countries which continue to experience armed conflicts include the Democratic Republic of Congo (civil war), Colombia (political and drug-related conflict), the Philippines (communist and Islamic insurgency), Turkey (Kurdish separatists), Kashmir (India-Pakistan power struggle), Yemen (Islamic insurgency), Southern Thailand (separatist campaign), Nigeria (oil-related ethnic and political unrest), and Chad and Sudan (Janjaweed militias).

Categories
Faith

Courage before an angry mob

stoning-stephenIf you have just been arrested and brought before a tribunal filled with angry men who are threatening to beat you to death with stones because of what you have been saying, do you start back-pedalling in an attempt to get out of there alive, or do you boldly tell them what is on your mind? Acts chapter 7 describes how Stephen, who had just been elected as one of the seven people in charge of handing out food to widows, chose to speak out, regardless of the personal consequences.

Stephen started speaking about the history of the relationship between God and the people of Israel. The tone of his speech kept building until its climax, a true “tell it like it is” moment, in which he told his listeners that they were stubborn people, “uncircumcised in heart and ears”, always resisting the Holy Spirit, and they had now become “betrayers and murderers” of the Righteous One. This was something significant to be passionate about, and it met with a passionate response – they killed him.

There are plenty of people in the present age who are happy to speak their mind, regardless of whom they offend. They often choose to express their views through blog posts and website comments, safely under the cloak of relative anonymity, and knowing that their incendiary comments cannot be met with imminent retaliatory violence. But how many things do you believe in so passionately that you are prepared to die for them?