Why the Fight against Poverty Is Failing: A Contrarian View

Published: October 31, 2006 in Knowledge@Wharton

Abraham George is the founder of The George Foundation, an NGO engaged in humanitarian work in India, and the author of India Untouched: The Forgotten Face of Rural Poverty. In this contrarian essay, he explores why the current strategies that governments and development agencies are employing to reduce poverty are not working the way they should. Among his arguments: Microcredit programs, as they are now practiced in India, do little to help the poor.

By the World Bank's broad definition of poverty ($2.00 or less a day per person), there are more poor people in the world today than a quarter century ago. Nearly half the world's population, over three billion people, lives in poverty. In India alone, two-thirds of its one billion-plus population is poor. Yet, the strategy for alleviating poverty across practically every developing nation has remained essentially the same for the past several decades. continue...

Microfinance 2.0 - Forbes.com

Microfinance 2.0
Knowledge@Wharton 04.10.07, 3:50 PM ET

Some of the major misconceptions about microfinance--small loans of under $100 that enable Third World residents to become entrepreneurs--can be summed up by what happened roughly a decade ago, when the pioneering Grameen Bank decided to help female villagers in Bangladesh enter the mobile phone business. continue...

Corn-based ethanol: the biggest greenwash ever?

Posted by Tom Philpott at 6:51 AM on 29 Mar 2007 

It's hard to imagine what politicians and corporate chiefs are intending to do by crafting a corn-based ethanol boom, beyond rigging public policy (and raiding the public purse) to generate huge private profits.

But whatever their intentions, they're methodically creating environmental and social disasters -- while brazenly brandishing the "green" flag. continue...

On the peculiar American habit of demonizing food

On the peculiar American habit of demonizing food
By Tom Philpott  |  10 May 2007

Not long ago, a reader wrote in with an interesting response to one of my many articles condemning industrially grown corn.

Yes, you can buy it!

Photo: iStockphoto

"When sweet corn appears at the farmers' market next summer, can I buy it in good conscience?" she wanted to know. "Or is it bad for me and bad for the land?"

I can see why she might be confused. Even as U.S. farmers prepare for what will almost certainly be the largest concentrated corn harvest in world history, criticism has rained down like fertilizer on an Iowa corn patch. Michael Pollan placed corn at the center of what he called "our national eating disorder" in his best-selling Omnivore's Dilemma. I've personally joined the chorus tying corn to everything from the obesity epidemic to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, and to the "biggest greenwash ever," ethanol. continue...

Speaking of fake 'butter' and industrial corn ...

Posted by Tom Philpott at 6:23 AM on 11 May 2007

My latest Victual Reality column looks at how perfectly wonderful foods like corn and butter get twisted up by food-industry marketers and flavor engineers, confusing people and often sending them scurrying in search of dubious, unhealthy, artificial substitutes -- which the food industry is only too willing to provide.

As if on cue, out comes a New York Times piece on the horrors of microwave popcorn. Those unpleasant fumes that cloud the office when one of your co-workers pops a bag of Orville Redenbacher into the microwave? They really are noxious. continue...

Shake, rattle, ride: What effect does a white-knuckle ride have on your body?

A roller-coaster ride may be the ultimate cheap thrill - but what does it do to your body? Guy Adams climbs aboard Britain's latest white-knuckle ride to find out.

Published: 09 May 2007

It takes a shade over 30 seconds to complete a journey on Infusion, a new ride that gives Blackpool Pleasure Beach the distinction of owning "the world's first suspended looping roller-coaster running entirely over water". continue...

Sex on the couch: The therapists who abuse their clients' trust

For a therapist, seducing a client is a wanton abuse of trust. Yet it's far from rare.
By Julia Stuart
Published: 08 May 2007

When Jo Adams was referred to the counsellor at her GP's surgery, she expected to be given help for her severe depression. But that was not all she received. During the six sessions, her counsellor paid her a number of suggestive compliments. In her desperately ill state, they gave her a boost. "They put me on a false high, even though I'm happily married," says the 35-year-old, who works in sales. "He made me laugh when I was suicidal. I felt I couldn't do without him and if he went out of my life I would go back to the hell of depression I had known."  continue...

No laughing matter: the downfall of Mr Comedy

Once he was the golden boy, who produced hit television shows such as 'The Sopranos' and 'Sex and the City'. But now Chris Albrecht is in disgrace, forced to resign from his post as chairman of Home Box Office following revelations of a drunken assault on a female companion. By Andrew Gumbel
Published: 11 May 2007

We still don't know the biggest secret in American television - whether Tony Soprano is going to get whacked before the small screen's quintessential mob drama reaches the final episode of its final season next month. But we do know about someone else whose professional career - if not his life - has just been rubbed out with the kind of cold, business-like efficiency that corporate America and the mafia have always had in common: the man who did more than anyone else to bring The Sopranos (and a host of other culture-changing hit shows) to television audiences around the world. continue...

William E. Odom

Senior Fellow
Hudson Institute, Washington, D.C. Headquarters

Areas of Expertise

• Military and strategic issues
• Intelligence issues
• Asian economic and security issues
• Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian studies
• European politics and military issues

Biographical Highlights

Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. As Director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988, he was responsible for the nation's signals intelligence and communications security. From 1981 to 1985, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army's senior intelligence officer.

From 1977 to 1981, General Odom was Military Assistant to the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski. As a member of the National Security Council staff, he worked upon strategic planning, Soviet affairs, nuclear weapons policy, telecommunications policy, and Persian Gulf security issues. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1954, and received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1970. continue...

Know When to Fold 'Em

From the January 11, 2007, New York Daily News
January 11, 2007  by William E. Odom

The military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said that war is always a gamble. President Bush stepped up to the Iraqi poker table in the spring of 2003 and won a couple of big hands. Flush with the cash and a cry that, "In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," he failed to pick up his chips and go home. Instead, he has hung around for the last 3½ years, betting on lousy hands - pairs of twos and threes and numerous inside straights. continue...

Figuring Out Blogs, Podcasting, Wikis, and Whatever's Next

WHEN Monday, May 21, 6:30-9:30 pm
WHERE mediabistro.com, 494 Broadway (Spring & Broome), New York, NY 10012

DIRECTIONS subway directions, map

Course Details: There is much confusion about blogs, bloggers and blogging. Is this the end of journalism as we know it? Or is it just another small step in the evolution of media? Are any worth following? You will get answers to these and other questions at this workshop. You will go home with plenty of useful ideas from this fun, informative, fast-paced seminar.

In this seminar, you will learn about:

• Blog basics
• The best blogs for and by media professionals
• Blogs that are changing America and the world
• How to read blogs without drowning in too much info
• How to create a blog and raise your Google rankings
• Why journalists should and should not be blogging
• What to expect next: photoblogging, videoblogging, tagging, podcasting, wikis, RSS, XML

PRICE: $65

Instructor Bio

Figuring Out Blogs, Podcasting, Wikis, and Whatever's Next – New York (Seminar on May 21)

Sree Sreenivasan is a leading technology expert and WNBC-TV's tech reporter. He is also Dean of Students at Columbia University's journalism school, where he runs the new media program. His tech reports can be seen on Thursday morning at 6:40 am on Channel 4. He previously spent six years as WABC's Tech Guru. His work explaining technology has appeared in The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Rolling Stone, and Popular Science (where he's a member of the "Geek Chorus"). In March 2004, Newsweek magazine named him one of the 20 most influential South Asians in the nation.

http://www.mediabistro.com/courses/cache/crs2689.asp

Men who tried to leak Bush memo jailed

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor
Published: 11 May 2007

A civil servant and an MP's researcher were jailed for disclosing the contents of a secret memo recording discussions between Tony Blair and George Bush about the war in Iraq.

David Keogh, 50, a Cabinet Office communications officer, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for copying the four-page document and passing it on to Leo O'Connor, 44, a researcher for an anti-war Labour MP, Tony Clarke. O'Connor, who passed the memo to Mr Clarke, was jailed for three months for breaching the Official Secrets Act. continue...

Freedom Of Information: Government could be forced to publish secrets of Iraq memo

What did Tony Blair tell George Bush when they discussed Iraq? Robert Verkaik, Law Editor, considers how the Freedom of Information Act might provide the answer
Published: 11 May 2007

A civil servant and an MP's researcher were yesterday sentenced by an Old Bailey judge for being involved in the disclosure of the contents of a top-secret Iraq memo which recorded conversations between Tony Blair and George Bush during a 2004 meeting in Washington. The same memo has been the subject of an 18-month inquiry under the Freedom of Information Act.

A request made to the Government for the memo's formal disclosure under the right-to-know legislation is now with the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, who has the power to order release of the four-page document. Such a move would be extremely embarrassing for the Government and undermine the decision to prosecute the two men under the Official Secrets Act of 1989. continue...

Man for hire: ex-PM seeks meaningful (and lucrative) employment

By Andy McSmith
Published: 11 May 2007

One thing is for sure: this time next year, Tony and Cherie Blair will be richer than they are today. No longer will they have to struggle by on Tony's annual salary of £187,611, Cherie's earnings as a barrister - estimated to be about £100,000 a year - plus the £30,000 a time she receives on the international lecture and the knockdown rent of £96,000-a-year, minus fees, from their house in Connaught Square. Soon they will be able to make serious money.
However, on the day Mr Blair goes to Buckingham Palace to hand in his resignation on 27 June, his income will first of all take a dip as he becomes a £60,675-a-year backbench MP.

The family will lose the flat over 11 Downing Street, and Chequers in Buckinghamshire - their weekday and weekend homes for 10 years - and will move to Connaught Square. They bought the house in 2004 for £3.5m, saddling themselves with mortgage payments of up to £16,000-a-month.

To tide them over, Mr Blair will be entitled to redundancy of £31,734. Retiring prime ministers are also entitled immediately to a £63,468 pension for life. In 2013, when he is 60, he will be eligible for another pension for his long service as an MP. Assuming that he has been paying the maximum contributions since he entered Parliament in 1983, it will be worth about another £40,000 a year. continue...

Endgame emerges as Wolfowitz fights to stay on at World Bank

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 11 May 2007

Paul Wolfowitz's fight to save his job is set to continue until at least early next week. Notwithstanding repeated declarations of support from the White House, intense diplomatic manoeuvring between the US and Europe still seems likely to end with the departure of the beleaguered World Bank president.

In a small concession, the bank's executive board has extended until tonight its deadline for Mr Wolfowitz to explain himself, after a special committee found that he had violated ethics rules by arranging a promotion and big pay rise for his partner Shaha Riza when she moved from the bank to the State Department in 2005. continue...

Stifling summers forecast by Nasa for US east coast

By David Usborne in New York
Published: 11 May 2007

Researchers at Nasa have warned that unless growth in greenhouse gas emissions can be successfully curbed, large areas of the eastern United States, from Washington DC to Florida, can expect to suffer through catastrophically hotter summers within just a couple of generations.

A study released by Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University finds that by 2080 average summer high temperatures in parts of the east will be about 10F higher than now, pushing them from the low to mid-80s to the low to mid-90s. continue...

Moore 'breached embargo on Cuba' in film production

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 11 May 2007

The Oscar-winning director Michael Moore is being investigated by the Bush administration after he took a number of rescue workers to Cuba for medical treatment - allegedly breaching a US embargo on travelling to the Caribbean nation.

Moore travelled to Cuba earlier this year with a number of ailing workers who had toiled at Ground Zero in New York. He took them to film a segment for his upcoming film Sicko, which he hopes will confront the US health industry in much the same way that his 2002 film Bowling for Columbine took on the gun-rights lobby. continue...

Sinking Italian hill town appeals to architects for help

By Peter Popham in Rome
Published: 11 May 2007

The mayor of a 2,500-year-old Italian hill town that is listed as one of the world's 100 most endangered monuments has appealed to the world's architects to save the town from being cut off from the outside world.

The original bridge joining Civita to the rest of Italy was destroyed by German bombing in the Second World War. A long, steep, narrow concrete bridge replaced it in the 1960s, but like the rest of the town this is threatened by subsidence.

At a meeting on Wednesday the mayor, Erino Pompei, told the handful of remaining villagers: "We've posted an international tender on the internet, inviting the world's best architects to come up with an innovative and eco-friendly solution to our problem." continue...

Electronic tags used to beat the A-level cheats

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Published: 11 May 2007

Exam papers will be tagged this summer in a crackdown on cheating, one of the country's biggest exam boards reveals today.

Edexcel, which marks 13 million question papers a year, will install a radio-controlled device in bags of exam papers held by schools.

The tag will tell it how many papers should be inside and whether there has been an attempt to open the bag before the exam starts.

In addition, the board's name is written in microtext (invisible to the naked eye but detectable through a special magnifying device) around individual papers, to deter photocopying of the paper - and its sale on the open market. A paper can fetch £200 the day before an exam, officials said. continue...

Miles Kington: Are you a novelist stuck in the past? I can help you

 
And with trembling fingers, hardly able to believe his luck, he digs out the old 'AA Guides', which have been sitting there for 30 years
Published: 11 May 2007

The cleverest notice I ever saw in a pub was a handwritten sign, which said: "We have been invited to join Les Routiers, but we have refused to pay the exorbitant signing-on fee."

At one stroke the pub had conferred on itself the honour of having been enrolled in a famous outfit, and the common sense of not getting involved in a commercial set-up. It was the equivalent of letting it be known that you have been offered a knighthood, and turned it down. continue...