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Amused to Death posted:It's decently right. Somaliland is relatively peaceful and has even held elections. One of the strange facts about Somaliland is that it's one of the least corrupt "states" in subsaharan Africa. This is likely due in part to its unrecognized status, which prevents it from receiving international aid. For anyone familiar with current events in Afghanistan and Iraq it should come as no surprise that aid fosters corruption, both those states have become legendary for their graft since becoming subject to U.S. reconstruction, and we see similar effects on governance in other states receiving high levels of aid. The exact mechanism by which international donations undermine good governance are complex and poorly understood, but it's likely that aid makes governments less dependent on the "consent of the governed," freeing leaders and bureaucrats to steal a larger proportions of state funds. Alternatively, by assuming responsibility for services like education, nongovernmental organizations may make citizens expect less from their government, even if supply is still inadequate. In Somaliland state revenue come almost entirely from taxation, and leadership is ultimately responsible to local actors. It's one thing to steal from foreigners, but when your lavish lifestyle is payed for by local merchants and clan elders, you start getting asked uncomfortable questions. 
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Mar 18, 2014 21:48
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I have no idea why the various corrupt countries are given aid directly instead of just channeling it to Red Cross, etc. organizations operating inside the country. Would they bar aid agencies from getting in if they don't give money to them too?
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Mar 18, 2014 22:12
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DarkCrawler posted:I have no idea why the various corrupt countries are given aid directly instead of just channeling it to Red Cross, etc. organizations operating inside the country. Would they bar aid agencies from getting in if they don't give money to them too? Son, let me tell you a thing or two about Red Cross...
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Mar 18, 2014 22:19
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Disco Infiva posted:Son, let me tell you a thing or two about Red Cross... This board is collectively about to crush my thinking about one of the few organizations in the world I still respected, huh?
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Mar 18, 2014 22:33
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DarkCrawler posted:This board is collectively about to crush my thinking about one of the few organizations in the world I still respected, huh? Nah. I remember reading an article a long time ago about Red Cross embezzlement of aid money, but I can't find anything really substantial on Google right now. Unless some other goon has some more info, you can keep respecting them 
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Mar 18, 2014 22:51
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And did you know Amnesty International is actually a front for an international pedophile ring?
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Mar 18, 2014 23:10
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DarkCrawler posted:This board is collectively about to crush my thinking about one of the few organizations in the world I still respected, huh? Disco Infiva posted:Nah. I remember reading an article a long time ago about Red Cross embezzlement of aid money, but I can't find anything really substantial on Google right now. Unless some other goon has some more info, you can keep respecting them
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Mar 18, 2014 23:12
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Deceitful Penguin posted:That's probably because you were googling the wrong thing. In the M-East, it's called the Red Crescent and, well. It's about what's to be expected, though their performance in Iraq was a sight to behold. That was a time where all the money poured in there just went into bugger-loving-all anyhow. Ahh... the giant pallets of hundred dollar bills the US kept shipping in that would go missing as soon as they were unloaded off the plane.  What a magical loving time the 2000's were.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:31
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Phlegmish posted:And did you know Amnesty International is actually a front for an international pedophile ring? There is legitimately a rather vocal subset of the feminist movement that is seriously pushing that these days, because Amnesty is consulting on how it deals with the sex trade and is leaning towards supporting decriminalisation.  Sex work in Manhattan, 1991 and 2010. If you're a sex worker in New York City, you can make three times as much working in TriBeCa as you do working in the Bronx.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:34
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DarkCrawler posted:I have no idea why the various corrupt countries are given aid directly instead of just channeling it to Red Cross, etc. organizations operating inside the country. Would they bar aid agencies from getting in if they don't give money to them too? Basically corporate welfare in a form that would be called laundering if anyone else attempted it. The citizens of the recipient country usually benefit to some degree (moreso if it's for hospitals or construction projects than additional tanks obviously), the rulers of the country benefit even more from corrupt handling of the aid, the companies in the benefactor country benefit from the corporate welfare loop, and the taxpayers in the benefactor usually foot the end bill (which then provides ammunition for right-wing populist parties to rant about how Pakistan is stealing your kid's lunch money even though that's far from what's happening).
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Mar 18, 2014 23:35
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TinTower posted:
What exactly do the colours mean here?
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Mar 18, 2014 23:47
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:What exactly do the colours mean here? Seriously though, it's a density map, showing how modern technology has allowed prostitutes to move into areas where they wouldn't have been able to pick up clients in the past. Well, move in to, or made sex work more attractive for women who lived in those areas, since it's safer now.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:57
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Somaliland receives no bilateral aid but plenty of private aid. I live in Cambodia and government aid tends to go into the pockets of government officials, or at least into big pointless projects (airports, dams, highways) that never actually see the light of day and the money eventually ends up in the wallet of some General or something. Private aid generally goes a little further although obviously it is sometimes hilariously misspent and completely wasted. But private aid at least has the advantage that someone is probably there on the ground seeing how its being spent and although they may have their own motives they will start asking questions if none of the money seems to be getting where it's meant to be going. Governments just blindly write checks, pat themselves on the back and go back to legislating for their own payrises. One of my favourite stories (may not be true but entirely plausible) about this country is when governments started donating tractors to farmers. The theory was that if they gave farmers money to buy their kids medicine or education it would just get spent on beer and rice whisky, and even if it was spent properly it wasn't sustainable. So they donated tractors to increase agricultural yield which would lead to farmers becoming richer and having some level of disposable income. Of course, SE Asians have managed to grow vast amounts of rice for thousands of years without heavy machinery and at any rate a tractor is completely unsuited to a paddy field as it'll either get bogged down or the engine will flood. So Cambodians saw all these tractors, didn't have a loving clue what they were actually for, and assumed westerners were complete idiots for building these one-seater cars with really slow engines. However they did quickly realise that these engines could be useful for something if they ripped all the pointless metal off the sides (and of course metal is independently useful and worth money) and just used the engine and steering column. So if you donate money to the developing world to "help farmers become sustainable" your money will be spent on pointless poo poo like tractors. Luckily, the people will do this with it:  Rant over
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Mar 19, 2014 01:46
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Honestly I have to admire those farmers ingenuity.
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Mar 19, 2014 04:21
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When you're like me and from a place like Wyoming, my first reaction to hearing that someone doesn't know what a tractor is makes my insides hurt. Though I am curious to know what kinds of mechanical equipment farmers in a place like Cambodia use if at all. I remember watching a documentary from the 80s in a cultural anthropology course where there was an experiment to see if modern farming techniques and equipment in an Asian country (I don't remember at all where this took place) would do better than what had been the norm. Turns out that the traditional means were better and I believe it was largely because the people testing the new way did not take into account things like the area and what works and so on.
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Mar 19, 2014 05:55
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Well, rice is also grown in the United States, isn't it? Presumably it doesn't involve millions of peasants in flooded paddies doing backbreaking labor every single day, and uses some form of mechanization to speed up the process.
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Mar 19, 2014 06:04
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DrSunshine posted:Well, rice is also grown in the United States, isn't it? Presumably it doesn't involve millions of peasants in flooded paddies doing backbreaking labor every single day, and uses some form of mechanization to speed up the process. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice#Production_and_commerce Mechanization need not be worse than traditional methods: http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu/countries/nepal/IRC2010_Uprety_%20paper.pdf
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Mar 19, 2014 07:08
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DrSunshine posted:Well, rice is also grown in the United States, isn't it? Presumably it doesn't involve millions of peasants in flooded paddies doing backbreaking labor every single day, and uses some form of mechanization to speed up the process. Rice used to be a decent crop in the US (it's why rice with butter/sugar/milk is a traditional breakfast in the south) but the end of slavery kind of destroyed it. Now most rice in america is grown in places where slavery is illegal but paying immigrants jack poo poo isn't (california, texas, arkansas, louisiana).
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Mar 19, 2014 07:50
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Peanut President posted:Rice used to be a decent crop in the US (it's why rice with butter/sugar/milk is a traditional breakfast in the south) but the end of slavery kind of destroyed it. Now most rice in america is grown in places where slavery is illegal but paying immigrants jack poo poo isn't (california, texas, arkansas, louisiana). There's no state in the Union where it's illegal to pay immigrants jack poo poo.
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Mar 19, 2014 07:59
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Star Man posted:When you're like me and from a place like Wyoming, my first reaction to hearing that someone doesn't know what a tractor is makes my insides hurt. The majority of farms are family operations, with the family responsible for growing, harvesting, threshing (drying by crushing) and milling. Sometimes this is all done at the village level, so everyone will help with everyone elses fields. The majority of farmers use absolutely no mechanical equipment at all; at most they might use a motorbike to transport the finished product to market but that's it. Most farmers use either ox or hand-drawn ploughs and threshing (basically being harvested rice against a wall) is done by hand. The traditional means continue to work because using mechanical equipment brings a whole new set of problems and challenges. The farmers have to consider the price and availability of diesel, repairs, maintenance and parts and whether the increased yield will justify the increased cost. Even if their yield is increased they have to consider whether it can actually be moved to market and sold before it spoils: poor road infrastructure and transport options mean wastage levels of rice are very high so the higher yield may not even be worth it. So yeh, for the most part it's done by hand. The country has produced a rice surplus every year for the last twenty so they must be doing something right.
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Mar 19, 2014 09:22
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I don't know all the details but rice can be seeded by planes. There are also types of mechanical harvesters designed for rice, Japan uses them.
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Mar 19, 2014 12:50
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Grand Fromage posted:I don't know all the details but rice can be seeded by planes. There are also types of mechanical harvesters designed for rice, Japan uses them. Not particularly useful in a country which sent 8 MiG-21s to Israel a few years ago for upgrades. 4 of them mysteriously disappeared: almost certainly sold on by a senior air force General or government minister (probably a few of them). Cambodia has over 2200 Generals compared to the US cap of 500....! Anyway this is a derail so have some maps. US bombing targets on Cambodia 1965-73:  Unexploded ordnance in Cambodia (yellow is probable, red is definite):  They're constantly finding unexploded stuff around here. They found this yesterday, which in true Cambodian style they picked up and threw onto the back of a truck! Maybe not as interesting as some other maps in this thread but important to remember the effects war can have even decades later 
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Mar 19, 2014 14:23
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duckmaster posted:Not particularly useful in a country which sent 8 MiG-21s to Israel a few years ago for upgrades. 4 of them mysteriously disappeared: almost certainly sold on by a senior air force General or government minister (probably a few of them). Cambodia has over 2200 Generals compared to the US cap of 500....! Yeah, I was just saying that I think in say, California, they're using seed planes and harvesters.
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Mar 19, 2014 14:28
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Most common cancers by sex and country: Admittedly it doesn't account for how prevalent cancers are overall between countries, just a first past the post comparison, but it does show some trends. Lung cancer across Russia/India/China and the surrounding areas is probably from smoking, air pollution and lack of industrial controls. Kaposi sarcoma in Southern African men indicates the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and lack of availability of HAART or other treatments. Oral cancer in Pakistan may be from chewing paan. I have no clue what best explains these: Thyroid cancer for South Korean women. Liver cancer for both men and women in Mongolia. Same with stomach cancer in Guatemala. The split between breast cancer and cervical cancer. Being pregnant or breastfeeding reduces the number of menstrual cycles, which reduces the risks of breast and ovarian cancer, so it may have something to do with birth rates.
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Mar 19, 2014 15:57
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Guavanaut posted:Liver cancer for both men and women in Mongolia. Evidently drinking is a big problem over there. quote:Almost one in five Mongolian men binge-drink on a weekly basis. One reason for the high level of alcoholism is the sheer availability of alcohol. Mongolia has one shop selling alcohol for every 270 people, the highest number anywhere in world. Most supermarkets have an aisle dedicated to vodka, sometimes with more than 25 types of vodka alone, costing just $2 for a half-pint.
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Mar 19, 2014 16:05
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I suppose there isn't really much else to do in Mongolia. Incredibly surprised that liver cancer isn't the highest one in Russia though. Something weird is also happening in Slovakia.
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Mar 19, 2014 16:11
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Mongolia's had a severe alcohol problem for a thousand years, it's traditional.Guavanaut posted:Thyroid cancer for South Korean women. Korea is health obsessed as poo poo and apparently benign signs of thyroid cancer are actually pretty common so it could just be over diagnosed.
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Mar 19, 2014 17:08
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DarkCrawler posted:Something weird is also happening in Slovakia. Slovakians are all a bunch of homosexuals.
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Mar 19, 2014 17:18
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Shbobdb posted:Slovakians are all a bunch of homosexuals. Now, please, the proper term is Slovaks.
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Mar 19, 2014 17:27
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Shbobdb posted:Slovakians are all a bunch of homosexuals. Eastern Europe has a history of higher colorectal cancer incidence due to food habits, so I would assume it's more likely to be from a diet heavy in red processed meat.
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Mar 19, 2014 17:32
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Fun fact, if the Mongolian Empire hadn't produced such a large number of alcoholics then we would have probably had very different European history.
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Mar 19, 2014 17:59
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I wouldn't be surprised if the prevalence of breast cancer rates isn't something to do with the recent push for constant inspections and mammograms and such. The fact that women are checking for it so often means they're much more likely to find it, while a more internal cancer might (not a doctor, I have no idea) go unnoticed.
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Mar 19, 2014 18:56
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Interactive map: The cost of escalating sanctions on Russia over Ukraine and Crimea.  (Click for interactive!)
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Mar 19, 2014 20:00
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Why is Russia investing so much into the Netherlands?
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Mar 19, 2014 20:05
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Development of North sea gas maybe?
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Mar 19, 2014 20:09
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Estonia is apparently importing 167% of its gas consumption from Russia. Interesting.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:11
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Slovenia, Finland and Bulgaria are also over 100%.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:13
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Sheng-ji Yang posted:Estonia is apparently importing 167% of its gas consumption from Russia. Interesting.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:14
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Sheng-ji Yang posted:Estonia is apparently importing 167% of its gas consumption from Russia. Interesting. Importing at a cheap rate and then selling it to Germans at a higher rate.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:16
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DrSunshine posted:Why is Russia investing so much into the Netherlands? I don't know, but last year was officially some kind of bilateral Netherlands-Russia year thingie. They planned lots of state visits. It started out positive, but in the end the main things that happened between the two countries was that a Russian guy committed suicide in a Dutch cell, Russia arrested some Dutch Greenpeace members without following proper rules and Dutch folks protested against the new Russian law that limits the rights of homosexuals.
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Mar 19, 2014 20:20
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