With so much media attention on Cyclone Nargis and the endgame of the Democratic Primary, one story getting inadequate attention is the latest turmoil in Lebanon.

Sectarian strife is nothing new to Lebanon, but at least one Lebanese blogger suggests that the current unrest is being triggered by the recent spike in food prices.

An Indonesian mother and her baby outside a North Jakarta health clinic. Photo: Bunga Sirait/Mercy Corps

You may have heard the news that American mothers are breastfeeding their kids at rates higher than ever before, according to data released last week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

The fact that 77 percent of U.S. infants born in 2005-06 were breastfed is good news for child health — studies link breastfeeding to a wealth of benefits, from lower infection rates to higher intelligence — as well as for families' pocketbooks. In the U.S., a year's worth of infant formula can cost well over $1,000. Overseas, the financial bite is even bigger in per-capita income terms.

If breastfeeding is cheaper and healthier, then why do six of every seven Indonesian mothers feed their babies formula?

One reason: Formula companies in Indonesia spend a lot of money convincing mothers their product is as good or better than breast milk, and they've successfully insinuated their product in healthcare settings, according to Mercy Corps.

Dr. Fransiska Mardiananingsih, Mercy Corps' Healthy Start program manager, says formula companies[']... "aggressive marketing has convinced many mothers and health providers that formula feeding is just as healthy for infants," she says, "but in fact it has significant negative effects on children's health."

Dr. Mardiananingsih says formula companies go as far as to deliver gift baskets to new mothers to encourage the continued use of their product.

Mercy Corps, Global Envision's parent, is helping build a more supportive environment for breastfeeding moms in Jakarta's poorest neighborhoods. They're also offering a way for you to help: $75 buys a "Breastfeeding Kit," a symbolic gift that supports the program and equals the cost of training a breastfeeding counselor. It was unveiled last week as a Mother's Day addition to the agency's regular Mercy Kit lineup.

Training midwives, health officials and support-group facilitators is one part of the program; marketing is another. Mercy Corps is working with local government leaders and holding rallies to spread the word about breastfeeding's benefits. They may not be able to match the formula companies' marketing muscle, but with both health and economic advantages on their side, they at least have an easier sell.

Market in Port au Prince, Haiti. Photo: Miguel Ángel (flickr)

I recently accepted an invitation to speak at a showing of the documentary “The Price of Sugar” sponsored by Portland State University. “The Price of Sugar,” which I had not seen before that event, is a powerful documentary depicting the plight of Haitians who toil on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic.

According to the filmmakers, these workers cross the border from Haiti to labor in conditions that the film's central protagonist, Father Christopher Hartley, calls "quasi-slavery." They are housed in sugar company towns called bateyes. Stripped of identification papers, they cannot legally travel elsewhere in the country.

My role in the May 7 event involved offering my perspectives on the economic conditions in Haiti that drive Haitians to cross the border illegally and risk arrest and deportation. Since February 2006, I’ve had several opportunities to travel to Haiti to work on developing economic and educational projects in this poorest of counties in the Western Hemisphere.

Imagine my surprise the morning of the event to receive both an email and a fax at my office at Marylhurst University from the Washington, D.C. office of Patton Boggs, LLP informing me their law office represents the Vicini family, “who are involved in various business ventures in the Dominican Republic including sugar.”

According to the 29-page document, the Vicinis are the victims of misrepresentation by the makers of the documentary; the documentary contained no less than 53 errors, omissions, or fabrications that allegedly amount to defamation of the Vicini family and businesses; and a “cease and desist” motion had been filed in a United States District Court in Boston, Massachusetts. “What,” I thought, “kind of mess did I just step in?”

A careful reading of the legal document revealed that I wasn’t a target, but simply being informed that a legal effort has been underway to stop the distribution and showing of the video. Since I had no direct knowledge of the information contained in the video, nor was I in any way responsible for obtaining and showing the video, I chose to go ahead with my prepared remarks on general economic conditions in Haiti and show my own photos from recent trips to that country.

What’s important here, and both I and my hosts at the video screening were careful to point this out, is that anyone interested in learning more about the economic, political, and social conditions of people engaged in trade around the world are obligated to choose their information sources wisely and carefully.

Researchers seeking support for their own agendas and ideas can easily find sources that will support their position. We are human after all and we gravitate toward those bits of data that seem to resonate with our opinions. But careful researchers who desire to build a real knowledge of the world have a much tougher challenge. Researchers seeking an accurate picture of the conditions under which people labor around the world may find it harder to find unbiased, neutral, accurate data.

It is not my intent here to pass judgment on the veracity of the information contained in “The Price of Sugar” or to comment on the legal claims of anyone connected with the video. My intent is to caution viewers to be diligent in their pursuit of true knowledge by exercising a reasonable amount of skepticism and to engage in critical thinking any time they are learning something new.

Photo Credit: 3pom (flickr)

Technological advances have significantly impacted India's recent growth. But one technology may be causing more harm than good.

India is experiencing an alarming rise in sex-selective abortions. As the middle class has grown, more pregnant women are able to afford ultrasounds. One result is that many couples are choosing to abort female fetuses. Traditionally, boys are preferred over girls — they carry on the family name, can more easily find paid work, and don’t require expensive dowries. Even though India is becoming increasingly modernized, these traditional values remain intact.

The numbers tell the story: In 1981, India had 962 girls for every 1,000 boys. In the 2001 census, the ratio was 927 to 1,000. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently called the problem a "national shame."

Indian society is starting to experience the repercussions. With fewer available women to marry, some Indian men are resorting to buying their brides from poor communities outside their own, the BBC reports.

Photo: Geoff Oliver Bugbee for Mercy Corps

A recent survey by the Inter-American Development Bank found that over the past two years, the number of Latino immigrants sending money home from the U.S. has dropped by more than 20 percent.

Though the amount of money transferred from the U.S. to Latin America has increased by about 1 percent to $45.9 billion, the Bank estimates that more than three million Latin American workers no longer send remittances to their home countries. Higher prices, fewer low-paying jobs, and a crackdown on illegal immigrants were cited as reasons.

The survey should be cause for concern in Latin America, where remittances have played a significant role in reducing poverty and promoting economic growth. Indeed, Professor Rafael Pampillon of Spain’s Instituto de Empresa business school notes that the total amount of remittances to Latin America is greater than the combined amount of foreign investment and development aid to the region. A May 4 editorial in the New York Times spells out the potential negative impact:

Immigrant workers are not just vital to the American economy, their money transfers are a critical bulwark against poverty for millions of people south of the border. Cutting off that lifeline will lead to more misery in some of the poorest parts of the hemisphere — and it will feed the desperation that sends more migrants to the United States.

rbairdpccam (flickr)

Agriculture is not Cameroon’s strong suit, but leaders of the West African country think the current food crisis could provide the impetus to boost domestic food production.

According to IRIN, Cameroon’s government recently put into action an emergency plan to increase local farming.

“My hope is that the current crisis created by high world food prices would end up having a positive impact for Cameroon by forcing us to become an agriculture-based economy,” said Rabelais Yankam Njomou, an advisor on agriculture to the Cameroon government.

According to the article, Cameroon currently uses only about 20 percent of its fertile land; its economy relies heavily on imported food. Even fertilizer is too expensive for most local farmers, but the country's emergency plan calls for subsidized fertilizer and free seed banks.

Cameroon says it wants to become not only self-sufficient, but a major food exporter. Can it truly turn crisis into opportunity?

Can the mining industry brighten Congo’s economy? Possibly, says NPR’s Gwen Thompkins. The corrupt dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko and years of civil war have all but destroyed the economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While political stability has increased since the DRC held its first free elections in 2006, weak infrastructure and continued regional violence still hinder any kind of substantial economic growth.

In the past, the profits gained from the country’s vast mineral resources have largely gone into the pockets of middlemen and corrupt government officials, with little benefit to the average Congolese. Yet the DRC sits atop what remain the world’s largest reserves of copper, tantalum, and coltan – minerals that are used in everything from cell phones to jet engines. Investors are showing increased interest in gaining access to these minerals: state-owned China Railway Group is set to fund $2.9 billion joint investment project in partnership with Gecamines, the DRC's state mining company. If carried out correctly, the excavation and sale of mineral resources could jumpstart the DRC’s economy and help get it back on its feet.

Could mining boost DRC's economy? Photo: FredR (flickr)

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates again on Wednesday in an attempt to stimulate the domestic economy. While the combined impact of another rate cut and the impending arrival of stimulus checks in taxpayers' bank accounts may bode well for American retailers, the rate cut may also exacerbate the global food crisis.

That same day, Soledad Requena was one of 1,000 women banging pots and pans outside Peru's Congress, protesting soaring food prices. If the government can't increase subsidies on products like rice, bread and meat, she asked, "Where will we go to eat?"

How does cutting short term interest rates effect international food prices? Read more...

Malaria nets. Photo: Tomas de la Maza (flickr)

Is malaria's reign of terror coming to an end?

Every year, 500 million people fall seriously ill with malaria — a disease that induces fever, chills, nausea, flu-like illness and, without treatment, coma and death. More than 1 million people die each year from malaria — almost all in the developing world. The near-universal poverty of its victims is one reason it has not received the attention, and therefore the money, necessary to secure its demise.

Even in the face of these scary statistics, malaria may be about to meet it's match. The Economist reports a renewed sense of interest in its eradication, mainly because it jeopardizes the UN's Millennium Development Goals, a set of benchmarks in health, education and human welfare that world leaders committed to attain by 2015.

There's a cost-benefit rationale, too. Malaria costs Africa upwards of $12 billion a year in health expenses and lost productivity. Yet a five-year eradication plan might cost as little as $2.2 billion a year, according to a report by Malaria No More and McKinsey & Company.

With these numbers in mind, last week the UN unveiled a new campaign to fight malaria at its most critical spots. The Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership — created to "enable sustained delivery and use of the most effective prevention and treatment for those affected most by malaria — staged the first World Malaria Day last week. It coincided with a UN plan to spray inside houses and distribute insecticide-treated bed nets to "all people at risk" of the disease by the end of 2010.

Any effort to stamp out malaria must deal with an added layer of complexity. When diminished but not destroyed, malaria can come back with a vengeance. Any letup in the eradication campaign may end up actually increasing the numbers of those at risk.

But considering how much malaria undermines the war on poverty, a risk taken to ensure its eradication may be a risk worth taking.

Photo: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters

For months we have been following increasingly urgent reports about food scarcity, rising prices and vulnerable populations. Last week, the World Food Program said the crisis is a silent tsunami that is "threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger."

The World Food Program says it has never seen a crisis of this proportion. Analysts expect it will be difficult to reverse in the short term. The Financial Times says humanitarian aid at levels comparable to Indonesia's 2004 tsunami response will be needed to prevent the starvation of millions.

For Mercy Corps the increase in food prices is hurting the very people our program staff around the world are working to support.

Reports from those working most closely with affected communities confirm that the situation is dire — and has the potential to grow much worse.

Penny Anderson, Mercy Corps' food security program officer, told OPB radio: "I've been working with Mercy Corps for over eight years now and I have never seen anything like it."

In Niger, prices of bread, powdered milk and wheat flour have spiked, exacerbating the West African nation's precarious food situation. Currently about two-thirds of the population is at serious risk, with shortages pushing the country closer to famine.

In Syria, spiraling food prices have forced Mercy Corps to cut back on the amount of food we can buy and distribute to hundreds of Iraqi refugee families.

In Tajikistan, where Mercy Corps recently distributed blankets and generators to help residents keep warm during an unusually harsh winter, about 40 percent of households in the Rasht Valley are down to no more than one warm meal a day. Neighboring Kazakhstan has suspended wheat exports — shutting off Tajikistan's primary supply of the grain.

Like several other humanitarian aid agencies, Mercy Corps has established a Global Food Crisis fund to help its field teams respond to needs arising from the worst global food crisis in recent memory.

Photo: voxphoto (flickr)

In a span of just ten days, 7,400 Cubans signed new mobile phone contracts. On April 14, President Raul Castro lifted a ban restricting ordinary citizens from purchasing personal cell phones. The number of contracts is impressive, the BBC reports, considering that a cell phone in Cuba costs six times the average monthly salary.

Under Raul's brother Fidel, only government officials and people working for foreign firms were allowed to own cell phones. In addition to lifting the ban on personal cell phones, Raul Castro has lifted restrictions on DVDs, car rentals and other goods.

What more changes in Raul Castro's Cuba lie ahead?

This short segment from Reuters discusses the impact of rising food prices on standards of living around the world. This is a terrific snapshot overview of the dynamics at play in the current world food crisis.

Alternatives to Plastic: Home Gardens. Photo: key lime_pie (flickr)

I recently came upon a blog by a Chicago woman committed to living as close to a plastic-free life as possible. Her journey to a life without plastic began last September, and over the months her postings about her adventures and increasing knowledge have gathered an audience in the thousands.

The statistics about our reliance on plastics are shocking: According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the amount of plastic in our waste stream has increased from less than 1 percent in 1960 to 11.7 percent in 2006. And, while Americans drank 50 billion bottles of water in 2006, 38 billion of those ended up in the trash, according to Fast Company magazine.

The anonymous blogger, whose blog is titled Life Less Plastic, explains that she's doing this for personal health reasons, as well to do better by the environment. Among her most popular posts is an entry describing "What I'm Doing to Be Mostly Plastic-Free," which includes:

10. Washing my dishes with Dr. Bronner's bar soap. It works! I'm not kidding!
11. Bringing my own stainless steel coffee mug to the coffee shop. This is important because paper cups are lined with plastic.
12. Bringing along a reusable water bottle or mug for water, and NEVER drinking bottled water.
13. Bringing my own takeout containers to restaurants in case I have leftovers. This sounds embarrassing, but no one has ever even noticed that I've brought my own container except for the people I'm with.
14. Not buying aluminum food cans, excluding canned tomatoes and vegetable broth, which I haven't been able to give up yet. Hopefully, I can/jar some tomatoes this summer and do away with this plastic use, though.

In a society where plastic is pervasive and packaging alternatives are few, even Life Less Plastic's author hasn't been able to do without medicine, which comes in plastic bottles; toothpaste; and even some packaged foods she hasn't been able to find in the bulk section of nearby supermarkets.

Plastics have been around for a while, but we are only beginning to understand their potentially negative consequences. Without plastic, we wouldn't have seen the advances in science and medicine we saw in the last century. However, as the Chicago blogger points out, there are a lot of ways to "live a life less plastic."

Photo: greenhem (flickr)

Plastic bags have long been associated with litter and waste. The world uses tens of billions of plastic bags every year – bags that end up hanging from trees, traveling along freeways, escaping garbage cans and waste dumps.

Plastic-bag recycling rates are extremely low – about 1 to 3 percent worldwide, according to Reusablebags.com.

While plastics have helped us in many ways – medical advances, for one – by now we are seeing an increasing amount of wasteful uses. The mass production and ubiquitousness of plastic bags has hit a nerve in many developing countries. Lawmaking bodies in every region of the world have begun to regulate the use of plastics — and some are even banning the use of plastic bags outright.

Here's a partial list:

India. In August 2005, the state of Maharashtra initiated a bag ban after bags "blocked sewage and drainage systems during record monsoon rains," according to The Guardian. "Flooding and landslides killed more than 1,000 people in the state.” Anyone seen with a plastic bag can be fined 1,000 rupees, or about $25.

Kenya. The East African nation has enforced new regulations banning production and distribution of light-density bags, according to Nairobi's Business Daily (as reported by allAfrica.com). Three years ago, Kenyan researchers had appealed for a ban, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai had argued that plastic bags can lead to malaria, because discarded bags left outside can fill with rainwater and breed disease-carrying mosquitoes.

Uganda and Tanzania. Kenya's neighbors also banned the use of all disposable one-use plastic bags nationwide. One Ugandan blogger wrote that “This seemingly radical step has a direct connection to human health and also to environmental well-being of citizens across Africa. Apart from the fossil fuel usage needed in their production, plastic bags have a remarkable ability to pollute across borders.”

China. Authorities announced that by this June, one-use plastic bags will be outlawed in the hope that residents will return to their old habit of using cloth bags and baskets. "Beijing residents appeared to take the ban in stride, reflecting rising environmental consciousness and concern over skyrocketing oil prices," reports National Geographic.

Some developed nations also have taken drastic steps to reduce the impact of plastics. Ireland, for example, imposed a 33-cent tax in 2002. It worked quickly to depress demand. According to the New York Times, the use of plastic bags dropped 94 percent within weeks.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman has declared that a recent shipment of arms from China to Zimbabwe is completely unrelated to the current post-election tension in the country and is part of “perfectly normal trade in military goods between China and Zimbabwe.” But this hasn’t stopped the 300,000 member South African Transport and Allied Workers Union from refusing to unload the shipment.

The South African workers refusal to accept the arms shipment has been publically echoed by the governments of Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and Tanzania with their refusal to accept the arms and ship them overland to Zimbabwe. The U.S. has voiced its support of these countries on the matter and urged the Chinese government to recall the shipment. Although the South African government itself has not endorsed the refusal of the weapons, South African citizen action coupled with the support of neighboring countries has essentially created an informal embargo of the Chinese weapons. These actions contrast sharply with President Thabo Mbeki’s policy of quiet diplomacy, and refusal to deem Zimbabwe's current political and economic woes a "crisis."

I think this story is an incredibly powerful demonstration of the power individuals and governments have when they work together to take a stand on an issue.