Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo: twocentsworth (flickr)

China has entered the business of producing and selling burqas-- and Afghani women are responding to the "modern" designs. With the resurgence of the Taliban and violence, many women are choosing (or being forced to) cover up. The result is that China's new industry is driving out the traditional Afghani burqa industry.

Check out the Wall Street Journal article and video about China's growing presence in the burqa industry from this week's Post Global.

Photo: J. Mark Bertrand (flickr)

"(Product)RED," a campaign started by U2 front man Bono, combines consumerism and altruism. In the year since its start, American consumers have generated over $22 million to fight HIV/AIDS through the purchase of "(Product)RED" branded ipods, t-shirts and other products. While the campaign has had a positive effect by providing much needed funds to health clinics in Rwanda, Ghana and Swaziland, critics of RED remain skeptical.

According to Rwandan officials, Red contributions have built 33 testing and treatment centers, supplied medicine for more than 6,000 women to keep them from transmitting H.I.V. to their babies, and financed counseling and testing for thousands more patients.

Ben Davis of San Francisco, who created a Red parody online that says “Buy(Less),” is encouraging consumers to give more directly to nonprofits that support AIDS programs in Africa. “I just think that increased consumption in America can’t be the only way to solve Africa’s problem,” Mr. Davis said.

As tensions continue to run high, Mercy Corps warns that further chaos and violence in Kenya, long a bastion of regional stability, could push neighboring East African countries toward new humanitarian crises.

Our colleague Matt Lovick states, "historically, Kenya has been the hub that allowed goods and assistance to reach these land-locked, war-torn places," said Matt Lovick, Mercy Corps’ Nairobi-based East Africa regional program director. "Its importance in fostering and maintaining stability in this region cannot be underestimated."

If hostilities escalate in Kenya, neighboring economies could suffer immediately from a shortage of critical resources. Markets, planting seasons and access to food could all be severely disrupted, increasing the risks for communities already on the brink of disaster.

Check out the latest update from IRIN News Agency.

Bernd Debusmann published an article today examining the extreme lack of foreign language and international training among Americans.

Debusmann points out that this isn't a new trend, and despite the surge of American citizens enrolling in Arabic language classes post 9/11, about half the number of American college students enroll in foreign language classes today as compared to 1965.

The book was entitled "The Tongue-Tied American: Confronting the Foreign Language Crisis" and its author found that a deficit of language skills threatened U.S. business and national security. That was in 1980. The words "globalization" and "jihad" had not yet become household terms.

Fast forward to the present and the latest report on foreign languages and international education by the research council of the National Academies: "A pervasive lack of knowledge about foreign cultures and foreign languages threatens the security of the United States as well as its ability to compete in the foreign market place."

So has nothing changed since the late Paul Simon, then a congressman, later a senator, warned about the consequences of a tongue-tied America? Judging from a wealth of statistics, there has been much effort but little progress.

Can migrant workers help to improve an economy? An article in the Economist says they can. According to the National Research Council with a high school education a migrant worker can contribute as much as 105,000 dollars in taxes, along with the contribution of their children once they are employed.

Migrants need health, skills, determination, a willingness to take risks and some entrepreneurial nous to take the plunge, which marks them out as special people. Moreover, migrants increasingly alleviate specific labour shortages in rich economies. Some economies could not function without foreign workers.

Cape Verde, Africa is feeling the affects of migration, says The New York Times. With roughly half of its population gone, family relations have become strained, families separated, and skilled workers lost. Its hard to complain, especially when migrant's remittances make up 12 percent of the nation's GDP.

Even as Cape Verdeans struggle to get out, others are migrating in. This, too, is characteristic of the age of migration — most “sending” countries are also “receiving” countries, underscoring how universal the phenomenon is. Nearly half the migrants from poor nations move to other poor nations.“Migration is probably more important to more people than it has ever been,” said Dr. Carling of the International Peace Research Institute, a nonprofit group in Oslo. “But what characterizes the world today is also the feeling of involuntary immobility.”