International

Via the Kyivmission blog: here's an interesting article from The Washington Post about a case of fact-check neglect. It had been widely reported in may different sources that 600,000, 350,000 and 70,000 were the numbers of new engineers produced in 2004 in China, India, and the US, respectively...evidence that the US is falling behind in the technology race. It turns out that the realistic numbers are more like 352,000, 112,000, and 137,000. That means, per million residents, the rate of engineer production is higher in the US.

From an article of the same title by Khozem Merchant of the Financial Times and printed in the LA Times:

Tahseen Bano's family was reluctant even to let her attend the free information technology classes designed to improve the career opportunities of women in Kanpur, India's leather-goods capital. So it is no surprise that her parents have now blocked progression to a job in the poor northern city. It seems technology may have met its match here: Social conservatism is denying women the chance to put their newly acquired computer literacy to use. Bano's frustration is shared by Datamation, a Delhi-based nonprofit group that runs the Kanpur project with funds from Microsoft Corp. "We try to empower women with skills to improve their chance of getting jobs. But conservatism is not a battle fought overnight. We are encountering the limitations of technology," said coordinator Ujjwala Subhedar... With funding of $100,000 from Microsoft, Datamation turned to Kanpur's best-known asset, the Indian Institute of Technology. What emerged was software for chikan embroidery incorporating a technique allowing users to retrieve designs from a database. The response from potential recruits among young, unemployed adults with little formal education was poor. Datamation's recruiters knocked on hundreds of doors in Kanpur's ancient alleyways but found that parents were loath to let their daughters out in public. Some relented and saw their daughters take to the technology with ease, and the effect on their self-esteem was profound. But what followed was a let-down. Bano's parents, among many others, banned unmarried daughters from taking on full-time design roles, which involved interacting with buyers, designers, shopkeepers and so on.

From an AP story by Jason Straziuso in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer titled "9/11 widows help support Afghan women":

The two American women walk down a fly-infested alley where sewage from mud huts drains onto the dirt walkway. In a tiny back yard, they find two dozen chickens, five children and one Afghan war widow. Patti Quigley and Susan Retik -- whose husbands were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks -- decided to use the financial support they received afterward to help war widows in Afghanistan, where the al-Qaida planners of the terrorist strikes found harbor... Quigley and Retik were both pregnant when hijacked jets carrying their husbands crashed into the World Trade Center, and they met after the attacks. Retik saw an Oprah Winfrey show on Afghan women soon after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, and the two widows decided to help Afghan women... ...in 2004 they created Beyond the 11th, a non-profit foundation to aid widows in areas touched by conflict.. "We wanted people to understand that these widows were widows because of the same terrorists that affected our husbands. The terrorists were in that country, it doesn't mean they were from that country."

Via the MoJo Blog, from a recent article in the LA Times by Louise Roug titled "Targeted Killings Surge in Baghdad":

More Iraqi civilians were killed in Baghdad during the first three months of this year than at any time since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime - at least 3,800, many of them found hogtied and shot execution-style. Others were strangled, electrocuted, stabbed, garroted or hanged. Some died in bombings. Many bore signs of torture such as bruises, drill holes, burn marks, gouged eyes or severed limbs. Every day, about 40 bodies arrive at the central Baghdad morgue, an official said. The numbers demonstrate a shift in the nature of the violence, which increasingly has targeted both sides of the country's SunniShiite sectarian divide... In the Sunni cemeteries serving Baghdad, a city of 5 million people, demand for tombs is so high that people are buried between old graves or at the edges of the burial grounds. Near the gate of one Sunni cemetery tucked inside the Ghazaliya neighborhood, a sign proclaims, "Fee for burial - only 175,000 dinar," or about $120.

So that's how things are going in Iraq...

Even more reason to be depressed about the plight of Africa. From an article titled "Liberia sex-for-aid 'widespread'" on bbcnews.com:

Young girls in Liberia are still being sexually exploited by aid workers and peacekeepers despite pledges to stamp out such abuse, Save the Children says. Girls as young as eight are being forced to have sex in exchange for food by workers for local and international agencies, according to its report. The agency says such abuse is continuing as people displaced by the civil war return to their villages.

Disgusting. From an AP article on MSNBC.com:

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Liberia, Jordan Ryan, said the survey was outdated because it was conducted nine months ago and much has improved since then. The camps that are the primary subject of the report are now closed, he said.