International

According to a study reported in the medical journal The Lancet and summarized in an article on NewScientist.com, approximately 10 million female fetuses may have been selectively aborted following ultrasound results in India during the past twenty years:

Their study of 1.1 million households across India reveals that in 1997, far fewer girls were born to couples if their preceding child or children were also female. "There was about a 30% gap in second females following the birth of any earlier females," Jha told New Scientist. When the firstborn child was a daughter, the sex ratio for second children among the 134,000 births in 1997 was just 759 girls for every 1000 boys. For a third child, just 719 girls were born per 1000 boys, if both the older children were girls. However, if the eldest children were boys, the sex ratios for the second and third child were about 50-50. Based "on conservative assumptions" the gap in births equates to about 0.5 million missing female births a year, says the team. Assuming the practice has been common in the two decades since ultrasound became widely available, this adds up to 10 million missing girls... ...in India's patriarchal society, daughters are regarded as a "liability", as she will belong to the family of her future husband...A surprising finding was that the disparity was about twice as large in educated mothers, those with at least an Indian grade 10 education, than in illiterate women. "Most things in health are worse among the poor,"...the preference for boys is likely to have "profound long-term consequences". In China, the cultural preference for boys and restrictions on family size are already having effects. Some reports suggest there are 40 million bachelors unable to find brides.

From an article entitled "Another School Barrier for African Girls: No Toilet" in The New York Times:

In [sub-Saharan Africa] where poverty, tradition and ignorance deprive an estimated 24 million girls even of an elementary school education, the lack of school toilets and water is one of many obstacles to girls' attendance, and until recently was considered unfit for discussion. In some rural communities in the region, menstruation itself is so taboo that girls are prohibited from cooking or even banished to the countryside during their periods. But that impact is substantial. Researchers throughout sub-Saharan Africa have documented that lack of sanitary pads, a clean, girls-only latrine and water for washing hands drives a significant number of girls from school. The United Nations Children's Fund, for example, estimates that one in 10 school-age African girls either skips school during menstruation or drops out entirely because of lack of sanitation.

And in other menstruation-related news, from an extensive article in Macleans by Lianne George, The end of the period: A new contraceptive will soon let women stop menstruating. Is it the pinnacle of liberation, or a reckless experiment?:

In 2006, a new oral contraceptive called Anya, developed to "put women in control of when or if they want to menstruate," is expected to hit the Canadian and U.S. markets. Manufactured by Collegeville, Penn.-based Wyeth Pharmaceuticals -- and currently pending approval by Health Canada -- Anya is the first low-dose birth control pill designed to be taken 365 days a year, without placebos (the hormone-free sugar pills taken at the end of every 28-day cycle). Early findings report that Anya is just as effective in preventing pregnancy as traditional oral contraceptives (98 per cent). And as an added bonus, since Anya provides a steady stream of hormones, it promises to quash a woman's usual cyclical fluctuations, virtually wiping out all the irksome symptoms of PMS. Brasner and other advocates of stopping menstruation point out that among the greatest fallacies in modern popular medicine is the notion that women on oral contraceptives -- roughly 1.5 million in Canada -- experience a period every month. In fact, what they experience is "a fake period," what doctors call a withdrawal bleed. "Women on birth control bleed not because they're having a menstrual cycle, but because when they take their placebo pills, their bodies are withdrawing from the progesterone cycle in the active tablets," says Dr. Leslie Miller, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington, who runs the pro-suppression website Noperiod.com. In other words, she says, there's nothing natural about it. In fact, the reason women on oral contraceptives bleed at all is because of one man, a devout Catholic named Dr. John Rock, the co-inventor of the pill. Forty-five years ago, Rock determined that if he could design the pill to replicate the menstrual cycle of the average woman of child-bearing age -- 28 days -- he might succeed in convincing the Church to endorse his invention as a natural form of birth control. Despite his efforts, the Vatican denounced oral contraceptives in 1968, but the 28-day cycle persisted because -- fake or not -- women were comforted by the idea of monthly bleeding. (As evidence of how deeply women have internalized this idea, even Anya, which is taken every single day, will be sold in packages of 28 to preserve the notion of a natural cycle.) But Miller argues that since the bleeding serves no apparent purpose -- except a psychological one -- why not get rid of it altogether? But all of this good news, detractors say, is based on the assumption that periods serve no function other than reproduction -- and that you can isolate them from every other system in the body. This, they argue, is preposterous. "Menstruation, this amazingly intricate, carefully crafted cycle, is a vital sign of our health," says Dr. Jerilynn Prior, an endocrinologist and the scientific director of the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research at the University of British Columbia. "To wantonly disrupt it is a horrifying thought. Regulatory bodies are saying, 'We approved the original pill, so this must be okay. It's just taking the pill more frequently.' But even the original pill probably contains negatives we still don't really know about." The continuous-use pill, she says, is just a way for pharmaceutical companies to revive flagging products -- to find fresh ways to market them by giving them a "new face and a new name."

As you may know, I went on a mission trip with my friend Mark W. to Jamaica in January of 2004 to help build an addition onto a church building in Grange Hill. In anticipation of making a return trip someday, I've been paying more attention to Jamaica in the news since then. I've posted several times before with bad news about the prevalence of violence in Jamaica in recent years. A recent article from the AP in The Washington Times comments about the source of violence in Jamaica:

The violence has its roots in the 1970s, when political factions armed gangs to intimidate opponents before the 1980 general elections. About 800 people were killed in election-related violence that year. Twenty-six years later, the politicians have lost control of the gangs. The slums have become patchwork battlefields, the ever-changing front lines between rival gangs marked by barricades of old refrigerators, junked cars and burning tires. Although the gangs do use strong-arm tactics, and even kill those who refuse to pay extortion, gang leaders, known as "dons," at times act as ad hoc civic leaders. Mr. Bennett, whose nickname was Bulbie, extorted money from businesses and ordered scores of rivals killed. But when he strode down Spanish Town's pitted streets, merchants would walk out to talk with him and seek favors or loans. Mr. Bennett was feared, but he also might pay the school fees for a promising neighborhood child, help provide hookups to electricity or work with politicians to get roads paved. Many poor Jamaicans, with few opportunities for advancement, have joined gangs to obtain material goods and respect.

Here's an interesting article by Ian Mather on Scotsman.com about the insurgent groups in Iraq.

"There is no centre of gravity, no leadership, no hierarchy; they are more a constellation than an organisation," says Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corporation of the new-look insurgency. "They have adopted a structure that assures their longevity." As a result, even killing or capturing al-Zarqawi would not end the rebellion.

A few weeks ago I mentioned several things that bother me about Iraq and asked if it has been "worth it." Bush thinks it has been. From an article by Peter Baker in The Washington Post (reprinted in The Seattle Times):

Knowing what I know today, I'd make the decision again," Bush told a questioner after a speech here. "Removing Saddam Hussein makes this world a better place and America a safer country.

I agree that the world is a better place without Saddam in power. But its not hard to think of better ways to make the world better with $220 billion. Bush also admitted for the first time that 30,000 Iraqis have died.