Journalist and global health expert Laurie Garrett is not known to mince words, and she doesn’t here in a quick gutting of Dan Brown’s latest conspiracy thriller. While her first stab is to attack Brown for his sinister characterization of the Council on Foreign Relations, her employer, the best criticisms are leveled at the absurdity of some global health cabal run by the World Health Organization.
“Among the most absurd plot devices in Inferno are: The WHO owns a private C-130 jet that wings its way around the world; the EU’s version of the Centers for Disease Control has a huge secret SWAT team of fully armed, military disease-fighters; global health leaders are so powerful that they can dial a number and instantly tell Prime Ministers what to do…. In truth, the agency’s rapid epidemic reaction division is bankrupt. No kidding: bankrupt.”
Brown’s rejoinder would be that it is just fiction. But the problem with that is the thriller writer claims to do research and base his novels on facts. I haven’t read his book yet, and may because his tales are often fun, but if Garrett’s perspective is correct it looks like most of the facts that led to Inferno got tossed on the fire.
DAN BROWN’S INFERNO , PLAGUES AND CFR It’s a bit unnerving when the biggest selling fiction writer in the world, specializing in conspiratorial mysteries depicts an evil scenario that is dangerously close to yourself and your work.
Read more at: lauriegarrett.com
As my buddy and co-founder of Seattle Globalist Sarah Stuteville says: “How surprisingly uncorporate-y of them!”
Starbucks has long been a target of anti-corporate protests. But one store on Istanbul’s Taksim Square has quietly given aid to Turkish protestors. The anti-government protesters who have taken over Istanbul’s Gezi Park and the adjacent Taksim Square have found a surprising corporate sponsor, Seattle-based coffee giant Starbucks.
Read more at: www.seattleglobalist.com
The latest OECD figures show that Myanmar received $376 million in ODA in 2011, a figure expected to surge while the country drums up increasing attention from the international community as it emerges from decades of military rule and underdevelopment
Donors are pouring into Myanmar after decades of military rule, but aid overflow is a risk unless programs are properly coordinated with a government that is struggling to cope with all the offers of assistance. “The greatest impediment for involvement is that there is a lack of government capacity.
Read more at: www.devex.com
- ONE
The G8 meeting, that gathering of leaders of the world’s richest nations in which they make (and later often break) promises to help the rest of the world, is soon to launch in London. The ONE Campaign is among the advocacy groups already pressuring the rich nations to do the right thing(s) on a number of fronts – fighting poverty, improving equity and so on.
One of those efforts is Agit8, a week-long musical event aimed at pressuring world leaders to end extreme poverty. And one of the products of this effort is a cool list of Songs That Changed the World.
Sound corny? Take a look at the list and consider the power of music and people coming together to rally for change:
- Biko, by Peter Gabriel
- Masters of War, performed by Bob Dylan
- And on ….
The celebrated, and occasionally imprisoned for speaking his mind, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is stunned that the US government is starting to act like the Chinese government:
I lived in the United States for 12 years. This abuse of state power goes totally against my understanding of what it means to be a civilised society, and it will be shocking for me if American citizens allow this to continue.
Even though we know governments do all kinds of things I was shocked by the information about the US surveillance operation, Prism. To me, it’s abusively using government powers to interfere in individuals’ privacy. This is an important moment for international society to reconsider and protect individual rights.
Read more at: www.guardian.co.uk
The UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, argues that tax justice is critical to tackling hunger.
On one hand, ending hunger involves getting agriculture and nutrition policies right. But it is also about social justice, good governance, and the broader set of conditions within which targeted food strategies can work durably and for the poorest. On the first count, things are looking positive.
Read more at: www.guardian.co.uk
The Council on Foreign Relations, its global health program, has produced an excellent map of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks worldwide. Go to the link to dig in to the data, below is just a screen grab:
CFR
By 2030, traffic accidents are projected to become the fifth-leading cause of death, and already 20 million people are left disabled by accidents every year, say researchers from the University of Toronto.
Given the personal suffering caused by traffic accidents — 1.2 million deaths a year worldwide — there’s far too little attention paid by health researchers, scientists argued Tuesday. In 2030, such accidents are projected to become the fifth-leading cause of death, and already 20 million people are left disabled by accidents every year, the researchers from the University of Toronto wrote in an essay in the online journal PLOS Medicine.
Read more at: www.latimes.com
