30th July 2010

The Sunday Times for 25th July reported that astronomers are excited by the latest results from a deep space satellite camera which indicates that the Milky Way may contain 100 million habitable planets. We may well face rendering this one uninhabitable by the time astronomers confirm anything in deep space! This week we wonder if North Korea will go nuclear as a response to the “exercises” in the area by the combined forces of the United States and South Korea. Probably not! But at some point before too many years pass someone is going to. It’s long past time we should turn to our Heavenly Father in deep repentance and begin to truly love Him and the rest of humanity with whom we share this planet.

WEST AFRICA AND STARVATION

The Daily Mail – 20th July – Trading in death. The women crouch in the dust, hacking into the hard African dirt. They are looking for food. This is Chad, West Africa. Sedoisa, a 71 year old grandmother, sifts through the soil, searching an anthill for grains. …. The villagers, among heavily pregnant women and small children are looking for the nest containing the queen ant. This is the prize, where the worker ants have stored their hoard. If they find it, the villagers will raid the ants’ small stock of grain, collected from the barren, windswept plain. On good days they might find 2.5 kg of precious food. It is hard work, and each day the number of women searching increases. The country stands on the brink of famine. The rains have failed, and crucially, imported food is too expensive for Chad’s people to buy. In neighbouring Niger, the situation is even worse. One woman describes the crisis. She says: ‘Soon the day will come when there will no longer be enough anthills for everyone.’ The people of West Africa are starving. Almost 10 million people in the region are facing a food crisis.

The article goes on to show how much of the problem is as a result of the big investment houses moving into food. As a result, “at the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise sharply. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. Around the world, 200 million people, …. who relied on cheaply imported foodstuffs sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries. The crisis continues today. The investment banks trade commodities with each other – at each point the price goes up and between 2005 and 2008 the price of basic foodstuffs rose by 80 per cent. Poor countries import large quantities of rice, wheat and maize. Now, they could not afford them. …. Even as hundreds of millions starved worldwide, huge stocks of grain were sold for animal feed. Livestock owners could afford the wheat, but poor people could not. Shockingly, people were starving not because there was not enough food but because the banks’ profiteering had made food unaffordable. … Back in West Africa, the poor reap the fall-out from this crisis. Oxfam warns that the region stands on the very brink of a devastating famine. …. Every year over six million children die of starvation and related causes.’

The article concludes with the words “Do they (the banks such as Goldman Sachs) care if Africa starves? It appears not.

Our comment: In the gospel of Matthew in the New Testament chapter 19 verse 19 Jesus Christ is quoted as saying “…. You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” He was asked the question “who is my neighbour?” He responded by giving an example of how a man helped someone else after they had been attacked by thieves and who left him half dead. Christ showed then that our neighbour is a person who helps out someone else who has a need. West Africa has a desperate need – western banks are making fortunes out of someone else’s desperate need. These investment banks are condemned by these words of Jesus Christ.

DUMBED DOWN EDUCATION

The Daily Mail – 23rd July -- Score 47% for an A! “ Teenagers taking GCSE (the examination all students take before they leave school) science despite scoring less than 50 per cent, the exams watchdog revealed yesterday. …. Questions not difficult enough despite a warning to exam boards to toughen up their papers. (There was…) over-reliance on multiple choice and questions that pointed candidates towards the answer instead of testing scientific knowledge. “ The reports included some typical questions – here are a couple of examples. “Match statements A,B,C,and D with organs 1 – 4 “D has receptors that enable the man to read the recipe for the pasta sauce. Is (the receptor) 1. The Eye 2. The Nose, 3. The skin or 4. The tongue. ---- Another question was this: “Where in the body are there cells sensitive to: (i) Light and (ii) Sound

These are just two questions out of a number of similar questions which formed part of the school leaving examination in science!

The Independent – 2nd July – Schools Minister: children are deprived of knowledge. A generation of schoolchildren has grown up without knowing who Miss Havisham was and thinking Nelson won the Battle of Waterloo, Schools Minister Nick Gibb said yesterday. …. (he) made it clear he believed schools no longer put enough emphasis on imparting knowledge to pupils. …. A survey of first-year history undergraduates (going to university) revealed that twice as many students thought Nelson was in charge at the Battle of Waterloo rather than Wellington. Ninety per cent could not name a single British Prime Minister of the 19th century.

Our comment: Examinations are being deliberately “dumbed down” in order to massage the end of school examinations and show how successful the government of the day is in producing well educated children who can now go on to higher education and find jobs in government, industry, science etc. In fact what is happening is a tragedy for the future of the United Kingdom and anywhere else in the world this is happening. It is no wonder that so many are totally incompetent in even critical jobs. Jobs which might involve life and death situations.

ENVIRONMENT

The Independent – 23rd July – Evil weed in Baltic Sea puts marine life at risk. Record summer temperatures, farm fertilisers and a lack of wind have led to a gigantic carpet of evil-smelling week covering large areas of the Baltic and threatening both marine life and seaside tourism, scientists warn. The 377,000 sq.kn. of blue-green algae, covering an area the size of Germany, has been identified by satellite cameras. It extends from Finland along the south coast of Sweden and surrounds the Danish island of Bornholm. Scientists from the German section of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Hamburg have warned of the damaging effects of the weed. ‘These huge algae carpets hit the marine environment most,’ said Jochen Lamp, a WWF project spokesman. “They kill plants and encourage the spread of dead zones on the sea bed which have no oxygen left in them.” …. Scientists say one of the main causes of blue-green algae is over-fertilisation of farmland, leading to large quantities of phosphorous and nitrogen being washed off the land and into the Baltic from rivers. They say that under the right climatic conditions a weed explosion is inevitable. “Over fertilisation is the biggest environmental problem facing the Baltic; it is the driving force behind the spread of dead zones on the sea,” Mr Lamp said.

Our comment: If the soil was being properly and responsibly managed we wouldn’t have these problems. Problems which then have unintended consequences. Consequences which could see the further reduction of fish stocks – already becoming a major problem.

AFGHANISTAN – A tailpiece!

The Independent 23rd July – British Major-General Philip Jones, who led efforts to instigate the new programmes, says Taliban fighters will not get any material benefit from reintegrating into Afghan society, but will profit from increased peace and prosperity. Fighters loyal to the insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, recently defected to the Afghan government.

The Week – 24th July – Reconciliation with the Taliban was not discussed in public …. But is now high on everyone’s agenda, said Richard Barrett in The Guardian. The obstacles are many. Even the preconditions to talks are hard to reconcile: Nato demands that the Taliban stop fighting and respect the Afghan constitution, while the Taliban wants foreign forces to withdraw. There are also objections within Afghanistan: the Taliban is a Pashtun movement, and the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara would fiercely object to giving them a large slice of the pie; there is “a real danger of civil war”.

The Times -- We are losing Afghanistan, said Matthew Parris in The Times. There has been no decisive moment, but the buried truths are mounting up. No one will talk about defeat. “Negotiation with the enemy will begin to be presented, not as surrender, but as a refinement of the war aims.” It always is. “The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage,” declared Emperor `Hirohito in August 1945, as he accepted Allied terms.

FROM “THE WEEK” MAGAZINE “Wit and Wisdom” column

“Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.” (Albert Einstein)

“If I rest, I rust.” (Placido Domingo)

“He fell in love with himself at an early age and has remained faithful ever since.” (Geoffrey Boycott)