Mashed Metatoes

American gasoline is also dirt-cheap compared with gas in other countries. British motorists are currently paying about $8.38 per gallon for gasoline. In Norway, a major oil exporter, drivers are paying $8.73. In 2007, out of the 32 industrialized countries surveyed by the International Energy Agency, only one (Mexico) had cheaper gasoline than the United States. Last year, drivers in Turkey were paying three times as much for their gasoline as Americans were. The IEA data also show that in India—where the per capita gross domestic product is about $2,700 (about 6 percent of the per capita GDP in the United States)—drivers have been paying more for their diesel fuel and gasoline than their American counterparts.

On Sunday, Oxfam warned that the death toll in Burma could reach 1.5 million without massive humanitarian intervention. To arrive at that figure, Oxfam used the U.N.’s 100,000 estimate as a base. Then they used research from previous natural disasters and demographic analysis (children and the elderly are less likely to survive, etc.) to predict that 15 times that many people could die from typhoid, malaria, dengue, cholera, and other diseases.

if there is any one nigh unto universal institution that can be found in the developing world it is that of religion, it is the “church.” In places where there are no roads, no phones, no sanitation, no infrastructure whatsoever there exist networks of profound depth and breadth, already entrenched in peoples lives, that can serve as the vehicle of transmission for development projects which otherwise would take years to accumulate the credibility necessary for adoption - networks of faith. Other than those groups partnering with faith communities to take on the herculean task of hospice care for those suffering from AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa I haven’t been able to find many examples of this or even many instances of a call for this type of partnership at a grassroots level.