Feckin' Debt Relief for Africa!!!

[4Contractors]

The brightest people in IT are the ones trying to find a way out

I'm way out but unfortunately still working in IT

[DimPrawn]

www.cgdev.org/rankingtherich/aid.html

All rich countries give development assistance to poorer countries. But the design of development assistance programs means that some dollars or euros are more effective than others are. So, the index development assistance component rewards countries not only for the quantity of their development assistance, but also for the quality. It subtracts development assistance that comes right back to donors as debt payments. It penalizes donors for "tying" development assistance-requiring that it be spent only on goods and services from the donor country-or funding many small projects that can overload the staff of poor-country governments. It rewards selectivity-giving development assistance to countries that are particularly poor and particularly well governed. New in 2004, the index rewards tax incentives for charitable donations.

Sweden ranks first with Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway following closely behind. Not only are these countries among the world's most generous for their size, but each also ties a very small proportion of their development assistance. Japan and the United States sit near the bottom. The Japanese development assistance score suffers because Japan takes in heavy interest payments on old loans. The United States gives little development assistance for its size, ties much of it to the purchase of U.S. goods and services, and allocates it to countries generally richer or more corrupt than recipients of development assistance from other donors. Small donors such as New Zealand, Greece and Ireland are pulled low for spreading their development assistance thinly across many small projects.




I think we're doing a lot more than many other countries. Tell Bob to piss off to Japan, Spain or one of the others at the bottom of the barrel.

[Lucifer Box]

Quite a bit of Yank bashing in the text, not borne out by the data in the table, which ranks the US higher than most and massively improved on last year.

[SupremeSpod]

Natural Selection anyone?

[Bundaberg Bum]

Ouch - what a solution to overpopulation

Jonathan Clayton, Times (London), June 8

Furious South African women have called for a controversial new anti-rape device, dubbed a “rat trap”, to be banned by the Government.

The tampon-like device, invented by a woman, supposedly protects women from rapists by cutting into a man’s penis.

It has sparked an empassioned debate over the high number of rapes committed each day in the country and the authorities’ apparent failure to tackle the issue.

Activists are outraged and want to stop it going on sale alongside tampons in chemists and supermarkets next month.

Charlene Smith, a leading anti-rape campaigner, said: “This is a medieval instrument, based on male-hating notions and fundamentally misunderstands the nature of rape and violence against women in this society. It is vengeful, horrible, and disgusting. The woman who invented this needs help.”

The device, which Sonette Ehlers, its inventor, has patented, is worn like a tampon but is hollow. In the event of a rape, she said that it would fold around the rapist’s penis and attach itself with microscopic hooks. It is impossible to remove the clamped device without medical intervention.

“We have to do something to protect ourselves. While this will not prevent rape, it will help identify attackers and secure convictions,” Ms Ehlers told the Johannesburg Star.

Women’s groups disputed her claims, which have reopened a debate over violence against women in South Africa. The country has been called the rape capital of the world. Lisa Vetten, of the Centre of Violence and Reconciliation, said: “This is like going back to the days when women were forced to wear chastity belts. It is a terrifying thought that women are being made to adapt to rape.”

The South African Law Commission recently estimated that 1.69 million women a year were raped in the country but that only 52,000 cases a year are reported. Other estimates put the rate even higher.

Ms Smith said: “More than 40 per cent of those raped are children and nationally more than 65 per cent are gang rapes. Whether this translates as a woman raped every 26 seconds or more is irrelevant. It is far too many and not enough is being done to tackle it. This is not a male-only problem, it is a societal problem.”

The activist’s views were echoed by Jenny Crwys—William, the host of a popular radio talk show, who described the device as a “profoundly disturbing” development that underlined how society was in danger of accepting rape as a reality of everyday life. “We need more police and more sensitive police responses to rape. When more rapists go behind bars, rape rates will go down,” she told listeners.

Many callers criticised the Government for a “head in the sand” approach similar to its well-known reluctance to accept the gravity of the HIV/Aids epidemic in the country.

“This will increase the danger to women, who are already in great danger during a rape. The Government must not allow this to go on sale,” one rape victim, who was stabbed twice during an attack, said.

(Posted on June 13, 2005)

[xoggoth]

Re: Ouch - what a solution to overpopulation

To any CUK ladies interested in this device but unable to find one in Boots, I should point out that a cheesegrater is very serviceable for the purpose. Very handy too for those impromptu fondu parties, instant melted cheese.

[Bundaberg Bum]

Re: Ouch - what a solution to overpopulation

I am not sure if any field testing has been done on the device, but I suspect that the rapist would be quite angry at having his manhood shredded into slivers of gristle and could react quite violently to the young lady wearing the device. Whatever tenderness there may have been in the tryst would be dispensed with.