by Charlie Edwards | May 18, 2008 | Influence and networks, Off topic
Swarms of ants are eating their way through electronics in America’s deep south. They have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one homeowner’s gas meter, and caused fire alarms to malfunction in Houston, Texas and the surrounding area. They have been spotted at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre and close to Hobby Airport. The “Crazy Raspberry Ants” are believed to have arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship, and are causing widespread mayhem. They have been nicknamed crazy ants after they were found to randomly swarm across areas rather than move in regimental lines like other species of ant. They also appear to be resistant to over-the-counter ant killers and when killed the colony turns it to their advantage, piling up the dead and using them as a bridge to cross safely over surfaces treated with pesticide.
by Alex Evans | May 18, 2008 | Global system, Influence and networks
Oooh… aaah… bow your heads in reverence before the Foreign Office’s brand new website. Especially nice: this Google maps mashup showing FCO activities around the world (with map pins colour-coded according to the relevant FCO Strategic Priority, if you please).
All the same, lovely as the new site looks, it could still do with being a lot more interactive. Sure, we can leave comments on the blogs (although I can’t help but laugh at the description box on the blogging home page, which says
This blog space provides a place for Ministers and officials to engage in a dialogue with you about international affairs and the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Reword it in your head as “this blog space provides a place for you to engage in a dialogue with Ministers and officials”, and it somehow sounds entirely different, in a good way…)
But rather than limiting public comments to the blogs (which in any case don’t remotely cover the whole FCO waterfront: they’re fine if you want to talk Kosovo or Lebanon, but there’s nowhere obvious for climate change or UN reform), why not go the whole hog and allow us to comment on every page – and have officials engage in the discussion?
That would be public diplomacy.
by Alex Evans | May 17, 2008 | Cooperation and coherence, Influence and networks
Want to hang out with spooks in DC for a couple of days in September? Well, now’s your chance: the office of the Director of National Intelligence is holidng its second annual open source conference from September 11-12. It’s free to attend if you register here. The purpose:
The two-day conference will explore a wide range of open source issues and open source best practices for the Intelligence Community and its partners. We invite participants from the broader open source community of interest including academia, think tanks, private industry, federal, state, local and tribal entities, international partners, and the media to attend.
Although this year’s agenda hasn’t been published yet (we’re promised that it will be available shortly), you can get a taste of its likely shape from the details of last year’s shindig, available here. Among last year’s subjects for session panels: “Social Sciences and the Human Terrain”; “Managing the Information Tsunami”; “Libraries of the Future”; and “Outreach to State, Local, and Tribal Partners”.
by Charlie Edwards | May 16, 2008 | Global system, Influence and networks, UK
I’ve got a short piece about organised crime on the Guardian’s blog Comment is Free. From the intro:
The annual report from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, published yesterday, is a mix of self-congratulation and spectacular underachievement. While the rhetoric from politicians has been to get tough on organised crime, the reality is more humbling: we still don’t have a clear idea of the scale and nature of the problem. Read the rest here
Pretty much everyone is unhappy with the agency. Sean O’Neill, The Times’ Crime Editor has been trailing the publication of the annual report for the past week. According to his sources police officers have been leaving in ‘droves’, while the agency’s hit list has been shelved. The allegations were swiftly dismissed in a letter to The Times by Bill Hughes, SOCA’s Director General. He is now having to manage some internal strife at the Agency and has rounded on some officers who have chosen to take their problems to the media and not the management (which is odd given the top heavy nature of the organisation).
Elsewhere Alison Saunders, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Organised Crime Division is arguing that expectations of Soca had been too high at its inception. She has a point. Meanwhile the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are standing back and basking in the Government’s and the Agency’s incompetence and ineptitude.
by Mark Weston | May 16, 2008 | Off topic
A post I wrote last week described a “push” approach to AIDS prevention – circumcise men, tell people to use condoms, encourage them not to sleep around too much etc. The World Bank is trying a different tack, using a “pull” method instead: pay people not to get infected and let them work out for themselves how to stay safe. The Bank will pay 3,000 Tanzanians $45 – good money in Tanzania – if they regularly test negative for sexually transmitted infections (though not HIV, which is more expensive to test for but for which diseases like gonorrhoea are a good proxy). “Reverse prostitution,” they call it, rather alarmingly.
Conditional cash transfers are the new new thing in the development world. The success of Mexico’s Oportunidades scheme, which gives cash to poor families if they participate in health programmes, has sparked a wave of imitations in both developing and developed countries – even New York has got in on the act. A randomised controlled study of Oportunidades found that it reduced illness among children in the programme by 23% compared to a control group. The children’s height increased by 1-4%, and the health of adults also improved. Similar programmes to reduce drug dependency in the US by giving cash to cocaine and methamphetamine abusers in return for clean urine samples have cut stimulant use.
The World Bank scheme relies on a crucial insight, which LSE AIDS guru Tony Barnett and I discuss in a paper to be published in ‘AIDS‘ this summer. In order to take decisions now that will benefit them in the future, people need to value that future. In other words, they need hope:
People with hope for the future are less likely to engage in activities that put them at risk of illness or death in the present…Without future goals, there is little reason to avoid actions that may cause harm in the future but do not do so in the present. People may therefore forfeit future gains in favour of present benefits.
Studies of hope have found strong effects on quality of life. Hopeful children do better in skills tests; adults who have goals have better mental health; and those without hope of career advancement have higher rates of mortality. And it’s not just about money; drug users in the US programmes reported that having something to aim for and receiving rewards for achievement spurred them to quit.
In much of Africa, where HIV is rife, people lack hope and therefore take risks. They exchange safety for pleasure by having unprotected sex with multiple sexual partners. They know they might one day die as a result of this, but the concerns of the present are too pressing, the future too remote. Cash can make a difference – a study in South Africa found that poor women women who received small loans in return for participating in HIV and gender programmes reported increased hope and reduced violence at the hands of their partners.
You might think that not dying of AIDS would be reward enough for practising safe sex. In an environment where people have little to hope for, however, and thus no reason to make plans, you’d be wrong.
