Sunday, October 27, 2013


News clips


Curing Mississippi's blues with Iranian care?

TEHRAN – An American doctor from Mississippi searched far and wide for solutions to his state’s endemic health problems.
Now, after years of practicing what he calls “health diplomacy,” Dr. James Miller, director of Oxford International Development Group in Mississippi, thinks he may have found some solutions in what may seem like an unlikely place: Iran.
“When you look at health disparities and conditions of the Delta region of Mississippi, and the systemic failures of providing low-cost access to an impoverished region, this has led to health… conditions basically on the same level of developing countries,” Miller said recently in Tehran. “Infant mortality rates in the Delta region in some instances are the same as places like Syria or the Gaza Strip – in the heart of the United States – I was shocked.”

Miller began looking around the globe for successful systems of health care delivery that might be adaptable to Mississippi.
Iran’s system stuck out – particularly since it faces similar challenges like a lack of money and medical personnel, as well as vast rural distances and limited public transportation.
'Easy access' to health care
Mississippi ranks almost dead last in many national health surveys; for instance it tied Louisiana for 49th out of 50th place in America’s Health Rankings 2012 report by United Health Foundation.  
With challenges like high levels of infant mortality, low birth weight infants, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, and obesity – the Mississippi Delta area in particular is on par with many developing countries. 
Iran has developed an integrated health system. The foundation of the system is a network of community health houses staffed by locals who create a cultural competency and affinity with the people they are serving.  
“I looked at the numbers of what they were achieving and infant mortality dropped by 70 percent, health disparities between urban and rural populations disappeared and they provide care to the farthest villages in rural Iran. To me this was a remarkable achievement,” said Miller.
In Iran’s health care system, remote village health houses are the first line of defense, staffed by villagers known as behvarzes.
The behvarzes are trained to provide basic health services for villages of up to 1,500 people who live within an hour's walking distance. Male behvarzes take care of sanitation, water testing and environmental projects. The women concentrate on child and maternal health, family planning, vaccinations and tracking each family’s births, deaths and medical histories. There are currently about 17,000 health houses across the country serving 23 million rural Iranians. 

Miller explained why he thinks the Iranian system is so successful: “It provides easy access to primary health care services.”
He described how even in a dense urban area of Tehran, the health centers fit right into its surroundings.
“Located in the middle of a densely crowded block of apartments and shops – with cars parked so tightly packed it would be a miracle to maneuver one out again – the health post is well integrated into the community it serves. Just as the health houses are in the smaller rural towns and villages.”
'Could be a miracle'
Miller has been working on the project for years, but it has been a slow process because the political climate in the U.S and Iran has not been conducive to cooperation. But, now with the election of President Hassan Rouhani, and President Barack Obama’s diplomatic efforts, Miller said things have started to move quickly.
“Since the election of Rouhani everything has gone into super-overdrive in [terms of] getting things organized,” said Miller. He added that he has sensed a palpable difference during his time in Iran this month.  
“Although my experiences in Iran have always been positive and I've found the people warm, open, friendly, and generous, this trip has revealed something more – a strong feeling of hope that relations between the U.S. and their country will improve and the animosity coming from both sides will end very soon.”

Miller said there is a great deal of mutual respect between his Iranian and American colleagues.
“Health diplomacy has been going on for many years, it’s a foundation to build on. Colleagues of mine were frightened to come to Iran, but once here, people were so warm and generous it’s like all those misconceptions just flowed away,” said Miller. “The people of Iran and America are natural friends and we can collaborate and generate a lot of good things together.”
While in Iran he is going to sign a “memorandum of understanding” that will detail the next phase of implementation when Iranian physicians, health care experts and researchers will come to the Mississippi Delta to help implement the program.
Asked when he expects the Iranian team to visit the United States, he said hopefully very soon and said to check back in three weeks.
While politics have long stymied cooperation, Miller believes now is the time for a breakthrough.
“I think now, we have a chance to put [the Iranian model] into play and that could be a miracle.”


This news is encouraging in two ways. First, I am glad to see that there are ways to solve some of the vast differences in wealth among classes in this country. Mississippi is a case in point. People shouldn't have to go without health care here, and if they do, it should come out to the light of day and be improved rather than being ignored or hidden. This article was enlightening about the problems of poor areas of the US. The second thing that I find encouraging is that this new leader in Iran is apparently advanced in his thinking and in favor of a warmer kind of peace in the Middle East. His demeanor was impressive when he was interviewed on the news about a month ago. He is benign and open about issues and possible cooperation between Iran and the US. It seems in some parts of the world, especially the Middle East, we keep losing ground, but this looks like we may be making progress. In this article the doctor stated that the people of Iran have been very open to him. It's good news.
'



Group Auctions Off Chance to Hunt Endangered Rhino to Benefit Rhino Charity
Dallas Safari Club says auction "is about saving a species, not one animal"

Save a critically endangered species by hunting it?
The Dallas Safari Club is preparing to auction off an opportunity to hunt an endangered black rhino in Namibia -- to benefit the Save the Rhino Trust.
"This fundraiser is the first of its kind for an endangered species," Ben Carter, DSC executive director, said earlier this month in a statement announcing the auction.
The auction, to be held in early January, is expected to fetch between $250,000 to $1 million, Carter told NBC 5 by phone Friday.
The black rhino is "critically endangered," according to the International Rhino Foundation. An estimated 5,000 live in the wild.
When asked about offering a chance to hunt a member of an endangered species, Carter said, "This is about saving a species, not one animal."
The permit that will be auctioned is the first of its kind ever to be issued on behalf of the government of the Republic of Namibia outside of the country, Carter said.
In its press release, the DSC said that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has promised full cooperation with a qualified buyer.
But the hunt has drawn widespread criticism on social media and was the focus of a segment on "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central on Thursday night.
"It seems counterintuitive to sell the ability to shoot an animal as a means to save a species," said Rita Beving Griggs, a Dallas-based representative of the Sierra Club.
Carter said he was concerned about how the auction is being perceived. The rhino that will be hunted will be an older, non-breeding male, he said.
The DSC has a stated mission of conservation, education and protecting hunters' rights.
The auction will occur during the group's annual convention, which will be held Jan. 9-12 at the Kay Bailey-Hutchison Dallas Convention Center.


The Sierra Club says mildly here that “it seems counterintuitive.” That's the understatement of the week. Why is the US Fish and Wildlife Service involved in it, and why do they approve when the species is endangered? It would be no thrill to me to kill such an animal. It's not a deer, which are overrunning parts of the US every year and which can be eaten as a good source of very lean meat, but an animal which should be highly prized and protected. This article doesn't say how the Save The Rhino Trust views this hunt. I would like to see more about the situation.





Arctic temperatures at 44,000-year high

Plenty of studies have shown that the Arctic is warming and that the ice caps are melting, but how does it compare to the past, and how serious is it?
New research shows that average summer temperatures in the Canadian Arctic over the last century are the highest in the last 44,000 years, and perhaps the highest in 120,000 years.
"The key piece here is just how unprecedented the warming of Arctic Canada is," Gifford Miller, a researcher at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said in a joint statement from the school and the publisher of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, in which the study by Miller and his colleagues was published online this week. "This study really says the warming we are seeing is outside any kind of known natural variability, and it has to be due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."
The study is the first to show that current Arctic warmth exceeds peak heat there in the early Holocene, the name for the current geological period, which began about 11,700 years ago. During this "peak" Arctic warmth, solar radiation was about 9 percent greater than today, according to the study.
Miller and his colleagues gauged Arctic temperatures by looking at gas bubbles trapped in ice cores (cylinders drilled from the ice that show layers of snow laid down over time) taken from the region, which allows scientists to reconstruct past temperature and levels of precipitation. They paired this with radiocarbon dating of clumps of moss taken from a melting ice cap on Canada's Baffin Island. Their analysis shows that these plants have been trapped in the ice for at least 44,000 years, and perhaps as long as 120,000 years. Taken together, that data suggest temperatures in the region haven't been this high since perhaps as long as 120,000 years ago, according to the study.
The Arctic has been heating up for about a century, but the most significant warming didn't start until the 1970s, Miller said in the statement. "And it is really in the past 20 years that the warming signal from that region has been just stunning," he added. "All of Baffin Island is melting, and we expect all of the ice caps to eventually disappear, even if there is no additional warming."



I wonder what happened in the 1970's to cause this sharp change in temperature? Can anything stop this trend? The remedies I have seen seem like too little too late, and it may not be possible for human society to change enough to make a difference. It bothers me that the US doesn't lead the effort among nations to reduce carbon dioxide levels, or even agree to try. As bad as it is now, it can only get worse if we don't make some big changes. Nuclear power plants are expensive to build, but they may be the greatest thing we can do. It may be that the only thing that is certain is that we will have to watch the climate changes helplessly as they inevitably occur, even to the possible point that the Gulf Stream changes its course or disappears, which reduces the temperature (according to one theory) over North America. The theory is that this change could produce a new Ice Age. How depressing!



Saudi Arabia women defy authorities over female driving ban
(CNN) -- In an extraordinary display of civil disobedience, women in Saudi Arabia on Saturday defied their nation's de facto ban on women driving by getting behind the steering wheel.
After a campaign for change gathered pace on social media, numerous women filmed themselves behind the wheel Saturday in various cities and uploaded those videos to YouTube.
Several Saudi supporters of the October 26th Women's Driving Campaign told CNN that at least 25 women drove Saturday.
Authorities stopped five women who were spotted driving in the Saudi capital and "each case was dealt with accordingly," Col. Fawaz Al-Meeman of Riyadh police told CNN.
Al-Meeman, an assistant spokesman for that city's police department, explained that the women weren't taken to police stations. Instead, they were kept in their vehicles until their male guardians arrived, at which point the women were released after signing pledges not to drive again.
Driving campaign supporter Mai Al-Swayan, an economic researcher, said she was one of the women who drove Saturday. She posted a video on YouTube showing her driving.
She said she drove from home to a grocery store in Riyadh, and then back with her groceries. "I drove on the highway and was noticed by a couple of cars but they were fine with it," she said.
Opinion: Give Saudi women right to drive
"I'm very proud. I feel like we accomplished the purpose of our campaign."
Al-Swayan, who has taken the wheel before in defiance of the ban, said she was worried about what might happen before she drove Saturday but now plans to keep doing it.
She said she believed more women would drive in the days to come.
Photographer: Taken to police station
While Riyadh police said no one was taken to police stations, that wasn't the case in Jeddah, said photographer Samia El-Moslimany.
She said she was detained in the evening for having driven and taken to a police station, where there was another woman who had been stopped for driving. El-Moslimany said she was later released.
"I thought I was going to take an uneventful drive around the neighborhood to solidify my reasoning that it's not against the law, simply against the current customs of our country," El-Moslimany told CNN.
Men she believes to be police informants spotted and followed her, she said. She pulled over and called her driver to take her back home, but police appeared and she had to go to the station.
"We were treated with respect and treated so professionally," El-Moslimany said. "We described how we were not part of any demonstration, that we ... felt it was our right. They spoke to us very kindly and said we'd have to sign a pledge not to drive again."
Police told the women they needed their guardians to come to the station before they could be released, she said.
Jeddah police could not be immediately reached for comment.
Interior Ministry: Laws will be enforced
Asked if any women were observed or stopped from driving, or if there was an increased police presence on the streets of major cities, Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour Al-Turki said it was a "normal day, just like every Saturday."
He added, "I am not aware of any violation. Usually regional police spokesmen would speak to media about any, if any violation takes place."
Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry issued a warning earlier in the week to women caught driving and anyone taking part in demonstrations.
Without outlining how laws would be applied and what punishment might be doled out to offenders, Al-Turki said then, "All violations will be dealt with -- whether demonstrations or women driving."
He added, "Not just on the 26th. Before and after. At all times."
No traffic law specifically prohibits women from driving in Saudi Arabia, but religious edicts there are often interpreted to mean women are not allowed to operate a vehicle.
It's not clear what action might be taken against women who defy the de facto ban.
Several Saudi women supporting the campaign said they received threatening calls Thursday from men claiming to represent the Interior Ministry, according to women's rights activists who requested anonymity. The callers warned the women not to drive before, on or after Saturday, the activists said.
Initially, Al-Turki denied any calls were made. He later contacted CNN to clarify his comments, saying the phone calls were a public relations move by the ministry to help people understand that laws would be "fully enforced" Saturday.
'Shameful' to detain women for driving
Adam Coogle, a Saudi Arabia researcher for Human Rights Watch, told CNN via e-mail that the Saudi Interior Ministry was trying to "deflate the momentum" behind the campaign through "direct, individual intimidation."
He called on Saudi Arabia to end discrimination and allow women to go about their business.
"It is shameful that a woman could be detained for activity that isn't illegal," he said. "The Interior Ministry claims it is against 'activities that disturb public peace,' but pulling over and arresting activists merely for practicing their rights is a far greater threat to public peace than merely getting behind the wheel."
One of those spearheading the driving campaign is activist Manal Al-Sharif, who was jailed for more than a week in 2011 after posting a video of herself driving.
Al-Sharif, who now lives in the United Arab Emirates, said it is a positive sign that the government stated its position on women driving.
"They kept telling the world that the women's driving issue was one for Saudi society to decide upon," she said. "Society is now showing it is supportive of the idea of women driving. The government's reaction makes it very clear this is not a societal decision. This is a political decision."
Saturday's protest was the culmination of an online movement launched in late September urging Saudi women to get behind the wheel.
The campaign quickly gained momentum, with its online petition garnering more than 16,000 signatures despite the kingdom's restrictions on protests.
The online initiative was boosted by the fact that residents of Saudi Arabia are highly active on social media and YouTube.
Rights group Amnesty International on Thursday urged Saudi Arabia to allow women to drive and not punish those campaigning for change.
The group said at least 35 women drove on Saudi streets Saturday, filming and uploading their videos on to YouTube.

They have made a good start, but I hope female driving continues until the women at large in the country are unafraid to violate this “religious edict” --- not a law, according to this report. It is such a pivotal right, giving women the freedom to go about their lives without supervision and intrusion by men.


Cleric warns driving could damage women's ovaries
(CNN) -- A leading Saudi cleric warned women who drive cars could cause damage to their ovaries and pelvises and that they are at risk of having children born with "clinical problems."
Sheikh Saleh Al-Loheidan's widely derided remarks have gone viral as activists claim a website urging women to defy their country's driving ban has been blocked in Saudi Arabia.
"If a woman drives a car," Al-Loheidan told Saudi news website sabq.org in an interview, "it could have a negative physiological impact ... Medical studies show that it would automatically affect a woman's ovaries and that it pushes the pelvis upward."
Explained Al-Loheidan, "We find that for women who continuously drive cars, their children are born with varying degrees of clinical problems."
The controversial comments, published Friday, were widely interpreted throughout Saudi Arabia as an attempt to discourage women in the country from joining a popular online movement urging them to stage a demonstration by driving cars on October 26.
"This is his answer to the campaign," Saudi women's rights activist Aziza Yousef told CNN. "But it is an individual opinion. The clerical establishment is not behind this."
Added Yousef: "He's making a fool of himself. He shouldn't touch this field at all -- the medical field is not his field at all."
Mai Al-Swayan, who was one of the first Saudi women to sign the online petition, called the comments "ridiculous: " and added, "I am really disappointed. How could somebody ever make such a statement?"
Al-Loheidan's words have been ridiculed mercilessly via social media since they were first reported.
An Arabic Twitter hashtag called "#WomensDrivingAffectsOvariesAndPelvises" was quickly created to make fun of Al-Loheidan -- underscoring just how widely the call for Saudi women to defy the driving ban has resonated thus far.
And while numerous conservative voices have supported Al-Loheidan, many Saudis believe this was an extremely clumsy way of trying to counter the popularity of the October 26 campaign.
"I don't think it will harm the campaign -- on the contrary, it will make it stronger," said Saudi columnist and author Abdullah Al-Alami.
Since it published online over a week ago, a petition on the website www.oct26driving.com has garnered more than 12,000 signatures from those asking authorities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to lift a de facto ban than prohibits women from driving.
"There is no justification for the Saudi government to prohibit adult women citizens who are capable of driving cars from doing so," reads part of the petition. No traffic law specifically prohibits women from driving in Saudi Arabia, but religious edicts there are often interpreted to mean women are not allowed to operate a vehicle.
The new petition also urges the Saudi government to present "to the citizens a valid and legal justification" for the ban, demanding authorities should not simply blame it on "societal consensus."
Many supporters of the campaign expressed dismay when reporting the website could no longer be accessed throughout the Kingdom as of Saturday.
A post on the Oct26driving.com website read, "Society wanting the ban to be lifted is apparently such a threat that the page petitioning the government to lift the ban has been blocked from within Saudi."
Al Alami wondered if the numerous conservatives opposed to women being granted the right to drive may have asked for the site to be blocked. Still, Al-Alami said he isn't too concerned.
"The message has been delivered," said Al-Alami. "This is a battle we must fight. There is no U-turn."
CNN was unable to reach various Saudi Ministries for comment.
The issue of women driving in the conservative kingdom has long been a contentious one. And while such demonstrations are extremely rare, they have been staged at least twice before.
In June 2011, dozens of women across Saudi Arabia participated in the "Women2Drive" campaign by driving throughout the streets of their cities.
In 1991, a group of 47 women drove through the country's capital city, Riyadh. After being arrested, many were further punished by being banned from travel and suspended from their workplaces.
In addition to prohibiting driving, the country's strict and compulsory guardianship system also prevents women from opening bank accounts, working, traveling and going to school without the express permission of their male guardian.
Saudi Arabia has been moving toward change under its current ruler, King Abdullah, who is considered a cautious reformer and proponent of women's rights. In January, he appointed 30 women to the Shura Council, the first time women had been chosen for the country's top consultative body. In 2011, he announced that women can run for office and vote in local elections in 2015, and in 2009, he appointed Saudi Arabia's first female deputy minister.


I hope King Abdullah is paying close attention to all this, since he is a “proponent of women's rights.” The very term “their male guardian” when applied to adult women with children sends cold shivers down my spine. Saudi Arabia is one of our strongest allies in the Middle East. Could Obama apply any pressure on them, or is it their privilege as a conditional supporter of US positions to be applying the pressure on us?
It's two steps forward and three steps back in Middle Eastern relations.



­ Fish Sauce: An Ancient Roman Condiment Rises Again
­ Fish sauce — that funky, flavor-enhancing fermented condiment — is part of what gives Southeast Asian cooking its distinctive taste. But it turns out, this cornerstone of Eastern cooking actually has a long history on another continent: Europe. And it goes all the way back to the Roman Empire.
Like Asian fish sauces, the Roman version was made by layering fish and salt until it ferments. There are versions made with whole fish, and some with just the blood and guts. Some food historians argue that "garum" referred to one version, and "liquamen" another, while others maintain different terms were popular in different times and places. The current convention is to use garum as a common term for all ancient fish sauces.
Italian archaeologist Claudio Giardino studies the early roots of garum, the Roman version of fish sauce. He cites mention of garum in Roman literature from the 3rd and 4th century B.C., and remains of factories producing garum even earlier. The fish bones remaining at a garum factory in Pompeii even led to a more precise dating of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Giardino notes that garum was popular throughout the Roman Empire.
"According [to] the Roman writers, a good bottle of garum could cost something like $500 of today," he says. "But you can also have garum for slaves that is extremely cheap. So it is exactly like wine."
Remains of garum factories have been excavated from Spain to Portugal to northern Africa. Some of these factories appear to have employed upwards of 50 people.
And this fish sauce became an integral part of Roman cuisine. Food historian Sally Grainger has recreated recipes from antiquity that used garum both as a general salt substitute and as the basis of dips and sauces. "After the fish sauce is made, it was then turned into compound sauces — with honey, with wine, with vinegar, with other herbs, with oil."
­ Grainger says Romans fermented their sauce with less salt than the modern versions — using about 15 percent salt, versus 50 percent. This creates a fermentation environment that releases more of the protein, making garum a good source of nutrients. It also gives it a rich, savory umami taste.
"Very, very flavorful," Grainger notes. "It explodes in the mouth, and you have a long, drawn-out flavor experience, which is really quite remarkable."
So how did something so savory, and nutritious, and widespread just disappear? Archaeologist Claudio Giardino said that it comes down to two things: first off, taxes.
"In the Roman times, salt was a cheap material," he says. "When the Roman Empire collapsed, they put taxes on the salt. And because of these taxes, it became difficult to produce garum."
And the collapse of the Roman Empire created another problem: pirates.
"The pirates started destroying the cities and the industries nearby the coast. You could be killed any moment by the pirates, without the protection of the Romans," Giardino says.
And so, Italian fish sauce pretty much disappeared. But it remained in a few little pockets — like in Southwest Italy, where they produce colatura di alici, a modern descendant of the ancient fish sauce. The product was barely known even in Italy just a few years ago, but it is gradually being rediscovered.
Chef Josh McFadden, who runs Ava Gene's, a Roman-inspired restaurant in Portland, Ore., says he was thrilled to find a tiny bottle of colatura di alici in New York a few years ago.
"It was kind of a defining moment of aha! There's a different ingredient to be able tell the story of what Italian food is," he says. At Ava Gene's, McFadden uses both the Italian colatura, as well as a modern Asian fish sauce that features a protein content in line with ancient garum.
McFadden uses fish sauce to finish dishes, and also, like the ancient Romans, adopts it as the basis for other sauces, bringing out the flavor of everything from grilled meats to raw vegetables.
He pulls out one of these combination sauces for a taste — the fish sauce is laced with sweet-hot peppers, garlic, and white wine vinegar. "It's so good, right?" he says, adding, "There's just so much going on, so many different dimensions."
And McFadden — like Giardino and Grainger — feel that these funky, fishy dimensions are long overdue for a return to the Italian table.


This is one delicacy that I probably won't try. Just knowing how it is produced is enough to turn me off. I hope it doesn't have any living bacteria in it. To each his own! Still, it's good to see a bit about how the Romans lived. They were very similar to us in a lot of ways --- they created concrete and used it in building large structures, they paved roads all over the world, their women wore makeup like we do today, they had a social safety net for the poorer people, and they made some scientific developments such as the mechanical reaper, watermills and the use of coal for heating. When the Roman Empire lost its world dominion there was a great deal of knowledge that was lost, to be rediscovered in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Read “Roman Technology” in Wikipedia.