I’ve just published some foreign policy-related posts at Outside the Beltway:
In this post I review the outbreak of cholera in Haiti that has claimed more than 1,000 lives so far. The most recent development is anti-UN peacekeeper riots (Nepalese peacekeepers are blamed by Haitians for the outbreak). This story gets precious little attention from the American press. The Haitian people aren’t to blame for this outbreak but they’re certainly paying a price. There’s a lot of blame to go around—everything from centuries of bad government to feckless U. S. interventions to too many people to slack property rights. Does any country have more aid workers per capita than Haiti? Haiti’s outside help, as the cholera outbreak demonstates, may even be contributing to the poor country’s problems.
Food prices are rising fast in China. The Fed’s quantitative easing could put even more upwards pressure on Chinese food prices and the actions the Chinese government has announced, including price controls, anti-gouging measures, and subsidies, probably won’t help much, either.
Update
Another:
The risk assessment company Maplecroft has published its Terrorism Risk Index for 2010. Greece has achieved the distinction of being the country whose risk of terrorism has increased the most over the post year and has supplanted Spain as being the European country (other than Russia) most at risk of terrorism.
