Beatrice Biira, the "Beatrice" of Beatrice's ... [Jezenomics]
Beatrice Biira, the "Beatrice" of Beatrice's Goat, graduated from Connecticut College last weekend and is headed to the Clinton School of Public Service in Arkansas for her Master's degree before going back to Uganda to work for a non-profit. Beatrice's family's rise out of poverty was aided by Heifer International, which allows people like us to purchase livestock for families like Beatrice's. The goat Beatrice's family received served as a source of nutrition and income for her family, which allowed Beatrice to attend school, which led to scholarships and to her being the first person in her village to get a college degree from America. [NY Times, Heifer International]
Earlier this month, crushing rains left 20 people dead and over 20,000 stranded when overwhelming rainfall left five feet of standing water in the low-lying areas. This is on top of already taxed landscapes that flooded when melting Himalayan glaciers burst the 200 rivers that web across the country last year. Bangladesh under water is seeming like a real and permanent possibility.
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — whose claims are usually conservative — said that Bangladesh is heading to lose 17 percent of its land and 30 percent of its food production by 2050. That's like California and New York drowning, and the whole Midwest ceasing production of food.
If this happens, more than 20 million Bangladeshis will be without a patch of land to stand on. Though hardship in the country isn't entirely recent: since 1971, Bangladesh has endured over 200 disasters that have left a total of 500,000 dead and affected a total of 500 million people.
And I haven't even said anything about the plague of rats that's consuming all of their food. A plague of rats. I wish, wish there was more room for stories like this in the general consciousness — shouldn't we be hearing about this every night? Not to dwell on the gloomy, but just knowing about this makes the answer to this question pretty clear to me.
Reuters - The Polish prosecutor's office is
investigating allegations that there was a CIA prison in Poland
where al Qaeda suspects were questioned and guards might have
used methods close to torture, the prime minister's top adviser
said on Friday.
Beatrice Biira, the "Beatrice" of 
