Philipines

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/food/orl-haiti1308apr13,0,1390094.story

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26283&Cr=haiti&Cr1=


These links relate to the Philipines - Gloria Aroyo in difficulty, Haiti, and the three UN soldiers shot.

Haiti must be some spot. The book Collapse that was mentioned before makes for dire reading and uses it as an example of tatal collapse happening. I have met a ton of Haitians and think highly of them. I have the opposite opinion of the Dominicans onthe other part of the island.

don't want to divert the thread but ina couple of sentences, YD, why Haitians over Dominicans?

Collapse is my commuting read for this week, have seen it dissed in various papers but will give it a go anyway

I have worked with 2 Haitians and found them to be people I took a liking to. My wife as a nurse works with Haitians and any I met through this avenue were very nice too. Many work in service industries and they seem to be hard workers. They don't seem to figure prominantly in crime reports. I have no first hand knowledge of the Dominicans but read plenty about them when it comes to drugs and crimes. The violence associated with them is extreme. Another violent group in Boston are the Cape Verdians. In Lynn and Laurence north of Boston you have Salvadorian gangs called MS-13. These are the worst of them all. I don't worry about muslims but an heavy duty M50 is needed at a minimum for these savages.

Ageed cf.

And not being flippant but, Young Dan, I can really, really recommend Cape Verdean music, it's fab and the small community of Cape Verdeans I have met have all been lovely people.

Well that is good to know and maybe there and in London there might be gentile people from both places but here these gangs are young violent killers and a big problem. The population on Haitians here has got to be way higher but I don't read about Haitian gangs. Maybe the French left a more civilized society after them in Haiti than the Spanish did in their colonies. That could be it because I don't worry about Vietnamese gangs either.

That is a great plan Cactus. Our song could be Wanna be in my gang

I can not find where we were talking about monsanto and the weedkiller but I watched the start of this documentary shown on French tv 2 recently and will watch the whole thing later. It looks very interesting. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-842180934463681887

Eh, to steer us back to rice, here's an interesting proposition from the Thai PM: a rice cartel. Five countries would be involved: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A4BBDECD-8ADF-40B2-BDA0-98CD46AE27E0.htm

They've been trying to downplay comparisons with Opec (not helped by the proposed name 'Orec'); the two organistaions would work on very different principles.

The problem might be that they should be like Opec. This organisation, if it gets off the ground, is going to attract a lot of criticism and opposition and some of Opec's muscle might be needed.

People seem to be trying to forge a lot of new alliances in these trying times - Sarkhozy's Med. alliance, Ghaddafy's United States of Africa...

Sorry. Off topic. Back to rice. I don't think we have mentioned rice rationing by Walmart, have we? They have put a cap on the number of bags per customer.

Is it true that Thailand is the only country in South East Asia exporting rice at the moment? I heard that on the radio but it sounded nealry unbelievable.

On the breaking news over there there is another report of 905s OPEC-style rice cartel news above. Which means what? That the price of rice will not be determined by the market but by a producers cartel? Which means what? More even distribution because there should be less hoarding and profiteering or less equitable distribution or simply higher rice prices here .. ? Rice is very cheap here - anyone guess offhand how much a kilo of Uncle Ben's is among the other rices..

http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/?jp=mhgbaumhmhsn&c=world

Guardian Link

This is a good article on rice production in the Phillipines, and why there is a crisis of supply and demand. Population growth is given as the main reason, and it is explained from the perspective of local rice growers.

One of the factors seems to be emigration and that emigrants are sending money home, that is allowing the population to grow so that the Philippines is no longer self-sufficient in rice production.

In this Catholic country, birth control has become an issue with Gloria Arroyo supporting planning of smaller families.