I almost skipped the StrategyPage essay on Yemen, since it is a bit outside my interests. I am vaguely aware of that country causing trouble with Saudi etc. but this essay points out something that needs to be recognized: The corruption means that there is not a decent public health system: not only for treatment but for basic immunizations, water supply, etc. that is vital for keeping people healthy.
One side effect of the chaos and corruption is the absence of a public health system. That means children do not receive vaccines for common, and sometimes fatal, childhood diseases like measles.... so far, this year 60 Yemeni children a month have died from measles.
another side effect of corruption is the failure to provide basic infrastructure for things like clean water and sewage. So we see:
Even more children die each from a cholera epidemic that started in 2016 and continues.
that caught my eye, because right now Zimbabwe is also in the midst of a cholera epidemic.
Cholera has often broken out across Zimbabwe in recent years with deadly consequences and has surged and spread again over the last month, driven by the sometimes terrible sanitation conditions in poor, neglected townships and neighborhoods in the capital, Harare, and elsewhere.
and not just Zimbabwe: South Africa had a similar problem recently
the Philippines has small outbreaks of cholera on and off, but nothing major LINK'
and no, it's not global warming but just the failure to keep up the infrastructure, partly from lack of money and expertise, and diverting such money to other projects (including lining the pockets of those supposed to be doing the work).
Sigh. That part is often overlooked in the big important reports but our intrepid reporters do report on such things, often risking their lives to do so. And remember: The Philippines is far from the worst country in such things. In most corrupt countries, the reporters don't even try to dig up such stories because the gov't runs the press.
A report on the Philippines and some of it's problems supplying water especially in the dry season.
This is a chronic problem. Right now we use city water, (we had a good mayor in the last decade) but until a few years ago we used our own deep well because often the water pressure was low. But the water supply problem continues in many areas of the Philippines.
We see this when we see water seeping from leaks from pipes (shoddy pipes made in China? I suspect but can't prove this) under the roads. And the open ditches that are out sewers did get concrete covers a dozen years ago: These covers are now deteriorating and crumbling, (shoddy Chinese concrete?) leaving the ditches open... meaning mosquito breeding (and dengue)... and of course periodic typhoons destroy the infrastructure. We have a decent mayor, but this is not true of everywhere, alas.
Sigh...
From Preda Foundation website:
In 2019, anti-corruption lawyer Cyril Ramos claimed the country has lost around 700 billion pesos (US$12.8 billion), or around 20 percent of the national budget to corruption per annum, ABS-CBN reported.,
corruption here is a big problem: but we are not the worst country for this.
what frustrates me is that often those who demonstrate miss the point: it is corruption.
Religion is the answer: (hey popey boy, try preaching thou shalt not steal instead of global warming). People know this, which is why a lot of countries have embraced strict Islam, or in India, a strict version of Hinduism.
Alas, as Iran shows, (or in history, the Vatican showed), religious leaders can be just as corrupt when it comes to money. And yes, here I point out that communism is a religion that also is notorious for it's corruption. And that includes China...
a big problem: get rid of the corrupt is a good policy, but sometimes the only ones with the expertise to run the country or the company are these same folk...
sigh.
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back to SP... the essay has lots of information here about Iran and weapons, including shooting missiles into Saudi and now Israel.
Money for weapons, not for clean water I guess: Priorities.
then there is this: Drugs.
usually drugs mean meth/shabu/captagen, or heroin/fentanyl, but in Yemen the problem is the traditional drugs Khat and hashish.
Khat production has been a major problem for Yemen as well as the Saudis....While Yemen contains most of the only arable land in the Arabian Peninsula, only one percent of Yemen is suitable for agriculture. Rather than produce food, most Yemeni agricultural production is of khat and nearly all of that is smuggled into Saudi Arabia....
wikipedia article on khat: a mild stimulant.
that is not as harmful as cocaine (more similar to chewing cocaine leaf. Like many such drugs, the abuse is in higher doses or more frequent use).
but a bigger danger is hashish: think of this as concentrated marijuana.
Hashish is a concentrated form of cannabis, produced by removing the sticky resin, which is the most narcotic portion of the cannabis plant. Put simply, khat is for relaxation while hashish is for intoxication, it will get you high and largely unable to function....
Khat and hashish do have harmful side effects as they reduce inhibitions and the ability to safely operate vehicles or machinery of any kind.
a lot of the drugs used in Saudi are actually used by their hard working contract workers from other countries. No families, hard work, long hours, and the temptation is to take drugs to relax.
the drug problem is world wide, but that's another essay for another time.
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