Via BruceSterling’s ViridianDesign I found the *Another World Is Here* blog with a story about foreign aid:
A recent issue of *Foreign Policy* contains a detailed examination of the degree to which the rich nations are actually commited to the development of poorer nations. *Foreign Policy* teamed with the *Center for Global Development* for the study, which “grades 21 rich nations on whether their aid, trade, migration, investment, peacekeeping, and environmental policies help or hurt poor nations.” The Netherlands, Denmark, and Portugal scored the highest; Australia, the United States, and Japan were the bottom three. ¹ ²
It seems that Switzerland is number five on the list. ³ Phew! Not bad. 😄
The comment ⁴:
“A nation of extremes: second only to Norway in hostility to poor countries exports, but invests heavily in those countries, welcomes their workers, and pollutes relatively little.”
The complete article is available on the net. ⁵
In the same *Another World Is Changing* blog, I found the following quote in the comments to the story on Venezuelan coup attempt ⁶:
A coup is not an election, whatever the excuses offered. – Alex Steffen, 2003-11-23
