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Many in this world consider the human species way too important to have evolved from a primitive form in the distant past. They believe our intelligence and mental dexterity are so far above even the most advanced of animals, that any suggestion of a connection between the two is absurd.

Though relatively primitive creatures are capable of social interactions with their own kind, many humans fail to accept this is evidence of any evolutionary link between humankind and the animal kingdom.

Take honey bees, as an example. They live in colonies and maintain a rigid social order. A hierarchy exists within the colony, and while there are many varieties of honey bee, only one will be accepted within the colony. Any attempt at intrusion is met with fierce resistance, usually culminating in the demise of the unfortunate visitor.

Manish Kumar was just fifteen years old. He lived in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, and had fallen in love with a girl from his own village. He wrote to her telling of his affections. For this appalling crime he was kidnapped on his way to school by members of a rival caste; his head was shaved, he was beaten, then thrown to his death under the wheels of a moving train while his mother looked on helplessly.^[1]

Manish Kumar was from the Yadav dairyman caste. The girl belonged to a different Indian community – the washerman – considered a lower caste than the dairyman.

Writing a love letter was Manish Kumar’s only crime, for which he suffered horrific torture before being murdered.

Recently, researchers from the Australian National University, working with honey bees, succeeded in overcoming their instinctive impulse to kill intruders and managed to cultivate the first ever mixed-species colony, combining Apis mellifera, the European honey bee, and Apis cerana, its Asiatic equivalent. While the two types each utilize different dialects, the researchers discovered both can communicate the whereabouts of food to the other, by dances of differing duration. Both species of bee can now live within one colony, coexisting in harmony.^[2]

Perhaps, the researchers of the Australian National University should consider turning their attention to the eastern Indian state of Bihar?

^{[1] “Indian boy thrown under train in caste punishment” Daily Mail, November 20th 2008}

^{[2] “Bees Can Count” Live Science, September 26th 2008}

Filed under: Sad state of our species

Daewoo is best known for its automobiles, though GM bought them out and has been rebadging Daewoo cars as low-end Chevrolets and other brands ever since. GM held a stake in Daewoo cars since 1972.

Automobiles only played a minor part in Daewoo’s fortunes, and misfortunes, over the years, for Daewoo is a South Korean chaebol (big business conglomerate) and has been involved in areas of business that include electronics, heavy industries, shipbuilding, and many others.

Now, though, it’s moving into agriculture.

The Financial Times is reporting that Daewoo has gone halfway around the world, to Madagascar, and leased over 99 years an area of agricultural land half the size of Belgium (1.3 million hectares) – free of charge.^[1]

Daewoo intends to produce corn for South Korean consumption, and for export to other nations, using almost half of Madagascar’s arable land of 2.5 million hectares. Daewoo say it will provide employment for Madagascans, along with new roads, irrigation, and grain storage facilities.

According to the FT:

……a European diplomat in southern Africa said: “We suspect there will be very limited direct benefits [for Madagascar]. Extractive projects have very little spill-over to a broader industrialisation.”

South Korea is not the only nation to turn to Africa for its future food supplies. The Guardian’s George Monbiot has long been campaigning against pillage of the continent in this way:

…….we learn that Middle Eastern countries, led by Saudi Arabia, are securing their future food supplies by trying to buy land in poorer nations. The Financial Times reports that Saudi Arabia wants to set up a series of farms abroad, each of which could exceed 100,000 hectares. Their produce would not be traded: it would be shipped directly to the owners. The FT, which usually agitates for the sale of everything, frets over “the nightmare scenario of crops being transported out of fortified farms as hungry locals look on.” Through “secretive bilateral agreements,” the paper reports, “the investors hope to be able to bypass any potential trade restriction that the host country might impose during a crisis.”

Both Ethiopia and Sudan have offered the oil states hundreds of thousands of hectares. This is easy for the corrupt governments of these countries: in Ethiopia the state claims to own most of the land; in Sudan an envelope passed across the right desk magically transforms other people’s property into foreign exchange. But 5.6 million Sudanese and 10 million Ethiopians are currently in need of food aid. The deals their governments propose can only exacerbate such famines.”^[2]

Madagascar, also, is a nation in poverty. 70 percent of its populace live below the poverty line. According to the FT, the WFP presently provides food relief to about 600,000 people there.

As global warming begins to bite, food will become an ever more valuable commodity. The wealthy nations are setting aside grain for the hard times ahead, and are doing so by robbing Africans of the land they need to survive.

The specter of “crops being transported out of fortified farms as hungry locals look on” will likely transform to reality sooner than we think.

^{[1] “Daewoo to cultivate Madagascar land for free” FT, November 19th 2008}

^{[2] “Manufactured Famine” Monbiot, August 26th 2008}

Filed under: Rocking the cradle

Tonight, the BBC World News reported on an Indian warship, the INS Tabar, that blew an alleged pirate dhow out of the water, after the dhow’s crew “threatened to sink the warship.”

The Tabar is 400 feet long and carries cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and six-barreled 30-mm machine guns for close combat:

No information is available on the size of the pirate dhow, but below is a typical vessel of the type used in the Gulf of Aden:

Later reports confirmed the dhow attacked the warship with phasers, plasma rockets, and short range nuclear warheads, but was disabled before it could re-cloak and attain maximum warp speed.

Great contest!

NBC Nightly news began its report with Brian Wiliams saying, “And now to what is fast becoming the most dangerous stretch of water in the world……”

The Gulf of Aden may be the most inconvenient stretch of water in the world, but it certainly isn’t dangerous – unless, that is, you happen to be an “African coastguard’. As stated in the original article, no-one has been injured or killed as a result of the hijacks, though if such heavy-handed tactics are to be employed on a regular basis – and British Foreign Secretary David Milliband said today Britain is planning “to lead an armada of European warships against the pirates” – it won’t be long before that situation is reversed.

After all, why should we in the western world have to put up with it, anyway?

We only took their fish.

Filed under: Pieces of eight