Voices

“The short rains have failed, the long rains failed, our livestock has died. If this next short rain fails, then we fear we will die,” he told me. It was the 2011 drought in eastern Africa. I was interviewing the leader of a Kenyan town that borders Ethiopia for an emergency-needs assessment that I was leading for an aid organization.

His situation is not unlike that of many others facing severe food shortages. But for many of them, the disturbing irony of their desperation is that crop surpluses may exist just a half-day’s drive away from them. A simple mobile-phone transaction could transfer money to vendors who could drive that food to their community. Alternatively, an aid organization could transfer money or a food voucher directly to them...

OPINION: If recently passed legislation to cut taxes on oil companies doing business in Alaska is not repealed by voters, you can say goodbye to annual Permanent Fund dividends and hello to a state income tax.

The money Senate Bill 21 gives back to BP, ConocoPhillips, and Exxon Mobil Corp. will leave Alaska with about the same amount of income from oil revenues that the state treasury had to spend back in 2002, when voters were choosing a new governor and the primary issue was discontinuation of dividends and resurrection of a state tax on income...

The Susitna River dam is being aggressively pursued by state government with little public knowledge or media coverage. Alaskans who appreciate fiscal responsibility and who treasure the qualities that make our state unique need to become more aware of this project.

It is hugely ironic that Gov. Sean Parnell's administration is attempting to eliminate significant state environmental protection safeguards yet is promoting the Susitna dam as a feel-good, mandatory renewable energy project. The governor and the majority of our legislators care not a whit about renewable energy; they simply desire mega-projects. They do not have the fortitude to recognize fiscal reality and they do not consider the wild lands of the state to have intrinsic value...

Fairly or not, Bangladesh seems to make international news only at moments of tragedy.

Much of the misery that afflicts this teeming South Asian nation has been beyond human control. Since 1980, nearly 200,000 people have been killed in natural disasters, and more than 10 million Bangladeshis are affected by such events on average each year. Tropical Storm Mahasen hit coastal areas earlier today, killing 12 people, destroying thousands of homes, and forcing as many as a million people to flee the area.

But perhaps most tragic of all are the disasters that are wholly preventable: the deaths, maimings, and crushed livelihoods that result from human callousness or indifference...