Hi:
Below is an e-mail from Matarr Njie, addressing the "Reflections on Africa
piece" which I forwarded a few days ago.
Greetings brother Yus:
Please find attached, another reflection on the situation in Asia - this time
from the ground. Your friend may have been impressed with whatever he saw in
Shangai; however, a three-day stay in any part of Asia coupled with a 3-hour
lecture on the state of foreign direct investment in the region is too short
a time period for one to come to grips with the reality on the ground. The
twin financial institutions (IMF and the World Bank) were equally impressed
with the 'spectacular' growth in Asia that they literally asked other Third
Worlders such as Africa to make a carbon copy of the the 'success stories'
from the East! Following the disasterous economic and financial melt-down of
1997-98, however, and following a number of academic investigations and
insights into the nature and causes of the so-called East Asian mirracle,
everybody and even these twin financial institutions have begun to caution
others who had been impressed with the rapid growth rate of some of the
former 'tiger' economies. Having stayed and travelled in the Asian region,
including in Australia and New Zealand, I am the least impressed with the
QUALITY of growth that I am seeing.Everything that shines is not gold/silver,
we were taught in school!Have a good day brother.Matarr Njie
A substantial number of medical drugs sold in South East Asia are fakes, a
study has shown. Scientists are now calling for more international action to
combat the growing trade in fake drugs. The scientists found anti-malarial
drugs that were useless, meningitis vaccine made from tap water and
contraceptive pills that consisted of nothing but wheat flour.
Counterfeit drugs kill people
Lambert Rago, World Health Organisation
They blame mafia-like organisations for the killing of innocent people with
fake treatments, concocted in their laboratories. "One third of all the
anti-malarial drugs artesunate that we bought in South East Asia was fake,
containing none of the drug it was supposed to contain," said Dr Paul Newton
of Oxford University, who led the research, published in The British Medical
Journal on Friday. The fake drugs appear very convincing, he said. The
counterfeiters copy the blister-pack design, and even provide fake holograms
on the package. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that one in 10
pharmaceutical drugs sold around the world are fakes. 'Organised crime' It is
calling for more co-operation between legitimate manufacturers and customs
authorities to fight the illicit trade. "Counterfeit drugs kill people," said
Lambert Rago of the WHO. "There are a lot of case reports where vaccines do
not contain anything and you just don't vaccinate people at all." The BMJ
says drug companies have tended to avoid publicising the problem for fear of
"damaging public confidence in medicines". And it says some countries, well
aware of the scale of their problem, have preferred to ignore it. The BMJ
says that much of the trade is probably linked to organised crime,
corruption, the narcotics trade, unregulated pharmaceutical companies, and
the business interests of "unscrupulous" politicians.
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