Charlene Mahon went to be with the Lord she loved and had so faithfully served on Christmas Day, Sunday, December 25, 2011. At the time of her passing, she was at home surrounded by her loving family. She is survived by her husband, Rob, to whom she was married for 33 years. For all those years Charlene and Rob worked together with both the Navigators and on staff at Hoffmantown Church. Charlene left a deep impression for Christ on the lives of so many people. Charlene and Rob have four children; Christie, Kevin and his wife Brooke, Caitlin and her husband Daniel Medina, and Kelsey. Charlene is also survived by her family back in Oregon where she grew up; her mother Virginia Schrock; her sisters Beci, Nancy, Laura and Debbie; and her brother Mike and their families. Charlene deeply loved and was loved by all her family. Memorial Services for Charlene will be held at Hoffmantown Church on Friday, December 30, 2011 at 10:30 a.m. This service will be followed by a reception at the church. After the reception, there will be an interment service at Sunset Memorial Park, 924 Menaul Blvd. N.E., for family and friends. A viewing will be held for family and friends at French Wyoming on Thursday, December 29, 2011, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Memorial contributions in honor of Charlene may be made to The Navigators, 8412 Vina Del Sol NE, Albuquerque, 87122. Please designate gifts for the ABQ Special Ministries Fund (#22046502) in memory of Charlene Mahon.
Dakar ? While severely high food prices and lower-than-average cereal outputs are already forcing some vulnerable Sahelians into distress responses, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) food security website FEWSNET says messaging on the situation needs to be more nuanced.
It says the links between cereal production and malnutrition have been exaggerated, the complexities of regional market conditions inadequately conveyed, and the need for long-term structural solutions under-emphasized.
IRIN discussed with aid agencies and Sahel food security analysts, the subtleties of getting early warning messages right in such situations.
Food security in the Sahel this year is part of a "persistent and predictable reservoir of chronic acute food insecurity" they say," in a predictable portion of the region's population", and requires long-term structural aid not short-term fixes.
Malnutrition versus food security
Countries in the Sahelian zone produced a lower-than-average harvest this year , leading UN agencies and analysts to predict 2.5 million ton cereal deficits in the region, some of which should be met by market flows.
But predicted cereal deficits should not be conflated with malnutrition, says FEWSNET. While harvest outputs and malnutrition rates are linked, they are not inextricable: "Even unlimited amounts of food assistance would not be able to eliminate a substantial (probably more than half) part of this [malnutrition] caseload," they estimate.
This is because much of the malnutrition in the region is caused by other factors: poor water quality, low-quality health care, poor sanitation and poor feeding practices, which were recently stressed in the Sahel Working Group and Oxfam's report entitled Escaping the Hunger Cycle; Pathways to Resilience in the Sahel.
Food aid is thus a blunt tool to address this problem - as well as the myriad other problems that poor pastoralists, poor urban communities, and others are currently dealing with.
Action contre la Faim
A woman and her children in western Chad, where malnutrition rates often surpass the international emergency threshold.
Oxfam's food security head Al Hassan Ciss? agrees: "Given a still-growing population, chronic malnutrition, indebtedness, and loss of remittances, among other factors, I am not sure we [the international community] have the right tools to address these issues at the moment," he said.
Any relevant response must take into account the chronic, structural vulnerability of the Sahel, say aid agencies and analysts. For instance, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has estimated over one million children in the Sahel region may face "severe and life-threatening malnutrition" in 2012, over one third of them in Niger. It is important to note that in 2011, with one of the best harvests on-record, just under 900,000 under-fives were in the same scenario. "And these needs will probably be there in 2013," said the analyst. "This context is important."
UN World Food Programme (WFP) food security head Naouar Labidi acknowledged that food security and malnutrition do not have a simple cause and effect relationship. However, they are linked: "Malnutrition is everything - health, access to water, feeding practices, etc, but it is also the result of access to food, and it [malnutrition] gets worse when this access declines," she told IRIN.
Malnutrition is already poor in the Sahel, with rates exceeding 15 percent - the emergency threshold -- in some locations. "In a crisis you want to prevent death -any additional shock could push up these malnutrition rates further - resulting in higher mortality rates. Blanket feeding is one way of preventing deterioration of the nutrition situation. So we cannot afford not to act," she said.
It's all in the prices
FEWSNET also notes that while high food prices across the Sahel "obviously increase stress on poor families and have human impacts", they could also draw grain stocks from coastal countries into the region, which could serve to increase the availability of food in markets, and stabilize prices.
One of the reasons the 2005 crisis was so severe was because coastal food prices were even higher than in the Sahel, says FEWSNET.
Price predictions can also become a self-fulfilling prophecy, they warn, as well as encouraging residents to hoard grain, which can drive prices up further.
Alhousseini Bretaudeau, executive secretary at food security analysts CILLS (a Permanent Inter-State Committee to Prevent Drought in the Sahel) told IRIN from Abuja: "When you give strong declarations, stock-retention could occur and prices could go up further."
Likewise, notes WFP, if governments and institutions state they will be purchasing large quantities, prices could stabilize.
Rather than speculating on future prices, which Labidi notes is a risky business, even the information that is currently available "shows that something is wrong", says Labidi. Prices in some places have increased by over 80 percent over the five-year average, and have continued to rise rather than fall which is the usual seasonal dynamic.
Millet prices are 77 percent higher than the five-year average in Malian capital Bamako; 93 percent higher in the northern city of Gao, and up by 85 percent in the central region of S?gou, according to the Food and Agriculture.
Even if prices were to stabilize, there would still be a problem, said WFP, as they are already unsustainable for lots of people.
Market solutions
FEWSNET analysts note that the lower-than-average cereal crops could be compensated for by food imports, which for instance in Niger in 2010-11 amounted to 900,000 tons - more than double the current estimated production gap. "The current food insecurity is less a food availability problem than an access issue."
Interviewees agreed: it is high food prices, and poor terms of trade for the most vulnerable that put food out of their reach. "The entry point [for response] is access, not availability," said WFP market analyst Jean-Martin Bauer, noting high food prices are a greater problem than a deficit of grains, since markets will to some degree always compensate for at least part of gross food deficits.
But opinions differ on the degree to which the markets will be able to resolve the access problem.
At the December 2011 meeting of the Food Crises Prevention Network (FCPN) on the situation in the Sahel and West Africa, agencies and analysts issued a joint communiqu?, stressing the need for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to keep food trade fluid across their borders.
States must "avoid any action which will by nature impede the proper functioning of the markets and cross-border trade flows," it stated.
Protectionist measures worsened the impact of the 2005 food crisis and also posed some barriers to response in 2009-2010, which meant aid agencies had to partly source from outside of the region, upping the cost and delivery period.
CILLS's Breteaudeau was in Abuja where he was discussing ECOWAS plans, when he spoke to IRIN. "All governments are worried," he said, "if you give alarming information then governments start to put themselves first: the message we must continuously impart is the need for solidarity."
But for WFP's Bauer, the problem is that - unlike in 2009 when prices were high in one of the region's three major trading systems (known as the eastern, central and western basins) but not the others - this year all three are exhibiting high prices for staple grains such as maize and millet.
Ghana is estimated to have a grain surplus of 240,000 tons of maize for instance, but its price is 75 percent higher now than it was in 2009.
The numbers game
Among other areas that need to be more nuanced, FEWSNET says the number of people in the Sahel who will need food assistance this year is "far smaller" than many are reporting. Oxfam stated in an early December communiqu? that six million people could be highly vulnerable to food insecurity in Niger; 2.9 million in Mali; 700,000 - over quarter of the population - in Mauritania; and over two million in Burkina Faso; while in Chad 13 out of 22 of the regions could be affected by food insecurity.
PYONGYANG, North Korea ? Kim Jong Il's son was identified Monday as head of a top decision-making body of the ruling Workers' Party, a post that now gives him authority over political as well as military matters in North Korea.
A week after state media reported Kim's Dec. 17 death, the campaign to install successor Kim Jong Un was gaining momentum.
On Saturday, state media referred to him as "supreme leader" of North Korea's 1.2 million-strong armed forces and said the military's top leaders had pledged their loyalty to him. On Monday, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper described him as head of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party ? a post that appears to make him the top official in the Workers' Party.
Kim Jong Il ruled North Korea as head of three main state organs: the Workers' Party, the Korean People's Army and the National Defense Commission.
His father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, meanwhile, remains the nation's "eternal president" long after his 1994 death.
Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s and was revealed last year as his father's choice among three sons for successor, is the third generation Kim to rule the nation of 24 million. He was named a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party, but was expected to ascend to new military and political posts while being groomed to become the next leader.
Monday's reference to his new title was in commentary in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Workers' Party, urging soldiers to dedicate their lives "to protect the party's Central Committee headed by respected Comrade Kim Jong Un." The editorial called on the people to become "eternal revolutionary comrades" with Kim Jong Un, "the sun of the 21st century."
The language echoed slogans used years ago to rally support for Kim Jong Il, and made clear the son is quickly moving toward leadership of the Workers' Party, one of the country's highest positions, in addition to the military.
North Korea refers to Kim Il Sung as the "sun" of the nation and his birthday is celebrated as the "Day of the Sun," and state media have sought to emphasize Kim Jong Un's role in carrying out the Kim family legacy throughout his succession movement.
His titles are slight variations of those held by his father, but appear to carry the same weight. It was unclear whether the nation's constitution had been changed to reflect the transfer of leadership as when Kim Jong Il took power after his father's death.
A day earlier, state TV showed footage of Kim Jong Un's uncle and key patron, Jang Song Thaek, in a military uniform with a general's insignia. It was the first time that Jang, who was promoted last year to vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party along with Kim Jong Un, was shown on state TV in military garb.
Mourning continued, meanwhile, despite frigid winter weather, in the final days before Kim Jong Il's funeral is set to take place Wednesday and a memorial Thursday.
People continued lining up Monday in central Kim Il Sung Square, where a massive portrait that usually features Kim Il Sung has been replaced by one of Kim Jong Il, to bow before his smiling image and to lay funereal flowers. Heated buses stood by to give mourners a respite from the cold, and hot tea and water were distributed from beverage kiosks.
South Koreans were among the mourners in Pyongyang. The widow of former President Kim Dae-jung, who held a landmark summit with Kim Jong Il in 2000, and Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun, whose late husband had ties to the North, each led delegations that drove across the heavily fortified border to Pyongyang.
They were greeted by North Korean officials during a stop at a factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, according to footage from AP Television News in North Korea. North Korea sent delegations to Seoul when the women's husbands died.
Meanwhile, a South Korean activist was also in Pyongyang to pay respects to Kim Jong Il but without South Korean government permission, her colleagues said in a statement. For South Koreans, making unauthorized trips to North Korea is punishable by up to three years in prison, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.
The Korean peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the three-year Korean war ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty.
___
Associated Press writers Foster Klug, Hyung-jin Kim and Jiyoung Won in Seoul, South Korea, and AP Korea bureau chief Jean H. Lee, contributed to this report. Follow AP's Korea coverage at twitter.com/newsjean and twitter.com/APKlug.
Air Dictate is an iPhone 4S app by Avatron that allows you to use Siri to dictate text to your Mac. To use, first you must visit avatron.com/i to install the Air Dictate Receiver app for you Mac. Then, over your shared Wi-Fi network, you can share your...
? London, England, United Kingdom Sunday, December 18, 2011
Everything went smoothly on our flight to London! The plane was small which surprised me, with only six seats in a row. Best of all, we had aisle seats with no one sitting in the middle! So for coach there was a lot of room and the seats we actually comfortable! It was a fairly uneventful day, just grabbed the Hoppa bus to the airport hotel after we landed.
"Everything in this shop is not made in China," it proclaims. A few doors away, imported Murano lookalikes sell for much less. To the untrained eye, they appear identical.
With Europe drowning in debt and flirting with recession, China's influence can only rise further. Euro zone governments would love Beijing to plough more of its $3.2 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves into their bonds.
China is also likely to chip in with a loan to the International Monetary Fund to provide a financing backstop in case Italy and Spain are shut out of the bond markets.
Last week's $3.5 billion acquisition by China Three Gorges Corp of the Portuguese government's stake in utility EDP is also a sign of things to come.
Financiers turn instinctively to fast-growing China as they try to flush out buyers for assets that are going on the block as European governments, banks and companies pay down debt.
But, despite Chinese leaders' expressing interest in diversifying the country's overseas asset base away from government paper, analysts do not expect a sea change in China's traditionally cautious approach to expanding in Western markets. Africa and Asia are likely to remain China's top targets for now.
"There are going to be opportunities, but we're not going to see China buying up Europe," said Thilo Hanemann, research director at the Rhodium Group, an investment advisory and strategic planning firm in New York.
TREADING SOFTLY
There are many reasons for the wariness.
Lengthy delays in obtaining the approval of regulators in Beijing put Chinese companies at a disadvantage in mergers and acquisitions when the seller wants a quick deal. Companies lack the management skills to integrate overseas acquisitions. And, perhaps most importantly, prospects are much brighter at home than they are in Europe.
"If you compare the rates of growth in China and in Europe, are you sensible buying into a brand that's seen its best years of growth? said Edward Radcliffe, a partner in Shanghai with Vermillion, an M&A advisory boutique that focuses on cross-border China deals.
Still, he said some larger Chinese groups, both state-owned and private, had started to explore opportunities in Europe and the United States.
The 27-member European Union is China's biggest export market. But foreign direct investment (FDI) has badly lagged, totaling $8 billion by the EU's reckoning or $12 billion on China's count - less than 0.2 percent of total FDI in the EU, according to Rhodium.
The firm has kept its own tally since 2003, but its total of $15 billion through mid-2011, though greater than the official data, is still small.
Hanemann said he was sure 2012 would see deals in Europe in technology and consumer products to enable Chinese firms to climb the value ladder and build their domestic market share.
"Ultimately, Chinese companies have to become true multinationals, like Japanese and Korean firms before them," he said. "Over the longer term, there's no reason to believe that China is going to take a different path."
But he was skeptical whether most Chinese companies would be able to seize the opportunities that were likely to crop up in the coming year. To do so, they would have to manage public perceptions in Europe and obtain quick regulatory approval at home.
"There are a lot of deals that the Chinese cannot take on. If the Chinese government sees a company making a bid for troubled assets that risks provoking a political backlash in Europe, I think they'd step in to make sure there's no embarrassment for the Chinese side."
POLITICAL OVERLAY
The failure of Chinese firms to buy Saab, the Swedish car maker that was declared bankrupt last week, was a telling example of the difficulties facing Chinese investors, Hanemann said.
But the picture is not black and white. After all, Volvo, another Swedish car maker, was successfully acquired by a Chinese rival from Ford Motor Co in 2010.
Christine Lambert-Goue, managing director in Beijing at Invest Securities China, said companies were not looking mainly for outright acquisitions but for brands, patents and technology that would bolster their position at home.
"Companies are only ready to pay for assets from Europe that will enable them to gain market share in China," she said.
Investment in Europe will take off eventually, but a deteriorating political climate represents an obstacle in the short term, said Jonathan Holslag of the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies.
The EU, like the United States, is talking tough about Chinese "state capitalism" and is crafting a more assertive trade policy to counter what it sees as a playing field tilted against foreign companies.
For its part, Beijing smells protectionism in the air in response to its growing economic clout.
"The European Union is disappointed with the reluctance of Beijing to open its economy further, whereas Beijing complains about Europe being too reluctant to share its knowledge or to allow Chinese investors to expand their presence in important sectors like infrastructure," Holslag said.
And if Europe fails to snap out of its economic malaise, the risk is that a super-competitive China will be made a scapegoat.
"The more governments are confronted with high unemployment figures, the more we will start to see China as a challenger rather than as a savior," Holslag said.
? London, England, United Kingdom