Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures

Ok, I have to admit - the title caught my eye ;) Turns out it is less about Emergency Sex and more about life in the war zone for civilian UN peacekeepers and aid workers. There are three characters (doctor, lawyer, aid worker), one of whom is from NZ. Their true story is written in the form of elongated journal entries over a 10 year period. It makes for an interesting process in developing an understanding of their characters. The book covers a wide variety of (less than) exotic locations: Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Liberia, Rwanda - all the expected places on the genocidal tourist map.

Required reading for anyone idealistic enough to consider a career with the UN, it reveals a lot about the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of their humanitarian interventions - and mistakes which often mostly lives. Be warned - some passages about the horrors of war are rather graphic. At the same time, though, there are touches of black humour which are rather funny.

World is running out of water

(Source: The Guardian) The world is running out of water and needs a radical plan to tackle shortages that threaten the ability of humanity to feed itself, according to Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN's Millennium Project.

Professor Sachs, who is credited with sparking pop star Bono's crusade for African development, told an environment conference in Delhi that the world simply had "no more rivers to take water from". The breadbaskets of India and China were facing severe water shortages and neither Asian giant could use the same strategies for increasing food production that has fed millions in the last few decades.