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Землетрясения в Турции и Иране.
Сильные землетрясения потрясли вчера Турцию и Иран. В три часа пополудни подземные толчки силой 5,2 балла вызвали панику у населения города Сивас и его окрестностей в центральной части Турции. Эпицентром землетрясения стал Сивас, который находится в 400 км восточнее столицы Турции Анкары, однако отдельные удары были отмечены и в некоторых причерноморских регионах страны. О жертвах и разрушениях пока ничего не известно, тем не менее страх перед повторными ударами был так велик, что люди всю ночь не возвращались под крыши своих домов. Подобное бедствие постигло также соседний Иран. Землетрясения силой 4, 4,7 и 5,5 балла обрушились поздно ночью в понедельник на северо-восточную провинцию Ирана Хорасан. Разрушены многие здания и постройки. Обе страны "привыкли" к такого рода стихийным бедствиям: восточные регионы Турции находятся в сейсмически опасной зоне, известной как "Анатолийская аномалия", и в Иране не проходит и года без трагедии - в прошлом году землетрясение в провинции Хорасан унесло жизни 12 людей, а в позапрошлом - 150.Землетрясение в Индии.
Вчера перед рассветом на севере Индии в предгорьях Гималаев на территории штата Уттар-Прадеш, где в ночь с воскресенья на понедельник произошло землетрясение силой в 6,8 балла по шкале Рихтера, вновь отмечены мощные подземные толчки. Новое землетрясение привело к дополнительным жертвам и разрушениям, увеличило как минимум на 50 человек число раненых, осложнило спасательные работы. На этот раз его сила была 5,2 балла. По данным спасательных служб, из завалов извлечено еще 143 пострадавших, общее число раненых - около 350, погибших - более 120 человек. По неофициальным данным, с учетом дополнительных толчков общее число жертв может превысить 200 человек. В поселке Чамоли, лежащем почти в эпицентре землетрясения, уничтожено 90% строений. В районе стихийного бедствия до сих пор не восстановлено электроснабжение, отсутствует связь, ощущается острый недостаток питьевой воды и продовольствия, которые по мере возможности доставляются в район бедствия наземным транспортом. Пока остаются полностью отрезанными от мира десятки горных деревень, откуда до сих пор не поступали сведения о пострадавших и нанесенном ущербе.What to Do about Famine — a Man-Made Disaster
Беседа с обладателем Нобелевской премии 1998 г. в области экологии профессором А. Сеном (Индия)
For his work in the study of famine, welfare and poverty, Indian economist Amartya Sen won the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics. Sen, 64, is the first Asian to win the prize for economics since it was first awarded in 1969, and the first solo winner of the prize since 1995. His extensive output of writings and analytical work includes studies of the Ethiopian famine of 1973 and Bangladeshi famine of 1974, as well as of other catastrophes. A distinguished academician who has taught in India, Britain and the United States, Sen relinquished (gave up) his professorships in economics and philosophy at Harvard this year to become master of Trinity College at Cambridge, his alma mater.
A: My famine work is mainly concerned with analyzing the causes of famines and investigating the means of preventing them. At the general economic level, it is important to realize that people starve when they do not
have the means to buy food. Famine can occur even when there is plenty of food in the country, if income collapses because of unemployment or a fall in the real value of wages. Many famines have occurred without any decline in food output, and one has to shift attention from famine as a food crisis, narrowly defined, to famine as an economic crisis, broadly defined.
Q: Как можно предотвратить голод на экономическом или политическом уровне? Или такие эпидемии неизбежны в беднейших странах без своевременной помощи развитых государств?
A: Famines can be prevented by creating public projects that provide income for potential famine victims. This process combined market mechanisms with government assistance, in contrast to elaborate feeding programs, which disrupt economic and social activity. At the political level, famines are associated with
the absence of democracy. Famines have never occurred in democratic countries, even very poor ones, that have regular elections and a free media. By contrast, they've occurred in military dictatorships, in colonial regimes and in one party states. Even now, two countries we know to be threatened by famine — Sudan and North Korea — both lack the protective umbrella of democracy.
A: Famines can be prevented by creating public projects that provide income for potential famine victims. This process combined market mechanisms with government assistance, in contrast to elaborate feeding programs, which disrupt economic and social activity. At the political level, famines are associated with
the absence of democracy. Famines have never occurred in democratic countries, even very poor ones, that have regular elections and a free media. By contrast, they've occurred in military dictatorships, in colonial regimes and in one party states. Even now, two countries we know to be threatened by famine — Sudan and North Korea — both lack the protective umbrella of democracy.
Q: Как измерить «уровень нищеты» и что такое «уровень бедности»? В чем различие с точки зрения экономики?
A: The standard method of measuring poverty is to define a "poverty line" below which people count as poor, and to add up the number of people below that line. This head-count measure is defective in two ways. First, it does not take note of the extent by which the poor fall below the poverty line. Second,
it assumes that deprivation is only a matter of low income. But other factors are also involved. For example, many cases of undernourishment arise at least as much from the presence of parasitic diseases as they do from low food intake. Poverty can be seen as deprivation of basic capabilities — the capability to be well nourished, to receive medical attention and be in good health, to be able to participate in the life of the community and so on.
Q: Экономист Роберт Солоу, профессор Массачусетского института технологии, лауреат Нобелевской премии, назвал вас «совестью профессии».
A: My friend Bob Solow is one of the greatest economists in the world, but I don't know exactly what this phrase means. I would guess that he's referring to the fact that I have tried to work on the downside (обратная сторона) of economics. My concentration has not been the successful enterprises — profitmakers, speculators, big investors. I have been more concerned with the economic problems of the less fortunate: peasants, workers, the poor, the unemployed, the downtrodden, the hungry, famine victims, people whose liberties are violated by politically repressive regimes — all those who are in difficulty. People who, in one way or another, have had the rough end of the stick. I've worked on society's underdogs1, and I know Solow, too, attaches importance to that.
Q: Почему вы выбрали проблемы изучения нищеты, голода и страданий? Ведь в университете вы преуспели в лингвистике, в частноcти, добились значительных успехов в изучении санскрита.
A: I had tensions when I was young about what I wanted to do. Initially, it was between Sanskrit and mathematics. I did 11 years of Sanskrit, and I'm happy that I don't have to read Indian philosophy or Sanskrit literature secondhand, in translation. In college, I was interested in math and physics, then in math and economics. The move was influenced by my political concerns — I had left-wing political beliefs and a strong commitment to democracy — and I thought economics worth studying in order to do something about the deprivation, poverty, exploitation and violation of liberty and freedom that occurs across the world.
A: The standard method of measuring poverty is to define a "poverty line" below which people count as poor, and to add up the number of people below that line. This head-count measure is defective in two ways. First, it does not take note of the extent by which the poor fall below the poverty line. Second,
it assumes that deprivation is only a matter of low income. But other factors are also involved. For example, many cases of undernourishment arise at least as much from the presence of parasitic diseases as they do from low food intake. Poverty can be seen as deprivation of basic capabilities — the capability to be well nourished, to receive medical attention and be in good health, to be able to participate in the life of the community and so on.
Q: Экономист Роберт Солоу, профессор Массачусетского института технологии, лауреат Нобелевской премии, назвал вас «совестью профессии».
A: My friend Bob Solow is one of the greatest economists in the world, but I don't know exactly what this phrase means. I would guess that he's referring to the fact that I have tried to work on the downside (обратная сторона) of economics. My concentration has not been the successful enterprises — profitmakers, speculators, big investors. I have been more concerned with the economic problems of the less fortunate: peasants, workers, the poor, the unemployed, the downtrodden, the hungry, famine victims, people whose liberties are violated by politically repressive regimes — all those who are in difficulty. People who, in one way or another, have had the rough end of the stick. I've worked on society's underdogs1, and I know Solow, too, attaches importance to that.
Q: Почему вы выбрали проблемы изучения нищеты, голода и страданий? Ведь в университете вы преуспели в лингвистике, в частноcти, добились значительных успехов в изучении санскрита.
A: I had tensions when I was young about what I wanted to do. Initially, it was between Sanskrit and mathematics. I did 11 years of Sanskrit, and I'm happy that I don't have to read Indian philosophy or Sanskrit literature secondhand, in translation. In college, I was interested in math and physics, then in math and economics. The move was influenced by my political concerns — I had left-wing political beliefs and a strong commitment to democracy — and I thought economics worth studying in order to do something about the deprivation, poverty, exploitation and violation of liberty and freedom that occurs across the world.
