The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY FEBRUARY 2015 13 Crowdsourcing Innovation to Combat Ebola T he ght against Ebola in West Africa continues. USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah called the Ebola crisis “one of the toughest challenges we face.” Making it even worse is the physical climate: the heat and humidity of the region make the already di cult and dangerous tasks health care workers do every day more arduous. e personal protective equipment (PPE) suits these workers wear to guard against infection save their lives, but are also often a source of great discomfort. to do is to concentrate on solving its own problems rather than always point- ing ngers at others.” And a story from the Moscow Bureau of the Associated Press noted that “Moscow appeared to relish turning the tables on the U.S. after repeated U.S. criticism of Russia’s rights records and its policies toward Ukraine.” e article quoted the Russian Foreign Minis- try’s human rights envoy Konstantin Dolgov’s remarks on Russian state television: “ e develop- ments in Ferguson and other cities high- light serious challenges to the American society and its stability,” he said. Blogger Allison Sommer Kaplan re ected on comparisons of the Ferguson protests and the clashes between Israelis and Palestians in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz . She wrote : “I do see one major similarity between the Israel-Hamas con- ict and Ferguson, as I watch the talking heads on the U.S. media and their counter- parts in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem endlessly try to work out how to solve their respective problems during this long, hot summer: dangerously short-term thinking.” —Brittany DeLong, Assistant Editor TALKING POINTS The World Reacts to Ferguson T he fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the grand jury’s decision not to indict the white police o cer who shot him, and the strong reaction to both in Ferguson and throughout the United States sparked headlines around the world. How are other countries reacting to recent events? A Nov. 25 Hu ngton Post report summarizing media coverage from a number of outlets noted that Spain’s El Pais newspaper characterized the Fer- guson protests as uniting young blacks who may not have known the victim. “ is is not America’s or the black com- munity’s problem. It is a global problem of people who feel oppressed,” the newspaper quoted a source as saying. In the United Kingdom, e Tele- graph speculated that the recession, which increased disparities of wealth between the races, was partly to blame for the backlash. “All of this is made worse by a police and judicial system that seems not just imbalanced against blacks but actually designed to put more of them in prison,” it wrote in an article on Dec. 4. e German publication Spiegel Online criticized the degree of police reaction in Ferguson by comparing weapons use. In Germany “weapons are the last resort,” it wrote. “But in the U.S. police o cers make use of themmuch faster.” Chinese media pointed out the hypocrisy of the United States’ human rights position. “ e United States assaulted almost 200 countries across the world for their so-called poor human rights records,” the Chinese news agency Xinhua wrote in a com- mentary. “What the United States needs Health care workers suit up at the U.S. Navy Mobile Ebola lab in Bong County, Liberia. USAID/Morgana Wingard So many kids at the top schools apply for Teach for America. I’d like to talk to those young people and say: Consider government. It’s real service too, and you can aect hundreds of millions of people. And if you’re working for USAID and the State Department, you can aect billions of people. —Chief Technology O cer of the United States Megan Smith, interviewed by e New York Times Magazine, Nov. 2. Contemporary Quote