Question: “What makes food in Italy taste so good?”
Answer: “The ingredients”

Here is the longer version:

In a world where as a consumer, we want to have any type of vegetable or fruit in the shop, at any time during the year, we gradually slide into the habit of eating “plastic”. There is no other word for a fruit or vegetable which was picked while unripe, only growing to its mature size (and of course its perfect look) while transported in an under-cooled container.

I remember the perfect December strawberries at breakfast in New York: shiny bright red on the outside, and white on the inside. Nothing but water. No taste whatsoever.
Same – or even more so – in Dubai, where fresh vegetables were almost non-existent. As local living habits were on the route to become North American, so were the eating habits. In the supermarkets, it all looked perfect: apples, asparagus, berries, oranges. Big sizes too. But taste like water.

And on top of that, upon popular demand by the consumer, fruits and veggies can not go off fast. We should be able to keep them in the fridge for three weeks at least… Plastic goes for ever, no? God knows what they treat veggies with to keep “fresh” for a month.

Not so in Italy. In general, you can only buy fruits and vegetables which are in season. The taste is like I have never experienced before. But you have to use it within the next days, as they go off in no time.

Look at this freshly picked Tuscan tomato a friend brought from her garden. See its colour, its firmness?

Freshly picked, it made a lovely meal by itself. But, amongst the two dozen tomatoes, there was one unripe tomato. Still firm green. Just for the curiosity, I left it on the cupboard for four weeks. When eventually it was ripe, it looked perfect, just like the others, but tasted like nothing. Why? It did not ripen in the sun, on its vine as the other tomatoes did. It grew to maturity on my cupboard.

Look at this salsa I made: the only ingredient were freshly picked Tuscan tomatoes. I added some herbs and let it all broil for two hours. Look at the intensity of the colour, look how firm it is. If I’d do this with Belgian tomatoes, it would be all watery with only a hint of red.

And that is one of the reason I love to live in Italy.

More about Living in Italy on The Road

Top picture courtesy Nanaimo Info Blog

He lived in poverty while he wrote his first book. After 400 pages of it, he discarded the relevance, and hung it from a string on his bathroom wall, so he could save on toilet paper. His wife took the manuscript, read it, took the last page and wrote on it: “Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera”. She wrapped everything together in brown paper and sent it off to a publisher. It won the Leo J. Krijn Prize for literature.

I did not read three books from Louis-Paul Boon. I got fascinated by him and read all of his books, about 30 or 40 by then. Some of the books had the size of an encyclopedia. And I did not write a summary, I wrote a 100 page thesis. My teachers collectively declared me a nut case and I graduated (almost failing my maths exam, though, but that is a different story).

No surprise Louis-Paul Boon left a lasting impression on the teenager I was, and still am. Not only in his writing style and approach to life, but also in some of his basic principles. One of them was “You have to kick people until they have a conscience”: You have to repeat ethical values to people, slam their face with it, until they understand. Head-on. That sentence remained within me, lingering.

Being young, you want to prove yourself, so I got into the commercial world, into the business. And not just any business. After some adventures at a hitech research company, I joined a company -at that time- at the heart of the world’s financial world. I worked at their headquarters, in a building designed by Ricardo Bofill and set on an old castle estate near Brussels.

My conscience won the battle. I gave up my management career, went to the Antarctic, wrote a book, and started my professional life from scratch as a technician for the Red Cross.

Gradually, once more, my commercial and competitive instincts got the upper hand. While I continued to work in the humanitarian world, I gradually got sucked into the hard core “business” aspect of it: concentrating on my core work, I would do the stuff I did well, and do it head-on. I would not always put it all in a humanitarian context.

As the years went on, my team grew. I hired hundreds of people over the years. Many left a trace in my mind and heart. It was not until the midst of the 2003 Iraq crisis, we hired Larisa.

Larisa started the Pink Revolution in our team. She would question all and everything. She was a pain. She would be the one saying “you can not kill to feed the hungry”. Not meant literally (thank God!), but rather: “you can not run over your ethics while doing your humanitarian work”.

She triggered my conscience back into a ferocious battle with my competitive instincts. And this time, the conscience would get the upper hand. It has ever since, I’d love to believe.

My conscience is a big as a 30 story flat now. It dominates everything I do. Every time I raise my voice (a lot), piss off people (a lot), hurt someone (luckily rarely I would think), I can not sleep at night. I am trying to lead a life where my ethics determine what and how I do it. It dominates.

That makes me a pain to work with. That makes it impossible to manage me. Many see me as a loose canon. I simply can not keep quiet. I feel guilty if I have something on my mind, and do not speak up, or question. I fight battles, often loosing battles. I bang my head against the wall continuously. But I do not give up. This blog, The Road, is part of that dynamic, by the way.

The “conscience” is one of the reasons I continue to work in the humanitarian world. Not only because it is “humanitarian”, but maybe, maybe, I can work on “change from within”. The UN is criticised a lot. But it is easy doing that from the sidelines. I want to do it while being in the midst of it. Trying to make a change from within.

And maybe, maybe, I can instill a change in people. Even if it was in a small part, I want to change the world. And remind people of their conscience. Every day is a battle to continue doing that. It is so easy to get sucked into your daily job, without loosing sight of the wider, the humanitarian, the human context.

Every day, I have to remind myself. Every day, I have to weigh the conscience part, with the work I have to deliver. Not loosing sight of either. Every day. Every day, I want to kick people until they have a conscience. “Lowie” in me has not died. Is he still alive within you?

Pictures courtesy Ricardo Bofill, Klara

He took the lives away from Botan, Farzana, Abid, GulRukh and Mohammad. Our colleagues and friends.

Botan Al-Hayawi (41) was Iraqi. He leaves behind a wife, two sons and a daughter. Botan was on mission in Peshawar when suicide bombers blew up the Pearl Continental Hotel in June. I met Botan several times back in 2002 and 2003 when I worked in Iraq.

Yesterday, Botan posted something on the Interagency ICT discussion forum:

I arrived to Islamabad last Monday morning with a busy day planned. I had just returned to Islamabad after recovering from the Peshawar blast on June 9th, 2009, which left me with some minor injuries but did not break my spirit.

He wrote this less than 24 hours before someone took his life away.

Farzana Barkat (22) was an office assistant. She worked in our logistics office, right next to where the suicide bomber blew himself up. A young woman at the start of her life.

Abid Rehman (41) was our senior finance assistant. He leaves a wife, two daughters and two sons. I worked with Abid when I was based in Islamabad from 2000 to 2002. We always exchanged friendly and teasing jokes as I stretched the finance unit with my urgent requests.

GulRukh Tahir (40) was our receptionist. She leaves behind a husband.

Mohammad Wahab (44) was our finance assistant. He leaves a wife, two daughters and two sons.

I am a bit numb at this moment. I think back of all the people I have known, and who lost their lives in the line of duty. Abby, Saskia, Pero, M.….

I think how it is possible to be close to those we want to serve, without having to isolate ourselves with barbed wire and sand bags. I think how we can still work in places we are still needed, but know we are at risk. Algeria, where our offices were bombed in 2007. Somalia, where we lost two colleagues earlier this year. Sudan, where we lost several drivers over the past years… Only to name a few.

It is strange.. It is only after the hours go by that the cruelty and the reality of the act today really seeps through… And the consciousness that if we are to work in a higher risk environment, there actually is not one place, where one is totally safe. Where would that be? In the office? They drive a truck through the gates and blow it up. In the guesthouse or the hotel? Same thing…
You can restrict the movements of staff and reduce field visits to minimize the risk, you can drive armoured cars – as we do in some operations – but then again, what holds them from blowing up an anti-tank mine underneath your vehicle as you stop in front of the traffic lights? What holds anyone from gunning you down when you get out of the car. Even when you think you are safe in the office compound.

Security for humanitarian workers has been more and more restrictive on what and how we can do our work. “Protecting ourselves” is a must. But how far does that conflict with being able to do our work, which entails having direct contact with those we serve? Should we all pack and go home?

I do not know the answers. I know one thing. This is not a happy birthday for me…

This song keeps on playing in my mind…

Picture courtesy The Nation

OLPC set out a couple of years ago, designing, manufacturing and distributing a simple laptop (or call it a “Netbook”) geared towards kids, specifically in developing countries. Their mission was formulated as:

To create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.

From the beginning, the plan was ambitious, innovative,.. and controversial. “Tall trees catch a lot of wind” is surely applicable. The more as it was such an easy target for cheap sarcasm: “How will a laptop feed a hungry child”? You can imagine…

Alanna’s post is creating a bit of a sturr in the ICT4D (ICT For Development), and in the development blogosphere as such (Check out the latest posts via a Humanitarian News search). I might disagree with Alanna on the OLPC, I surely appreciate provocative posts to stir up discussions.

Here are my views:

• Anyone trying to make a difference, and is not afraid to put words into deeds, especially if it is innovative, provocative and controversial, deserves my respect. Especially if it is well thought through. OLPC has my respect.
• Proper education is one of the principal ways to eradicate poverty. There are different means to boost education in the developing world. Rendering technology more affordable and accessible is one.
• …But it is not the only solution. Cheap laptops can not feed hungry children, that is for sure. But neither can “feeding children teach them how to read”. Boosting education in the developing world has many challenges. Starting at the basics:
  • How do we get the kids to come to school, if they have to work in the fields helping their parents to grow enough food?
  • Once they come to school, how do we keep them in school up to the point their education becomes applicable to their lives?
  • How do we train teachers, and keep them into education. How do we avoid poaching of teachers by the commercial world?
  • How do we ensure kids have enough nutritional food, are they properly de-wormed (and are healthy enough), so they can capitalize to the max on the efforts brought? (there is a whole series of studies illustrating how proper nutrition boosts a child’s capacity to learn)
  • How do we make sure there is a proper school infrastructure, proper teaching material, proper latrines?
  • How do we make sure the educational programme is institutionalized and self-sustainable (I need to write something on sustainability as this is one of my sore points at the moment).
• Attacking OLPC because they triggered only one part of the solution, is unfair, I think. However triggering debates to ensure OLPC is properly integrated in a wholesome solution, is constructive.
• However, as the cynical aidworker I sometimes am, I have to say that wholesome solutions to complex development goals are virtually non-existent. It is simply not built into the humanitarian system. It is very very very difficult to have different organisations work together for a common goal. Even if it would be as simple as “address the problems of this ONE school in all of its aspects”. Leave alone all schools in a country. Beh.. Different organisations have different means and goals. But most of all, they compete. They compete for the same donor-dollar. In the end, why would I, as organisation X, work with organisation Y, if I know that in the end, we will be approaching the same donors for the same money? X and Y are competitors in a competitive world. And that will remain forever (unless at a certain point, there is a more even balance between the world’s needs and the world’s capacity to give. Dream on!).
• And finally: OLPC is an easy target. I will challenge anyone to bring up examples of aid projects which are the right bang for buck, with wholesome approaches, lasting and self-sustainable projects. There are not many. There is a lot of “make believe”, but there are not many good examples. If the aid organisations would be commercial enterprises, the “aid business bubble” would have burst decennia ago. And would have burst every five years.

OK, that is a lot of ranting, what is the solution then? According to me, we have to start at the basics. Some food for thought:

• Better and stronger oversight of the aid spending, both by the organisations themselves, governments and independent bodies. Make the audits public. Make the impact data public.
• Work out better criteria to measure impact, sustainability and integration in wholesome solutions.
• Ensure outcomes are measured by impact, and not by amount of money spent. (You think I am kidding? I am not! No donor is ever happy if at the end of the project, you return the balance of unspent money. Ever!)
• Entice cooperation between organisations, while recognizing that healthy competition is good.
• Transparency, transparency, transparency, transparency.

Shoot me. I am a dreamer.

Pictures courtesy OLPC, Wulffmorgenthaler.com

Oops, punctured tyre.. No problem I have done this before… A Smart does not come with a spare tyre, but with a handy electric pump. I park on the emergency lane. 30 ton truck racing 2 inches past you. You “pump it up” and drive off..

Oops… puncture too big…. I barely make it to the next gas station. All flat again. No problem.. I have a can of tyre glue filler (how do you call that stuff?), made for just that. Except that there is no tool to get the valve off the tyre. No way to fit the glue tube onto the tyre.

Well, this is a gas station, so I ask the pompista. Nope. “No tools.” He points at the gas station at other side of the highway: “Ask there”. Luckily there is an underpass. Off I go.
I explain with the best of my Italian, that there is a problem with my “bomba” and I am looking for a “bombista”.. The guy gives me a funny look but no luck. “If you get the tyre here, I will fix you up with a second hand one”, he says. I think that is what he says.

Meanwhile next to my car, a queue is forming. Three buses of Dutch tourists wanna go to the loo, and line up right next to my car. And each has a comment. Not thinking I would speak Dutch. We’re in Italy after all. Until I comment on their comments.

Long story short, my luck comes in the form of an angel, a friend working close by. She dropped by the local garage, picks up a wrench and a tool to remove the valve. When she arrives, I introduce her to the Dutch tourists as the representative of the local automobile club. They all comment they want to change tyres too.

Anyway, glue goes in, but as soon as I pump up the tyre, it comes out of a dozen different holes. It seems I drove into every single nail in Rome. Tyre has to come off. Smart no come with jack. Back to the pompista to explain I have a problem with my ‘bomba’.. No tools. Friend’s car has. Fits well. Off comes the tyre.

With tyre and friend back to the other side of the highway. I ask again for the ‘bombista’. Friend asks me what I mean? I say “a guy who fixes tyres”.. “Ah” she says, ‘GOMMISTA’, you mean. ‘BOMBISTA’ is someone who makes bombs…” No wonder nobody had tools for my “BOMBA” (bomb). Oh well.

The GOMMISTA gets the tyre off, and fixes a second hand one he has laying around. “Should get you going to the next garage”, he says. 20 Euros. Cheap to get back onto the road.

Back to the other side of the highway (thank God for underpasses), fixed the tyre while realizing this is not the typical picture: Normally you would have a blonde saved by a mechanical savvy guy. Here I am being saved by a female angel..

Anyways, dropped the car off at a garage, and got a ride back home. Back where I started off, four hours later. Car to be picked up in the evening.

Will give it another try tomorrow morning…

Don’t we all get ’sucked’ into situations without even realizing it… And then, one day, you wake up, and look at it all with fresh eyes… When that happens to me, my AHA-thought concentrates around two things only: “How the hell did I get here?” and “How is it possible I have let it slip that far?”

An example, on a more lively and cheerful note: When I lived in Uganda, one morning the driver did not pick up my on time, and I nearly missed my flight.

I asked why he was late, and he shrugged:
- Not my fault…
- Why not?
- It was the neighbour’s wife’s brother fault.
- Why?
- I have an electric clock with an alarm, but it did not work.
- …
- My neighbour had connected his electricity line to mine. He had locked up the connection in a box with a padlock.
- …
- The wife had visited her brother.
- Whose wife?
- My neighbour’s… She had visited her brother.
- …
- She had left her keys there. The padlock key was amongst them.
- …
- In the evening, she returned home. There was a shortcircuit in his electricity connection, which also shut off my electricity. They could not repair it, as they called the wife’s brother to come with that key. But he did not.
- ….
- So my electric clock did now work, and I overslept…

To get up in the morning, the guy had to resolve the electricity problem, but ran into solving problems which were related to problems which were related to other problems which somehow related to the original problem…

And that is a problem, you see?

The week after the disillusioning appuntamente (appointments) with the hair dresser and the garage, I stepped into another appuntamento adventure. This time with a dentist.

I had never been to a dentist in Italy, but the week before last, a tooth ache appeared out of no-where. I could feel the pain spiking down to the bottom of my spine, a sign the nerve of the tooth was touched.

Via my Friend E, I got in touch with a dentist and made an appointment for “next Wednesday at 9:30 AM”. This was my first surprise, as dentists are pretty busy.

I stood at the porch of their practice at 9:25, and they arrived at 9:30, on the dot: The dentist, a young bright-blue-eyed woman, and the receptionist, a lady with a godly smile.

The dentist looked at my teeth. She shook her head. She would need X-rays and an ultrasound cleansing to remove all chalk residues before she could do anything else.

One was work for an Xray technician, and the other for a dental hygienist. I had an instantaneous nightmare of an endless appuntamente string. The dentist laughed at my sad face and said she would take an Xray of the hurting tooth herself, and put in a temporary filling. My first good luck of the day, as otherwise, I would have started my holidays – the next day! – with hurting teeth…

Half an hour later, we tried to find a blank spot in the agenda of the dental hygienist, but nothing seemed possible until September… And the Xray person was not available for months neither.

Both the receptionist and my dentist started a soft discussion, and in the end, the receptionist said:
- “OK, we will do the Xray session in two weeks, followed the next hour with the root canal for your hurting tooth… But we will do the dental hygiene session now…”
- “Now?” I asked.
- “Now”, she winked.. “I am a dental hygienist too. Today is a calm day at the reception, so I will do it. Is that ok?”
- “More than OK!”..

One hour later, I was back on the street. I had a dental appuntamento that had actually worked. They did even twice as much work as foreseen. Plus I had my dental hygiene session, for which I had not even taken an appointment.

So why did the appuntamente with hair dresser and the garage not work out, while I had no trouble at the dentist?

My theory: The first two were men. The latter were with two women. Proof efficiency in the Italian society revolves around the women, not the men. Punto.

More about Living in Italy on The Road

Picture courtesy Dentist Tools (obviously!)

As I came back from my failed “appuntamento” (appointment) with the garage, I headed for the centre of Rome. We were early July, schools were already in their summer break, so traffic was a breeze. I arrived almost an hour early for my appointment with the physio-therapist. I wanted him to straighten out my back before the start of the holidays…

I walked a couple of blocks and found a bar. Don’t get me wrong, yes- it was early in the morning, about 9:30 AM, but a “bar” in Italy is more a coffee shop than a place where you buy alcohol…

As I was sipping my café, I noticed a “parrucchiere”, a hair dresser, next door. The lady was standing outside, smoking a cigarette, so they could not have been very busy. I needed a hair cut badly.. I asked her if she had time, did not need much of a designer cut, so fifteen minutes would do it.. She looked at me, and said she did not have time now, but I could make an appuntamento for 11:15. That synchronized nicely with my appointment with the physio session, so I agreed eagerly.

After my vertebrae and joints were all cracked back in place, I went back to the hair dresser. I was fifteen minutes early, so she asked me to wait for a bit. I took out my laptop and started working outside, on a bench right in front the shop. “I will call you when I am ready”, the hair dresser nodded..

The next time I looked at my watch, it was 1:15 PM… I had been sitting there for two and a half hours and forgot all about time. Laptop in hand, I stormed back into the shop, to find it filled to the brim with ladies. And two sweating hair dressers… One of them looked at me and shook his head.
- “No time today!”
- “But I have an appuntamento for 11:15”
- [nod] “No time today!”
- “But I came here at 9:30 and we made an appuntamento for 11:15. I have now been waiting here for two and a half hours.”
- “What can I say? No time today!”.
- “But could you not have told me earlier?”
- “What difference would it make? I told you, I have no time today. What more do you want me to say? I – have – no – time – today…”
- “I – say – bollocks – bollocks – bollocks -…”

I gesticulated wildly, raised my voice, and then retreated in apathy, to the great amusement of the dozen later-aged ladies. Who all confirmed what the parrucchiere said: “He has no time today”…

That day, I had three appuntamente. One with the garage, one with a hair dresser and one with the physio-therapist. Only the latter worked out. And he is Belgian.

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Picture courtesy J.Cangiano

I drive a Smart in Italy. This small two-seater is made by Mercedes, so you think of German Grundlichkeit – thoroughness and professionalism – when you would deal with a Mercedes garage. In Italy, think again…

My Smart’s air-conditioning broke down, waaayy back. With the temperature climbing to 30 dgrs C, it got a bit too hot.
So, I drove to the Mercedes garage and asked to book a repair. The Mercedes garage looks like the entry of a luxury bank or furniture store. Classy people in uniform, design sofas, people at individual desks talking with customers..

Only… I could not book a repair, as I needed to make an ‘appuntamento’ with a ‘consulente’ first. Only THEN I could book for a repair.

I was not going to brushed off like that. I made clear my car was hot, and I needed it repaired. Even more so, I wanted to drop the car early in the morning, and pick it up in the evening otherwise I’d have to hire a car to drive home. Taxis don’t want to go where I live. Too much out of their way..

Escalating my request and raising the tone of my voice, I got promoted from the girl at the reception, to a junior consulente, to the senior consultant, and ended up with the boss of the designer garage joint.

He agreed with me, but I had to make an “appuntamento” with a “consulente” weeks in advance, to make sure they could reserve a mechanic for a day. And I had to book an appointment via their toll-free number. A bit of an adventure, as nobody spoke English on the other end of the line. After 30 minutes of discussions, we had a deal.

Weeks later comes G-Day, “Garage”-day. The day whose evening would be blessed with me, stepping out of the car looking like a cool dude, without a shirt dripping with sweat. “Cool” would be a keyword from then on. And even better: “G-Day” was a “Fri-day”, so I would have a cool car for the whole cool weekend!

Early morning of G-day, I drove to the garage. Waited for the consulente while seated in the designer sofa. As if I’d be checking in my car in a luxury clinic. The appointment with my consulente was at 9:15 apparently. I was 45 minutes early.

Felt like going to a dentist, so I got steaming a bit, as the only thing I wanted, was to drop off the keys: I had already explained everything to the boss, and to the lady at the toll free number. So why would I need to queue up with a ‘consultente’. On top of that, I had my friend “E” waiting to give me a lift back to work.

Anyways, forty minutes later, the consulente decided it was my turn. We filled in heaps of paperwork, went over to look at the car, noted every dent and scratch. Checked the car’s chassis number and registration papers. I explained in my best Italian “what is the matter”, and he confirmed everything in his best English. Luckily “air-conditioning” in English is “air-conditioning” in Italian.. More papers to sign. Something with a privacy act. Then he types everything into his computer, and smiles at me while saying:
- Okay, done. Please give us a call somewhere next week to check if the car is ready…
- Next week?!! You guys said it would be fixed in a day ?!
- ???? Noooo.. (He laughs like this was the joke of the week).. We have no time today. Anyway, this can not be fixed in a day.
- Why not? I talked to the boss, he said it was fine. I waited for weeks so it could be done in a day?
- Which boss?
- There the one in that office… (And I point to the office which has a big sign “Manager”)
- Well you will have to wait until he arrives then. Discuss it with him, because I can not help you…
- When does he come in?
- Ooogh, around 11 probably.
- But it is 9 now.. I need to go to work.
- I am sorry, but there is no way I can help you. We don’t have time to finish this work today. And we will have to order spare parts… Which will take days to get here. (I remembered my friend E’s Smart which indeed was immobilized for five days for a spare part to come from Milano to Rome. Probably someone walked it over..)
- How about you guys take today to check what is wrong. I pick up the car in the evening. You order the spare parts and I drop off the car for a one day repair again next week? (Try to say that in Italian, hey? Amazing what I can do when I am annoyed)
- Oh, sir, but we don’t have time to even LOOK at the car today…
- …
- …
- … Let me get this right. I had to wait for weeks to make an appointment to get the car repaired within a day. You let me come on a Friday, and now you tell me you won’t even look at it until Monday morning?
- …
- So why do you let me come on a Friday, then? Why would I keep it here over the weekend, knowing you guys would not work on it?

He looks at me with pain in his eyes and a sad smile on his lips. He whispers “It is worse than Africa is it not?”.

In the end, I agreed I would drop the car off the week after. I’d be on holiday for one month. He thought there’d be a reasonable chance to repair the A/C within a month.

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During major humanitarian crises, 13 British charities often raise money jointly under an umbrella organisation called the Disasters Emergencies Committee (DEC), with appeals shown on all the major television networks.

But the DEC had its fingers burned when the BBC and Sky decline to cooperate on its last appeal for the Gaza conflict, fearing the media’s involvement would compromise their political neutrality as news organisations, a story we reported previously on The Road.

The consequence of the BBC’s Gaza decision seems to have a deeper impact then we anticipated: it was a precedent of how the media could “make or break” a humanitarian appeal effort. The Gaza media incident spilled over into the current humanitarian catastrophes in Sri Lanka and Pakistan as now DEC is still contemplating whether or not to launch appeals for Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

“The issue is whether the broadcasters will support an appeal and my impression is that they won’t, for perceived reasons of (aid) access in either case, and for perceived reasons of political complexity in either case.” (Full)

So, let me get this straight: because the media decide not to provide coverage for an appeal, a humanitarian organisation decides NOT to launch an appeal? Eh? Would that make DEC’s decision not to appeal for Sri Lanka and Pakistan as revolting as the BBC’s decision not to provide media coverage for the appeal? Are soon humanitarian organisations ‘picking and choosing’ which operations to support, based on ‘the possible support by the media’?

Current balance: Humanitarian organisations’ resources already stretched because of the current economic crisis, are left close to depleted. Not because the need was not there – Pakistan’s war in Swat Valley uprooted close to 3 million people – but because of lack of support and attention from the media.

The phenomenon is known amongst aidworkers as “The CNN Effect”: If an emergency gets the spotlight on CNN, humanitarian wheels start rolling. If it is not featured on CNN, the emergency is forgotten and hushed in a corner. You might just as well not start an emergency operation if you feel you won’t be able to fundraise for it, right?

Which turns the Rupert Murdochs and Ted Turners of this world the Gods deciding between life and death for thousands.