| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| 2003 March 12 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 6 Number 8 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Darkened Villages Behind NK Nuke Crisis |
|
Behind the standoff between North Korea and the world over
its nuclear weapons crisis is a power crisis. Almost a decade
ago, North Korea agreed to stop construction of Soviet-designed
power plants that produced plutonium that could be used for
nuclear weapons. In return, a U.S.-led consortium was to build
three nuclear power plants designed to be proliferation-proof.
Although the first plant under the agreement was to be ready
this year, the project is years behind schedule.
The deal collapsed last fall. Just as winter started, the U.S. ended fuel oil deliveries to North Korea that had been stipulated under the agreement. To visit North Korea today is to visit a country that has regressed into a preindustrial past. Electric wires go from house to house, but at night entire villages disappear into darkness. During the day, residents trudge through the snow, carrying stacks of firewood on their backs. Without the power to mine coal or the fuel to deliver it, most rural households have reverted to cooking and heating with wood. North Korea has become a nation of walkers and bicyclists as there is little gasoline for cars and buses. Pedestrians use empty electric train tracks as walkways. Lighthouses are no longer lit. "The country was fully electrified before the crisis began in the 1990s," said Timothy Savage, who surveyed North Korea's energy needs in 2000 for the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development, a California-based group. The survey calculated that this nation of 22 million people was limping along on 2 gigawatts of energy, less than the amount of power consumed by an American city of one million people. "Energy is at the root of all of North Korea's economic problems, including the famine," Mr. Savage continued, referring to severe food shortages in the mid-1990's that killed as many as two million people, or 10% of the population. Without power, electric pumps could not irrigate fields, electric threshers could not thresh grain, and factories could not make fertilizer or parts for North Korea's ancient fleet of tractors. Source: New York Times |
| ON LIFE-NET RADIO |
| Don't Forget the (US/INS) Detainees |
|
"On Tuesday [March 18], which is really important, we're
having a day in remembrance for the detainees, people who have
been detained throughout the country because of issues with
immigration and naturalization processes--mainly Middle
Eastern, Arab, and Muslim men who have been taken out of their
mosques, homes, in the middle of the night, in the middle of
prayer, for no reason, and then detained. All of these men
were, basically, put into these jails without proper food,
without proper facilities and medical facilities and attention.
"It's really a shame, because they don't get to see their families. They're not granted any spousal rights or rights with their children ... "Right now, the ones, the men in Newark, are on a hunger strike because of the poor treatment they've been getting in these institutions. They're not even getting the normal treatment that regular, average prisoners are getting; they're getting even less than that, because the government immigration and naturalization process feels that they're not worth that, because they're being detained on issues relating to patriotism." Life-Net Radio aired this bit of material as part of Episode #248 two days ago. The speaker: Mollie Herman, student at Eastern High School, Voorhees, NJ, and member of the Progressive Youth Activists Association. |
| Nutrition's Role in AIDS Care Touted by FAO/WHO |
|
A good diet is one of the simplest means of helping people
live with HIV/AIDS and may even help delay the progression of
the deadly virus, two UN agencies said last month. A new
manual published jointly by the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO)
recognizes the relationship between infection and nutrition and
offers simple, practical dietary suggestions for the estimated
42 million people living with HIV/AIDS in various settings
around the world.
By bolstering the immune system and boosting energy levels, balanced nutrition can help the body fight the ravages of the disease, and by maintaining body weight it can support drug treatments and prevent malnutrition. "The nutritional aspect of HIV/AIDS has been ignored for a long time. The attention was always focused on drugs," said William Clay of FAO's Food and Nutrition division. "The message was always: `Take two tablets after meals'. But they forgot about the meals." Almost 95% of people with HIV/AIDS live in developing countries where health care, resources and drugs are scarce. For them a balanced diet is a positive way of responding to the illness. Source: WHO |
| Strapped States See NJ as Role Model |
|
Governors and legislators in states nationwide are talking
about solving their revenue shortages the way New Jersey did--
by raising taxes on the business community. Gov. James E.
McGreevey succeeded last year in revamping New Jersey's
corporate tax code last spring over the opposition of a strong
business lobby and Republican lawmakers. The result has been a
90% increase in corporate tax revenues, helping to offset
slumping sales and income tax collections.
Richard Pomp, a University of Connecticut law professor who advised the McGreevey administration last spring, said that New Jersey's changes have "stimulated a lot of discussion in tax circles." Michael Mazerov of the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget Priorities said serious business tax reforms are being considered in more than 10 states. Most of those states have Republican governors. "Budget problems are forcing states to address the long-term problem with business tax revenues," he said. "New Jersey was the first to comprehensively address the problem." The revisions enacted here are aimed at thwarting tax avoidance strategies, largely by imposing an alternative minimum assessment on a company's revenues or gross profits. The governor argued the state's business tax had become almost voluntary, with 30 of New Jersey's 50 largest employers paying only the $200 annual filing fee. Source: The Times of Trenton |
| Capital Controls: An Alternative to Neo-Liberalism |
|
It is easy to believe that there is no alternative to
certain corporate-led, free market economic policies. But the
most successful countries in both the developed and developing
world have often followed policies that are quite different
from the so-called U.S./IMF-backed 'Washington Consensus' of
privatization, liberalization and laissez-faire.
Actually existing capital controls are an important case in point. Loosely speaking, capital controls refer to taxation and regulation policies that many countries use to limit buying and selling of foreign currency (called exchange controls) and the lending, borrowing and investing of finance across national borders. Whereas the IMF has promoted complete elimination of these controls (called capital account liberalization), many countries retain various kinds of controls over this activity. In fact, many of the countries that avoided the worst effects of recent financial crises--China, India, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Taiwan and Colombia--were also the countries that retained some type of capital controls. This happy outcome is no coincidence. While some international capital flows can clearly bring benefits, they can also create at least three types of dangers:
Source: Ultimate Field Guide to the U.S. Economy |
| Formerly Homeless Official Explains Homelessness |
Three key factors intensify the homeless problem in San
Francisco, according to George Smith III, director of the
Mayor's Office on Homelessness:
Smith is deeply suspicious of those who look at life through, as he put it, the "entitlement lens." Source: San Francisco Examiner |
| Senegal Gardeners Hopeful |
|
In northern Senegal, seasonal October through June drought
plagues women trying to grow food for their families.
Years ago during the dry season, people near Guiers Lake farmed on the moist and fertile lake bed left by receding water. But a dam built 15 years ago now stabilizes the lake levels, meaning that a generations-old survival strategy no longer works. Today, though, the fifty members of the Ndiba Ndame village women's group are making important gains. Last year they took part in the Women's Promotion Program of CHURCH WORLD SERVICE partner ASREAD, the Senegalese Association of Research, Study and Aid for Development. The group is now producing food on a 12-1/2 acre plot, with water provided by motorized pump and a drip irrigation system. This year, the women sold their first harvest--a ton of melons--to a businesswoman from the Gambia. For Fatou Diba, treasurer of the group, the community garden represents hope. "We are all working hard now to learn the system. Once we start making profits, the first thing I will do is buy clothes for my family and put a permanent roof on our house. Maybe one day we will even have electricity and a telephone in our village." Within the space of three years, the Ndiba Ndame women's association--like other gardening groups in the region nurtured by ASREAD--will be entirely self-sufficient, able to completely manage its own affairs, and assured of a steady income. Source: CWS Hotline |
| Life-Net News Extras |
| Evicted Natives Make Gains in Brazil |
|
All the Guarani-Kaiowa, an indigenous people of Brazil,
have been pushed off their land and forced into dire poverty.
Many live by roadsides, subsisting on the fringes of an alien
and often brutal society. Without land they cannot hunt, fish
or grow food, and their society breaks down: as they put it,
without their land they have ‘nothing to live for’. Guarani-
Kaiowa suicide rates are now amongst the highest in the
world; many of those killing themselves are children, some as
young as nine.
"Our president pays almost no attention to us," said Marcos Veron in a 2000 visit to Europe. Veron, a Brazilian Indian shaman and a leader of the Guarani-Kaiowa tribe, was beaten to death early this year by thugs employed by the ranchers who had taken over his homeland, Takuara. "Every time we send a piece of paper it is immediately put away in a filing cabinet," he said. The problem is with the ranchers: they shoot at us, burn our houses and kill our children. They are trying to get rid of us. We go to the ministry of justice, to the courts, but our rights are not recognised. The white people say, ‘You Indians arrived here first. You have rights.’ ... If we have rights, I want those rights to be recognised now ... but the government is hiding our rights." Some Guarani-Kaiowa communities, after years of appealing to the courts, are finally having their land rights recognised. Judges increasingly find in the Indians’ favor, particularly when international concern is brought to bear through letters from supporters. Source: Survival International |
| Socioeconomic Class in the Palestinian Intifada |
|
In a piece comparing the Palestinian Intifada with the
Paris Commune, Ibrahim Alloush writes:
Mind you, there is no question that all strata of Palestinian society suffer under the occupation. However, the reason why the different strata take various positions on the continuation of the Intifada, (just as the different social classes in France took various positions on the continuation of the Franco-Prussian War) lies partially in this micro-level fact: The comparative drop in the standard of living and the comparative increase in suffering under the Intifada are much greater for the compradore than they are for the toilers. In other words, under war, the already oppressed are reduced from subsistence to sub-subsistence levels. The relative deterioration there is much less than it is for those who are reduced from thriving to slightly above subsistence levels. On the other hand, you find the bulk of the people, that is, the toilers of Palestinian society, supporting those groups which stand for and actually practice the armed struggle against Zionists. These organizations need not adopt the program or rhetoric of a working class organization. However, their insistence on the continuation of the armed struggle against the occupation of Palestine to the end, makes that broad current the bloc of true resistance in Palestinian politics that draws to it the toiling masses without qualification. Palestinian toilers embrace it because it represents best their long-term interest in the total and complete destruction of the Jewish occupation of Palestine. That is, they are the most ardent defenders of Palestinian and Arab national rights. Source: Free Arab Voice |
| Santa Cruz Prosecutes Sidewalk Chalkers |
|
The City Attorney's office of Santa Cruz, California, has already spent an estimated $10,000 prosecuting local activists Tim Rinker and Becky Johnson. Their crime: Using sidewalk
chalk on a sidewalk. Their conviction on September 13, 2002, was being appealed as of February 14, when
the City Attorney was expected to be back in court to prosecute
Becky Johnson for two more incidences of using sidewalk chalk.
The City in September called 7 city employees to the stand
(all on the taxpayer's dollar) to testify that sidewalk chalk,
sold at Palace Arts Stationery, is a menace to the City of
Santa Cruz and must be stopped, no matter the price.
"I was ticketed on July 21st," defendant Becky Johnson
explained, "when the second reading of the anti-homeless
downtown ordinances was only 2 days away. These ordinances
vastly limit where people can play music, set up a political
table, sit, beg, or perform and I was merely chalking the edges
of the 'safe zones' so that the public could see how small the
areas will be." Maps provided by the City showing the safe
zones were innacurate.
Rinker and Johnson both claim that using sidewalk chalk to
write political messages is a first amendment activity, does no
damage to the sidewalk, is easily removed, and the ordinance in
question makes no mention of sidewalk chalk as a prohibited
activity.
"Redevelopment Agency analyst Julie Hendee testified at my
first trial," said Johnson. "She basically said that chalking
leads to lawlessness, leads to vandalism, leads to the decline
of sales in businesses and leads to loss of revenue for the
City. I think that's a pretty big stretch."
Johnson faces two charges of defacement with sidewalk
chalk. The second charge, for writing in the gutter "Are we so
mean-spirited that we would deny a homeless person the right to
sleep at night, to beg for food with a sign after dark, to sit,
or to cover up with a blanket?" involved Ms. Johnson's arrest,
handcuffing, booking, jailing, and $1,000 bail for misdeanor
vandalism. The charge was reduced without explanation.
Photos More Information: HUFF at 831-423-HUFF |
| Jamaican Clergy Slams Casino Idea |
|
With the government of Jamaica apparently looking again
into casino gambling, several religious leaders Monday
reiterated the
Church's opposition to legalising casinos. The government,
led by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, at
a three-day retreat in Montego Bay on the weekend with private
sector leaders, identified tourism as the main catalyst for
growth and agreed to carry out further studies on how casinos
could benefit the Jamaican economy.
The Most Rev. Edgerton Clarke, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kingston, warned yesterday that games of chance foster a "get-rich-quick" mentality. "At present Jamaica needs no more. We need a proper work ethic," he said. "I think of some of the things that are already being done for tourism," he said, bemoaning events such as the February 14 nude weddings in Runaway Bay, St. Ann. Archbishop Clarke said that while people would focus on the revenue that may come into the society through casino gambling, "we need to consider the human cost". Source: Jamaica Gleaner |
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