| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| 2003 March 26 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 6 Number 10 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| The Water Barons and the Food Bubble |
|
The explosive growth of three private water utility
companies in the last 10 years raises fears that mankind
may be losing control of its most vital resource to a
handful of monopolistic corporations. In Europe and North
America, analysts predict that within the next 15 years
these companies will control 65% to 75% of what are now
public waterworks. The companies have worked closely with
the World Bank and other international financial
institutions to gain a foothold on every continent. They
aggressively lobby for legislation and trade laws to force
cities to privatize their water and set the agenda for
debate on solutions to the world’s increasing water
scarcity. The companies argue that they are more efficient
and cheaper than public utilities. Critics say they are
predatory capitalists who ultimately plan to control the
world’s water resources, evade accountability, and drive up
prices even as the gap between rich and poor widens.
Source: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Related Stories: at ICIJ As world water demand has tripled over the last half-century, it has exceeded the sustainable yield of aquifers in scores of countries--including China, India, and the U.S., which collectively account for half of the world's grain harvest--leading to falling water tables. In effect, governments are satisfying the growing demand for food by overpumping groundwater, a measure that virtually assures a drop in food production when the aquifer is depleted. Knowingly or not, governments are creating a "food bubble" economy. As water use climbs, the world is incurring a vast water deficit, one that is largely invisible, historically recent, and growing fast. Because the impending water crunch typically takes the form of falling water tables, it is not visible. Falling water tables are often discovered only when wells go dry. The diesel-driven or electrically powered pumps that make overpumping possible have become available throughout the entire world at essentially the same time. The near-simultaneous depletion of aquifers means that cutbacks in grain harvests will be occurring in many countries at more or less the same time. And they will be occurring at a time when world population is growing by more than 70 million a year. Although some countries have already made impressive gains in raising irrigation efficiency and recycling urban wastewater, most respond to water scarcity by building more dams or drilling more wells. But now it's becoming more difficult to expand supply, and the choices narrow down to reducing demand, by stabilizing population and raising water productivity. With nearly all the 3 billion people to be added by 2050 being born in developing countries where water is already scarce, achieving an acceptable balance between water and people may now depend more on stabilizing population than on any other single action. The second step in stabilizing the water situation is to raise water productivity, not unlike the way we have raised the productivity of land. After World War II, with population projected to double by 2000 and with little new land to bring under the plow, the world launched a major effort to raise the productivity of cropland. As a result, land productivity nearly tripled between 1950 and 2000. Now it is time to see what we can do with water. Source: Earth Policy Institute |
| 'Peace Week' Culminates at Eastern High |
|
On Life-Net Radio #248, which you can still hear any
time on our site, we hosted Mollie Herman of the
Progressive Youth Activists Association at Eastern Regional
High School in Voorhees, New Jersey. She told us about a
"peace week", ending with an anti-war rally March 21.
After the day of the rally I saw a story about it in the (Camden) Courier-Post, which also tells about a protest in Camden City, March 20, that started on the grounds of LNR regular NEW VISIONS. Here's a bit: More than two dozen high school students from three South Jersey schools lined the corner of Route 561 and Laurel Oak Road in Voorhees on Friday holding signs and chanting anti-war slogans at passersby. "We're fired up. We say no war," they chanted as drivers in cars, even an oil truck driver, honked their horns repeatedly in support. Many of the students, who were from Eastern Regional in Voorhees, Cherokee in Evesham and Cherry Hill High School East, were dressed in all-black clothing with peace symbols and slogans on their clothing. They held signs that said "Honk 4 Peace," "Jobs not war" and "Islam is not the enemy." Members from the Greater Camden Unity Coalition [members of which have taken many LNR air slots] also joined the protest "in support of the high school students," said coalition spokesman Michael Scheinberg of Collingswood. Jed Blume, a 15-year-old freshman at Eastern, held a sign that said, "Smart bombs don't justify dumb leaders." Full Story: at the Courier-Post |
| Afghanistan Still A Wreck |
|
The International Development Committee of the British
parliament says that one year after the U.S.-led war that
toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the country
remains a wreck and could fall back into anarchy without
more security assistance and money from the international
community.
The committee's latest report says Afghanistan has no institutions that work, no legitimate economy, no security, and a serious lack of capacity within the government. It says most of the $5 billion pledged to Afghanistan last year has been spent on humanitarian aid, not reconstruction. Committee chairman Tony Baldry says Afghanistan also needs international peacekeepers to operate throughout the country and not just in the capital of Kabul, lest the country start to fracture. Committee member Ann Clwyd says last September's assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai reveals how close Afghanistan came to slipping back into chaos. One of Britain's leading academics on Afghanistan, Jonathan Goodhand says, "The security transition in many ways has been disastrous because as everyone would argue, warlords now are stronger than they were a year ago." Mr. Goodhand says there also are potentially explosive conflicts over land, water and other resources caused by the massive influx of two million Afghans who have returned from exile since the fall of the Taliban. Source: Voice of America I spent a month [in Afghanistan] taking medical aid to 13 mountain villages that collectively go by the name of Sheik-Jalaal. Out of a population of 5,000, 50% were children and they were dying. Dying of tuberculosis, diphtheria, malaria, whooping cough, gastroenteritis, and URI. They hadn't seen a doctor in 24 years! Wasn't this the country that Tony Blair and George Bush pledged, in the same breath that announced war, that the people of Afghanistan would not be forgotten? Well, I can say after two visits to Afghanistan that they are not only forgotten but well and truly betrayed. The country is on its knees: Roads, bridges, tunnels, schools, homes, hospitals, and farmlands are reduced to rubble and dust. It is one of the most heavily land-mined countries in the world. Only 5% of the rural population have access to clean water, 17% have access to medical services, 13% have access to education, 25% of all children are dead by the age of five. Life expectancy is 43. An estimated three million people are still in refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan, let alone the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people. This country is in a mess and if anyone tells me that millions of dollars worth of aid is getting into this country then I will gladly take them to Afghanistan and point out the brutal truth. Source: Glasgow Herald Headings on the Web page include strengthening governance, restoring media, rehabilitating agriculture, restoring infrastructure, empowering women, enhancing education, improving health, and growing the economy. Source: "Rebuilding Afghanistan" |
| Nonprofits Outcome Data Under-Used |
|
As nonprofit organizations play an ever-bigger role
in delivering human services, there is also bigger pressure
for greater accountability to funders and other
stakeholders, including the public. Current perceptions of
accountability go beyond traditional interests in
efficiency to include effectiveness in helping their
clients.
Outcome data is often used to help measure effectiveness, and more nonprofits are involved in collecting these data each year. But it is still rare to find nonprofits using this valuable information to improve service delivery. Most often, they report it to funders as a requirement under a grant and put it to little, if any, internal use by the organization. Many organizations do not appreciate or understand the potential usefulness of outcome information for improving services. Source: Urban Institute Full Report: "How and Why Non-Profits Use Outcome Information" |
| Child Fisher-Slaves in Ghana |
|
The victims, mostly boys aged between 5 and 14, are
forced to work from dawn to dusk casting and drawing nets.
They live separately in cramped thatched roofed huts, are
poorly fed, suffer physical abuse and never get paid.
Their diet consists mainly of cassava with watery soup.
They never eat fish. Because of their poor diet and harsh
living and working conditions, many suffer from water-borne
illnesses and experience stunted growth.
In one location alone, an island in the middle of Lake Volta, dozens of slave children are marooned in "Accra Town", a fishing settlement with no electricity or running water. In this settlement, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has collected testimonies that at least five children have recently drowned trying to release nets caught on the bottom of the lake. In "Accra Town" the children are employed by local fishermen, locally known as "slave masters". One employer, who has been in the business for 10 years, told IOM he had recently paid 5 million Cedis (US$570) for nine children he currently exploits. Another local employer on the island acknowledged exploiting 35 children, though this number could be much higher. According to IOM's Dr. Ernest Taylor, employers are well aware that it is wrong to employ children, but use them because they are "easier to control and obey orders, however dangerous the work." In order to identify slave children and trace their families, IOM staff has so far carried out one-to-one interviews with 136 employers in five communities. They've registered 814 children. Counselling, training and equipment will soon be made available to fishermen in exchange for the release of the children. IOM hopes that improved equipment and fishing methods will discourage them from employing children in the future. The first family reunification, expected in the coming weeks, will allow the children to return to school or join vocational training programs, which will be set up by IOM and its partners. Poverty, which led to the trafficking of the children in the first place, will be addressed by giving parents access to income-generating micro-credit schemes. "Free the Fishing Boys!" Source: International Organization for Migration |
| Donations for GA Tornado Relief Drop |
|
After a March 20 tornado, Adventist Disaster Response
officials in Camilla, Georgia, say they're experiencing an
unusual response. "The donations aren't coming in," said
Carolyn Lipscomb, warehouse director. "That is not
normal. We have never experienced this."
Lipscomb said people flooded the center with donations after a tornado in 2000, a 1999 tornado in Vienna (GA), the 1998 flooding in nearby Albany and Lee County, and the 1994 flood in Albany. "I think the war has taken precedence," Lipscomb said. "All (people) see on TV is the war. They don't realize we have a need right here in our own area." On Thursday, a category F-3 tornado struck Camilla and parts of Worth County, killing at least seven people and injuring about 100. Officials estimate $2.5 million in damages and say as many as 150 homes were destroyed. Terry Haight, the coordinator for the Adventist Disaster Response in Georgia and eastern Tennessee, said Monday, mere days after the tornado, that he was thinking about closing the warehouse. "Those donations are just non-existent," Haight said. "Just a little bit of canned goods and some clothing. But there's not enough to even warrant giving it to anybody." Ted Houser, spokesman for the Mennonite Disaster Service, compared the saturation war coverage to the national attention on the September 11 terrorist attacks. "The news media can kind of dictate what's going on--where people's priorities are set." Source: Disaster News Network |
| Life-Net News Extras |
| Indigenous Struggle Now 'Cause Beyond Control' |
|
Force majeure--literally "major force" but translated
also as "cause beyond control"--usually describes
unforeseen natural catastrophes such as earthquakes or
major upheavals such as wars, which can void the
obligations of a legal contract.
But the Ecuadorian government now uses force majeure to describe legitimate community opposition to oil concessions on indigenous territory in the Amazon rainforest. On March 4, the Ecuadorian newspaper Hoy reported that the Ministry of Environment has agreed to allow two transnational companies to cancel their oil concession contracts under the provision of force majeure. The force majeure they are referring to is the determined opposition of Kichwa, Shuar and Achuar people who live in the concession areas to ongoing activities by the companies, Burlington Resources of Texas and Compania General de Combustibles (CGC) of Argentina. The CGC concession is owned partly by ChevronTexaco, according to Platt's Oilgram News. (Oil giants Chevron and Texaco merged in 2000.) This turn of events, in what has been furious struggle between indigenous communities and transnational oil companies, leaves the communities and their supporters wondering if they have won a major victory or are in danger of increasing repression. Source: EarthRights International |
| Welfare-to-Work Has Affected Kids Little, Study Says |
|
Preschoolers whose mothers left welfare for work did
just as well in math, reading and behavior as those whose
mothers remained on welfare, researchers say, suggesting
that major fears surrounding changes to the system have not
come to pass.
But the study also found no improvements for the children in welfare-to-work families, meaning the greatest hopes may be elusive as well. When mothers went to work, they spent an average of 2.8 fewer hours each day with their young children but brought home significantly more money. Researchers suggest those two factors may have balanced each other out to produce little overall impact on the children. "When mom takes a job, you don't see big effects either way," said Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, a psychologist at Northwestern University who directed the study. "Children and teenagers were neither harmed nor helped in ways that people predicted." Mothers did manage to make up most of the time they lost with their older children, and the study found some positive effects on young adolescents when their mothers left welfare or went to work. These recent findings add weight to a growing body of research that concludes there were few harmful effects for young children from the 1996 welfare overhaul. For teenagers, the evidence is more mixed. The study, appearing today in the journal Science, found anxiety among teenagers dropped when their mothers went to work. But other research has found teenagers fared slightly worse in school, possibly because they were forced to spend more time watching over younger siblings. The study followed families living in Boston, Chicago and San Antonio, Texas. Most were black or Hispanic. About 38% were on welfare when the study began. It focused on 564 preschoolers, ages 2 to 4, and 895 adolescents, ages 10 to 14. Lengthy interviews were conducted with the children and their mothers, first in 1999 and then about 16 months later to measure the impact, if any, of changing family circumstances. Tests included measurements of behavior problems and of cognitive ability, including reading and quantitative skills. Researchers caution that most of this study was conducted during strong economic times, suggesting the results could be different in a weak economy. Also, they note, they have followed these children only for a short time and hope for more financing to continue tracking them. Mothers who went to work succeeded in earning more money. At the start of the study, families with an unemployed mother, including those on and off welfare, had an average income of $11,000. When the mother went to work, total household income rose to about $21,000. Source: Associated Press |
| Victory for Nomadic Amazon Tribe |
|
The Awa, Brazil's last hunter-gatherer tribe, have
finally had their land marked out as an Indian area. For
decades the Awa have been attacked and killed by ranchers,
loggers and settlers who have invaded their land. 300 now
remain alive, of whom around 60 live uncontacted in small
nomadic groups. Survival International has been
campaigning for legal recognition of Awa land for 20 years.
Source: Survival International |
| A Song for Rachel |
|
American activist Rachel Corrie was recently killed
trying peacefully to stop an Israeli bulldozer from making
a Palestinian family homeless.
Someone wrote a song in her honor: Source: Hidden in Plain SightThe Death of Rachel Corrie |
| Life-Net News weekly newspage, Club LIFENET online, the Web site |
| www.lifenetradio.org, and broadcast Life-Net Radio (where you can star!) |
| together make up Mr. Ret Z.'s private charitable enterprise. To get Life-Net |
| e-mail free, or to unsubscribe, just ask: lifenetnews@netzero.net |
| + Iesous Khristos Theou Huios Soter + |