| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| 2003 November 20 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 7 Number 20 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| World AIDS Day Marks Steps Forward |
|
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Monday governments
should provide AIDS drugs free under a new plan to treat
the world's poor, and pharmaceutical firms should cut
prices further.
It was World AIDS Day, when tens of thousands of AIDS activists and health workers rallied worldwide. Meanwhile, a strategy unveiled by the UN World Health Organization (WHO) that day left it up to national governments to decide whether the anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs should be free. "Every time drug prices comes down, more people can afford treatment," MSF President Morten Rostrup said in a statement. "But for the poorest no price will be affordable: governments of both developing and developed countries must meet these costs. This means more international funding to fight AIDS." The WHO and UNAIDS Monday promised cheaper drugs, simpler treatment regimens and more money as part of a major campaign launched in Nairobi to provide 3 million HIV-infected people with the latest drugs available by the end of 2005, an effort that will cost $5.5 billion. Launching the global strategy, WHO Assistant Secretary-General Jack Chow told reporters the cost of treatment was about $300 per year for each patient living in so-called "front line" conditions of deep poverty. "We expect it to fall to less than half of that by the end of 2005. That is about a dollar a day at present, falling to 50 cents a day or less. In a world that spends billions of dollars on cosmetics it is not a great deal of money," he said. He said the annual cost of medication for three million people in December 2005 should be well under $1 billion. But MSF's Rostrup said the WHO's drug price assumptions were not ambitious enough. He said MSF had received an offer from Indian generics firm Cipla Ltd (CIPL.BO) of fixed dose combination therapy at $140 a year for use in MSF operations -- less than half the price cited by Chow. WHO also certified a new, innovative generic drug for use in treating HIV. The tablet combines three essential ARV drugs into one pill that is taken twice a day. The pills are manufactured by two India-based generic drug makers and cost patients only $270 a year, but it violates patents held by major drug manufacturers. In order to legally import the drugs, countries must suspend the rights of the patent holder. WHO and UNAIDS promised to promote international agreements to streamline treatment programs. The Indian government announced plans Monday to provide free ARV drugs to AIDS patients, a "significant scale-up" in the fight against the disease in the country that has the world's second largest number of HIV-infected people. Until now, the Indian government has focused on prevention, but starting April 1, 2004, it will offer free drugs at government hospitals. In Beijing, health workers hit the streets teaching prevention in a country whose leaders have promised an aggressive fight against the disease. The government has been sluggish for years about disclosing the extent of AIDS, or broaching the topic in the media. "In two short decades, HIV/AIDS has become the premiere disease of mass destruction," said Dr. Chow. "The death odometer is spinning at 8,000 lives a day and accelerating." As UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot put it, the virus started by killing people but is now attacking society itself. Only 5% of the 6 million people who now urgently need treatment are receiving it. That record is likely to improve next year. Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, International Herald Tribune, Newsweek |
| Native American Renters Most Discriminated Against |
|
More than a quarter of Native Americans are discriminated
against when attempting to rent homes, according to a study
released Monday by the Department of Housing and Urban
Development. "Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing
Markets" found that Native Americans in the metropolitan
areas of New Mexico, Montana and Minnesota consistently
received less favorable treatment than similarly qualified
whites when inquiring about the same advertised rental unit.
In the study, Native American renters were discriminated against more than 29% of the time. In comparison, African Americans nationally were discriminated against 22% of the time, Hispanics, 26%, and Asians, 21%. Specifically, the study found that Native American renters in the three states experienced consistent adverse treatment relative to comparable whites in 28.5% of tests. The individual levels were 25.7% in New Mexico, 33.3% in Minnesota, and 28.6% in Montana. Systematic discrimination was quite high in the area of being told about unit availability. "America has come a long way but this discrimination study illustrates that we have more work to do and we must stay focused to end discrimination," said HUD Deputy Secretary Alphonso Jackson. The study was based on 297 rental paired-tests conducted in the eight major metropolitan areas of the three states and 100 sales paired-tests in New Mexico. It's the first time HUD has measured the extent of housing discrimination against Native Americans. Source: Inman News |
| How the World is Getting Hungrier Every Year |
|
The world is getting hungrier, according to a report issued
by the United Nations food agency last week. After a decade
of improvements for the planet's poor, things have taken a
serious turn for the worse. Hunger, which fell steadily
throughout the first half of the 1990s, is on the rise
again.
Across the world an estimated 842 million people are today undernourished -- and that figure is again climbing, with an additional 5 million hungry people every year. The figures, says the report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) "signal a setback in the war on hunger". The prospect of cutting by half the number of people who go hungry -- the target set by the world's governments in 1996 -- looks "increasingly remote". The report tries to put on a brave face. "First some good news," it begins, reporting that the number of chronically hungry people has declined by 80 million in 19 countries, including Brazil, Chad, Guinea, Namibia and Sri Lanka. So why is the picture so grim everywhere else? The number of those going hungry in India has risen by 19 million since 1995-97, and yet China has reduced its figure by 58 million since 1990-92. "We must ask ourselves why this has happened," says the FAO director-general, Jacques Diouf, in his introduction. Those who have bucked the trend share five characteristics, he concludes -- faster economic growth, rapid expansion in the agricultural sector, slower population growth, lower rates of HIV infection, and far fewer natural emergencies. Domestic politics has not had much influence over rates of population growth, which tend to be determined fairly directly by levels of poverty -- the worse things are, the more children you need to look after you in your old age. Poor nations have not been able to manage their AIDS epidemics in the way the rich world has with its new drug regimes. AIDS takes a terrible economic toll: it kills off farmers in their prime and leaves behind young orphans and aged parents -- mouths with no one to feed them. The countries most dependent on agriculture are those with the most hunger. The economics of globalization are that the very poorest get poorer still. "Investment in agriculture is a precondition for growth in incomes of the poor and the food supply," said Hartwig de Haen, assistant director of the FAO's economic and social department in Washington. Yet such investment has been declining. "At least half the higher prices received for exports went not to farmers but traders," the report notes, "and there was no increase in production in response to the higher prices." Worse still, it adds, "prices are expected to rise more steeply for food products that developing countries import than for the commodities they export. ... Overall, the lion's share of benefits from trade liberalization is expected to go to developed countries." The report repeats the familiar statistic that the West spends 30 times more on domestic farming subsidies than it does on aid. It catalogues how the US spends $3.9 billion a year subsidizing its 25,000 cotton farmers -- more than the entire GDP for Burkina Faso where 2 million people depend on cotton for their livelihood. Europe is now the world's second-largest sugar exporter even though EU sugar costs twice as much to produce as does that of Third World peasants. The industrialized world has abandoned any pretence that trade negotiations are anything to do with development. "Bluntly stated," the report concludes, "the problem is not so much a lack of food as a lack of political will." Source: Independent UK |
| 'Tis the Season for an Effective Appeal |
|
Every institution is in a perfect position to communicate
with its supporters at this time of year. Despite the heavy
schedule of holiday and year-end activities, people
are energetic and enthusiastic at this time of year. They
are thoughtful, introspective and open to suggestions. They
are happy and grateful and in the best of spirits. And
they are doing their year-end tax planning.
The year-end letter can be used effectively by any non-profit organization dependent on charitable giving. Points that should be made in almost every institution are these:
You may also want to include other information. But keep the communique brief, exciting, and challenging. Enclose a return addressed envelope. Wrap things up by wishing them a happy holiday season, and close your letter. Source: NoodleSoup for Nonprofits |
| UN Declares 2004 the International Year of Rice |
|
In a major effort to spotlight a commodity whose production
is failing to keep up with population growth, the United
Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) declared
2004 the International Year of Rice. "Almost a billion
households in Asia, Africa and the Americas depend on rice
systems for their main source of employment and
livelihood," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said in
launching the Year, the slogan for which is "Rice is life."
While the world's population was continuing to grow, however, land and water for rice production were diminishing and "its production is facing serious constraints," he said. "The Year of Rice will act as a catalyst for country-driven programs throughout the world. We aim to engage the entire community of stakeholders, from rural farmers to the scientific institutions that mapped the rice genome, in the mission to increase rice production in a manner that promotes sustainability and equity." Rice is the most rapidly growing food source in Africa and has a major influence on human nutrition and food security all over the world. "About four-fifths of the world's rice is produced by small-scale farmers and is consumed locally. Rice systems support a wide variety of plants and animals, which also help supplement rural diets and incomes. Rice is therefore on the front line in the fight against world hunger and poverty," the FAO director-general said. The Year was declared in response to a proposal by 44 UN Member States submitted last year, noting a "pending crisis" in rice production even though rapid increases in the last three decades had contributed significantly to improving world food security. Of the 840 million people still suffering from chronic hunger, over half lived in areas dependent on rice production for food, income and employment, it said. Even as the world's population continued to increase, rice production was competing for land and water with other users such as urban development. Source: United Nations |
| Cooper Plaza Residents to Drug Dealers: Out! |
|
Every Tuesday night in Camden City, NJ, about 20 Cooper
Plaza residents walk around the neighborhood making a list
of any signs of drug activity they might encounter, like
people hanging out in the park on 7th and Clinton Streets
after dark and abandoned houses that have been broken into.
"They know we're out there every Tuesday night and they
disappear," Sheila Roberts, president of the Cooper-Lanning
Civic Association, said of the drug dealers in her
neighborhood.
The residents walk as part of the national Weed and Seed program (which occupied a Life-Net Radio episode when residents of the Fairview section were applying for it). Tuesday, November 11, about 20 community activists, legislators, city and state officials joined the walk, to celebrate Cooper Plaza's involvement. Ten other Camden neighborhoods participate in Weed and Seed, which helps communities weed out drug dealing and seed the area with social services. "Tonight is going to mark the start of the second phase of Weed and Seed at Cooper Plaza," said Carol Dann, spokeswoman for Camden Neighborhood Renaissance, the nonprofit agency that oversees the seeding part of the program in the city. During the first phase, undercover police officers gathered information about drug activity in the area. During the second phase -- called the high visibility phase -- more uniformed police officers will patrol the streets. The seeding part in Cooper Plaza includes turning an old liquor warehouse on Newton and Pine streets into a community center. But before they can start seeding, Cooper Plaza residents must first finish weeding out the drug dealers. The Tuesday night walk on November 11 served as a last warning. Some of the dealers heeded it. "Since we've been walking, we don't have the drug activity anymore," added Roberts. "We've had a complete turnaround of the 6th and Washington Street park." During their walks, residents noted drug dealers hung out at a vacant house next to the park. They told the city, which boarded up the house. At the residents' request, the city also removed a burnt wooden fence and some bushes that obstructed the view and kept police officers from seeing drug deals going on there. Officials at the Camden County Prosecutor's Office estimate there were about 200 drug corners in the city three years ago. Since Weed and Seed started in Camden the number has gone down to 150. Said Dann, "Law enforcement gets the drug dealers out, but the communities take on the responsibility of making sure they don't come back." Source: Courier-Post |
| Life-Net News Extras |
| Glacier Melt Portends Severe Water Shortages for Billions |
|
Billions of people will face severe water shortages as
glaciers around the world melt unless governments take
urgent action to tackle global warming, the environmental
group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said, ahead of a UN
conference on climate change. "Increasing global
temperatures in the coming century will cause continued
widespread melting of glaciers, which contain 70% of the
world's fresh water reserves," it warned in a new study.
"An overall rise of temperature of four degrees Celsius before the end of the century would eliminate almost all of them," it said. Average temperatures have risen between 0.6 and 0.7 degrees Celsius since 1860, according to WWF, which urged countries to curb emissions of carbon dioxide to ensure the increase stays well below a threshold of two degrees. "The melting of glaciers will lead to water shortages for billions of people, as well as sea levels rising and destroying coastal communities worldwide," WWF said. Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, where major cities rely on glaciers as their main source of water during dry seasons, would be worst affected, it predicted. In the Himalayas, there was a grave danger of flooding, the group said, noting that glacier-fed rivers in the region supply water to one third of the world's population. "Glacial meltdown is a clear sign that we must act now to fight global warming and stop the melting," said Jennifer Morgan, director of WWF's climate change program. WWF wants strong rules governing the use of forests, which play a vital role in absorbing carbon dioxide. The group also asked governments to ensure Russia ratifies the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which establishes a set of goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2001, 20 countries including the 15 EU members pledged to provide $410 million annually to poorer countries until 2005. Source: Agence France Presse |
| Poor Countries Implement Kyoto Regardless |
|
Many poor countries are working to cut their emissions of
greenhouse gases, a senior United Nations official says.
Although they do not yet have to act under the international
climate treaty, she says, they are wasting no time.
She says the treaty itself, the Kyoto Protocol, which has not yet become part of international law, is "a peanut -- but a vital one in the long run". And she believes its signatories are committed to making it work whether or not the treaty is eventually ratified. The official is Ms Joke Waller-Hunter, executive secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention. The countries which have signed the convention are meeting in the Italian city of Milan from 1 to 12 December "to assess progress in addressing climate change". Ms Waller-Hunter told BBC News Online at the convention's offices in the German city of Bonn: "There are 119 countries which have ratified the protocol, and I get the impression they are committed to implementing it regardless of it entering into force. "In the developing countries, known in the protocol as non-Annex One countries, we're seeing a keen interest in Kyoto. "Countries like India, China and Cuba are all waiting for the protocol's clean development mechanism to start working -- that will let richer countries invest in projects to cut greenhouse gases in the developing world. "The rapidly industrialising countries see their environmental and economic interests coinciding. China is really decoupling energy use from GDP." The protocol aims to reduce emissions of six gases scientists say are helping to change the climate. If it is implemented, industrialised countries' emissions will by some time between 2008 and 2012 be cut to 5.2% below their 1990 levels. Many scientists say cuts of around 60-70% will be needed by mid-century to avoid runaway climate change. Ms Waller-Hunter said: "It's wrong to think the protocol will do so little that it's insignificant. It's a very important first step that can lead to much more far-reaching measures. Yes, it's a peanut -- but a vital one in the long run." Source: BBC |
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