| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| 2004 March 31 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 7 Number 26 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Teens in Palestine Learn Peaceful Civic Action |
|
When a group of Palestinian teenagers candidly assessed the
problems in their West Bank village of Kufor Ni'emah,
personal safety came up repeatedly. They cited especially
the absence of electric street lights.
Because of the closure in the West Bank, the road through Kufor Ni'emah has become the only route to twenty other villages in that part of the Ramallah governorate. Lights would minimize the number of nighttime car accidents involving people from other villages. They would encourage local shops to stay open. The lights would also reduce the number of people and farm animals who stumble and fall on the village's unpaved streets. After underscoring the lack of light the group of young people, brought together by the American Friends Service Committee's Popular Achievement (PA) Program, developed a plan of action and paid a visit to those responsible for community safety. The teens (14-16) asked for the lights. They're still working out a solution, but the young people have benefited already from their efforts. "Through participation in this program, these young people have learned they can do something to improve their lives," says Huda Ma'ali, a PA coach. "Too often in our society, young people at this age are considered useless -- they are neither children nor adults." PA is based on a model developed at the University of Minnesota and concentrates on problems whose solutions can be found locally. Two coaches, one male and one female, lead each team, which is made up of an equal number of male and female participants. To form the teams, local teachers identify students who demonstrate the potential to contribute to their community. Bir Zeit University staff identify most of the coaches. Local community partners, key to the program's success, are brought in by a system of recruitment, training, and follow-up support. Forty-five teams now work in villages and refugee camps throughout the West Bank. One team arranged for trash removal in an area where services had stopped; another requested a meeting with President Yasser Arafat to discuss the need for electricity in their camp. Said AFSC Middle East regional coordinator Tareq el-Bakri, "The program is very well received because it allows youth to take power when many feel powerless in the face of occupation and local authority systems." Source: Quaker Action |
| Alliance Lobbies for Higher Income Taxes on NJ's Rich |
|
Having failed last year to persuade lawmakers to increase
income taxes on wealthy New Jerseyans, a coalition calling
itself the Fairness Alliance [FA] has retooled its pitch for
this year's budget debate: Raise taxes even higher, it
says.
The FA comprises more than 100 groups including education, environmental and labor groups and grassroots organizers like Citizen Action. Citing results from a poll it commissioned, the FA says the public is on its side. FA's proposal calls for increasing income taxes on about 86,000 households earning more than $300,000 a year. It also says 429,000 more households -- all families earning $30,000 or less -- should be exempted from income taxes. According to polling data released by the FA, 73% of registered voters favor raising income taxes on families earning $300,000 if the money is used to cut property taxes and for open space and college aid. According to the poll, even 59% of Republicans and 69% of people with incomes over $100,000 backed the plan. Other results showed that by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, voters would reward, not punish, lawmakers who vote for the plan. Support in the poll was nearly the same for tax increases on families with $500,000 incomes or $300,000 incomes. But it fell precipitously if the proposed hike was aimed at families earning $150,000, with a majority of people opposed. In opposition, Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce cited a Republican poll. Involving 400 likely voters on Dec. 2 and 3, the poll was described by DeCroce as having found far less enthusiasm for an income tax increase -- even one limited just to millionaires. DeCroce said, "Taxpayers just aren't buying it." The poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9%, found that only 46% agreed with the following statements: "Some people say we need to raise taxes on millionaires and use the money to lower property taxes on middle and low income families. They say millionaires are wealthy and can afford to pay more in state taxes." Source: Courier-Post (Camden) Source: Newark Star-Ledger |
| Angola Rejects Franken-Foods |
|
A surprise decision by Angola to reject genetically modified
(GM) food aid threatens to disrupt distributions to 1.9
million vulnerable people, said the UN food agency on
Monday. The decision, announced by Angola's Council of
Ministers on March 17, comes at a time when the World Food
Program (WFP) is already battling funding shortfalls for its
Angola program.
About 3.8 million persons have now returned to their rural homes after the two-decade civil war that ended in 2002, but about 1.5 million remain dependent on food aid, according to WFP figures. Angola receives up to 77% of its food aid from the US. Despite pressing needs, Angola is struggling to compete with other aid-dependent countries for funds. Donors have privately questioned the government's commitment to resolving humanitarian problems in an oil-rich country where one in every four dollars in oil earnings is unaccounted for, according to anti-corruption activists. So far, the WFP has only been able to raise 24% of the $143 million it needs for the year beginning April 1, said WFP regional director Mike Sackett in Johannesburg. Next month, WFP will be forced to reduce its cereal rations by 30%, he said. If no new donors are found by June, they will be cut again, down to half. Details of the ban, which does not apply to milled grain, remained unclear as of Tuesday. The decision had not yet been officially implemented. American biotech companies have been at the forefront of promoting genetically modified food, or GMOs, which can be made to resist insects or disease. Europe, however, has imposed a moratorium on growing or importing GMOs because of fears about the environmental and heath risks. African countries such as Zambia and Zimbabwe have also rejected biotech food aid. Source: Mail & Guardian (South Africa) Relevant Link: Nabanna Project |
| Habitat Rehabs Prisoners |
|
Habitat for Humanity has room for anyone wanting to help put
an end to poverty -- including prisoners. From correctional
facilities across the country, offenders are learning that
they too have a valuable contribution to make.
Prison Partnership [PP]. a Habitat program, facilitates cooperation between correctional institutions and Habitat affiliates. Through PP, offenders can volunteer with Habitat affiliates and homeowners to take part in various aspects of house construction. Habitat homeowners in the PP deal get their houses built more quickly with the help of eager, competent, cooperative volunteers. Offenders get ahead toward positive goals as they work with others, practice social responsibility, and learn marketable job skills that can help them succeed upon release. Source: Habitat for Humanity |
| Last Isolated Indians South of Amazon Make Contact |
|
A group of previously uncontacted Ayoreo Indians has
emerged from the forests of Paraguay, under pressure from
deforestation and colonization all around them. Colonists
who have settled in their territory have taken possession
of the permanent water holes for cattle ranching, leaving
the Indians unable to get water in the dry season. The 17
people (five men, seven women and five children) are in
excellent health, but acutely short of water. The Indians
made contact with fellow Ayoreo who were planning to
establish a new community in the last sizeable area of
forest in the region.
For ten years the Ayoreo and their supporters have been trying to protect the zone from accelerating invasion. Now, ranchers and farmers illegally occupy large parts of the Ayoreo’s forest. "Our misery began when the whites invaded our land," says the Ayoreo declaration of 1980. "... They invaded our lands and bought them. How can land be bought and sold? We don't understand this idea. Every inch of this land is sacred to the Ayoreo." The Ayoreo (pop. 5,000) are a nomadic hunter-gatherer people who once inhabited a vast area of scrub forest. Their first sustained contact with white people came in the 1940s and 1950s, when Mennonite farmers established colonies on their land. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Ayoreo experienced intensive missionary activity, as the US-based New Tribes Mission pursued a policy of aggressive attempts to convert them, resulting in violent clashes and exposure to diseases. The Ayoreo suffer greatly from the theft of their land. Although the Paraguayan constitution guarantees Indian land ownership, the Ayoreo's land has almost all been taken over by the ranchers and farmers, forcing them out of their forest and making it harshly difficult for them to support themselves. Source: Survival International |
| How Welfare Keeps Marriage and People Down |
|
Today, there's a broad and growing consensus that government
policy should promote rather than discourage healthy
marriage. Through the past four decades, welfare has
penalized and discouraged it.
The US welfare system now has more than 70 means-tested aid programs providing cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services to low-income persons. Each year, over $200 billion flows through this system to families with children. While it is widely accepted that the welfare system is biased against marriage, relatively few understand how this bias operates. Many erroneously believe that welfare programs have eligibility criteria that directly exclude married couples. This is not true. Nevertheless, welfare programs do penalize marriage and reward single parenthood because of the inherent design of all means-tested programs. In a means-tested program, benefits are reduced as non-welfare income rises. Thus, under any means-tested system, a mother will receive greater benefits if she remains single than she would if she were married to a working husband. Welfare not only serves as a substitute for a husband, but it actually penalizes marriage because a low-income couple will experience a significant drop in combined income if they marry. For example, a typical single mother on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families receives a combined welfare package of various means-tested aid benefits worth about $14,000 per year. Suppose the father of her children has a low-wage job paying $16,000 per year. If the mother and father remain unmarried, they will have a combined income of $30,000 ($14,000 from welfare and $16,000 from earnings). However, if the couple marries, the father's earnings will be counted against the mother's welfare eligibility. Welfare benefits will be eliminated (or cut dramatically), and the couple's combined income will fall substantially. Thus, means-tested welfare programs do not penalize marriage per se but, instead, implicitly penalize a woman's getting married to an employed man with earnings. The practical effect is to significantly discourage marriage among low-income couples. This anti-marriage discrimination is inherent in all means-tested aid programs, including TANF, food stamps, public housing, Medicaid, and WIC, the Women, Infants, and Children food program. The only way to eliminate the anti-marriage bias from welfare entirely would be to make all mothers eligible for these programs regardless of whether they are married and regardless of their husbands' earnings. Structured in this way, the welfare system would be marriage-neutral: It would neither reward nor penalize marriage. Such across-the-board change, however, would cost tens of billions of dollars. A more feasible strategy would be to experiment by selectively reducing welfare's anti-marriage incentives to determine which penalties have the biggest behavioral impact. This approach is incorporated in the President's Healthy Marriage Initiative. Source: Heritage Foundation |
| Religious Shareholders Push Pharma-Giants on AIDS |
|
Religious and other concerned shareholders last Wednesday
announced a 275-group campaign, coordinated by the
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), to
pressure four major pharmaceutical companies -- Abbott
Laboratories, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Pfizer -- to
take new steps on the HIV/AIDS crisis, including the
pandemic in Africa.
Even though HIV medicines can turn AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic disease, only 4% of the estimated 40 million world citizens suffering from HIV/AIDS have access to the life-saving medicines. Of that total, 95% of the victims live in the developing world where major pharmaceutical companies have been faulted for not doing enough to make HIV/AIDS medications more readily available to the millions who need them. The ICCR-backed resolutions call on each of the four leading pharmaceutical companies to "review the economic effects of the HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria pandemics on the company's business strategy, and its initiatives to date, and report to shareholders within six months following the 2004 annual meeting." Jim Gunning, treasurer of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, and the primary filer with Merck, said, "Faith-based institutional investors have both a compassionate concern for the victims of HIV/AIDS and concerns as owners about whether or not the long-term interests of shareholders are being protected adequately. The investor-owners of these companies need to feel confident that boards of directors have fully considered the risks and opportunities they face in relation to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in emerging markets, and have implemented effective policies for dealing with the challenges." Sister Doris Gormley, representing several provinces of the Society of Jesus, the primary filers with Abbott Laboratories and Bristol-Myers Squibb, said, "We're seeking to have a major impact with these companies and change the way they do business in these emerging countries. Not only could the HIV/AIDS pandemic damage their business models, but there also is the very real danger that a failure to act will cost countless lives in a very literal sense. These corporations need to reassure shareholders that their current way of operating in Africa and other developing areas around the world is both wise and long-sighted." ICCR members have engaged pharmaceutical companies on HIV/AIDS issues for three years. ICCR-sponsored resolutions on HIV/AIDS are also pending at major employers Caterpillar, ChevronTexaco, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo. In an unusual move, the Coca-Cola board of directors is supporting the resolution on HIV/AIDS facing that company. According to UNAIDS, the HIV/AIDS pandemic is "creating or aggravating poverty among millions of people, eroding human capital, weakening government institutions and threatening business activities and investment." The World Bank reports that in southern Africa and other affected regions "a complete economic collapse will occur" unless there is a response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Even "a delay in responding to the outbreak of the epidemic, however, can lead to collapse." Source: Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility |
| Life-Net News Extra |
| The Dead Zones |
|
Last summer every sea creature across an area twice the size of Lesotho was asphyxiated by severely depleted oxygen levels in the Gulf of Mexico. The same phenomenon, the marine equivalent of the ozone hole, happened off South America, China, Japan, south-east Australia, New Zealand and up to 150 other places.
A United Nations agency warned on Monday that the number of these "dead zones", caused mainly by the run-off of nitrogen fertilizers from intensive farming and sewage from large cities, had doubled in the past 15 years and was increasing all over the world. In a new report, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said that 150 sea areas were now regularly starved of oxygen and were becoming major threats to already declining fish stocks, including those in Europe, where areas of the Baltic Sea were lifeless for several months, as were parts of the Irish Sea and the Adriatic. "Humankind is engaged in a gigantic global experiment as a result of the inefficient and often over-use of fertilisers, the discharge of untreated sewage and the ever rising emissions from vehicles and factories," said UNEP director Klaus Toepfer. "The nitrogen and phosphorous from these sources are being discharged into rivers and the coastal environment or being deposited from the atmosphere, triggering these alarming and sometimes irreversible effects." Some of the dead zones are less than one square kilometer, whereas others are up to 70,000 square kilometers. Many have been found near the outlets of big rivers such as the Mississippi and the Yangtze, which drain huge industrial areas. Most lie off countries which heavily subsidize their agriculture. "What is clear is that unless urgent action is taken to tackle the sources of the problem, it is likely to escalate rapidly," he said. "Dead zones are especially dangerous to fisheries because they afflict coastal areas where many fish spawn and spend most of their lives before moving to deeper water", said UNEP officer Marion Cheatle. "It is getting noticeably worse." She advised countries, which often share water basins, to cooperate in reducing nitrogen discharges by cutting fertilizer use or planting forests along rivers to soak up excess nitrogen. The "creeping dead zones" have been noted since the 1970s. The speed of their growth has surprised scientists who are only now beginning to understand their mechanism. Robert Diaz, professor of marine science at Maryland University and author of the marine section of the report, said dead zones were fast becoming a bigger threat to fish stocks than over-fishing. He warned that global warming, with its likely increase in rainfall, was likely to aggravate the problem, because it would increase significantly the discharge of polluted water from rivers into oceans. The report, launched in South Korea at a meeting of 150 of the world's environment ministers, ranked dead zones as one of the top 20 threats to the global environment. Source: Mail & Guardian (South Africa) |
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