LIFE-NET NEWS

by Ret Z.

Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices

2004 May 19	No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 8 Number 3	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 Grain Supply Critically Low

US and global consumers, already hit hard by sustained high oil prices, may face higher food prices as well over the coming year, says the Earth Policy Institute. According to EPI calculations, four successive shortfalls in annual grain harvests have reduced the world's carry-over stocks to their lowest level in 30 years, amounting to only 59 days of consumption, 11 days short of the traditional minimum (70) for food security.       The relative shortage is partly reflected in the fact that global rice prices are at a five-year high, while wheat and corn are fetching the highest prices on the global market since 1997. The last time global stocks were so low, in the early 1970s, wheat and rice prices doubled, with disastrous consequences for millions of the world's poor. A similar pattern may be asserting itself now, according to Lester Brown, EPI's founder and president, as basic food and feed commodities prices rise.       Last year's global grain shortfall of 105 million tons broke the record, amounting to 5% of the annual consumption of 1,930 million tons. So, to increase stocks to even 65 days of consumption, Brown says world grain output must not only eliminate last year's shortfall, but increase by another 15 million tons just to feed the 74 million people who will have been added to the global population this year. Still the supply will fall short, needing another 30 million tons to cover 65 days.       The failure of recent harvests to keep pace with consumption has been due primarily to environmental and weather-related factors, according to Brown, who stresses that falling water tables, spreading deserts, and rising temperatures have made it very difficult for farmers to increase production. Rapidly growing urban areas, particularly in developing countries, have aggravated farmers' problems by diverting water away from irrigation.       Source:  OneWorld

Relief Lags for Homeless Veterans

There are an estimated 200,000 homeless veterans in America, including 8,300 in New Jersey. Nearly half suffer from mental illness. 70% abuse drugs or alcohol.       "I am troubled by the slow pace of developing regulations and policies to carry out several of the initiatives authorized by Congress," said House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Christopher Smith (R) yesterday.       A 2001 law authorized nearly $1 billion over five years to help homeless vets find housing. It specifically required the creation of 10 new temporary shelters where veterans could live for three to four months. It called for adding 1,000 vouchers for government subsidized housing to the nearly 1,800 already provided across the US.       Administration officials yesterday replied that the government spent more than $1.2 billion last year treating homeless veterans. But they also conceded they are still working on expanding the programs called for in the law.       New Jersey has a waiting list for the 85 beds at the state's lone federal temporary housing shelter in Lyons. But the federal official in charge of homeless services for veterans in the state said that, for the roughly 250 veterans who leave temporary housing every year, the rental housing subsidies are much more important.       "We could use hundreds of vouchers," said John Kuhn, whose office finds housing, employment and treatment for about 1,000 Garden State veterans a year. Of the roughly 1,800 vouchers set aside nationally for homeless veterans, said Kuhn, the state receives none.       Source:  Gannett News Service

Barren Fields Belie Zimbabwe's 'Bumper Crop'

If the Ndlovu family had a television, they would learn that Zimbabwe has just harvested a maize crop so bountiful that there is no longer any need for emergency food aid. For the last week, government officials and economists have appeared nightly on the state broadcaster, ZBC, to marvel that a country recently stricken with hunger is now a breadbasket.       The Ndlovus are not celebrating. They get their information from the field beside their mud-brick house, and there the news is not good. A pile of maize bound with twine is the sum of their harvest.       "It's been pretty poor -- might last us till September," said Sichelesile Ndlovu, 30, sitting among five of her six children at their home in the village of Lundi. And after September? "We'll see."       The one certainty is that the family will not see international food aid, because the government has reported a harvest of 2.4 million tons, one of the highest in decades, which would allow Zimbabwe to feed itself and export a sizeable surplus. Agriculture minister Joseph Made attributed the bumper yield to the land reform that transferred white-owned farms to black peasants and commercial farmers. He said there was no more need for the UN's World Food Program or relief agencies.       But those in other villages near Lundi said the same thing as the Ndlovus: Despite decent rain, a shortage of seeds and fertilizer during the planting season had produced a poor to moderate harvest which would run out in months.       Human rights groups fear the discrepancy between government rhetoric and reality means President Robert Mugabe is preparing to use hunger as a political weapon. "If independent assessments are correct, the risk is that food will be used for political ends," said Amnesty International, "and food supplies will go first and only to supporters of the ruling party."       Source:   Mail & Guardian (South Africa)

Vital Camden Homeless Service Dogged by Budget Gap

New Visions Community Services of Camden -- whose annual garden party will soon get another year's coverage on Life-Net Radio -- is experiencing a tumultuous period symptomatic of the situations in the city. They cite two factors as key: (1) the potential takeover of their site by the Camden Empowerment Zone as part of the State's redevelopment plan, and (2) the reduction in grant support from Camden County which threatens NV's ability to continue its mission.       While the redevelopment plan remains in flux, NV is looking into the feasibility of having its building, formerly Trinity Church, recognized as historic. The building dates from 1852 and has the blessing of many beautiful stained-glass windows.       Earlier this year NV learned that their support from Camden County, through the annual Social Security for the Homeless grant, had been slashed in half from a long-time annual $60,000 to $30,000. This cut hacked off a limb or two: The total bare-bones budget for 2004 is only $160,000. The NV board and staff have responded by chasing down new funding sources, cranking up new fund-raising activities, making more visits to places of worship, and writing new grant proposals to philanthropic foundations. These initiatives are bearing fruit, but a budget gap persists that endangers NV's very existence.       Source:  New Visions News

UN Backs GM Crops

The UN's food agency on Monday cautiously endorsed genetically modified crops as a means of solving world hunger. The move will prolong the controversy over GM technology. The backing, from the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is at variance with the views of many leading aid agencies, which say that such claims made for GM are misleading.       The FAO was at pains to point out that benefits from GM developments had still not reached small farmers or the world's poor, because the technology was so far concentrated on a few lucrative cash crops such as soya beans, rather than on staples such as potatoes. But it gave a favorable view of GM as a whole.       Its report, Agricultural Biotechnology: Meeting the Needs of the Poor? continues the UN's position of recognizing the potential of transgenic crops to ease world hunger, while stressing that case-by-case studies were needed to assess the risks. Its general view of the subject, however, is positive.       It says that GM crops currently on the market are safe to eat. It notes that scientists disagree on their environmental impact -- accepting that genes from GM crops can be transferred to wild species. However, it says scientists differ on whether that in itself is a bad thing, and what is needed most is more research to assess the environmental consequences of the so-called "gene flow."       The report also points out environmental and health benefits from GM crops. It claims that an associated reduction in pesticides and toxic herbicides has had "demonstrable health benefits" for farm workers in China.       In addition, it says some GM crops, especially insect-resistant cotton, "are yielding significant economic gains to small farmers." It notes that while private companies have been largely responsible for selling transgenic seeds, "it is the producers and consumers who are reaping the largest share of the economic benefits of transgenic crops. This suggests that the monopoly position engendered by intellectual property protection does not automatically lead to excessive industry profits."       Dr. Harwig de Haen, assistant director-general of FAO's economic and social department, said Monday that biotechnology was not a panacea for world hunger, but it could help in three major ways: by raising farmers' production and incomes, by increasing food supplies and thus reducing prices, and by contributing to the nutritional quality of crops. But he said greater regulation was needed, and that governments, not just private corporations, must be more involved in the research and development of new seeds to ensure the poor benefit.       The views of some of the world's leading aid agencies are far more skeptical.       Source:  Independent (UK)

NJ Welfare Rolls Grow Amid Job Gains

While New Jersey boasts of robust job gains following a sluggish economic recovery, the welfare rolls are growing steadily, with a particularly sharp rise in the number of single adults seeking benefits. The number of single men and women on public assistance hit a low of 21,536 in September 2000 following the national welfare reforms of the 1990s but has edged up to nearly 32,000 this year. The number of New Jersey families on welfare has been rising as well, since mid-2002, though at a slower pace.       The growth in the welfare rolls reflects both the difficulty of placing some long-term welfare recipients in jobs and the hardships of raising a family on the sort of $8-an-hour jobs available to many people with little work experience, say welfare officials and advocates for the poor. The job market, while it is improving, is not robust enough to provide jobs for those facing the greatest hurdles, such as poor job skills, psychological problems or families that are difficult to manage, employment experts say.       Indeed, while the state welfare rolls declined sharply for several years, many people now on public assistance are staying on for longer periods or not coming off at all, state officials acknowledged recently. Virtually everyone who reaches the five-year benefits limit -- a central feature of the welfare reforms of 1996 -- has been extended, said Andy Williams, a state DHS spokesman. A former welfare official suggested recently that it may be difficult for many of the people left on the rolls to ever fully support themselves through work.       Single adults on welfare face a powerful disincentive to leave the rolls. "When they get a job, they lose everything, including medical assistance, such as psychotropic drugs," said Dennis Micai, director of the Mercer County Board of Social Services, who noted there are low-wage retail and hospitality jobs available. He noted that the state may have to consider such expensive strategies as "subsidized work" for some of the more difficult to employ.       Source:  Trenton Times

GOP Chairman Tours Indian School

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie went to Santa Fe Indian School on Tuesday to tour its $38 million construction project and to tout President Bush's No Child Left Behind [NCLB] program. But state Democrats and some Indian-education advocates counter that Bush's policies leave many Indian children behind.       Gillespie credited the Bush administration for the Indian School's new buildings. He said, under Bush, the construction budget for Indian schools has increased from $135 million last year to $300 million in the next budget.       Twenty-nine new Indian schools are being built under this administration, Gillespie said. He said it's a "myth" that NCLB is underfunded, and that last year, about $100 million had to revert back to the federal treasury because "schools couldn't spend the money fast enough."       Disputing those numbers in a written statement, US Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM) said that under Bush's proposed budget "Bureau of Indian Affairs school construction funding would decrease". He also pointed to budget cuts in Indian health services, housing, law enforcement, and drug and alcohol programs.       Cindy La Marr, president of the National Indian Education Association, an advocacy group, wrote in a March letter to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that the president's budget proposals "pose a serious threat to the integrity of Native Education."       Two Democratic sponsors of NCLB, Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), said in a written statement in January, "If you use the same accounting criteria for other agencies as the Bush Administration wants to use for the Department of Education, the Department of Defense would have over $40 billion in unspent funds."       Gilbert Pena, dean of students for Santa Fe Indian School, said Bush "has done much to meet our needs." However, he said the construction project needs $9 million more. "We're in a constant battle to meet the [NCLB] criteria," he said. "The resources are either not there or late in coming."       Source:  Santa Fe New Mexican

Privatized Health Care: The Russian Experience

The collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist countries, along with their free socialized health care services, in the early 1990s emboldened right-wing ideologues and has spurred their war on all public services in the US and elsewhere. Look at what happened when health care in Russia went from socialist to capitalist:       A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (2/13/04) sheds light on Russia’s health. Soviet health care, once free and of good quality, has been replaced by a barely funded Russian health care setup that is failing the vast majority. Only the newly rich, who can afford to buy insurance and private health services, have anything close to adequate care.       The article quotes a Russian physician, Galina Zuikova: "Earlier [meaning during the Soviet period], women who gave birth were healthy, but now every other woman has some sort of pathology." Zuikova said heightened stress, unemployment, and poor nutrition have contributed to an increase in hypertension, kidney disease, and infections for her patients. Newborns are at much greater risk.       Living standards for Russia’s workers and farmers have sharply dropped under capitalism, and health problems have correspondingly skyrocketed. The article says that national health care spending is falling, Russians are dying younger, and birth rates are declining.       Other studies have noted the re-emergence in the former USSR of epidemics of antique diseases like diphtheria, polio, typhoid, cholera, and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. In 2000, UNICEF declared Russia was undergoing "a societal crisis of unexpected proportions and unknown implications." The average life expectancy for Russian males, for example, has plummeted from 64 years in 1990 to 58.5 years today, the lowest in the developed world.       The WSJ article states, "Every year nearly a million more Russians die than are born" -- an astounding population decline for any industrial or near-industrial country. An earlier WSJ article (2/4) says that demographic experts predict Russia’s population will drop by an incredible 30% over the next decades.       Conditions in the other former Soviet republics are much, much worse, leading to a surge of emigration to already problem-wracked Russia.       The fight to preserve publicly owned national health services and systems is being fought on all continents. The Bush administration with its IMF and WTO surrogates is demanding that governments privatize their health systems. Evidence points to disastrous consequences.       Source:  People's Weekly World

Life-Net News Extras

Israeli Rabbis Decry Evangelical Support

Prominent Israeli rabbis are for the first time speaking out against Israel's profitable alliance with evangelical Christians in the US who have funneled tens of millions of dollars to the Jewish state. The rabbis fear the evangelicals' real intent is to convert Jews, their aides said on May 10. Others are concerned about the evangelicals' support for Israel's extreme right-wing and their opposition to any compromise with the Palestinians.       "I don't see any permission to receive funds that aid in the infiltration of the work of strangers under the false impression of aid to the needy," the letter said.       Rabbi Simcha Hacohen Kook, another critic, said he fears the donors are trying to exploit Israel's most vulnerable: "Those who don't have money don't ask questions."       Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein (Orthodox), president of the Chicago-based International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, brushed off the criticism as complaints by a tiny minority. He said the group has raised $100 million, including $20 million last year alone, to assist Israel's poor, elderly and new immigrants, as well as impoverished Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union. The group sponsors projects in 85 Israeli towns and cities.       Besides contributing tidy sums to projects in Israel, some evangelical Christians have lobbied in support of the Israeli government in Washington. Troubling to Israelis is the fact that one influential group of evangelicals believes in a final, apocalyptic battle between good and evil in which Jesus returns and Jews either accept him or perish.       Maintaining good relations with American evangelicals is important to Israel's government. Evangelicals make up a powerful support base for President Bush and enjoy close ties to the White House.       Concern about evangelical support has been bubbling under the surface for some time. Although leading rabbis had stayed in the background, their worries emerged May 10 in the Israeli media.       Source:  Associated Press

Youth Visions for Stronger Neighborhoods

Youth (12-18) have taken to the streets near East 149th Street and Westchester Avenue in the Bronx -- with video cameras and tape recorders. They're on a mission to learn about the neighborhood where they live and to play a role in making it better.      As urban planners and community developers in CTCNet's Youth Visions for Stronger Neighborhoods program, the young people were sent out to identify neighborhood needs by interviewing residents and business owners, noting the physical conditions of their environment, mapping local assets, and conducting additional research using newspapers, the US Census and other online databases. The program calls for them to brainstorm towards a solution to one of the needs they've identified. Then they're slated to share their ideas in a multimedia presentation at a community meeting they plan and organize. They also expect to meet with local officials to educate them about their solution -- a demonstration of youth interest in civic affairs.       Source:  CTC Network News

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