| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| 2004 August 11 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 8 Number 11 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Jubilee Sees 'Tremendous Opening' for Debt Relief |
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At the G-8 summit in June, world leaders considered for the first time a proposal for 100% cancellation of debts owed by some poor countries to the IMF and World Bank. The UK supported the initiative, reportedly, in response to the US’ call for 95-100% debt cancellation for Iraq. The UK argued that it would be hypocritical to provide this relief without extending the principle to poor nations. Meanwhile, the US Treasury Department is said to have a supportive attitude on 100% cancellation as the logical extension of its support for a shift towards 100% grants for the poorest nations from the World Bank.
At the conclusion of the summit, the leaders did not announce collective support, but supporters of debt cancellation and the global Jubilee movement see a tremendous opening in the fact that the issue even came up for discussion at such a high level. The final statement of the summit did give G-7 finance ministers something to do: They are now working on identifying additional steps to take on Third World debt in upcoming meetings. The next meeting of G-7 finance ministers is set for October 1. That's when an announcement concerning 100% debt cancellation is expected. Given the recent opening at the G-8 summit, the advocacy coalition Jubilee USA Network (JUSAN) urges all concerned citizens of these countries to do all they can to ensure that the announcement is one of support. In the US, influence is being aimed at the Treasury Secretary and the President. Success must not be taken for granted, says JUSAN. "All forms of pressure are needed to win." JUSAN, with the support of religious and political leaders, has embarked on a three-month campaign of grassroots mobilization, education, and media work to press the Bush administration to support full debt cancellation at the October meeting. JUSAN calls on the G-7 ministers to announce 100% debt cancellation from the IMF and World Bank for at least fifty impoverished nations -- without harmful conditions attached, and paid for with the institutions' own resources. JUSAN has been talking with debt groups and coalitions in the UK, Ireland, and Belgium. They'd like to work on this with civil society in other G-7 countries, too, especially in Germany and France, given press reports that have indicated that Germany and France are reluctant to support the call for 100% cancellation. In the US, JUSAN has scheduled, and is inviting everyone to, a national call-in day on September 1. Source: Jubilee USA Network |
| Needed: Job Growth |
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Two months ago, when we learned that jobs had grown by more than 900,000 in March, April and May, it looked like the Great American Jobs Machine had finally kicked into gear. Persistent job losses had yielded more than three years of unprecedented stagnation in total private wage and salary income. Hopes were high that growth in job-related income had finally become the engine that could pull the economic train to higher ground. Now we look back at July and see a meager 32,000 job gain in the fourth consecutive month of shrinking job gains.
We need faster job growth, to provide more people with income from work. Just to keep even with population growth, we need to add 140,000 to 150,000 jobs every month. To absorb new workers and to put the unemployed back in jobs, we ought to create at least 250,000 to 300,000 jobs each month. Faster job growth would benefit those already with jobs. As slack in the job market has increased over the last several years, wage growth has slowed. A year ago, wages were rising at a 3% pace, but in the last year they’ve risen less than 2%. Meanwhile, inflation has gone the other way, picking up from about 2% to 3%. Consequently, inflation-adjusted hourly pay, which had been rising, has fallen about 1% in the past year. Mark Zandi of Economy.com has analyzed which government policies have done the most to lift GDP and jobs in the last 3.5 years. He finds that more than 60% of the effect has come from monetary policy. The Fed’s cut in rates made possible the continued boom in housing, low cost auto loans, and cash-out refinancing for use on remodeling and other spending. While Zandi also found defense spending and middle-class tax cuts had noticeable effects, he found very little boost from the tax cuts the wealthy got. Perhaps most important, Zandi found that a different policy -- one based on quick and substantial relief to those most likely to spend (the unemployed, the strapped states and middle- and lower-income taxpayers) -- would have generated more growth and 2 million more jobs. Source: TomPaine |
| A Proud People Humbled by Storms |
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[Evaluate for yourself this appeal, edited for clarity:]
"We have always been to plant the rice only. We plant the opium never." We live in the People's Republic of China, in the southern province of Yunnan. We belong to a national minority, the Daine, also known as the Shan or Tai. We speak a Southeast Asian language. When we became Chinese citizens, I don't know. The Chinese look at us with eyes full of bias and disregard. There's a great gulf between the Chinese and us. Nevertheless we think of ourselves as living in a beautiful home town, living a quiet life. Or so we thought until last month, when a merciless rainstorm came down on our heads. A flood followed. Then a mudslide. Our lovely town is now a site of destruction. Now we have no houses. No farmland. No food. For shelter we can make do for now by putting up bamboo sheds. But that doesn't solve the hunger problem. We're broke; we can't buy food. To eat, we have only what we can find growing wild. We might as well forget about getting any real help from the Chinese. If you don't believe me, come on over to China and check out the facts for yourself. Our thoughts turn to people in the United States, the mightiest nation. Europe, too, the wealthiest. If you're in one of these countries, you probably spend enough on one meal to sustain one of us for a month. So we're reaching out for Americans' and Europeans' help. We're embarrassed at being reduced to such a desperate position. We think of ourselves as people who stand on their own two feet. Please don't think of us as dead-headed idlers. All we want, what we sorely need right now, is an amount of emergency assistance that should not be hard for you to provide. [The Web site, at least, is worth a visit. Caveat donor.] Site: http://loook.6to23.com E-mail: niyeye@fateback.com |
| Philadelphia Schools Shun Residents, Businesses |
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The real-estate speculation development economy in
Philadelphia contributes to the problems of the school district (SDP). Take for an example the administration's plans to rebuild the school and administration buildings without the consent of or planning input from residents. There's been no discussion of steps needed to obtain meaningful parental participation in the governance of the SDP, nor have neighborhood small businesses had a chance to reap any of the district's economic benefits.
Out of approximately 215,000 students in the SDP, 140,000 require tutorial assistance. The skill proficiency levels of the majority of SDP students fail to meet national standards. The old Philadelphia mass-employment factory economy provided trade skills training in areas such as wood work, metal work, and electrical work. In the new real-estate speculation development economy there is little or no training in the comprehensive high schools in these skill areas. No wonder so many departing students fail to find good paying jobs and wind up in prison. Pennsylvania law requires that parents have meaningful participation in the management and design of public school infrastructure and curricula. The SDP central administration must take more students off the school-to-prison track by bringing parents into district governance in a real way and by accepting the help of neighborhood businesses in management and operations. Unlike students in wealthy suburban districts, children in the SDP are being instructed in classrooms that have over 30 students to each instructor. The basic readers in use are at best inadequate and irrelevant to students' life experiences. Support services such as supplemental feeding programs and maintenance of school physical plants also fall far short. Premium wages go to skilled construction workers who do not reside in Philadelphia; local workers are shut out. The SDP fails to make sure that local residents benefit as much as possible from district expenditures. The local resident business community remains locked out of both direct and indirect economic benefits. The district, of course, through taxes, keeps on taking economic benefits from the residents and businesses. [This concludes our series of articles from the CROP.] Relevant Link: Community Rebirth Organization Program (1) Relevant Link: Community Rebirth Organization Program (2) |
| Church and State Work Against African HIV/AIDS |
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On television, on the radio, and on billboards around the African country of Uganda, government officials have advised citizens to "Love Carefully." The urgent request is an attempt to promote awareness of HIV and AIDS in a country that not long ago had the highest infection rate in the world.
However, according to Ugandan church officials, in order to love carefully, it is better to "Love Faithfully," the name of a parallel program that churches are using to combat irresponsible behavior and stigma and to align themselves with the government without compromising their own messages. "These two leading bodies agreed not to undermine the efforts of each other, nor the messages, but to do what each could do best within their own spheres of influence," wrote Sue Parry in her report on faith-based organizations combating HIV and AIDS in Africa. In Africa, faith-based NGOs have access to the people through a tightly woven religious structure. "AIDS has depopulated Africa faster than anything else since the slave trade," said the Rev. Dr. Samuel Kobia, secretary-general of the World Council of Churches. In the 1980s, Action Aid, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) concentrating on development, cited Uganda as the country with the highest incidence of AIDS in the world. Now it ranks 14th. The Ecumenical HIV/AIDS Initiative in Africa was launched in 2002 to help churches become "AIDS-competent churches." Churches become more sensitive to the AIDS crisis by teaching tolerance from the pulpit. An integral part of this teaching is that stigmatizing and discriminating against people living with AIDS is a sin and against the will of God. Among the new aims is "food security", toward which a primary means these days is gathering people through the church at the grassroots level to help cultivate ground left fallow by people whose AIDS complications leave them too weak to farm. By helping families farm their plots, church members take active roles in preventing hunger and dispelling stigma. Source: Science & Theology News |
| The Community Food Security Movement |
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Recognizing that dramatic changes aren't imminent in the profit-driven food system, a diverse network of activists across America has begun organizing for a just food system that benefits consumers and farmers. Family farm groups, food banks, community gardeners, nutritionists, environmentalists, and community development organizations are striving to achieve "community food security" -- a condition wherein everyone has a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritious diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice.
According to Andy Fisher, Executive Director of the Community Food Security Coalition, this movement, which has flowered in the past seven years, seeks to democratize food production and distribution by localizing food, using more sustainable and health-promoting practices, and meeting the needs of underserved communities. Farmers' markets, the most obvious outlets for farmers to profit from their produce, have grown from 1,774 to 3,100 in the past decade. Community supported agriculture (CSA) programs, also known as subscription farms, allow consumers to buy advance shares of a farm's harvest. CSAs date back three decades to Japan, where a group of women concerned about rising food imports, use of pesticides, and the corresponding decrease in the farming population organized a direct relationship with local farms. CSAs have since spread to Europe and to the US, where over 1,200 now flourish. Farm-to-school programs help local farmers supply schools with nutritious food. In 1997, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District became the first to stock fresh produce from a farmers' market in the salad bars of all its nine schools. Over 700 school districts across America now participate in farm-to-school programs, and the trend is spreading to universities and other public institutions. Clearly, change is needed on a large scale, including at the level of the National School Lunch Program. Groups within the movement have successfully pressed for national legislation, such as the Community Food Security Act of the 1996 Farm Bill, which authorized $16 million in USDA-funded grants over seven years to support projects that bring fresher, more nutritious food into poor neighborhoods and that help communities meet their own food needs. Advocates succeeded in getting this amount doubled in the 2002 Farm Bill. Source: Institute for Food and Development Policy |
| # LNN # Small # Hauls # |
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| Life-Net News Extra |
| US Top Job to be Outsourced |
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Congress today announced that the Office of President of the United States will be outsourced. The move is being made to save $400K a year in salary, a record $521 billion in deficit expenditures and related overhead.
"The cost savings will be quite significant," says Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA) who, with the aid of the GAO (the General Accounting Office) has studied outsourcing of American jobs extensively. "We simply can no longer afford this level of outlay and remain competitive on the world stage," Congressman Smith said. Mr. Bush was informed by e-mail this morning of the termination of his position. He will receive health coverage, expenses and salary until his final day of employment. After that, with a two-week waiting period, he will then be eligible for $240 dollars a week from unemployment insurance for 13 weeks. Unfortunately, he will not be able to receive state Medicaid health insurance coverage as his unemployment benefits are over the required limit. Preparations have been underway for some time for the job move. Sanji Gurvinder Singh of Indus Teleservices in Mumbai, India, will be assuming the Office of President of the United States. Mr. Singh was born in the United States while his parents were here on student visas, thus making him eligible for the position. He will receive a salary of $320 a month but no health coverage or other benefits. Due to the time difference between the US and India, Mr. Singh will be working primarily at night, when offices of the US Government will be open. "I am excited to serve in this position," Mr. Singh said in an exclusive interview. "Working nights will let me keep my day job at the American Express call center. I always knew I could be President someday." Congress stressed patience when calling Mr. Singh, as he may not be fully aware of all the issues involved with his new position. A Congressional spokesperson noted that Mr. Singh has been given a script tree to follow which will allow him to respond to most topics of concern. The spokesperson further noted that "additional savings will be realized as these scripting tools have been successfully used by Mr. Bush and will enable Mr. Singh to provide an answer without having to fully understand the issue itself." Mr. Bush has been offered the use of a Congressional page to help him write a resume and prepare for his upcoming job transition. According to Manpower, Inc., the placement firm, Mr. Bush may have difficulties in securing a new position as job prospects in the Sports Franchise Ownership arena remain limited. A recently released report from the Pentagon suggests a good prospect for him as a newly unemployed person may be in the Army National Guard. There he would be called up with his unit and stationed in Iraq, a country he has visited briefly before. "I've been there, I know all about Iraq and the conditions there," said Mr. Bush. He gained invaluable knowledge of the country in his first visit at the Baghdad Airport non-smoking terminal and gift shop. Meanwhile in Baghdad and Fallujah, Iraq, locals say Mr. Bush would receive an especially warm reception from them. The Iraqis' only request would be to be informed of which convoy he would be riding in order to give him the welcome he deserves. Source: Unattributed |
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