LIFE-NET NEWS

by Ret Z.

Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices

2005 March 23	No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 8 Number 25	All-Volunteer

"Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal;  give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life."

Indian Anti-Generics Bill Alarms AIDS Activists

African patients will face high drug costs after the Indian parliament on Tuesday passed a bill that would grant product patents for medicines, something the government has not done since 1970. The implication of the move is that the country's capacity to produce and sell generic drugs, especially for HIV/AIDS treatment, at lower costs in Africa, will be much curtailed. The country was forced to amend its 1970 Patent Act -- and draw wide criticism -- in order to comply with World Trade Organization requirements.       India is a big manufacturer and supplier of generic drugs, mostly used in the developing world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. The international medical aid agency Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) which has been critical of the bill, said the development could literally consign millions of HIV/AIDS patients to early deaths since the drugs will be unaffordable.       However, the bill that passed in the Lower House (Lok Sabha) still has procedures which are extremely complex and there is no control on levels of royalties to be paid, which will lead to endless litigation and delays, the MSF said today.       However, the new bill "grandfathers" products that are already on the market by allowing them for automatic right to be produced. The generic companies in such cases will pay royalties to be set by the government to the patent holders.       International norms for royalties are in the range of 3% to 4%. This new law, however, does not set a fixed royalty rate. In South Africa, GlaxoSmithKline attempted to charge 40% royalty until activists and the courts intervened.       Source: Pana Press

Taco Bell Enters Landmark Pact with Tomato Workers

In a precedent-setting move, fast-food industry leader Taco Bell Corp., a division of Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), has agreed to work with Florida-based farm worker group the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to address the wages and working conditions of farmworkers in the Florida tomato industry.       Taco Bell announced early this month that it will fund a penny-per-pound "pass-through" with its suppliers of Florida tomatoes and will undertake joint efforts with the CIW on several fronts to improve working conditions in Florida's tomato fields. For its part, the CIW has agreed to end its three-year boycott of Taco Bell, saying that the agreement "sets a new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry."       "We recognize that Florida tomato workers do not enjoy the same rights and conditions as employees in other industries, and there is a need for reform," said Emil Brolick, Taco Bell president. "We have indicated that any solution must be industry-wide, as our company simply does not have the clout alone to solve the issues raised by the CIW, but we are willing to play a leadership role within our industry to be part of the solution."       Taco Bell has recently secured an agreement with several of its tomato-grower suppliers, who employ the farmworkers, to pass the company-funded equivalent of one cent per pound directly through to the workers. "With this agreement, we will be the first in our industry to directly help improve farmworkers' wages," added Brolick, "and we pledge to make this commitment real by buying only from Florida growers who pass this penny per pound payment entirely on to the farmworkers, and by working jointly with the CIW and our suppliers to monitor the pass-through for compliance. We hope others in the restaurant industry and supermarket retail trade will follow our leadership."       "We have already added language to our Supplier Code of Conduct to ensure that indentured servitude by suppliers is strictly forbidden," said Jonathan Blum, senior vice president, Yum! Brands, "and we will require strict compliance with all existing laws. Finally, we pledge to aid in efforts at the state level to seek new laws that better protect all Florida tomato farmworkers."       Source: Food First       More Info:  Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Hunger and Malnutrition Growing, FAO Warns

Hunger and malnutrition continue to grow in the world, and a plan to curb them by 2015 is in jeopardy, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) disclosed in Luanda, Angola, on March 13. From 1999 to 2002, the number of hungry people in the world rose to 842 million, 18 million more than in the period 1995-97, a FAO report entitled "The World´s Food Insecurity Situation" underlines.       Some 798 million of the hungry come from so-called developing countries and the figure keeps growing, warned FAO chief Jacques Diouf in the text´s foreword. Another 34 million live in so-called emerging nations, said Diouf, and only 10 million in industrialized countries. The document said that those few countries that achieved some success in the fight against this scourge also reported economic growth, mainly in agriculture.       Political will of governments is needed in the battle against this social evil, the report stressed. It added that the number of hungry people was considerably increasing in Africa.       Source:  Prensa Latina

Brownfields Redevelopment a Disgrace in Delaware

The concept of "brownfields" is a good one in theory -- reuse existing sites rather than pave the countryside. But as usual, the devil is in the details, and many of the details of Delaware's brownfields redevelopment efforts are more scandalous than desirable.       Many of the 600-plus "brownfields" are in Wilmington, which in its present state is unfit for redevelopment due to bad social conditions such as violence and corruption, and the un-ship shape of its physical infrastructure. For example, Wilmington pours raw sewage into the rivers passing through the city.       Brownfields programs have been used as an excuse to pour public finds into the hands of developers without any real public involvement or (necessarily) public benefit. A special provision of Delaware's "Hazardous Substances Cleanup Act" claims to allow the Minner administration to adopt "interim regulations" with no public participation at all, bypassing public notice, public comment, public hearings, the Delaware Register of Regulations, and the Administrative Procedures Act. Using this as an excuse, DNREC secretary Hughes signed an order on January 28 adopting such regulations.       Legislators, conniving with the administration, created an off-the-merit-system position for a "Brownfields Coordinator" and gave that job to Marcus Henry, son of Wilmington state senator Margaret Rose Henry. Henry has no background in brownfields redevelopment and, as far as we can tell, is supposed to promote properties to developers and help them get what they want.       But perhaps the worst is this:       Many if not most brownfields are contaminated with poisons such as arsenic. Arsenic is known to cause cancer and many other health problems. The poisons are in the soils, in the water under the sites, and often in buried drums, old building materials, and the like. The state, and developers, want to "redevelop" many of these poisoned sites into residential housing, where children might end up doing their frolicking in toxic backyards and playgrounds.       A continuing question, is, then, how thoroughly do these sites need to be cleaned up? What levels of poisons should be allowed to remain? It's clear that the numbers have been raised again and again under pressure from developers. For example, the allowable levels of arsenic in surface soils in residential areas (in parts per million or milligrams per kilogram) has increased from 0.4 to 4.0 to 11 to 23 -- more than 57 times.       Source:  Green Delaware

Britain Warns Leaders of Looming Climate Crisis

Britain has told the world's biggest polluters that only by placing the environment at the heart of economic policy can they prevent a crisis caused by global warming. London hosted a two-day brainstorming on climate change by ministers and senior officials from 20 countries in the run-up to the next G8 meeting in July.       The need for action to avert a looming climate catastrophe was rammed home by graphic images of melting glaciers and makeshift sea defences displayed at the venue of the meeting. "We must make climate stability, energy investment and energy security central to economic policies," British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown told the meeting. "International cooperation is again the only way forward."       The US delegate said energy efficiency, not a radical shift to a low carbon economy, should be the key.       As about 30 people banged pots and pans in the street outside to protest against what they said was rich-nation hypocrisy, speakers stressed the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions, improve energy efficiency, and switch to renewable resources. And that did not just mean wind and wave power. Nuclear power -- anathema to the green lobby -- had to remain an option.       Liu Jiang, leading the Chinese delegation, went even further, stressing that nuclear power was clean and saying that China was embarking on a major investment program in nuclear reactors to reduce its massive dependence on burning coal. He also urged the rich, developed world which owns most of the cutting edge green technology to make it more readily and cheaply available to developing countries as they try to climb the steep slope out of poverty.       Source:  Reuters

State Opens Casino Co-Venture to Needy Tribes Only

A proposed state-tribal casino in Minnesota will only be open to tribes who can demonstrate they have unmet basic needs. Any band that wants to participate with the state would have to demonstrate that it currently lacks money to meet housing, medical care, and other basic needs of its members, according to details of a House bill that emerged March 14 at the Legislature.       The bands would have to pass a means test before they would be eligible to join the state in the casino venture, which Gov. Tim Pawlenty has touted as a new source of revenue for the state and for large northern tribes that haven't prospered from existing tribal casinos. The Leech Lake, White Earth, and Red Lake Chippewa have agreed to participate with the state in such a casino. All suffer from high poverty and nemployment.       While the governor had said he would allow any interested tribe to participate in the partnership, the bill indicates for the first time that the state's wealthier tribes, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Community, the Prairie Island Mdewakanton Dakota Tribe, and perhaps the Mille Lacs Band and others, apparently would be shut out. Pawlenty's chief of staff, Dan McElroy, said economic qualifications for joining the venture were recently added to the proposal after consultations with state lawyers who said there needed to be a reason and a compelling state purpose to justify a law that selects particular beneficiaries for a special deal like the casino. "The compelling state interest in our tribal partnership bill," he said, "is to help those tribes who have not benefited significantly from gaming, that have significant needs for things like education facilities, health care, safe drinking water, housing, job creation."       Source:  Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Iraq War Second Anniversary: South Jerseyans Speak Out

The Burlington County Times reported on a group of South Jersey peace activists -- the South Jersey Campaign for Peace & Justice -- as they prepared to mark the two-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war with a noontime vigil Saturday on NJ Route 38 by the Red Lobster restaurant in front of the Cherry Hill Mall. It's not the first time they've stood there with antiwar signs, no, they've maintained a continual presence there since the war began.       While maintaining my neutrality, I have to give them credit for perseverance. Via the BCT article, let me introduce you to a few of them:       "We're hoping to get a fair number of people," said Rick Walnut of Southampton, leader of SJCPJ. Referring to the approximately 100,000 Iraqis the group says have been killed, Walnut said, "They often get overlooked."       "People are getting killed over there for no good reason," said Jack Crain of Willingboro. "It's criminal." Crain asserts that President Bush's decision to invade Iraq has alienated America from the rest of the world.       "I'm supposed to be living in a democracy. I'm not," he said. "I have an idiot like George Bush telling people around the world you're with us or against us. ... We're the laughing stock of the world."       Anne Creter of Riverton said, "We never found weapons of mass destruction, and that was the whole basis for starting the war." She said that she believes money spent on the war should be spent on domestic programs designed to help the poor.       Two of these names took star billing on early Life-Net Radio episodes, one each: The SJCPJ, which brought us Hiroshima survivors. Jack Crain, who brought us a working traveler's perspective on Cuba.       Source:  Burlington County Times

#  LNN  #  Small  #  Hauls  #

A campaign to disarm tens of thousands of militiamen in Afghanistan has entered the final phase. The disarmament program started by the UN 18 months ago has already resulted in 45,000 men giving up their guns. In the final four months, weapons will be collected from the remaining militia units, particularly around Kabul. Militiamen who hand in their guns are given training to help them settle into civilian life. Many become tailors or shopkeepers, or return to farm their family's smallholdings. For many, their main desire is simply to get married and settle down after years under arms. (BBC) "In February 1999, there were 16,953,000 people over age 55 who were working," says economist Dean Baker. "Last month there were 22,772,000, an increase of more than 35%. This is especially striking since job growth had collapsed for everyone else after March 2001." Over the last year, workers over age 55 accounted for 918,000 of the 1,810,000 rise in employment shown in the Labor Department's household survey, says Baker. Two main reasons for the flood of older workers into the market: 401(k) plans whose stock market values still haven't bounced back to pre-2000 levels, and companies that choose not to provide their retirees with health coverage. (Common Dreams) Native youth gang activity is on the rise in urban and rural communities across Saskatchewan, according to a government report released on Monday. Saskatchewan alone has at least 1,315 young gang members, the highest per capita of any province in Canada. The situation isn't unique to Canada either. In the US, Native gang activity has contributed to extremely high rates of violent crime on reservations in Minnesota, New Mexico, Arizona, and Idaho. According to Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, Native gangs operate in nearly every province. Some are very organized, particularly those involved in border-smuggling, while others are "street" type gangs primarily involved in drug trafficking. Representing 14% of Saskatchewan's population, Natives make their homes in urban and rural areas, in both of which, according to the report, gangs are recruiting youth by exploiting poverty, unemployment, and lack of opportunities. (Indianz.com) The Gardens neighborhood of Mount Holly, NJ, has long been known for high crime and deteriorating properties. The township originally wanted to raze all 307 attached units in the neighborhood and find a developer to replace them. But now the Township Council has adopted a revised redevelopment plan for Mount Holly Gardens that permits more homes to be rehabilitated rather than demolished. The revision bumps the number of replacement homes from 180 to 228. Also at its March 14 meeting, the council approved purchasing 62 more homes in the neighborhood and hired a management firm to maintain them. About 30 residents attended the meeting to comment on the revisions, for example, Carlos Rodriguez, president of Citizens in Action, the group that sued to stop redevelopment, who said, "It's good you want to fix the neighborhood and make it better, but for whom?" (Burlington County Times) The Draft Declaration on the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DDHRIP) is up for approval (or not) at the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) on April 11. Charmaine White Face, 58, of Rapid City, SD, departed on March 12 for Geneva, Switzerland, as part of a delegation for the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council lobbying for the ratification of the declaration, which according to White Face would protect indigenous people from forced assimilation by dominant societies. If the UNCHR approves and the General Assembly eventually ratifies it, the DDHRIP would give indigenous children the right to all levels and forms of education of the state, White Face said. Indigenous people would also be allowed to teach in their own languages, using cultural methods of teaching and learning, said White Face, and children living outside their communities would have the right to learn their culture and languages. "The sad part is that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was passed in 1948." (Rapid City Journal)

Life-Net News Extras

Individual Development Accounts: A Participant's View

Micro-economics. I don't want or need this word to be defined for me by a dictionary. I live this every day on the money I recieve from San Francisco's Dept. of Human Services (DHS) also known as welfare. I am defined by DHS, along with my daughter, as a single-parent head of household, plus one. Technically we represent a unit of two, therefore we are entitled to the micro-economically deprived sum total of $493.50 per month. We spend every waking hour (as the parent this is my task) attempting to make this amount last from momth to month. This can only be done on paper as a matter of theorectical application. On my block we smilingly refer to it as a waste of paper.       Tonight my child and I are once again in search of some way to survive another day. We are part of a fortunate few being given the opportunity to participate in of government subsidized program that will, eventually help us transition from welfare to work. This particular program is the Bay Area Individual Development Account (IDA) collaborative program. The East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation is comprised of 13 organizations that serve low-income individuals. The main idea is to help all of us low-income and close-to-no-income people set up a savings program. The way the system is set up now you can easily be penalized for having any savings. IDAs are attempting to change that.       George Loew was the EBALDC representative at the orientation. Along with the basic information he was dispensing he also intimated that there may be cause to plant seeds of hope. IDAs can be used for job training, education, or business startup, up to $600, and first-time home ownership -- not all participants will qualify -- up to $1,920. At this meeting we get information as well as applications to be filled out in order to determine eligibility. Now of course all of us low-to-no-incomes know about forms and the absolute need to first determine eligibility, after which, if we meet the necessary requirements, we proceed to the next step which is to make an appointment. If we make it to the next appointment, we bring along with us the filled out forms to a one-on-one meeting with EBALDC. If accepted into the program you attend five weekly sessions on money management, attend other training specifically related to your individual goal. For those of us trying to stretch our meager monthly income the concept of savings is so strange and alien that we truly need the assistance of others to familiarize us with something left over to be "saved". At this point we are then shown how to open an IDA at a designated financial institution, make monthly deposits, and attend monthly "peer savers" club meetings.       This is a good idea. As we all know by virtue of its being a good idea, it does not stand a snowball's chance in Hell of being actualized.       Only a handful of us will be able to take advantage of this cause only a few of us know about. So my real contribution to the cause will be to let you know that in order to get info on how to get a referral, reach out to Poor Magazine, Attn. Lisa Gray-Garcia. Call (415) 863-6306 and ask Lisa about IDAs.       Source:  Poor Magazine

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