| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| 2005 May 18 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 9 Number 2 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Ontario Jews, Muslims Collaborate Against Genocide |
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The 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in January and preparations for a March of the Living trip last week had cardiologist Lorne Finkelstein thinking less about past atrocities and more about the present: Darfur. Finkelstein is a member of Strengthening Hamilton [Ontario] Communities Initiative, an organization of community leaders formed after 9-11 to combat racism in Hamilton. He teamed up with another member, Javid Mirza, president of the Hamilton Muslim Association, to organize Action for Darfur.
About 400 people came to the Hamilton Convention Centre April 28 to hear speakers Mohamed Hassan Haroun and Tragi Mustafa, who both emigrated from Sudan; Norman Epstein, founder and co-chair of Canadians Against Slavery and Torture in Sudan (CASTS); and Senator Mobina Jaffer, an African of east Indian descent who in 2002 was named Canada’s special envoy to the peace process in Sudan. "Canada must act," Finkelstein told the audience. "The United Nations is impotent about most things and certainly about this." The Muslim and Jewish communities in Hamilton have been working together to promote peace and understanding locally, as well as on action for Darfur. In March, Temple Anshe Shalom devoted a Shabbat service to Darfur that attracted about 80 people, Jewish and non-Jewish. Subsequently, executive members from UJA Federation of Hamilton attended an Eid-ul-Fitr dinner, marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Another fruitful partnership brewed in Toronto when Epstein teamed up with Dr. Achol Dor, who moved to the Ontario capital from southern Sudan in 1995. The two met three years ago at B’nai B’rith’s black-Jewish dialogue group. Their discussions led to the creation of CASTS. The group now has more than 800 members across the country. Epstein told the audience that Canada must act independently of the UN in Sudan and mobilize peacekeeping forces immediately. He said such moves by Canada could spur the international community to act. He also implored the media to devote more coverage to the story. "They brought the tsunami to our doorsteps, to our living rooms. Why not genocide? If we are quiet and complacent, we will be complicit in another genocide." He also urged members of the Jewish community to write to their MPs and to Prime Minister Paul Martin, and to start petitions. "After the Holocaust, the world said, ‘If only we knew, we would have intervened.’ Today, living in this global village, we have no excuse this time." "We continue to recycle ‘Never again,’ but we never act on it. The Jewish community, because of its legacy of genocide, should be at the forefront proclaiming to the world to do the right thing." Source: Canadian Jewish News Relevant Link: Canadians Against Slavery and Torture in Sudan |
| Bicycling Magazine Presents 50 Bikes to Local Afterschool |
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Nick Luzzo popped wheelies, Justice Covington rang the bell with glee, and Lance Spegal just enjoyed the whole experience of riding a new mountain bike Thursday during an afterschool program at Helen A. Fort Middle School in Pemberton Township, NJ. "This is totally cool," Lance said before he took the bike for a ride. "I like how it feels."
The afterschool program, one of 21 operated statewide by Paterson-based nonprofit New Jersey After 3 Inc., received 50 bicycles as part of Bicycling magazine's BikeTown USA promotion. The 67 students in the program will be able to check the bikes out like they would books from a library. The bikes, each with a retail value of $320, were donated by Philadelphia-based bicycle manufacturer Fuji. The magazine picked 20 BikeTown sites this year, where bikes were donated to "see how giving someone a bike could change their world." Pemberton Township is the only such site in the state, and the only one exclusively involving students. Steve Madden, editor-in-chief of Bicycling, said economics played a major part in the choice. Pemberton Township is one of the poorest school districts in the state, and when Madden asked students to raise their hands if they owned bicycles, only about a third did so. "We wanted to do it at a place where we can make a difference," Madden said. He said that Pemberton Township, and the area around the middle school, is ideal for biking. Bicycle lanes run for miles in each direction along Fort Dix Street, and the town is relatively flat. Program officials said they plan to teach children physics by explaining how a bike works, geography by following the Tour de France bike race, and biology by studying lungs and how they are important to bicyclists. The students, however, were just happy to be able to ride new bikes. One shouted, "It's Christmas," while others whooped as they took test-rides around a basketball court. Source: Burlington County Times |
| CAFTA: 'Free Trade', Bad Deal |
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As with NAFTA, there is widespread misunderstanding of the economic issues involved in the Central America Free Trade Agreement. First there is the label "free trade," which is not an actual description of these accords but a marketing slogan. In reality, CAFTA will increase some barriers to trade while lowering others.
One of the barriers that it increases is on patented pharmaceutical drugs. This is the most costly form of protectionism in the world today. The benefits from free trade in these goods are much appreciated by the millions of Americans who cross the Canadian or Mexican border to get their prescription drugs. But CAFTA will make it more difficult for countries like Guatemala to get access to affordable medicines -- even for life-saving drugs like those needed to treat people with HIV/AIDS. In the US, labor unions and those who care about working people have made much of the loss of jobs, particularly in manufacturing, that NAFTA and the World Trade Organization have caused and that CAFTA would presumably continue. But the much-bigger effect for most Americans is on wages. During the last 30 years the typical (median) wage in the US has hardly grown -- only about 9%. Productivity -- output per employee -- has grown by 82% over the period. Normally we would expect wages and salaries to grow with productivity. These trade agreements have helped keep wages from growing here by increasing competition with workers making 60 cents an hour and by making it easier for employers to threaten to move when workers demand their share of rising productivity. The Bush administration has appealed to farmers in the US, saying that CAFTA will help them by opening foreign markets to their products. But this argument makes no economic sense: US farmers can sell all the corn they want at the world market price. The only way that opening foreign markets can help them is if it raises the world price. Markets in CAFTA countries -- five Central American countries plus the Dominican Republic -- are too small to affect world prices. In Washington policy circles, CAFTA is being sold as a boost to economic development for our neighbors to the south. But we have now had 25 years of experience with this kind of economic integration, and the results are in: Income per person in Latin America has grown by 12% since 1980, as compared to 80% the prior 20 years (1960-79). By any economic measure, these reforms -- including NAFTA -- have failed. CAFTA countries are being promised access to a growing US import market, but this is about to be reversed. Our trade deficit is now so big that it cannot be sustained even at its present level. Over the next decade, the dollar will fall further and our trade deficit will shrink. Measured in non-dollar currencies, the value of US imports is expected to decline over the next decade. This means that CAFTA countries are making costly concessions for a prize that most likely won't be there. In sum, the economic arguments for CAFTA just don't hold water. No wonder its proponents rely on slogans, repetition and millions of dollars of lobbying money to make their case. Source: Counterpunch |
| New Panel to Look For Big Medicaid Cost Reductions |
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The Bush administration will organize an advisory panel to recommend big changes in Medicaid eligibility and benefits and in the financing of the program, administration officials said May 11. By Sept. 1, the panel is to recommend ways to save $10 billion in Medicaid, the federal-state program that insures more than 50 million low-income people. A charter establishing the commission says that by Dec. 31, 2006, it will make "longer-term recommendations on the future of the Medicaid program."
The commission will have up to 15 voting members and 18 nonvoting members. The voting members will all be appointed by Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services. Leavitt rejected bipartisan Congressional pleas for an independent commission under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences. A former governor of Utah, Leavitt has repeatedly said that Medicaid, in its current form, is unsustainable. The charter says the commission will address ten questions, for example:
Eight members of Congress -- four Republicans and four Democrats, appointed by Congressional leaders -- will be the nonvoting members. The panel will also receive advice from ten people involved in the Medicaid program, including state and local government officials, consumer representatives and health care providers. Source: New York Times |
| Forced Laborers Said to Number 12.3 Million (Minimum) |
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At least 12.3 million people worldwide work as slaves or in other forms of forced labor, the International Labor Organization, the labor arm of the United Nations, said in a report issued May 11. In the first estimates of overall forced labor ever made by an international organization, the report said that 2.5 million people were in forced labor as a result of cross-border trafficking, with 1.2 million of them in the sex trade.
The report, A Global Alliance Against Forced Labor, estimated that profits from trafficked forced labor totaled $32 billion a year, or $13,000 per trafficked worker. Profits from forced commercial sexual exploitation totaled $27.8 billion annually, or $23,000 per worker. "Forced labor represents the underside of globalization and denies people their basic rights and dignity," said ILO director general Juan Somavia. According to the report, 9.5 million of the forced laborers are in Asia, most of them forced into bonded labor because of debts, especially in Pakistan and India. About two-thirds of forced labor in Asia is imposed by private parties -- families, farmers or companies. About one-tenth of Asia's forced labor is commercial sexual exploitation, and one-fifth is imposed by the state in a few countries, most notably China and Myanmar. People can be forced into such labor in many ways -- because of debts, through physical violence, by the confiscation of identity papers, by threatening to turn illegal immigrants over to the authorities. Women and girls constitute 98% of forced laborers working in sexual activities, the report said, while women and girls account for 56% of nonsexual forced labor. To reduce trafficking, the report calls for stepped-up law enforcement in both sending and destination countries. It also urges agencies that seek to reduce poverty, like the World Bank, to make a priority of intervening in practices that foster bonded labor. The report also says countries may have to rethink labor, land, tenancy, and migration policies that have produced forced labor. Source: New York Times |
| Philadelphia Ranks High in Food Stamp Participation |
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Nearly half the people eligible for food stamps in urban America are not getting them, according to a report issued yesterday by a Washington think tank. The study, by the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution, found that about 16 million individuals are leaving $5 billion in federal benefits unclaimed.
In terms of cashing in, Philadelphians fared better than most. According to the study, which was based largely on the 2000 census, 77% of the eligible population in the city were taking advantage of the program -- one of the higher figures nationally -- as were 66% of those in the region. The average participation for the 97 metropolitan areas studied was 54% of those eligible. In the Philadelphia area, city and state agencies that work with the poor have made an increased effort in recent years to get the word out about food-stamp eligibility. Even so, the authors of the Brookings study said, the area is likely missing out on more than $100 million per year in foregone benefits, which amounts to "a significant missed opportunity to improve local economic health." The report ranked Philadelphia fourth-highest among 50 urban counties by percentage of the population receiving stamps, trailing only St. Louis, New Orleans and the Bronx. As of last month, 293,144 Philadelphians were on the food-stamp rolls, roughly 20% of the city's population, according to the state Department of Public Welfare. Most welfare recipients qualify for food stamps, a program run by the US Department of Agriculture. So do others with low incomes. A family of four, for instance, may get stamps if it has a gross income of less than $2,043 per month. The maximum allotment for a four-person family, assuming no income whatsoever, is $499 per month. Source: Philadelphia Inquirer |
| # LNN # Small # Hauls # |
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| Life-Net News Extras |
| How to Protest a Developers Bus Tour |
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As you may know, Life-Net Radio has been following the situation in Brewerytown, Philadelphia, where a civic battle has been blazing over developers' plans for certain sites in the neighborhood. Here's a notice we received recently, minimally edited:
I heard something that all of you should be aware of. We've seen speculators arrogantly touring our communities over the last few years. But, I just learned about a city-financed tour today of developers who will descend upon North Philadelphia. They apparently will arrive in one or more buses and will hit all of the key development sites. Were you invited? If you see these buses, perhaps you should turn the tables on the safari crowd. Here are a few ideas:
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| Synagogue Food Bank In Danger of Closing |
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The kosher food bank at the Pride of Israel Synagogue is facing imminent closure if it doesn’t receive more donations soon. “We have enough money for, probably, another two weeks at the most,” food bank co-chair Alan Marks said early this month. Last spring, it closed for more than a month after a slowdown in donations of both food and money, Marks said.
The food bank, which is open one morning per week, is one of two kosher food banks in Toronto. The other is at Beth Sholom Synagogue. Food donations to Pride of Israel’s food bank, which must be kosher and non-perishable, help supplement the basic items that are purchased with donated money. Costs run about $1,300 every two weeks, Marks said. The main donors include Beth Tikvah Synagogue and Beit Rayim Synagogue, which run twice-yearly food drives, as well as Grodzinski Bakery and Chai Kosher Poultry. For Passover, volunteers handed out 140 packages in one day, a record number. On an average day, they see about 100 people, who must be on government assistance to qualify for the service. On a typical day last summer, the food bank, which dates back to the mid-1990s, served 65 recipients, mostly seniors and many of them Russian-speaking because of the demographics of the area. Following an article that appeared in The Canadian Jewish News last August, the food bank saw an increase in demand for its services, and an initial increase in donations, reported Marks. Recently, however, volunteers have “had to cut back on the amount we’re putting in the bags,” said Marks. Beth Sholom’s food bank has also seen increased demand. Just before Passover, the number of recipients rose from between 25 and 40 a week to between 50 and 60, volunteer Kala Solway said. Source: Canadian Jewish News |
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