LIFE-NET NEWS

by Ret Z.

Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices

March 22, 2006	No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 9 Number 24	All-Volunteer

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

Good News and Bad: World Water Day

The UN marked World Water Day today. "Let us recognize the cultural, environmental and economic importance of clean water, and strengthen our efforts to protect rivers, lakes and aquifers," Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message. "We need to distribute water more equitably and increase the efficiency of water use, especially in agriculture. Let us mount a sustained effort".       Annan warned that water continues to be wasted and degraded all over the world in cities and rural areas alike: 18% of the world’s population lack access to safe drinking water; 40% lack basic sanitation; every day, some 6,000 people, most of them children, die from water-related causes.       With 852 million chronically hungry people in the world today and a global population expected to increase by 2 billion people by 2030, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stressed that reducing hunger will only be possible if agricultural yields are significantly increased, and increased production will depend largely on investment in irrigation.       The FAO had a message of hope for Africa: "Underused water resources in parts of Africa offer great potential for irrigation, especially using simple and inexpensive technologies," it said in a statement, noting that Africa uses less than 6% of its renewable water resources, compared with 20% in Asia. Only 7% of arable land in Africa is irrigated, compared with 38% in Asia. Small-scale irrigation and drainage works carried out at the rural community level using local labor offer an effective, low-cost option.       Source:  United Nations

Katrina Homeless March, Confront FEMA

Hurricane Katrina survivors marched from Capitol Hill to the White House on March 14. Along the way, they stopped at FEMA to demand that President Bush reverse FEMA’s decision to evict 10,000 hurricane evacuees from hotels and motels that day.       Led by New Orleans evacuees, the crowd marched with signs reading, "Build homes, not bombs," "Stop the evictions," and "Bush, step down." They demanded enactment of the Congressional Black Caucus bill HR 4197 to provide billions in direct assistance to the million or more people displaced by Katrina and to rebuild New Orleans.       Carletha Claiborne, a lab technician from East New Orleans, said she and her husband, a welder, now live in Tucson AZ. Both are unemployed. She said their Medicaid and Food Stamps had been terminated, and on April 30 the voucher that covers their rent would end.       The Rev Lennox Yearwood, a social justice organizer, led the crowd in prayer outside FEMA offices. "It is this organization, right here, FEMA, that has made a disaster out of disaster relief," he said. "You, FEMA, are planning to put people out in the streets while trailers are parked in Hope, Arkansas. Right now we are demanding that you not put those 10,000 families out on the streets."       Bill Fletcher Jr, president of TransAfrica Forum, called the administration’s priorities "completely skewed. ... They’ve been sucking the resources out of the public sector for years," he said. "They knew the Corps of Engineers wanted to strengthen the levees, but they could never get around to allocating the money."       He said a mighty national movement is needed "to demand a redirection of resources to the Gulf Coast. That means in the first place, getting the hell out of Iraq. Congress could start by voting down Bush’s latest request for the occupation."       Source: People's Weekly World

China's Terrible City-Country Gap

In Britain people tend to think of the countryside as a rural idyll, a bucolic landscape of green fields and happy folk. In China, if they can, people try not to think about the countryside -- a grim, dirty place where people are poor and life is harsh -- at all. China's urban population has a strong tendency to look down on country folk. The word for "farmer" in Chinese has a distinctly pejorative flavor. Often heard in Beijing: "Rural people are of a very low quality." Almost everything in the countryside is worse than in the cities, according to popular belief. People say the schools are bad, the teachers awful; there are very few doctors and hardly any clinics or hospitals; local Communist Party officials are invariably corrupt and often abuse their power for personal gain.       In the last decade, two things have happened to make the tension between the city and the countryside worse: The countryside has begun moving to the city. Between 100 and 150 million Chinese peasants have quit their villages and headed to the cities to look for work. The city is moving to the countryside. As China's urban centers boom, they are gobbling up farmland at a voracious rate. A total of 16 million acres (6,475,000 hectares) have gone in the last 20 years.       The tens of millions who have moved to the cities find themselves treated like second class citizens there, too. In a system akin to South Africa's apartheid, people born in rural China find it almost impossible to become full urban residents. They are denied access to urban housing and to urban schooling for their children. Work is found in factories or on construction sites. Life is a tenuous, hand-to-mouth existence.       Last year the Chinese internet buzzed with the story of a rural migrant from northwest China sentenced to death for a brutal double murder. The man had stabbed his victims to death during a fight at a construction site. The argument began when he went to claim back wages. It turned out the man had not been paid for two years.       The only security these rural migrants enjoy is their land. In China, agricultural land is owned communally. In theory each village owns the land around it. Each family holds its bit of land on a long-term lease. Farmland used to be almost worthless. But as China's cities expand, it is now in high demand. What happened to the village of Yangge is typical:       Yangge sits along a picturesque river 25km north of central Beijing. It is just the sort of area in which the city's wealthy new middle class might like to own a spacious suburban villa.       That is exactly what a Beijing property developer thought. He paid several million dollars to acquire the land from the local township government. The villagers were never consulted, and they saw none of the money.       Now, less than 100 miles from the village, rows of huge new American-style homes are rising out of the fields. A thousand are to be built. The asking price -- close to $1 million each.       All over China land disputes like this are turning violent. The anger and bitterness emanating from China's countryside is not so much about poverty as about fairness. People see their land being taken from them and then turned into million-dollar houses. They see local officials lining their own pockets while the villagers get nothing. They spend years away from home working on construction sites and in Dickensian factories, only to be cheated of their wages by unscrupulous bosses.       Source: BBC

More Evangelicals Take Up Foreign Causes

When President Bush recently used a public forum to announce his support for a more robust international intervention in Sudan's Darfur region -- catching even some of his senior aides off guard -- it was yet another milestone for the rising interest of Christian evangelicals in US foreign policy. In just a few years, conservative Christian churches and organizations have broadened their political activism from a near-exclusive domestic focus to an emphasis on foreign issues.       As Bush gave his attention to Darfur, one of the world's most high-profile humanitarian crises, he was almost certainly cheered not just by a coterie of evangelical advisers, but also the sizable Christian right constituency. But his focus on a forlorn region of Africa suggests deeper shifts in the forces influencing US foreign policy.       Even as many in Washington trumpet the return of realism to US foreign policy and the decline of the neoconservative hawks, the staying power of the evangelicals is likely to blunt what might otherwise have been a steep decline in Wilsonian ideals. Indeed, the aftermath of Iraq has some historians predicting a bout of American isolationism similar to what occurred after Vietnam. But other analysts say that with so many conservative Christians now convinced of activism in foreign affairs, old patterns of periodic introspection have been broken.       Darfur is hardly the first foreign rallying cause for evangelical Christians. Their awakening to foreign policy issues began well before the Bush White House, analysts note. "One place it started was during the efforts to open up the former Soviet Union" in the 1980s, says John O'Sullivan, a foreign policy analyst and editor-at-large of National Review. "They looked at the success of the Jewish community in helping the Soviet Jews and said, 'We have done nothing to help our co-religionists in Africa and Korea and other parts.'"       From there came a string of diplomatic initiatives bearing the stamp of evangelical influence -- and largely engineered through the halls of Congress, notes Allen Hertzke, an expert and author on religion in US foreign policy at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998, which makes freedom of religion and conscience a "core objective" of US foreign policy. It also established an office and an annual international religious freedom report that grades countries on rights.       Subsequent initiatives include legislation in 2000 that targets human trafficking and sex trafficking; the Sudan Peace Act of 2002, which among other things established a certification process for periodic review of Sudan's peace efforts; and the North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004. The influence of evangelical Christians is also seen in the Bush administration's focus on AIDS in Africa, as well as in attacks on international family-planning activities, experts say.       Hertzke adds that the impact of the "unlikely" movement, still being gauged in terms of Darfur, has already "altered the trajectory of history" in southern Sudan, where the government and rebel groups signed a peace accord in January 2005. "A 20-year civil war actually ended in large part due to the activism of evangelicals and their alliance with others, including Jewish groups," he says. "It's an unheralded story, but it's also a historical fact."       Source: Christian Science Monitor

Youngest Haitians' Mortal Perils

More children are likely to die during early childhood in Haiti than in any other country in the Western Hemisphere, with one in eight likely to succumb before the age of five, according to a UNICEF report released today. "While Haiti accounts for only 2% of births in Latin America and the Caribbean, it accounts for 19% deaths for children under five. It has by far the highest death rates for children under five, with 117 children dying for every 1,000 births," said UNICEF’s Country Representative in Haiti, Adriano González-Regueral. The threats to Haiti’s children detailed in the report include: Insufficient healthcare. Immunization rates for highly contagious and often fatal measles are even lower than in Sub-Saharan Africa at just over half of all children vaccinated. Environmental degradation. Forests now cover only 3% of the land, leading to high death tolls during the hurricane season (3,000 deaths in 2004 alone). Lack of education. Many families can't afford tuition. Only 55% of primary-school age children attend school. One-third of 15-to-24-year-olds can't read. Violence and abuse. Thousands of street children are forced to fight in gangs or become part of a subculture of bonded servitude: 300,000 youngsters, three-quarters of them girls, work as unpaid domestic servants.       Source: United Nations

'Wal-mart Bill' Seeks Health Benefits

State Senator Joe Vitale fought for years to expand FamilyCare, New Jersey's health-insurance program for families just above the poverty line. But the parents who lined up for the new coverage, won last summer by the Middlesex County Democrat, weren't working the collection of part-time jobs he had expected. They were full-time employees of Home Depot, Target, CVS and Wal-Mart.       "FamilyCare was never meant to be a dumping ground for the country's most successful businesses," said Vitale, the Senate Health Committee chairman. "Taxpayers shouldn't be picking up their bills."       Like lawmakers in 22 other states who have watched their Medicaid rolls swell with employees of big-box stores, Vitale funneled his frustration into a so-called Wal-Mart bill. This and similar proposals in states from Florida to Alaska are patterned after a Maryland law passed last month requiring companies with more than 10,000 employees to spend 8% of their payroll on health insurance. Wal-Mart was the state's only large company that did not already comply.       Maryland's law was swiftly challenged in court by the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which contends that the requirements violate a federal statute barring states from dictating employee benefits. It also ignores the special challenges retailers face with a younger, more transient workforce, said Paul Kelly, an Association vice president.       "We realized early on what a bad precedent Maryland would set," Kelly said. "We worried we'd see exactly what we're seeing: bills across the country that will impact more and more businesses."       New Jersey's version might be the least business-friendly of all, he said. The bill, sponsored by Vitale and Senate Labor Committee Chairman Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), requires businesses with more than 1,000 employees to provide benefits worth $4.17 an hour -- or pay that amount, per worker, into a state fund that would reimburse the nearly $400 million that the state spends on FamilyCare and other health-insurance programs each year. The legislation as now written would affect more than 120 employers in retail, health care, finance, and food service.       Legislative leaders and Gov Corzine have thus far shown more enthusiasm for a proposal by State Sen Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) that would track the employers of residents receiving FamilyCare benefits. This bill unanimously in both Senate and Assembly committee hearings this month.       New Jersey Policy Perspective, a liberal think tank, conducted an unofficial study of FamilyCare recipients last fall, finding that Wal-Mart employees and their children led the state's insurance rolls. After Wal-Mart's 589 in FamilyCare, Home Depot had 335, Pathmark grocery stores had 329, and Target had 302. ShopRite, Macy's, Kmart, McDonald's, and CVS weren't far behind.       Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

#  LNN  #  Small  #  Hauls  #

For over four years, the autonomous village of Daechuri, South Korea, and the nearby community of Doduri have defiantly resisted the seizure of their homes and fields that was imposed on them in order to expand Camp Humphreys (US Army, K-6). The expansion is part of the Global Repositioning Plan, first outlined by the Project for a New American Century and later adopted as the Bush Administration's strategy for consolidating its military hegemony over Northeast Asia. Opposition has come from many diverse currents within Korean society. Apart from community displacement, many have also highlighted issues including the devastating environmental impact of US bases, the violent crimes committed by US troops stationed on the peninsula, the issue of human trafficking and forced prostitution which surrounds the bases, and the potential for a new arms race that could destabilize all of Northeast Asia. (Rhizome Collective, Daechuri English Media Collective) US-headquartered humanitarian and refugee assistance agency Church World Service has requested that the Senate develop compassionate comprehensive immigration reform that will permit faith-based and humanitarian agencies to continue responding to persons in need by offering hospitality and sanctuary without regard to an individual's immigration status. Also asked for by CWS: Reduce waiting times for separated families. Give undocumented immigrants a chance to meet reasonable criteria and, over time, earn legalization and citizenship. Make legal ways for migrant workers and their families to enter the US and work in a safe, legal, and orderly manner with their rights fully protected. Develop policies that balance humanitarian values and national security. Safeguard asylum seekers and assure them an opportunity to prove they deserve asylum. (CWS) A humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip was still deteriorating as of yesterday, with food and other supplies running short due to the Israeli closure of border crossings. A senior official of the main UN agency helping Palestinian refugees said he sincerely hoped Israel’s opening of the Karni crossing point on Monday afternoon would be "the beginning of a return to normality." "For Gazans, this is the first rationing of bread in living memory," he said after a visit to Karni; he was "struggling to be optimistic." The agency had also run out of fuel in Gaza: "We are operating with what is left in the tanks of our cars," said John Ging. "Once we get the food in, we will need fuel to distribute it." The UN World Food Program said the extended closures were having a devastating effect on food availability and that stocks of wheat flour were already critically low. WFP provides food aid to some 160,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. (United Nations) The Rand Corporation reports on a study of the social and economic benefits that would result from universal preschool: Universal preschool in LA County would result in 3,200 fewer high school dropouts for each year of preschool. 2,955 fewer LA County children would require special education for each year of preschool. For each additional high school graduate, California would receive an additional $5,000 in tax revenue. Universal preschool would result in 4,461 fewer children per year in LA County repeating a grade. Universal preschool would reduce the number of children with reports of child abuse or neglect by 1,535 annually in LA County. (Weingart Institute)

Life-Net News Extra

America's Younger Workers Losing Ground on Income

A new survey shows that median incomes fell for householders under 45, even as they rose for older ones, between 2001 and 2004. Income fell 8%, adjusted for inflation, for those under 35 and 9% for those aged 35 to 44. The numbers add new weight to longstanding concerns about whether younger generations of Americans will achieve living standards that are better -- or at least equal to -- those of their parents.       "It's a scary question," says Carrie Brown, who runs the Blue Frog Bakery in Boston. She says that for now, at least, she's not keeping pace. And if she and her husband have children, she says she's not sure if her children will enjoy the same lifestyle she did while growing up.       Her concern is shared by many Americans who follow the baby-boom generation. One often-voiced worry is about generational fairness in tax burdens, given the prospect of a soaring federal tab in coming decades for Medicare and Social Security as the number of elderly Americans rises.       But today, long before any such fiscal shock arrives, younger workers are already feeling squeezed by other trends. An increasingly competitive global economy, the rising cost of higher education and healthcare, and changing patterns of family life are among the factors that have combined to make the career environment tougher, economists say.       "There's no guarantee" that US living standards will continue to rise, says Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University specialist in generational economics.       Source: Christian Science Monitor

The Deceitfulness of Riches

"The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful." (Matthew 13:22 NIV)       How are riches deceitful? (The word really means a delusion.) Riches promise more than they can deliver. They promise security, happiness, and satisfaction in life, but fail to deliver.       Does this mean God is against wealth? No! He just doesn't want you to be deceived by it. Or, to trust in it. For it will surely disappoint you.       "Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy." (1 Timothy 6:17 NKJ)       According to Jesus, life does not consist of the abundance of one's possessions. You should believe Him. He knows.       "And He said to them, 'Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not {even} when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.'" (Luke 12:15 NASB)       Watch out! Don't let money deceive you. Having wealth -- a bunch of stuff -- will not give you a satisfying, fulfilling life. It promises to. But it can't deliver. Things will not make you happy -- not for long. It's your inward attitude, and doing God's will, that determines whether you will enjoy happiness in life.       If having more money was the answer, why do rich people commit suicide?       Money promises security, but can never quite attain it. In contrast, God delivers security -- for eternity.       "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'" (Hebrews 13:5 NIV)       Money can leave you and forsake you, even when you need it most. But God will never abandon you. Riches will let you down. God never will.       Source: ChurchForAll

Most material here is adapted, not quoted. Views expressed do not

necessarily represent ours. Life-Net News biweekly newspage, Club

LIFENET online, the Web site www.lifenetradio.org, and

broadcast Life-Net Radio (where you can star!) together make

up Mr. Ret Z.'s private charitable enterprise. To get Life-Net e-mail

free, or to unsubscribe, just ask:   lifenetradio@broadcast.net

+ Iesous Khristos Theou Huios Soter +