| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| January 24, 2007 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 10 Number 12 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Recycling At Its Worst |
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Scavenging through refuse is a necessary survival skill in countries like Senegal and the Philippines. The bleak lifestyle of these "recycleurs" is on display in a Montreal exhibit -- "Mines d'ordures" (Garbage mines) -- compiled by French photographer Paul-Antoine Pichard, whom Patrick Lejtenyi profiles in the Montreal Mirror.
One of Pichard's photos shows a boy in flip-flops descending a mound of refuse with a sack of trash on his back. On what is no doubt a daily mission, the young child appears oblivious to the myriad hazards and diseases underfoot that can afflict rummagers -- and sometimes kill them, notes Lejtenyi. Polluted water, cholera, and the plague are commonplace. And as happened in the Payatas dump in Manila, sometimes landfills simply collapse, burying their inhabitants alive. Naomi Schwarz reports for Voice of America that as many as 150 people inhabit Dakar's Mbeubeuss landfill in Senegal. Local scavengers have an organized system of storing, selling, and repurposing materials from their "home" to make a living. Plastic remains are sewn into sheets for roofing, and soap remnants are boiled and formed into new bars. One man, Schwarz writes, supports a family of 14 with his income from scavenging. This work not only keeps the recycleurs alive, it also absolves the government of responsibility for waste management. As Pichard tells the Mirror, Manila's government takes no interest in cleaning up its toxic mess because it knows the scavengers will manage the task for them. And Schwarz reports that statewide collection efforts in Dakar are so poor that garbage often doesn't even reach the landfill. The city is literally drowning in its own trash heaps, leaving residents to fend for themselves. Without measures on the horizon to clean up this problem, the stark reality remains. However, Pichard opposes viewing these recycleurs as mere victims, regardless of their plight or the fact that most will spend their entire lives scavenging. "They are very proud. They consider what they do a real job," he tells Lejteny. "But," he adds, "it's still the human condition at its worst." Source: Utne Reader |
| Nonpartisan Study Shows Effects of Bush Tax Cuts |
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Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush's tax cuts, according to a new Congressional Budget Office study. The study also shows that tax rates for middle-income earners edged up in 2004, the most recent year for which data was available, while rates for people at the very top continued to decline.
Though tax cuts for the rich were bigger than those for other groups, the wealthiest families paid a bigger share of total taxes. That is because their incomes have climbed far more rapidly, and the gap between rich and poor has widened in the last several years. Economists and tax analysts have long known that the biggest dollar value of Mr Bush's tax cuts goes to people at the very top income levels. One reason is that two of the President's signature measures, tax cuts on investment income and a steady reduction of estate taxes, overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest households. But the CBO study offers additional insight because it incorporates information about what people paid in 2004, the first year in which taxpayers could take full advantage of the cuts on stock dividends and capital gains. The study estimates that the effective federal income tax rate, which excludes payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, declined modestly for people in the middle- and lower-income categories. Families in the middle fifth of annual earnings, who had average incomes of $56,200 in 2004, saw their average effective tax rate edge down to 2.9% in 2004 from 5% in 2000. That translated to an average tax cut of $1,180 per household, but the tax rate actually increased slightly from 2003. Households in the top 1% of earnings -- average income $1.25 million -- saw their effective individual tax rates drop to 19.6% in 2004 from 24.2% in 2000. The rate cut was twice as deep as for middle-income families, and it translated to an average tax cut of almost $58,000. In its report, the CBO estimated that the overall effective federal tax rate edged up to 20% in 2004, from 19.8% the year before. But even with that increase, Americans faced lower tax rates than at any time since 1979. If President Bush has his way, those rates could decline even more as the estate tax on inherited wealth is gradually phased out by the start of 2010. Mr Bush and his Republican allies in Congress want to permanently extend almost all the tax cuts that Congress passed in his first term. The cost of doing that would be more than $1 trillion over the next decade, a cost that would hit the Treasury at the same time that the spending on old-age benefits for retiring baby boomers begins to soar. The top 1% of income earners paid about 36.7% of federal income taxes and 25.3% of all federal taxes in 2004. The top 20% of income earners paid 67.1% of all federal taxes, up from 66.1% in 2000, according to the CBO. By contrast, families in the bottom 40% of income earners, those with incomes below $36,300, typically paid no federal income tax and received money back from the government. That so-called negative income tax stemmed mainly from the earned-income tax credit. Put another way: Rich families were the undisputed winners from President Bush's tax cuts, but people in the bottom half of the earnings scale were not paying much in taxes anyway. Source: New York Times |
| New Grant Program to Promote Remittance Services |
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A new initiative to improve financial services that allow foreign workers to send money back to their families -- most often in poor countries -- was jointly launched in November by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the European Commission AENEAS Program and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). The €4.2 million Financing Facility on Remittances will award individual grants of up to €200,000 to support innovative money transfer -- "remittance" -- services in rural areas that are cost-effective, easily accessible and, when possible, linked to other financial services such as savings, insurance, and lending.
"Remittances can be a vital lifeline for rural families," said Henri Dommel, a senior technical adviser on rural finance for IFAD. "While the individual amounts are often small, remittances arrive directly into the hands of poor people, so they have a very direct impact on improving livelihoods." "As a flow of capital into developing countries, remittances represent more than overseas development assistance -- and are second just behind foreign direct investment," said Jennifer Isern, lead microfinance specialist for CGAP, a microfinance group housed at the World Bank. The World Bank estimates that remittances to developing countries from overseas workers totalled $167 billion last year. Including unrecorded informal transactions, the bank estimates that total remittance flows may be as much as $250 billion a year. "The scale is huge -- one in every six people may receive some kind of support through remittances," said Isern. "Reducing the cost and increasing the accessibility of those services is urgent and will have direct and dramatic benefits for poor people." Source: International Fund for Agricultural Development |
| A Pantry Full of Free Food and Legal Help |
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Every other week for the last year, Harry, a tall, bespectacled Queensbridge Houses resident, has trekked over to the Hour Children food panty on 11th Street to pick up a bag of food. Early this month, Harry got a little more -- not just a fish but a lesson in fishing. Harry met with a legal counselor in the new free legal clinic operating from the back of the pantry and got a form to apply for food stamps. He vowed to go down to the office the very next day.
"It's a wake up call for me," he said. Since its opening Oct 2, the clinic, a project of the Urban Justice Center (UJC), has helped over 50 residents, giving quick advice, offering referrals, and providing full legal representation. The clinic specializes in food stamps and public assistance, though counselors occasionally help with eviction or other problems. The Long Island City branch is the first the UJC has opened in Queens. A 2004 Food Bank For NYC report indicates Long Island City and Astoria had the most people at risk of going hungry in the borough, according to Leslie Annexstein, an attorney and the director of the UJC's Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Project. "We're going to where the need is." The clinic is staffed by two eager legal counselors. Kyle Dandelet has been working legal clinics for about a year and a half. He says New Yorkers who are eligible for city benefits but have never gotten them, are common among his clients. Other clients need help with the paperwork, which can be voluminous, proving eligibility or fighting for benefits when they have been reduced or denied. Annexstein noted that many working people still desperately need food stamps and other public benefits but often confront "an overwhelmingly bureaucratic and frequently hostile bureaucracy designed to deter them from obtaining and maintaining those benefits." Source: Queens Chronicle |
| Un-Schoolers Defy Camden District |
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A newly formed un-school, which is attracting students who say they dropped out of Camden schools because of violence and lack of educational quality, is also attracting unwanted attention from the law. Some of the parents of the un-school's 32 mostly Hispanic students are being taken to court for truancy and getting letters from the district threatening to report them to the state Division of Youth and Family Services, according to documents provided by parents.
The Community Educational Resource Network for Homeschoolers (CERNH), formed last month, hosts learners from daily from 9am to 1pm at Bethel United Methodist Church. It has a patchwork of teachers -- parents, volunteers and employees of the Newark-based school choice advocacy group, Excellent Education for Everyone, or E3 -- and has the feel of a real, yet small, school. Tanisha Alvarado, 28, dropped out of Camden's schools in 10th grade. She said she's willing to go to jail to make sure her daughter, Prescious Arroyo, 12, doesn't follow in her footsteps. "I'd rather take the fine and get incarcerated than put her in a public school where she's not going to get an education." Prescious, CERNH's only student not in high school, said she wasn't challenged at her old middle school. Now she's doing ninth-grade algebra. "I do want to go to high school and college. I do want to succeed in life and make a change." But it's more complicated than that. Even though parents said they gave the district notarized forms to discharge their children for homeschooling, the parents are still getting truancy letters. At least one parent was called to court. "If parents are getting truancy letters it means they have not completed the process of notifying the school in the appropriate manner," said district spokesman Bart Leff. "It means they have left the building and come under (Angel) Cordero and E3's wing, but they're still part of the system." Cordero, a paid consultant for E3 and a Camden activist who organized CERNH, said the district is ignoring the discharge forms and attempting "a fear tactic to get the parents to send (the children) back." Leff said he wasn't even aware of CERNH. Aday Cruz-Mont, mother of a 16-year-old who dropped out of Woodrow Wilson because of the violence, skipped her scheduled court date for a truancy charge and now there is a warrant outstanding for her arrest. "I was scared I was going to be locked up. It's too much violence at Woodrow Wilson. Every time I drive through there I see cops." The Rev Tim Merrill, a volunteer helping to run the un-school, met with students and parents this week so each could fill out a "prospectus" to develop an individualized course of study. Merrill told students interested in the arts that they could take trips to the Juilliard School in New York. He told others about preparatory classes for standardized tests. After one such meeting, parent Janneth Gonzalez said she "never heard" her daughter talking so much about her future. She said she appreciated being involved as a parent, unlike in the public schools. "My child is going to earn her education, they're not just going to give it to her." Her daughter, Jasmine, said, "We're here for two reasons -- to get into college or technical school. I'm going to do this." CERNH doesn't have grades, and students will either take the GED or get homeschool diplomas, which are not endorsed by the state. Said Merrill, "With the state of education in Camden, a home school degree is preferable." Source: Courier-Post |
| UNESCO Pushes for More Literacy Teachers |
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With approximately one in five adults worldwide who can't read or write, the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is increasing efforts to train literacy teachers. "An estimated 18 million more teachers must be trained worldwide by 2015 if we are to achieve universal primary education," said UNESCO director general Koichiro Matsuura in Paris on Jan 15. The "Teacher Training and Literacy" roundtable at UNESCO addressed the shortage of literacy teachers who work outside schools.
"An additional 77 million children do not go to school and have no chance of acquiring basic literacy skills," Matsuura said. "This will seriously impede efforts to reach the 'Education for All' goal of dramatically improving adult literacy levels." US first lady Laura Bush, honorary ambassador for the UN Literacy Decade, attended the meeting along with teachers from the developing world and UNESCO delegation members. "Ending illiteracy is a challenge for every country," she said. "Yet investing in literacy and education helps governments to meet their fundamental obligations: improving opportunities for children and families, strengthening their economies, and keeping their citizens in good health." The meeting followed the first-ever White House Conference on Global Literacy held in Washington in September. There will be five other regional literacy conferences, starting in March. In the context of the UN Literacy Decade, UNESCO will start a program called Literacy Initiative for the Empowerment: 2005-2015 to improve learning structures for illiterate adults in 34 countries. The initiative will target countries where the literacy rate is under 50% or where there are more than 10 million adults who cannot read or write. Source: United Press International |
| Residents President Challenges Council President |
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Carmen Ubarry-Rivera, the outspoken president of the Cramer Hill Residents Association, recently launched a spirited bid to unseat Camden City Council President Angel Fuentes in the May 8 election. Her campaign could force Fuentes and other incumbent council members to account for their relative silence on poorly executed plans to redevelop the Cramer Hill neighborhood, plans that could displace 1,200 families.
Fuentes said former Gov James McGreevey worked out the redevelopment deal for Cramer Hill and didn't consult the council. Fuentes said he learned of the plan along with the rest of the public. But he didn't address Cramer Hill residents' concerns about the plan until last year when some in the neighborhood sued to stop it. Certainly, the state takeover of Camden has muted the authority of the council. But it shouldn't have silenced their voices. Council members have a pulpit to amplify their constituents' concerns or to educate residents about redevelopment choices -- if they choose to use it. Ubarry-Rivera appears ready to use that platform. As she enters this arena, her background and stands on the issues need to be examined. To be sure, Fuentes is an able leader, and he has attempted to address crime and education issues that worry Camden residents. But when it comes to challenging the Democratic establishment that rules Camden and helps elect him, he and some other council members appear too comfortable sitting on the sidelines. Ubarry-Rivera is willing to challenge Fuentes, but it is not clear whether she has more to offer. She has built her initial campaign on the anger over the poorly executed and now-stalled Cramer Hill redevelopment project. To be a credible alternative, she and any other candidates who emerge must demonstrate they will be just as passionate in addressing other issues that weigh on Camden residents, such as the lack of development-related job opportunities. Source: Courier-Post |
| # LNN # Small # Hauls # |
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| Life-Net News Extras |
| Tribespeople Blockade and Win Against Peruvian Petro-Giant |
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It was by any measure a remarkable protest. More than 800 Achuar tribespeople from the borders of Peru and Ecuador, headed by their traditional leaders with their red and yellow feathered headdresses, arrived by the boatload in the twilight hours at four oil wells in the middle of the Amazonian rainforest.
Their faces streaked with paint and with people carrying hunting hotguns and ceremonial spears, they formed a peaceful blockade of Peru's largest oil facility. They stayed for nearly two weeks, shutting down power to most of the region's oil production, and its road, airport and river access. It was a desperate attempt by the Achuar to get the Peruvian government to take notice of their plight. For decades they had been saying that their land had been heavily polluted and their waters poisoned by oil exploration, but they had been consistently ignored. The ploy worked. The loss of millions of dollars in revenue and around 40,000 barrels of oil per day forced the government and Pluspetrol -- Peru's largest oil and gas operator -- to concede to most of the Achuar's demands, including re-injecting all the contaminated waste water back into the ground within two years, and building a new hospital with enough money to run a health service for 10 years. The victory was particularly sweet for the Achuar -- who number about 8,000 in Peru's vast Amazon region of Loreto -- because it was the only time in 36 years of oil exploration and extraction in their area that the state had intervened. Companies have long been given carte blanche to flout international environmental laws. "It was like a carnival back then -- they were bathing in it," says Luis Canale, the environment manager for the current operator, Pluspetrol. "That was the typical attitude when they first discovered oil here. It's certain that there was a lot of contamination caused by the oil companies who were here before, but the environmental laws have now fundamentally changed." The laws may have changed but, the Achuar say, attitudes haven't. When Pluspetrol took on the two oil drilling blocks in 1996 and 2000, it promised to clean the areas polluted by the abandoned oil wells of previous companies. But the daily dumping of around a million barrels of production waters -- containing high concentrations of hydrocarbons and heavy metals -- into rivers and streams has continued. Canale admits it is "not the best practice". In part of a complex relationship, the oil company now provides medical care for some 1,800 Achuar to counter the lack of state facilities. Until now, the Peruvian state has had virtually no presence in many parts of Loreto, something the new government has said it wants to change. For the Achuar, water is the source of life, but it has become the bringer of death. It has been contaminated with heavy metals and hydrocarbons through the production waters of oil drilling that are spewed out untreated into the rivers and streams without regard for international standards. It wasn't until May this year that the Achuar's complaints of contamination were officially vindicated when Peru's health ministry found high concentrations of lead and cadmium in the blood samples of more than 200 of them. Pluspetrol maintains that levels of the heavy metals in its production waters do not exceed permitted limits. On the banks of the Corrientes river, the village of San Cristobal exists side-by-side with Pluspetrol's Block Eight, the second largest oil plant in the country. The community's leader, Chief Alfonso Hualinga Sandy, says the animals he used to hunt have been driven away by the pollution, the fish are scarce and the medicinal plants he once gathered are dying. The Achuar use the river water to bathe in, to wash their clothes and they mix it with the fermented mash of cassava to make their traditional drink, masato. Bill Powers, an American engineering consultant, says the Peruvian government needs to be more cautious about how it issues oil concessions in the Amazon. "If they refuse to demand best practices, then they'll be setting up more conflict in the Amazon," he predicts. "They'll also be setting up the knock-out environmental punch for the Amazon." Source: Mail & Guardian |
| Matrimonio: 26 Conclusiones de las Ciencias Sociales |
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| Iraq-War Tech Brought to Bronx |
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It might look like something out of a Stars Wars movie, but "Sky Watch," a mobile surveillance tower that extends to 24 feet in height, is very much for real. It's been used along the Mexican border to spot illegal immigrants, and the U.S Army has several in Iraq where each model is fitted with M-16 ready gun ports.
Now Sky Watch is coming to a street near you: East Fordham Road to be precise, according to Kevin Harrington, the commanding officer of the 46th Precinct. Eight officers and a sergeant from the 46 have received training, he said. The manned tower, a hydraulic lift complete with cameras, high-powered spotlights, and tinted, bulletproof windows, will be giving users -- and there's room for two at a time -- an unprecedented view of the borough's liveliest shopping district. It "allows an officer to be above a crowd. It can take the place of two or three or four officers on the ground," said Howard Schemer, director of sales at New Heights Manufacturing, the Georgia-based company behind the venture. "It acts as a deterrent as well as cutting down on illegal activity." According to an NYPD police spokesperson, "Sky Watch gives the police literally the 'high ground,' from which to observe street conditions [and] it is also a potential investigative tool with the ability to capture and record images." Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly was keen to acquire Sky Watch units, "because they are mobile and could be deployed quickly to monitor both large events and conditions at high-crime neighborhoods." So far, the NYPD has purchased two towers, which cost up to $100,000 each, and has ordered a third, which should be ready in February said Schemer. One has been deployed in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where it helped cut crime, police say. The other was parked briefly in rapidly gentrifying East Harlem, where, according to a New York Post article, a number of residents were angry that the tower's sole purpose seemed to be to protect two luxury high rises. The towers also watched over last year's Macy's Parade and the US Tennis Open in Queens. It's now the Bronx's turn. And buzzing Fordham Road, which winds through three high-crime neighborhoods, is a natural choice. Harrington doesn't know for sure when Sky Watch will arrive. "Hopefully we'll see it sooner rather than later," he said, adding that it would allow an officer to see four blocks in either direction. Dan Bernstein, deputy director of the Fordham Bedford Business Improvement District, said he knew nothing about it, but said that he was speaking to the police about putting up more security cameras in the area. The New York Civil Liberties Union, for one, has serious concerns about the growing number of these cameras popping up in the city. In Fall of 2006, they released a report called, "Who's Watching? Video Camera Surveillance in New York City and the Need for Public Oversight." The organization is uncomfortable with Sky Watch too. Source: Mount Hope Monitor |
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