| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| February 28, 2007 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 10 Number 14 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| NCC Gulf Commission Gives Governments Low Marks |
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On Ash Wednesday, when many Christians around the world began the season of Lent, a time of self-examination, a special commission of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) issued a report on how local, state, and federal governments in the Gulf Coast region
have contributed to hardships for millions of victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. After more than half a dozen post-Katrina trips to the Gulf Coast region and extensive
on-the-ground analysis, the NCC's Special Commission on the Just Rebuilding of the Gulf Coast gave low marks across the board to local, state and federal governments. The report card reviewed response and rebuilding efforts in the city of New Orleans, the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and the federal government in areas such as transportation, healthcare, housing, schools, insurance, and environmental justice.
"The Special Commission's task has been to monitor events on the ground in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and to give voice to justice issues in the rebuilding efforts," said NCC's President, the Rev Michael Livingston. "The Commissioners have discovered an atmosphere of neglect and injustice that is unacceptable." The report also highlights the pivotal role that churches played in saving lives and rebuilding the community. Churches and other faith groups "have reached out across the nation to supply food, clothing, and shelter for those displaced by the hurricanes," says the report. "Churches have especially been lauded as the first responders on the ground in the days after Hurricane Katrina hit." Source: NCC |
| Big Test for AIDS Vaccine |
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The first large-scale trial of an HIV vaccine is set to begin in South Africa, it has been announced. 3,000 HIV-negative men and women who are sexually active will be
immunized in the four-year study. An international team of researchers, led by experts from the US, will oversee the trial of the vaccine, created by the drug company Merck.
It is hoped the study will provide information about how a vaccine will work in a heterosexual population. It should also show if it is effective among women. The test vaccine has already been through trials for safety and immune response in the Americas, Africa and Australia. It does not contain live HIV, so it cannot cause infection, but it does contain copies of three HIV genes. The hope is that exposure to these genes prompts an immune response in the body so that cells containing HIV would be recognized and destroyed. The study, jointly run by the international HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) and the South African Aids Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI) is also designed to show if the vaccine, which is based on the B strain of HIV, has the potential to protect against the C strain of the virus, which is the subtype prevalent in South Africa. The trial has been approved by the South African Medicines Control Council and the South African Department of Agriculture, and has been reviewed by the US Food and Drug Administration. Even if the trial provides positive findings, there would have to be further studies before the vaccine could be licensed. Source: BBC |
| HUD Gets New View of Who's Homeless |
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A groundbreaking survey of homelessness being released today found that 704,000 people nationwide sought shelter at least once in a three-month period. Families with children accounted for one-third of those seeking emergency shelter or transitional housing between February and April 2005, the most recent period studied, according to the HUD
report. The rest were individuals, mostly adult men.
Nearly half were black. The count covered only those
seeking shelter, not people living on the street, so the total number of homeless people would be higher.
HUD says the survey is the most comprehensive government estimate ever of homelessness. Previous counts looked only at the number of people homeless on a given day or week. The three-month figure -- equal to the population of South Dakota -- is an estimate based on a sample of 80 communities. It will serve as a baseline for annual reports to Congress and may be expanded to include people living on the street. Martha Burt, a homelessness scholar at the Urban Institute, says the new database has shortcomings. For example, it has limited information about the health of those seeking shelter. She thinks future versions will have trouble tracking those living on the street. The three-month count found that on an average day, 335,000 people sought shelter. More than twice that number sought shelter at least once during the entire period. One of every three homeless kids has a diagnosable psychiatric disorder, such as post-traumatic stress, by age 8, says Ellen Bassuk, a psychiatrist who is president of the National Center on Family Homelessness. "They have trouble sitting still and learning in school." Nine of 10 homeless mothers have been victims of violence, often domestic, she says. Dennis Culhane, a professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania who co-wrote the HUD report, says families with kids have remained a steady one-third of the homeless. He says government needs to do more to provide housing, such as expanding rent subsidies. Source: USA Today |
| Pay-Toilet Program a Model for Developing World |
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For years, Tajunisa Bano and her four daughters were forced to relieve themselves behind thorny bushes in an open field near their home in a fetid settlement on the fringes of India's IT hub, Bangalore. But just over a year ago, life changed for locals like Ms Bano. Through community participation, Bremen Overseas Research and Development Association (BORDA), a German funding agency, built a pay-and-use community toilet for 500 local families here that is now run and managed by locals themselves.
"It came as a welcome relief, especially for women who needed this more urgently than men," Bano says. "It eased the physical distress and shame." Such efforts are scant in India, where only one in three people has access to a hygienic toilet and sanitation complex. But a local group is sparking a quiet sanitary revolution that the World Bank and UN agencies are recommending as a model for other developing countries. In the past three decades, Bindeshwar Pathak, the head of Sulabh International Social Service Organization, has built 1.2 million toilets and 6,000 pay-and-use community toilets in over 3,500 Indian towns. These toilets are affordable for the poor, and the cheapest model can be constructed for as little as $10. In a country where water shortages are a primary reason for the dearth of toilets, Sulabh's toilets don't guzzle water: They require only 2 liters of water compared with 10 liters for a conventional toilet. Sulabh's systems often come with biogas plants, through which human waste produces biogas that, when mixed with diesel fuel, can power electrical devices such as streetlights. A similar technique of wet-sanitation is being replicated elsewhere in India by groups like BORDA. In 1999, the Indian government launched its Total Sanitation Campaign to provide proper toilets to all by 2010. India's minister for rural development, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, says the attempt isn't simply to dole out toilets to the poor, but to build them through community participation while educating people about the importance of sanitation. "We do not want the government to give any subsidy to build toilets," says Mr. Pathak. "We just want them to tell banks not to refuse loans if poor people want to build toilets." Source: Christian Science Monitor |
| Eligible Immigrants Not Taking Food Stamps |
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A report released early this month by the New York City Council and FoodChange, an anti-poverty organization, said that nearly 70,000 eligible immigrants in Queens do not participate in the federal Food Stamp program. Several members of council and of FoodChange held a public strategy session and discussion in an attempt to increase immigrant participation in the program.
According to the report, 25% of Food Stamp-eligible but non-participating New Yorkers are immigrants. The council is encouraging increased participation, because Food Stamps are a federal program, and money unused is left on the table. The initiative to increase Food Stamp participation is part of the "Food Today, Healthy Tomorrow" initiative that the council began in September. "The problem of hunger in New York City is a problem that every New Yorker should care about," said Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside). Gioia went further, saying that growth in program participation means increasing the buying power of New Yorkers, bringing more money into the city at large. "New York City should be leading the nation in increasing Food Stamp participation," added Nicole Christiansen, Director of Food Access at FoodChange. Adam Gurvitch, Director of Health Advocacy with the New York Immigration Coalition, agreed. "This is exactly the kind of action that our City Council should be taking," Gurvitch said. As far as non-participation was concerned, the study found a number of reasons for the lack of immigrant participation, but chief among them was a lack of awareness in the immigrant community itself, as well as common misconceptions about the purpose of programs. "They're just afraid of everything, they're afraid of being deported for any reason," said Sandy Moya, Coordinator of the Single Stop Program at the Woodside Family Development Center. Moya says the key to getting word out among immigrant communities is to establish the idea that programs like Food Stamps are only designed to help. "If they learn to trust you, I think that's the most important thing," Moya continued. "I think it's going to take time, I think they're taking the right approach by talking to community groups." Source: Queens Tribune |
| Most Bird Flu Found at Factory Farms, Not in Backyards |
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The growth of factory farms, their proximity to congested cities in the developing world, and the globalized poultry trade are all culprits behind the spread of avian flu, while livestock wastes damage the climate at a rate that surpasses emissions from cars and SUVs. These preliminary findings on avian flu and meat production, from the upcoming Worldwatch Institute report "Vital Signs 2007-2008", were released on Feb 19 by research associate Danielle Nierenberg at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
At least 15 nations have restricted or banned free-range and backyard production of birds in an attempt to deal with avian flu, a move that may ultimately do more harm than good, according to Nierenberg. "Many of the world's estimated 800 million urban farmers, who raise crops and animals for food, transportation, and income in backyards and on rooftops, have been targeted unfairly by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO] and the World Health Organization [WHO]," she said. "The socioeconomic importance of livestock to the world's poor cannot be overstated." Rising demand for meat has helped drive livestock production away from rural, mixed-farming systems, where farmers raise a few different species on a grass diet, toward intensive periurban and urban production of pigs and chickens. Because of unregulated zoning and subsidies that encourage livestock production, chicken and pig "confined animal feedlot operations" (CAFOs), or factory farms, are moving closer to major urban areas in China, Bangladesh, India, and many countries in Africa. Locating large chicken farms near cities might make economic sense, but the close concentration of the birds to densely populated areas can help foster and spread disease, Nierenberg says. In Laos, 42 of the 45 outbreaks of avian flu in the spring of 2004 occurred on factory farms, and 38 were in the capital, Vientiane. (The few small farms in the city where outbreaks occurred were located close to commercial operations.) In Nigeria, the first cases of avian flu were found in an industrial broiler operation; it spread from that 46,000-bird farm to 30 other factory farms, then quickly to neighboring backyard flocks, forcing already-poor farmers to kill their chickens. Avian flu has existed among backyard flocks for centuries but has never been found to evolve there into highly pathogenic forms such as the deadly H5N1. In CAFOs, in contrast, where animals are concentrated by the thousands, diseases erupt and spread quickly. Trade in poultry from these operations is a culprit in spreading the disease to smallholder farmers. Experts suggest that rather than culling smaller, backyard flocks, the FAO, WHO, and other international agencies should focus the bulk of their avian flu prevention efforts on large poultry producers and on stopping disease outbreaks before they occur. The industrial food system not only threatens the livelihoods of small farmers, it puts the world at risk for a flu pandemic. "While H5N1 ... may have been a product of the world's factory farms," says Nierenberg, "it's small producers who have the most to lose." Source: Worldwatch Institute |
| Reduced-Price School Meals to Cost Zero |
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Grand Rapids students eligible for reduced-price lunch and breakfast soon will get those meals for free. In a move administrators say is the first in Michigan -- and among the first in the nation -- Grand Rapids will use an $800,000 surplus in its food-service budget to cover the 70 cents a day charged to some students for breakfast and lunch.
Paul Baumgartner, the district's director of nutrition services, said the goal is to get more kids eating the meals. Children are eligible for free and reduced lunch if their families meet certain income levels. In Grand Rapids, 72% of the district's 21,000 students are eligible for free meals, and 6% are eligible for reduced prices. Baumgartner said about 74% of the students eligible for free meals participate in the lunch program, but only 59% of those eligible for reduced-price meals eat in the schools. "There are those families in-between, the working poor who don't qualify for free meals but are eligible for the reduced-price meals," he said. "When we see kids not eating anything at lunch, more often than not they're the reduced-price kids." Reduced-price families are charged 40 cents for lunch and 30 cents for breakfast. Other students pay $1 for lunch at elementary buildings and $1.25 for lunch at the secondary schools. Source: Grand Rapids Press |
| Chinese Carbon Trading to Address Poverty, Too |
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Early this month, the Chinese government and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) launched a joint carbon finance project that would use carbon trades in China's less-developed regions to help reach the UN Millennium Development Goals, including poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability. The three-year, $1.7-million project will set up Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) technical service centers in 12 selected provinces. The goal is to channel international "green" investment into local sustainable development, especially renewable energy use.
CDM is a market-based mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol that allows participating industrialized countries to fulfill their greenhouse gases emissions reduction obligations by investing in clean energy projects in the developing world at a lower cost. In a win-win situation, the industrialized country receives carbon credit for meeting its emission reduction target, while the developing country obtains the capital and clean technology to implement the project. In addition to the new "MDG-Carbon" project, China and the UN plan to open a carbon trading exchange in Beijing later this year -- the first of its kind in a developing country -- in an effort to share the multibillion-dollar global carbon trade market with similar structures in Europe and the US, the Financial Times reports. The UN expects more "special" carbon credits that can be used to benefit the poor to be traded through the exchange. Source: Worldwatch Institute |
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| Life-Net News Extras |
| Global Risks Are Outpacing Ability to Mitigate Them |
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The World Economic Forum—the organization that convenes the annual Davos meeting of global leaders -- released the Global Risks 2007 report. The report, published in cooperation with Citigroup, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Swiss Re and the Wharton School Risk Center, highlights a growing disconnect between the power of global risks to cause major systemic disruption and our ability to mitigate them.
Many of the 23 core global risks explored in the report have worsened over the last 12 months, despite growing awareness of their potential impacts, according to the report. The core risks fall into five primary categories:
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| Poorer Renters to Get Largest of Tax Breaks |
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Tenants who earn less than $20,000 would see the largest New Jersey property tax breaks among renters -- up to $350 -- under the enhanced relief program approved earlier this year. But renters earning more than $50,000 will see almost no increase in their rebates, according to budget documents released yesterday.
Renters under the age of 65 earning between $50,001 and $100,000 can expect a $5 increase in property tax rebates, moving them up to $80 in annual relief, according to the documents detailing Gov. Jon S. Corzine's budget plan. Other nonsenior citizen tenants whose incomes fall between $20,000 and $50,000 will receive $200 or $300 rebates, up from the $75 checks they saw the past two years. Matthew Shapiro, an advocate for renters, applauded the increase at the low end of the income scale, saying it shows Corzine's "good heart," but called it "outrageous" that some tenants will get such a small increase. For comparison, he pointed to the enhanced relief for homeowners, which will rise to $971, on average, for nonseniors earning up to $250,000. "The tax rebate program was not really supposed to be an anti-poverty program. It was supposed to be a tax relief program, and everyone was supposed to get this relief," said Shapiro, president of the New Jersey Tenants Organization. "Homeowners are getting these gigantic rebates ... and tenants are not getting anything close." Homeowner rebates are expected to grow to between 10% and 20% of property tax bills. Corzine said late last week that the relief would be delivered in the form of checks, although he hopes to have direct credits on tax bills next year. The estimated $971 average homeowner rebate is $80 smaller than the initial estimate on average relief. Source: Gannett |
| India's Economy Could Be Bigger Than USA's by 2050 |
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Within a decade India can overtake Italy, France and the UK to become the world's fifth largest economy if it keeps up its current pace of expansion, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs. India has shifted into a higher gear, they believe, because a decade of reforms have opened the country to greater competition, and spurred industries to become more efficient. By 2050 India's economy could be larger even than America's, only China's will be bigger, the bank predicts.
The result will be huge demand from this new giant. Within 15 years Indians should, on average, be four times richer than today, buying five times as many cars, and the country will burn three times as much crude oil to power its growth, putting yet more strain on the world's resources. But India could also be held back. The country's poor infrastructure is already struggling to keep up with growth. Power cuts are common as there isn't enough electricity to meet current demand. Ports are overflowing. Many roads are pot-holed and crumbling. And a shortage of skilled workers may undermine the future expansion of India's much-vaunted IT industry. However, other nations are increasingly waking up to the potentially vast market India holds. Last month the largest-ever American trade delegation to India spent two weeks searching out opportunities. They were followed by a British group 150-strong led by the finance minister, Gordon Brown. And the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is to visit this week where he is pressing for major contracts providing nuclear power and defence equipment. Source: BBC |
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