LIFE-NET NEWS

by Ret Z.

Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices

May 16, 2007	No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 11 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."

Rising Seas Take Bite After Bite out of Bangladesh

Bangladesh, which has 140 million people packed into an area a little smaller than Illinois, is one of the most vulnerable places to climate change. As the sea level slowly rises, this nation that is little more than a series of low-lying delta islands amid some of Asia's mightiest rivers -- the Ganges, Jamuna-Brahmaputra, and Meghna -- is seeing saltwater creep into its coastal soils and drinking water. Farmers near the Bay of Bengal who once grew rice now raise shrimp.       Notorious for its deadly cyclones, Bangladesh is likely to face increasingly violent storms as the weather warms, according to scientists. It's likely to see surging seas carry saltwater farther and farther up the country's rivers, ruining soils.       On Bangladesh's southern coast, erosion driven in part by accelerating glacier melt and unusually intense rains has already scoured away half of Bhola Island, which once covered an area nearly 20 times the size of Chicago. Land disputes, many driven by erosion, now account for 77% of Bangladesh's legal suits. In the dry northwest of the country, droughts are getting more severe. And if sea level rises by 3 feet by the turn of the century, as some scientists predict, a fifth of the country will disappear.       "Bangladesh is nature's laboratory on disaster management," said Ainun Nishat, Bangladesh representative of the World Conservation Union and a government adviser on climate change. As temperatures rise and more severe weather takes hold worldwide, "this is one of the countries that is going to face the music most."       Bangladesh is hardly the only low-lying nation facing tough times as the world warms. But scientists say it in many ways represents climate change's "perfect storm" of challenges because it is extremely poor, extremely populated, and extremely susceptible.       "One island here has more people than all of the small island states put together," said Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies and a top national climate change expert.       With so many huge rivers discharging into the ocean, the country couldn't build dikes to hold back the sea even if it had the money, Rahman said. And though it has created virtually none of the pollution driving global warming, it is unlikely to receive the international assistance it needs to adapt to conditions created by others.       The extent of Bangladesh's coming problem is evident in Antarpara, a village stuck between the Jamuna and Bangali rivers five hours northwest of Dhaka, the capital. In it and other low-lying villages nearby, more than half of the 3,300 families have lost their land to worsening river erosion. Some have moved their homes a dozen times and are running out of places to flee.       Antarpara's village head, who once owned 700 acres, is now penniless. The village's school has had to close for two to three months each time the community flees the intruding Jamuna. In the past year, the river has marched 300 feet toward the village's latest temporary homes on government land, and now the closest shack is just 30 feet from the roiling waters. Visitors are warned not to venture near the edge.       Source: Chicago Tribune

When Public Housing Projects Go Bad

Over the past decade, the HOPE VI program has invested over $6 billion in federal funds in replacing or revitalizing severely distressed public housing developments. These federal dollars have leveraged billions more in other public, private, and philanthropic investments. To date, over 63,000 distressed public housing units have been demolished, with another 20,000 units slated for redevelopment.       The current administration has been critical of the high costs of HOPE VI, proposing that the program should be cut back dramatically or even eliminated. In effect, they argue that the problem of severely distressed public housing has largely been solved and that the country cannot afford to replace or revitalize more properties. However, a growing body of research highlights the damage to families and children of living in dangerous, high-poverty environments and the potential benefits of replacing severely distressed public housing with a combination of high-quality, mixed-income housing and rental vouchers.       Although the redevelopment of distressed public housing is expensive, in many circumstances, the costs to taxpayers of inaction may be even higher. An effective redevelopment strategy can dramatically improve living conditions for families, resulting in better physical and mental health and increased employment and earnings.       Moreover, redevelopment can trigger the revitalization of previously blighted communities. These outcomes also save public resources. In fact, for a typical distressed public housing project, mixed-income redevelopment -- effectively implemented -- can save the public more than $20 million over 20 years. Although more modest rehabilitation strategies are less expensive in the short term, they yield lower savings for taxpayers over the long term.       The level of taxpayer savings generated by mixed-income redevelopment can vary quite widely, depending on the characteristics and location of the project. But in every case, the net public costs of redevelopment (after accounting for the costs of inaction) are much lower than the initial, up-front investment required. Moreover, high quality resident services -- including relocation assistance, case management, and work supports -- not only yield better life outcomes for families and children, but essentially pay for themselves over the long term.       Source: Urban Institute

Baghdad Residents Step In to Fill Aid Gaps

Some families in Baghdad have started working together to collect food and essential items for displaced people living in makeshift camps on the outskirts of the capital. Six neighborhoods of the capital, with relatively less violence than others, are participating in the initiative, which has been welcomed by local NGOs.       "The idea came from a child who was missing two of his friends who were displaced. His family decided to take the child to visit them. When they got back home he asked his mother to send some food to his friends' families. His mother then spoke about it to a neighbor of theirs as the situation of the displaced was desperate," said Sa'ad Ruweidi, one of the organizers of the project.       "Since then, hundreds of families have been collecting food and other items from their neighbors to send to camps for IDPs [internally displaced people]," said Ruweidi. "These items have been helping the displaced survive, as NGOs are not able to cope and with the increase in violence are scared to go to such areas."       Despite its extremely volatile situation, Baghdad has more displaced people living there than any other city in Iraq, with about 120,000 people displaced since February 2006, according to a recent report by the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq. It added that many of these were displaced from within Baghdad.       "Every day we collect enough to fill five cars," said Ruweidi. Some women cook and we take fresh food to the [displaced] families who are so happy to be able to eat the hot meals we bring them."       Fatah Ahmed, spokesman for NGO Iraqi Aid Association, said the families who are helping the displaced have changed the image of present-day Iraq and have helped NGOs, which are struggling to assist so many displaced families. "Everyone should be aware of this initiative. If every neighborhood in Baghdad does the same, we will have fewer children suffering from malnutrition, and fewer men will become criminals to support their loved ones."       Children also participate in the project by helping their relatives carry the collected items and going to the displacement camps to help distribute them. Local NGOs have been supporting the initiative and have been offering supplies to add to those already collected. According to Ruweidi, the project will be replicated in cities such as Kerbala, Najaf, and Kirkuk.       Religious leaders from four Baghdad neighborhoods have been asking congregations during Friday prayers to participate in the project. Said Sheikh Abdallah Aydan, a religious leader from a mosque in Yarmouk district, "It shows how Iraqis are brave not only in defending their country but also in helping their brothers in need. We're having success with the daily delivery of food items, which has helped many families to survive under such terrible violence."       Source: IRIN

Uninsured Pay Much More at NJ Hospitals

Getting sick anywhere can be an expensive proposition for those lacking health insurance, but nowhere is it more expensive than in New Jersey, a new study has found. The state's hospitals, on average, charge uninsured patients or those who pay out of pocket more than four times what insurance companies and Medicare end up paying for the same care, according to the study published last week in the journal Health Affairs.       For example, a patient without insurance would be billed $456 for the same services a New Jersey hospital charged insurance companies $100 for, according to the study by John Hopkins researchers, which used 2004 billing data. The study concluded that the gap was the greatest of any state and overwhelmingly affected the working poor and other low-income residents. Said lead author Gerard F Anderson, director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, "It's outrageous for the poorest group to be paying three to four times what everybody else is paying."       In addition to the poor, the study found that patients covered by an insurer that has not negotiated a discount rate were among those most likely to be presented with a bill based on the hospital's "chargemaster" file -- the undiscounted price list that hospitals set for services. International visitors were found to have this problem, too.       Even Gov Jon Corzine, who spent 18 days recuperating at Cooper University Hospital in Camden after his April 12 accident on the Garden State Parkway, could find himself subject to New Jersey's exorbitant charges for his medical care. Corzine's care is expected to run in the "hundreds of thousands of dollars," according to staff estimates.       Over the last 20 years, the study found that the gap between what uninsured patients are charged for hospital services and what Medicare pays has more than doubled nationally. More than 60 class action lawsuits have been filed against hospitals across the US for charging uninsured patients higher rates, according to the study. In some cases, hospitals have aggressively pursued payment, placing liens on patients' assets and turning debts over to collection agencies.       In the study, hospitals in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and California had the highest markups for self-pay patients. Idaho, Maryland, Montana, Vermont and Wyoming had the lowest.       Source: Newark Star-Ledger

Adding to Afghanistan's Agonies: AIDS

Cloistered by two decades of war and then the strict rule of the Taliban, Afghanistan was long shielded from the AIDS pandemic. Not anymore.       HIV and AIDS have quietly arrived in this land of a thousand calamities. They remain almost completely underground, shrouded in ignorance and stigma as the government struggles with the help of American and NATO forces to rebuild the country in the face of a new offensive by Taliban insurgents.       The few surveys that exist suggest that Afghanistan has a low prevalence of HIV -- only 69 recorded cases, and just three deaths. Yet health officials warn that the incidence is certainly much higher. "That figure is absolutely unreliable, even dangerous," said Nilufar Egamberdi, a World Bank consultant on HIV/AIDS. The World Health Organization has estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 Afghans are infected, but Egamberdi said even that was "not even close to reality." Dr Saifur Rehman, director of the National AIDS Control program in the Ministry of Health, agreed.       Afghanistan, a deeply religious and conservative country -- sex outside marriage is against the law -- may still be less at risk of the spread of the virus than other places. But international and Afghan health experts warn that it faces the additional vulnerabilities of countries emerging from conflict -- lack of education and government services, mass movements of people, and a sudden influx of aid money, commerce, and outsiders.       Geography and migration make Afghanistan particularly susceptible. It is surrounded by countries with the fastest-growing incidence of AIDS in the world -- Russia, China, and India. Other neighbors, Pakistan and Iran, have high levels of drug addiction and a growing number of HIV infections, as does Central Asia to the north, experts say. AIDS can easily cross borders, carried by migrants or refugees who pick up drug habits or have sex with infected people in those countries and return home. Rates of drug addiction are rising in Afghanistan, with its booming opium and heroin trade.       Though the Afghan government and senior religious leaders have won praise for making HIV a national priority, they are struggling with many problems. Said Dr Fred Hartman of Management Sciences for Health, a Boston-based group working in Afghanistan, "In Afghanistan, all the traditional risk factors for rapid spread of HIV exist concurrently."       Source: New York Times

Coach of Winning Teams Brings Sports Camps to Camden

Football coach Jim Horner is organizing a series of free sports camps for Camden youngsters. Horner was one of South Jersey's premier head football coaches when he directed Haddon Heights, Cherokee, and Haddonfield. He is now an assistant at Camden Catholic. He's putting together the sports camps for Camden students in fifth to eighth grades.       He will hold football camps (Jul 17-19) and basketball camps (Jul 31-Aug 2) at Rutgers-Camden, and will oversee a baseball camp (Jul 24-26) at Campbell's Field. All the camps will be held from 9am until noon.       The camps aren't just about sports. Horner says the intent is to foster "character development and bring hope in their lives for their future. We try to teach how to make the proper choices in your lives and how to walk away from drugs and gang members."       Horner is the ninth-winningest football coach in South Jersey history. He led teams to 174 wins.       Source: Philadelphia Inquirer       More: Jim Horner (e-mail)

The Poor and the Planet Need Cities' Help

If global development priorities are not reassessed to account for massive urban poverty, well over half of the 1.1 billion people projected to join the world’s population between now and 2030 may live in under-serviced slums, according to "State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future" by the Worldwatch Institute. As recently as a century ago, the vast majority of the world's people lived in rural areas, but by sometime next year more than half of all people will live in urban areas.       Unplanned and chaotic urbanization is taking a huge toll on human health and the quality of the environment, contributing to social, ecological, and economic instability in many countries. Of the 3 billion urban dwellers today, 1 billion live in "slums," defined as areas where people cannot secure key necessities such as clean water, a nearby toilet, or durable housing. An estimated 1.6 million urban residents die each year due to lack of clean water and sanitation as a result.       The report also describes how community groups and local governments have emerged as pioneers of groundbreaking policies to address both poverty and environmental concerns, in some cases surpassing the efforts of their national governments. The reports cites many examples of cities taking the lead in shaping a sustainable future, including: Karachi, Pakistan, where the Orangi Pilot Project has linked hundreds of thousands of low-income households in informal settlements with good-quality sewers. By taking charge of the pipes connecting their houses to lane sewers, local residents cut costs to a fifth of what they would have been charged by the official water and sanitation agency. Freetown, Sierra Leone, where after the cessation of a multi-year civil war, a swelling population has successfully turned to urban farming to meet much of its food demand. Rizhao, China, where a government program enabled 99% of households in the central districts to obtain solar water heaters, while most traffic signals and street and park lights are powered by solar cells, limiting the city's carbon emissions and urban pollution. Bogotá, Colombia, where engineers improved upon the iconic bus rapid transit system of Curitiba, Brazil, to create the TransMilenio, which has helped decrease air pollution, increase quality of life, and inspire similar projects in Europe, North America, and Asia.       No single set of "best practices" would enable all cities to successfully address the challenges of poverty and environmental degradation. But there are areas -- such as water, sanitation, urban farming, public transportation -- where urban leadership can have huge benefits for the planet and human development.       Source: Worldwatch Institute

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Already taxed to the breaking point on many fronts, New Orleans has a homeless population that is now approximately double what existed before Katrina -- in a city half its previous size. Facing a severe shortage of affordable housing, displaced residents returning to the city along with an influx of construction trade workers are being forced to sleep in everything from cars to flooded-out houses to long-abandoned motels, as relief workers from across the country still struggle to fill gaping holes in the city's social services. "One of the most shocking things we're seeing now," says Martha Kegel of UNITY, a regional collaborative of 60 homeless-serving agencies, "are the very elderly who are living in abandoned buildings and on the street -- people in their late 80s living this way, who never in their lives expected to be homeless." (Christian Science Monitor) "Vulture fund" is defined by the International Monetary Fund as a company which buys up the debt of a poor nation cheaply when it is about to be written off, then sues that country for the full value of the debt, plus interest. Donegal International, based in the Virgin Islands, bought a debt at $3.2 million from Romania, where Zambia had originally contracted a $3 million debt to purchase farming equipment in 1979. By the early 1990s, the debt had risen to about $15 million, which Donegal bought from Romania. This year, the London High Court ruled that Zambia should pay $15.5 million to Donegal. Jubilee Zambia and other civil society organizations have launched a campaign against the ruling, saying the expenditure would adversely disturb Zambian poverty reduction programs. (Times of Zambia) First lady Laura Bush and national education leaders last week unveiled an online database that promises to provide parents across much of the nation with the first accurate appraisal of how many students graduate from high school on time in each school system. Statistical highlights: 70% of students nationwide earned diplomas in four years as of 2003, the latest data available nationally, a much lower rate than that reported by the vast majority of school systems. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said the data show that half of the nation's dropouts come from a small group of largely urban "dropout factories," high schools "where graduation is a 50-50 shot or worse." She scolded state and local education officials for masking the problem by publishing inflated graduation rates. (Washington Post) Having large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanor in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car, and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report published May 7 by the Optimum Population Trust, a green think tank. It says that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family's carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York. John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said, "The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights." And despite their less-than-2.0 fertility rates, rich countries should be the most concerned about family size, says Guillebaud, as their children have higher per-capita carbon dioxide emissions. (The Sunday Times)

Life-Net News Extras

US and Global Water Wars Loom

As the world warms, water -- either too little or too much of it -- is going to be the major problem for the United States, said scientists and military experts in mid-April. It will be a domestic problem, with states clashing over controls of rivers, and a national security problem as water shortages and floods worsen conflicts and terrorism elsewhere in the world, they said.       At home, especially in the Southwest, regions will need to find new sources of drinking water; the Great Lakes will shrink; fish and other species will be left high and dry; and coastal areas will on occasion be inundated because of sea-level rises and souped-up storms, US scientists said. The scientists released a 67-page chapter on North American climate effects, which is part of an international report on climate change impact.       Meanwhile, global-warming water problems will make poor, unstable parts of the world -- the Middle East, Africa and South Asia -- even more prone to wars, terrorism and the need for international intervention, a panel of retired military leaders said in a separate report.       "Water at large is the central (global warming) problem for the US," Princeton University geosciences professor Michael Oppenheimer said after a press conference featuring eight American scientists who were lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's climate-effects report.       Roger Pulwarty, one of the federal government's top drought scientists, said states such as Arizona and Colorado, which already fight over the Colorado River basin's water, will step up legal skirmishes.       Back east, rising sea levels will make storm surge "the No. 1 vulnerability for the metropolitan East Coast," said study lead author Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA.       Retired Gen Charles F "Chuck" Wald focused on the global problem: "One of the biggest likely areas of conflict is going to be over water," said Wald, former deputy commander of US European Command. He pointed to the Middle East and Africa.       The military report's co-author, former Army Chief of Staff Gen Gordon R Sullivan, also pointed to sea-level rise floods as potentially destabilizing Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Vietnam.       Lack of water and food in places already the most volatile will make those regions even more unstable with global warming and "foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies," states the 63-page military report, issued by the CNA Corp, an Alexandria, VA-based national security think tank.       Kristi Ebi, a Virginia epidemiologist on the scientific panel, said reduced water supplies globally will hinder human health. "We're seeing mass migration of people because of things like water resource constraint, and that's certainly a factor in conflict."       As water fights erupt between nations and regions and especially between cities and agricultural areas, Stanford scientist Terry Root said there will be one sure loser low on the priority list for water: other species.       Source: Associated Press

US Undermines Its Own AIDS Strategy

Experts, activists and government officials agree on one thing: Meeting the needs of women is paramount to reducing worldwide HIV infections. Unfortunately, the US response to achieving this goal has been at cross purposes.       Rather than playing a starring role in reducing HIV infection in women and children, family planning programs are suffering from diminishing or a total lack of US funding in almost all of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief's (PEPFAR) fifteen "focus countries." In effect, while the US response to HIV/AIDS grows, its support for the very health programs where women have sought care for over four decades has lost considerable ground.       Despite the outstanding success of international family planning programs and their cost- and life-saving benefits in reducing HIV infections, US funding has suffered a 41% decrease in assistance since 1995 (adjusted for inflation). Family planning, including contraceptives, reduces unintended pregnancies in HIV-positive women, preventing additional HIV-positive births. Research has shown that increasing contraceptive use among non-users who do not want to get pregnant averts almost 30% more HIV-positive births than HIV counseling, testing and nevirapine treatment alone. In fact, the President's FY 2008 budget requests a decrease in family planning assistance in over half of the PEPFAR focus countries (Haiti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia).       Five focus countries -- Botswana, Cote d'Ivoire, Namibia, Vietnam and Guyana -- are slated to receive no family planning at all. This alarming trend hampers PEPFAR's potential for success, effectively withholding one of the most effective tools that exists against the HIV/AIDS pandemic.       PEPFAR's purpose is to address the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and it should remain so. But when PEPFAR aims to tackle the unique vulnerabilities of women to HIV infection and the family planning needs of HIV positive women, it must do so in concert with existing, successful, and trusted family planning programs.       Source: Population Action International

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Leavenhouse, a 26-year-old soup kitchen and permanent housing program for homeless people in a rooming house setting, at 7th and State Streets, Camden, will turn ownership of its permanent supportive housing feature over to Volunteers of America on May 31. "I'm 75 years old," said Dora Elmandorf, one of the four community members in charge of the soup kitchen. "Our efforts to bring in new community members have not yielded anyone with the commitment and/or skills necessary to continue this demanding work on a volunteer basis." (Courier-Post) Five new blockades were set up last month by Penan tribal communities in the Malaysian province of Sarawak in an attempt to stop loggers from destroying their forest homes. Much of the Penan's forest had already been destroyed. According to Malaysian and international law the Penan have rights to their land and should be consulted before any logging can proceed, but these rights are openly violated. In areas where the forest has already been destroyed by logging, licenses for plantations are granted, stripping the Penan, and other tribes in Sarawak, of their land rights forever. (Survival International) "The best-off African Americans are doing more poorly than the worst-off whites" when it comes to many health care indicators, such as infant mortality rates and birth weight, according to sociologist David Williams. Kai Wright of ColorLines magazine points to a 2003 federal report -- the National Healthcare Disparities Report. A leaked draft of that document explains that the report "clearly demonstrates that racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities are national problems." Williams states that the black infant death rate is currently 2.4 times higher than that of whites. (Utne Reader)

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