| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| August 1, 2007 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 11 Number 7 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Organics for Everyone |
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The organic movement has earned high marks for its environmental accomplishments, but when it comes to socioeconomic issues, the high-minded ethos falls flat. Access to the wholesome nutrition of organic food is simply barred by the niche market's high price tags. A few groups are cooking up innovative solutions.
At the One World Café in Salt Lake City, customers set the price for their organic, fair-trade meals. Urbanite reports that One World provides options for all customers, from homeless patrons to business folks on their lunch breaks. A daily free entrée is always on the menu, and the restaurant offers a "hand-up, not a hand-out" option by exchanging meal coupons for every hour of volunteer service. At the end of the day, says founder Denise Cerreta, the restaurant ends up with a fair price for the staff's work. Cerreta, who established the café in 2003, spreads the restaurant's ideals by counseling those with similar entrepreneurial ambitions through her nonprofit, One World Everybody Eats. SAME (So All May Eat) Café, for example, followed in One World's footsteps and opened the doors of its community-based venue in Denver last year. To get wholesome ingredients into household kitchens, People's Grocery in Oakland, California, doles out organic vittles in a vibrantly refurbished postal truck. According to Plenty, the truck travels through local neighborhoods, playing hip-hop music and setting up tables with fresh produce at numerous posts along its route. The activists behind People's Grocery began their efforts in 2002 by teaching nutrition classes and starting a community garden. Eventually, though, its founders realized that nutrition classes weren't enough; knowing how to prepare a meal without access to its ingredients is futile. So they began stocking the truck with local organic foods, distributing their wares to nearly 3,500 community members. To meet the growing demand, People's Grocery plans to open a permanent location in 2008. Source: Utne.com |
| 11-Year-Old AIDS Icon Inspires Upcoming Movie |
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Nkosi Johnson, the South African child who melted the hearts of millions when he spelled out the reality of living with AIDS, is to be immortalized in a movie that
producers hope will help once again raise awareness about the syndrome.
"Don't be afraid of us -- we are all the same." With these simple words, pint-sized Nkosi stole the show at the international HIV/AIDS conference in Durban in 2000 and seared the conscience of television audiences. In spite of his tender years, the 11-year-old, already ravaged by the syndrome that was to kill him the following year, was able to get his message across in a way that grabbed headlines around the world. "You can't get AIDS if you touch, hug, kiss, hold hands with someone who is infected," he told a spellbound audience. Nkosi was saluted by the great and the good, including former South African president Nelson Mandela for whom he was "an icon of the struggle for life". One of those watching was the award-winning ABC television journalist Jim Wooten, who was inspired to pen a Nkosi biography, We Are All The Same. US screenwriter Keir Pearson, who co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Hotel Rwanda, has now adapted the book for the screen. "It's a very special story," said Pearson. "It is about giving. It can be a very powerful film." He was in Johannesburg visiting Nkosi's adoptive mother Gail Johnson, an indefatigable campaigner for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. The film is to be shot in South Africa at a date still to be set. Australian actress Naomi Watts has already been cast for the role of Gail. Watts starred in King Kong and The Ring, and was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in the 2003 film 21 Grams. "The issue of AIDS in Africa is very important for Naomi as she works with the UN on behalf of a number of AIDS organizations." Her real-life character jokes that Watts has her sympathy: "Poor girl. She will have to do hours of make-up, talk with hands and smoke a lot!" Source: Sapa-AFP |
| Plastic Bottles Help Make Water Safe |
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In Bintaro, South Jakarta, people are reusing plastic bottles to make clean water and save money, according to the Inter Press Service (IPS). Instead of sterilizing groundwater by boiling it over expensive kerosene-fueled flames, many residents now simply refill used water bottles and set them in the sun for several hours, a process that can kill bacteria that cause diarrhea, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery. "We don’t have to spend money anymore to have clean drinking water," said Dewi, a 29 year-old mother of three, who has been using the practice for two months.
The non-governmental Emmanuel Foundation introduced the solar water disinfection process to many residents of the region and distributes comic books with information on the method to schoolchildren. Said Mita Sirait, public health promoter of the Foundation, "We believe that children can influence their parents to treat water through solar disinfection." To sterilize water, residents simply clean out transparent plastic water bottles, fill the containers to the brim with water, tighten the caps, and sit them in the sun for six hours. Placing bottles on a black cloth will help the water absorb heat faster. When it is not sunny, such as during Indonesia’s rainy season from November to March, water bottles must be left out for two days. The wait time and unreliability of the weather are a deterrent to the method, as is the scarcity of used bottles in the region, reports the IPS. Since Bintaro residents are able to sell their used bottles as a valuable commodity, most families keep only what they absolutely need. Dewi, for example, uses just three plastic bottles, even though her family consumes four a day. "If we get really thirsty, we just drink groundwater directly." By using solar disinfection, Dewi has cut the costs of buying kerosene by more than half every month. And she is avoiding the air pollution caused by boiling water indoors, one of the leading causes of respiratory ailments in the developing world. Source: Eye on Earth |
| A Cross-Country Journey for Justice |
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Adapted from a piece by Dharma:
I am here at the first US Social Forum, a long journey away from home. Unlike many people who are here in Atlanta for the forum, I boarded a bus in San Francisco and traveled for 63 hours straight to be here. It feels like the other side of the world. I felt like I was traveling through time. I chose bus travel to get a feeling for what my ancestors went through during the great Black exodus to the West. I thought back to a time when my African-descended ancestors traveled the underground railroads out of the South to escape slavery. My mind drifted to what it must have been like to seek paths through the trees to escape the south. Taking the long trip alone, I passed the many hours by reading and staring out the window. I read about the conditions of prisons in California. I read letters from women in prison, from mothers in lock-up while their children live without a family. I stared. Dark, rainy skies hovered high over desolate land. Thunder and rain pounded us in all five states. I seemed to be making my way through another universe. Lightning struck and reminded me of our country's bloody history. We passed through hot, muggy dust storms. We passed ghost towns, abandoned buildings, empty, boarded up, and burned. Nothing but cactus plants, desert flowers, barbed wire, and heat for miles. Single oil pumps dotted the landscape in Texas. The moons I saw were like none I had ever seen before with light shining out all around us. The skies, the land, everything was new and frightening. Big skies I thought would never end. I leaned my face against the cool window and stared out at the long stretch of dry, barren land. I was surprised by the ghost towns between New Mexico and Dallas. I could see broken-down houses in the light of the storms. A dust bowl of memories of leftover life. You can rename poverty, but all across America it looks and smells the same. Small houses, trailers, shacks, and old towns. In one town in Texas, the sign read Population 3. We stopped in towns and all the major cities on our route. Some historical, and everywhere I went the American flag was flying. I can't imagine living in these small towns with nothing around. We made a stop in Jacksonville. Stepping out into the shade, I saw a disabled man ordered off Greyhound property -- for loitering, they said. It was the heat of the day, and he was looking for a bit of shade, but he was on Greyhound property. He told me he had lost his legs in the Vietnam war. He said he could barely get by on his veteran benefits. He told me he had nowhere to live. I met one young man who was returning to Oklahoma to his father's house. He had left about two months ago to escape his father's beatings. He was now forced to return because the landlord threatened to raise the rent because of him. After we crossed the border from New Mexico into Texas the driver pulled over. I thought maybe it was a weigh station. I heard boots before I saw anyone. When I saw green uniforms, I knew right away: border patrol. They walked up and down the aisle, asking, "Are you an American citizen; if not get out your papers." Fortunately we were allowed to keep driving without further problems. Source: Poor Magazine |
| Native Brazilian Villages Go Online |
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When the sun sinks behind the palm and mango trees, candlelight flickers throughout a tiny village of thatched huts where about 100 Xavante Indians live. The villagers lack electricity but not technical ambition. Just beyond the semicircle of huts sits a new one-room school building, and a place inside has already been reserved for an eagerly
anticipated local milestone: the village's first computer.
In the past several months, an information technology boom has started to spread through the Indian villages that dot Brazil's countryside, from the Amazon rain forest to the Pantanal wetlands. The federal government this year announced a new program to provide satellite Internet access to 150 remote communities, in hopes that they will be better equipped to protect themselves against illegal logging and other threats to their culture. Companies such as Google and Intel also have recently launched projects to provide assistance in the area. The race to wire remote communities is resulting in a new category of discussion at tribal meetings. "All of the Xavante villages in this reserve are in the middle of a debate right now to decide whether they think Internet access will be a good thing or a bad thing," said Romulo Tsereruo, 37, who teaches in the school building here. "In this village, we've already decided: We want it." First, electricity is on the way, part of another federal program called Light for All. Tsereruo said he has had discussions with state officials to secure a computer and a satellite Internet connection shortly thereafter. To some here, the plan sounds like an example of misplaced priorities. The village doesn't even have running water. Alexandre Tsereptse, 74, is one of the skeptics. Even though there are computers at a nearby mission, Tsereptse said bringing them into the village would only accelerate the erosion of Xavante tradition. "I don't think it's a good thing, because it's a threat to our culture," said Tsereptse, who carries a bow and arrow with him at all times as a symbol of his position. Some of the tribe's younger members have been trying to convince Tsereptse that computers will have the opposite effect -- that they can be tools to record and preserve Xavante folklore and traditions, and to disseminate them all over the world. Villager Bartolomeu Patira Prenhopa, 37, said the generation of Xavante that came before him learned Portuguese as a way to work with -- and protect themselves from -- a Brazilian government that had become an inextricable presence in their lives. He said the computer is the next step. Source: Washington Post |
| Butterfly Farming Generates Income, Protects Forests |
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Beating the air with her homemade net, Aicha Ali chases a swirling black and turquoise butterfly. Far from indulging
in a frivolous pastime, this Kenyan mother is earning crucial family income. "I like capturing butterflies; it's fun because I make some money."
The Arabuko Sokoke Forest on the Kenyan coast is known for its rare species of butterflies. A development project called Kipepeo ("butterfly" in Swahili) is helping export specimens to exhibits and museums in Europe and North America. Forest dwellers in neighboring Tanzania have also benefited from such butterfly-farming initiatives, which not only increase the local community's economic wealth but also help protect the environment. "I need the forest to feed the butterflies," Kenya's Aicha explains. Only a few years ago, she and most of the 100,000 villagers living around Arabuko Sokoke "had a negative perception of the forest", says Kenyan scientist Maria Fungomeli. They saw the forest as little more than a refuge for the monkeys and elephants attacking their farms and a hostile growth that should be cut down to harvest timber, says Fungomeli, assistant director at Kipepeo. Deforestation is threatening what is the largest block of coastal forest remaining in East Africa as well as the rare animal species it shelters, such as the golden-rumped elephant shrew. But what conservationists call "the butterfly effect" has started to pay off, both for Arabuko Sokoke and its inhabitants. About 800 families now make a living thanks to the sale of butterflies. Emperor swallowtails, flying handkerchiefs, and African blue tigers are some of the rare species collected at Kipepeo, fetching between $1 and $3 a piece from tourists. "I would be foolish to cut trees," says Suleiman Kachuma, a villager who earns between $15 and $23 a month from his work with Kipepeo, double what he used to make selling timber. Kipepeo, launched in 1993 with funds from the United Nations Development Program, buys only pupae. The villagers therefore have to breed the butterflies after capturing them. George Jefwa closed his shop down a few years ago to build his butterfly "farm": a large, netted wooden cage teeming with butterflies. He has learned to identify dozens of different types of butterflies and moths, and regularly collects their eggs from the cage. Jefwa then places them in a plastic box for five days and drops the newly morphed caterpillars on plants, where they feed before the penultimate stage of their transformation into pupae ready for export. Kenya's Kipepeo project has been so successful with the local population that it is struggling to find buyers for the thousands of pupae. Source: Agence France-Presse |
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| Mining Giants Put 'Profit Before People' |
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The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has accused South African mining companies of putting profit ahead of the lives of ordinary workers. After the July deaths of two mineworkers at AngloGold Ashanti's Moab Khotsong mine near Orkney, NUM general secretary Frans Baleni blamed the increasing number of mining deaths on the company's management.
According to unconfirmed reports, since the beginning of this year there have been more than 110 deaths in South African mines. Last year alone, according to NUM, the industry recorded 199 deaths compared with 202 in 2005. The incident at AngloGold Ashanti has brought to four the number of deaths at the mine since the beginning of this year. At Gold Fields 10 miners were killed, while 12 deaths were recorded at Anglo Platinum in the past few months. According to Anglo Platinum's spokesperson, Simon Tebele, about 56 miners have been killed since 2005. As a result a number of shafts have been closed. "Quite clearly there has not been a significant improvement in terms of improving the safety of our workers." "The bosses are concerned only about huge bonuses while poor workers are getting killed in the process. These accidents are reaching alarming proportions," said Baleni. The AngloGold Ashanti incident prompted the department of minerals and energy to order a shutdown of the mine. Baleni said he supported minerals and energy minister Buyelwa Sonjica's position that chief executives and accounting officers should be held accountable for fatal accidents at their mines. He said when mining companies determine bonus payments, they should look at the level of fatalities at their companies. AngloGold Ashanti spokesperson Alan Fine acknowledged that the safety records of the mining companies were not up to standard and said his company had put plans in place to improve the situation. "The record deteriorated in 2006 after many years of improvement," said Fine, "and we are concerned about that." Baleni said the department should conduct investigations and deal with negligence. According to Business Day, the department last week warned that operations that had no health and safety plans would be stopped, and the department would consider the withdrawal of mining licences where there was no compliance. Source: Mail & Guardian |
| Sin Taxes Disproportionately Burden the Poor |
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A government needs revenues. So what does it do? It taxes the poor. That happens too often, says Michael Davis, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) in Dallas. "It's politically expedient."
The poor don't vote in elections to the degree the middle class and the rich do. Nor do they often contribute to political campaign funds. They don't have much money left over for that after paying for housing, food, and clothing. And the poor squawk less over tax hikes. One frequent way the poor get hit is additional "sin taxes" -- taxes placed on gambling, tobacco, and alcoholic beverages. Because the poor tend to consume more of these items per capita than do those who are better off, poorer people bear a disproportionate share of that tax burden. State legislators can and do argue that taxing cigarettes and liquor discourages these often-harmful habits. And, they may add, expanding state-sponsored lotteries or other gambling can provide revenues for positive government activities, such as education. At the federal level, Sen Gordon Smith (R) of Oregon is proposing legislation to expand spending for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides insurance for children from poor (and some not-so-poor) families. He'd finance it by boosting the federal excise tax on cigarettes. Critics say sin taxes are a poor way to boost revenues. For instance, Senator Smith's proposed hike in federal cigarette taxes -- from 39 cents to $1 a pack -- would transfer wealth from smokers to non-smokers, says Patrick Fleenor, chief economist of the conservative Tax Foundation. And since the poor are more likely to smoke, the tax would fall most heavily on them. In general, though, raising the price of cigarettes tends to trim consumption, especially among young people. But, Fleenor says, the proportion of Americans who smoke has remained at about 20% since the 1990s for two basic reasons: (1) Hard-core smokers find it difficult to give up their addiction; and (2) Although the tax on cigarettes has increased greatly, the average cost of a pack of cigarettes has been eased by a massive rise in smuggling. Fleenor says a general hike in the federal income tax would be a fairer way to provide revenues for broader health insurance coverage. Gambling is another area where the poor tend to get soaked. Most of them may not realize that state lotteries are in effect a form of voluntary taxation, says Davis, lead author of a new 61-page NCPA study on how sin taxes hit the poor hard. The report notes that people in the lowest-earning one-fifth of the population (those making an average of $9,168 a year) spend on average 31.1% of their incomes on alcohol, tobacco, utilities, and gasoline -- all of which are subject to excise taxes. The highest earners spend just 6% of their income on the same items. So these excise taxes are "regressive," weighing down the poor more than the well-to-do. Those who buy lottery tickets are in effect paying a tax of 40% to 50% to the states. Only 50% to 60% of the money is paid out in prizes. Alicia Hansen, author of another recent Tax Foundation study, recalls a public opinion survey last year that found 21% of respondents said playing the lottery was "the most practical strategy for accumulating several hundred thousand dollars" for retirement. Nonsense, she says. The stock market over 40 years could return, on average, 811% more than the same amount of money spent on a lottery, given the odds of winning. Source: Christian Science Monitor |
| Kamchatka Poverty Threatens Pacific Salmon |
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Russia's untamed, Far Eastern peninsula of Kamchatka is one of the last great spawning grounds of Pacific wild salmon. But grinding poverty and corruption are feeding a culture of poaching that's endangering not only some salmon species, but also the region's entire ecosystem.
Kamchatka is a spectacular land of active volcanoes and hot, spurting geysers. Rare Steller's sea eagles and the world's densest population of brown bears live in stunning landscapes of snow-peaked mountains and rivers. To the east of this isolated peninsula lies the Sea of Okhotsk. On the coast, murky waves lap the dark, volcanic sand of this barren beach, as warmly dressed fishermen in rubber boats cast nets into the water. They're catching halibut, but under the piles of halibut, you can glimpse something out of season and illegal to catch: wild sockeye salmon. Several miles inland up the slow-flowing Bystraya River, past flat tundra that stinks from piles of rotting fishheads, lies the crumbling village of Ust-Bolsheretsk. Here fishermen eat salted salmon and drink tea in trailers by the riverbank. Igor, who won't give his last name, says everyone on Kamchatka poaches fish. "There's no work here," he says. "Only fish. Everyone feeds his family however he can, and that's by catching fish. If you don't do it, you go hungry." Every year, millions of salmon fight their way up the Bolsheretsk and other rivers. When poachers deplete one species, they move on to another. Kamchatka's rich natural beauty starkly contrasts with its human poverty. On the eastern, Pacific coast, the decrepit capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky appears to have been forgotten by time. Crumbling, Soviet concrete-slab buildings line the lush hills dropping down to the water. The once-bustling port is now mostly idle and crammed with rusting ships and scrap metal. Around 20 fishing trawlers are moored out at sea, impounded for poaching. Regional officials say only 10% of the fish caught in and around Kamchatka is poached. Fishing department chief Alexander Krengel says the administration is tackling the problem. "This year, we've set up a headquarters to coordinate a crackdown on poaching by various law-enforcement agencies," Krengel says. "It's enabled us to stabilize the situation." Most Kamchatkans dispute the government's figures. Valery Vorobiev is the head of Akros, one of Kamchatka's largest fishing companies. He says criminal gangs poach at least half the fish sold from Kamchatka. "Poaching is ruinous for salmon," he says. "In Kamchatka alone, more than 100,000 tons of salmon are poached a year. And much of it is used only for caviar. The fish are slashed open and thrown away." Environmental activist Andrei Abikh says Kamchatka's industrial-scale poaching is only possible because of serious corruption among officials whose job it is to protect fish. Locals say as long as Kamchatka is run by a corrupt bureaucracy, the region's unique natural resources will continue to be plundered. Environmental experts say that could lead to collapse not only for Kamchatka's ecosystem, but also the Pacific's entire wild salmon population. Source: NPR |
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