| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| October 31, 2007 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 11 Number 13 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Culture as Predisposition to Poverty |
|
Economists argue that societies can nurture economic growth by adopting sound policies. Not so, say other scholars such as Lawrence Harrison of Tufts University: Culture predisposes some societies to rapid growth and others to poverty or meager growth.
Economist Gregory Clark, in his book A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, suggests that much of the world's remaining poverty is semi-permanent. Modern technology and management are widely available, but many societies can't take advantage because their values and social organization are antagonistic. Prescribing economically sensible policies can't overcome this bedrock resistance. To Clark, who teaches at the University of California at Davis, history's most important event was the Industrial Revolution. Before 1800, says Clark, most societies were stagnant. With some exceptions, people lived no better than their ancestors in the Stone Age. Economic growth was almost nil. Then England broke the pattern as textile, iron, and food production rose rapidly. Since 1800, English income per person has risen by a factor of 10. Much of Europe and the US followed. Almost everything that differentiates the modern era from the preceding millennia dates from this point: the virtual end of hunger in advanced societies; the expectation that living standards will constantly rise; the creation of the welfare state to redistribute income; the destructiveness of contemporary warfare; industry's environmental spoilage. But why did the Industrial Revolution start in England? Clark's answer convinces him of the supremacy of culture in explaining economic growth. Traditional theories have emphasized the importance of the Scientific Revolution and England's favorable climate: political stability, low taxes, open markets. Clark retorts that both China and Japan around 1800 were about as technically advanced as Europe, had stable societies, open markets, and low taxes. But their industrial revolutions came later. What distinguished England, he says, was the widespread emergence of middle-class values of "patience, hard work, ingenuity, innovativeness, education" that favored economic growth. After examining birth and death records, he concludes that in England -- unlike many other societies -- the most successful men had more surviving children than the less fortunate. Slowly, the attributes of success that children learned from parents became part of the common culture. Biology drove economics. (He rejects Max Weber's theory that Protestantism fostered these values.) Scholars do not universally accept Clark's explanation of the Industrial Revolution. China's recent, astonishing expansion shows that economic policies and institutions matter. Bad policies and institutions can suppress growth in a willing population; better policies can release it. All poverty is not preordained. Still, Clark's broader point seems incontestable: Culture counts. Source: Washington Post |
| The Faces of Iowa Food Insecurity |
|
What did you eat for your last meal? Some Iowans ate a bag of chips. Or they stood in line at a soup kitchen or tossed together something from donated surplus foods. Some tried to stretch a dollar to make a balanced, filling meal. One dollar is about how much the government food-assistance program (formerly food stamps) allocates to the 225,000 Iowans who qualify.
Take it from Jeff Yanecek: It doesn't go very far. "I'm still hungry," declared the young man after wolfing down the hot dog wrapped in white bread with a side of green beans that constituted his lunch of Oct 16. "The hot dog was temporarily satisfying in that junk food kind of feeling. It reminded me of elementary school. I can tell in 20 minutes I'm going to be looking for something else to eat." He, at least, has that option. As a guest at the Hunger Luncheon, part of the World Hunger Summit in Des Moines, he was among the diners getting a feel for what 421,000 Iowans experience who sometimes or always don't have enough to eat. More than 132,000 Iowa households are considered "food insecure", meaning they don't regularly have access to safe, nutritional foods, or they come by them by stealing, scavenging, or going to a food pantry. A third say their food often doesn't last, and a majority skip or cut meals. Another 42,300 households have at least one member going hungry from time to time. And the trend is spiking upward. How can this be, in the nation's bread basket? Some of the problem comes from poverty and unemployment, in which people aren't making enough money to cover rent or mortgage, utilities and prescription drugs, and still put food on the table. Divorce, rising health-care costs, or a sudden job loss or disability can shred the safety net. Some families might be one car wreck or medical emergency away from hunger. Pregnant and breast-feeding mothers and their children are a particularly troubling subset of the hungry. Of those in the government-subsidized Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program for the low-income, 43% are food insecure. 40% of babies born in Iowa are on WIC. These findings come from a report by Drake University's Agricultural Law Center. Drake's findings are echoed by those running programs to feed the hungry. Carmen Lampe-Zeitler has run Children and Families Urban Ministries for 11 years and says the numbers coming into the Eighth Street site in Des Moines for free dinners served six evenings a week have shot up in that time. From 15 to 20 people on a week night, it's now 120. And the demographics have changed to include working women dressed in business garb, entire families and, recently, older children escorting toddler siblings -- no parents in sight. Maybe the most disturbing thing about hunger today is that's it's gone mainstream. Source: Des Moines Register |
| Koran-Based Conservation Experiment Bears Fruit |
|
In a remote Tanzanian fishing village on the edge of the Indian Ocean, an experimental model for implementing Muslim environmental ethics and education is yielding results. Local and international nongovernmental organizations, which pioneered the project, will publish a guidebook later this year in English and Swahili to be distributed throughout the Swahili-speaking coast of East Africa and eventually in Muslim communities around the world.
Many of the fisherman there are now members of the Misali Island Conservation Association (MICA), which helps protect the resources of this important islet off the west coast of Pemba. "Misali is a benchmark for the faith community," says Fazlun Khalid, the founding director of the Britain-based Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, one of the NGOs involved with the project. "It shows that Islamic leaders can empower and organize their constituents on conservation issues much faster than governments can." Khalid was first invited to Zanzibar in 1998 by Rob Wild of CARE, who was frustrated that traditional conservation messages were not reaching the fishermen. Khalid had been eager to pilot a methodology using Islamic teachings to communicate conservation, and Misali became the first experiment. Khalid and CARE met with religious leaders and fishermen to discuss how the teachings of the Koran related to the environment and the use of natural resources. Later, they worked with MICA to train religious leaders to incorporate conservation messages into their Friday prayer sermons. "We researched lost teachings and put them together in a modern form," says Khalid. "The Koran gives ethical principles on guardianship and relationships with other beings, which can form the ethical foundation for conservation. And there are other sayings and practices of the prophet [Muhammad] that relate to sustainable use of resources." One Koranic verse selected for its ecological significance was Sura 6:141: "It is He [Allah] who produces gardens, both cultivated and wild. ... Eat of their fruits when they bear fruit and pay their dues on the day of their harvest, and do not be profligate. He does not love the profligate." Fishing and tourism, together with small-scale cultivation of fruit and spices, form the backbone of Tanzania's coastal economy. More than 12,000 Pemba residents in 36 villages count on fish and little else for survival. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature's Tanzania office, the biggest threats to the region's marine ecosystem are illegal fishing with destructive gear such as dragnets, small-mesh nets, and poles used to break coral; catching of endangered species like sea turtles; deforestation of mangroves; and overfishing of species such as chango and kingfish. Source: Christian Science Monitor |
| Grant to Target Reservation's High Infant Mortality |
|
The Northern Arapaho Tribe will receive a $2 million grant to combat the high infant mortality rate on the Wind River Indian Reservation. The five-year grant to the tribe's Women Infants and Children (WIC) program comes from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The money, according to a news release from the Arapaho WIC office, will "provide resources to support and assist pregnant women, new mothers and infants."
The announcement of the award comes on the heels of a report from the Billings MT-based Rocky Mountain Tribal Epidemiology Center that American Indians have the highest mortality rate in the nation at 11.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. The Wind River Indian Reservation is near the top of the list with 17.2, which is 55% higher than the overall American Indian rate and 138% higher than the US rate. Dr Jennifer Giroux, director of the epidemiology center, said the high infant mortality rate on the reservation isn't because of a lack of prenatal health services. She cited a survey conducted by the Wyoming Department of Health that found four significant disparities between local Indian and non-Indian mothers: folic acid intake during pregnancy, smoking during pregnancy, breast-feeding, and "co-sleeping" with infants. The solution, Giroux said, is for mothers to eat green vegetables or take a multivitamin during pregnancy, refrain from smoking during pregnancy, breast-feed children for the first two years of their lives, and don't share a bed with newborns when sleeping. The tribe's proposed use of the federal funding reflects such findings, with education set to be a component of the grant. "This grant will assist us to expand the programs and resources that are available to assist pregnant women and their infants," said Arapaho WIC director Cindy Washakie, "and will support development of new culturally appropriate strategies for outreach and education." She added that "Arapaho traditions and culture place great importance on our community providing care and support to mothers and infants." According to the WIC news release, the money will be used to:
|
| Where No Electricity Is, Solar Energy Boom May Help |
|
A surge in investment is bringing down the cost of solar power, but affordability problems still dog hopes for the 1.6 billion people worldwide without electricity. Governments from Japan to Germany and the US are helping their citizens wean themselves off fossil fuels. But there are few handouts in developing nations where it could be argued solar power is more relevant -- in sunnier countries where many people have no electricity at all.
A scientific body which groups academies worldwide -- the InterAcademy Council -- said last week efforts to curb climate change must target vast numbers of people who lack basic energy. "It's sad that 1.6 billion people live without electricity and two to three billion use energy in a primitive way very damaging to health," said Professor Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate physicist based at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-chair of the report for the Netherlands-based body. Low incomes and low-or-no subsidies can make clean energy a hard sell in developing countries. In the Indian state of Karnataka, for example, private firms, backed by state government subsidies, have over the last 3-5 years been pushing solar power for households in towns and cities, including giving discounts on power bills if solar is installed. But the picture is very different for off-grid rural Indian communities which until now were dependent on kerosene, or paraffin, lamps for lighting, having no electricity access. Said JP Painuly, senior energy planner at the Denmark-based Risoe National Laboratory, "Kerosene is quite heavily subsidized but has limited availability in some rural areas, which has helped solar PV (photovoltaic) sales. "There are some solar PV programs that provide an extremely limited capital subsidy. It's not at a scale that makes it viable. Solar PV is still really expensive ... more expensive than kerosene." Worldwide about 1.5 million people die annually from indoor pollution due to lighting and cooking. Rapidly developing countries like China are joining a silicon solar cell manufacturing boom, helping to pare the price of the alternative technology. Simple economy panels could soon be affordable even to the rural poor, said Chu. "Very inexpensive solar cells could be used by off-grid people to charge appliances that don't use a lot of power but make a world of difference," he said, listing life-enhancing items such as radios, mobile phones, water purifiers, and bright, efficient LED lamps. The World Bank last month announced a private sector competition to devise the best-value, low carbon light source for poor households in Africa. The bank estimates the size of the African off-grid lighting market to be about $17 billion. Source: Reuters |
| Pro and Con: Native Hawaiian Government |
|
If there was ever a place that came close to Martin Luther King's dream of people being judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, it is Hawaii. Longtime US senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) described the islands as "one of the greatest examples of a multiethnic society living in relative peace".
Last Wednesday, the House voted 261-153, with 39 Republicans in the majority, to approve the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, sponsored by one of Hawaii's two representatives, Neil Abercrombie (D). The other, Mazie Hirono (D), says, "This is a historic vote and one that helps to perpetuate righteousness by righting a historic wrong." "The illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiian Government on January 17, 1893 by the United States Government Minister John L Stevens and a company of uniformed US Marines and two companies of US Sailors has to be dealt with now," writes commentator Mike Graham, "by reinstating the International legal Hawaiian historic government!" The bill would essentially classify "native Hawaiians" as the rough equivalent of an American Indian tribe. They would have similar rights to form a separate governing entity with the power to negotiate with state and federal governments over issues such as control of natural resources, lands and assets. But under the definition of "tribe" established by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the people who make up a tribe must be geographically isolated as a group like, say, the Navaho or Cherokee nations. The 400,000 or so "native Hawaiians" are interspersed among the general populations of all 50 states. The US Supreme Court struck down a similar effort to create a state-sanctioned, race-based entity composed of native Hawaiians back in 2000. In Rice v Cayetano, it ruled that under the 15th Amendment, which forbids discrimination in voting based on race, a race-based government in Hawaii was unconstitutional. "Native Hawaiians are a people," writes Graham. "[T]he US Government recognized the former Native Hawaiian Government under [the] same International guide lines as it still does today toward other governments seeking US recognition!" "Native Hawaiians have enlisted in US Armed Forces in large numbers to defend America in our time of need;" writes Graham, "when in reality their fighting and giving their lives defending the US government, the very government that through show of force overthrew their government. I ask you, would you submit and fight for a government that overthrew America?" Hawaiian scholar Rubellite Johnson, who helped establish the Hawaiian studies program at the University of Hawaii, says much of the supposed historical justification for this legislation is "a distortion of the truth." Not only was the US "not directly involved" in the forced abdication of Queen Liliuokalani, Johnson says, but most of the Hawaiian monarchy supported US annexation. Unlike American Indians, Hawaiians willingly joined the US. In 1959, Hawaiians voted for statehood in a plebiscite that officially transferred sovereignty to the US. Source: Investors' Business Daily Source: WEBCommentary |
| # LNN # Small # Hauls # |
|
| Life-Net News Extras |
| Too Much Long-Term Development Money Goes to Emergencies |
|
Adapted from a piece by Sean Callahan of Catholic Relief Services:
Americans dole out more than $1.5 billion in Halloween treats, according to the National Retail Federation. Compare that with the amount budgeted for food aid that the US will send this year to the poorest and hungriest people in the world: about $300 million less. US largesse feeds fewer than 6% of the estimated 850 million chronically hungry people around the globe. To feed more chronically hungry people, and to ensure that many of them are able to provide for themselves someday, we need to stop diverting funds from long-term development programs to meet emergency needs. Humanitarian agencies reach out to the world's hungry through long-term development programs that enable impoverished people to eventually feed themselves and break out of the cycle of poverty and hunger. These programs teach farmers techniques that provide better yields and more marketable crops. They feed schoolchildren and provide an incentive to attend classes. They improve the health of mothers and young children, offering a chance for a better future. We must remain committed to fighting chronic hunger instead of taking a "hot spot" approach that throws resources at the disaster of the month, depriving of resources the quieter school feeding, child health, and natural resource management programs that work more effectively in the long term. In recent years, the US Agency for International Development, which administers food aid, has repeatedly diverted resources for these long-term development programs for use in emergencies. Although federal law stipulates that 75% of the food aid budget should be devoted to long-term development, this requirement has routinely been waived, and 75% of food aid instead has been used in emergencies. The result has been the closure of many important development programs that saved lives. More than a dozen international humanitarian agencies that distribute food aid are urging Congress to guarantee in the farm bill that at least half the current food aid budget -- a minimum of $600 million -- will be used exclusively for these long-term development programs. Critics of the proposal say that protecting resources for long-term development would leave too few resources to respond to emergencies. But long-term food aid programs can help in disaster response by strengthening local social service agencies and nongovernmental organizations in poor communities to assist their own people during emergencies. Source: Baltimore Sun |
| World Food Day Event Calls for Debt Justice |
|
Church World Service (CWS) Education & Advocacy staff joined debt advocates in a World Food Day (October 16) prayer breakfast on Capitol Hill, ending a 40-day rolling fast for debt justice. CWS staff in Washington DC had participated with 14,000 Jubilee USA Network advocates from around the country in the 40-day "rolling fast" starting September 6 to call attention to the hunger and suffering brought about by unjust debt relationships worldwide.
The prayer breakfast was part of the Global Week of Action on Debt and coincided with International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings held in Washington. Similar events took place in 58 countries on six continents. Jubilee USA advocates also lobbied for congressional support for the Jubilee Act for Expanded Debt Cancellation and Responsible Lending. 8,000 individuals each wrote their representatives a message on a paper plate saying, "I’m hungry for debt justice; support the jubilee act HR 2634." The plates were delivered to members of Congress on October 17. CWS advocates sent e-mail Speak Out messages to their representatives asking them to co-sponsor the Jubilee Act. A United Church of Christ minister from the state of Washington, David Duncombe, ate nothing the entire 40 days. Participants in the fast included House co-sponsors of the Jubilee Act and religious and political leaders from many countries. The bill won a further 20 sponsors, and the House Financial Services Committee will hear HR 2634 later this fall. Several senators introduced a companion bill in the Senate. The Jubilee Act of 2007 would cancel the debts of up to 25 ineligible countries, end harmful economic policy, establish an audit of past lending, and set more responsible lending practices for the future. Currently, indebted nations spend an average of $100 million each day to service their debts -- money they cannot spend on food, education, health services, and other necessities. Cancellation of these debts is needed to help reach the UN Millennium Development Goal of cutting worldwide poverty in half by 2015. Debt relief is an effective tool to fight hunger and poverty, and it should be expanded. Developing countries already relieved of debt have increased their own domestic spending on poverty reduction by 75%. For example, after Zambia's debts were canceled, the country's education spending increased by 130%, enabling approximately 1.5 million children to return to school almost overnight. 2007 is a Sabbath Year, a time when the Hebrew Texts and the New Testament call for an end to debt and slavery. This year also marks the halfway point to the Millennium Development Goal of cutting worldwide poverty in half by 2015, a goal the US signed onto in 2000. Source: Church World Service |
| Dengue No Longer Pediatric |
|
As public health experts in Southeast Asia come to grips with one of the worst outbreaks of dengue fever in years, they discern a disturbing pattern about the profile of patients who have died from the virus vectored by the aedes aegypti mosquito. Take Indonesia for example:
The region’s largest country, Indonesia had a particularly bad year. "Nearly 20% of the fatalities in Indonesia this year were adults," says Dr Chusak Prasittisuk, coordinator for communicable disease control at the South and East Asia office of the World Health Organisation (WHO). "This is worrying, because it means the country has inadequate expertise to handle dengue hemorrhagic fever among adults." The medical community can no longer view dengue fever as one that only affects children. "Earlier the emphasis was to train pediatricians to deal with dengue since it was seen as a childhood disease," adds Chusak. "But now we have to shift our focus and concentrate on training the large medical community." Other countries have been hit by high numbers of dengue cases this year: Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar (or Burma), Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam. In fact, the unconfirmed estimates for the region this year place it on par with the worst year recorded for dengue fever in Southeast Asia in nearly two decades. There is little mystery as to why this virus has spread despite the region mounting a range of prevention campaigns, among which are efforts to educate the public about how to combat the Aedes aegypti mosquito. "This is largely the result of unplanned urbanization," says Chusak. "Dengue is an ecological disease created by humans. "Nearly 80% to 90% of the breeding areas for the dengue mosquito are man made." Among these are water stagnating in public areas due to poor drainage systems; water collecting in empty cans disposed on the streets; water in flower vases, pots, and earthen jars; and water that collects in toilets. The region is also learning that its economic growth has, unwittingly, laid the foundation for dengue to change from being a largely urban disease to one that has spread to semi-urban and rural areas. This is the result of people moving in large numbers across the rural and urban divide for work. In 2006, the WHO’s Western Pacific regional office warned that rural health systems in the region are facing a daunting challenge to deal with a disease that was increasingly becoming a "disease of the poor in rural areas." To that has been added another worrying factor: global warming and climate change. According to the United Nations Environment Program, in its fourth Global Environmental Outlook, "Continued warming is expected to cause shifts in the geographic range (latitude and altitude) and seasonality of certain infectious diseases, including vector-borne infections such as malaria and dengue fever." Mosquitoes are surviving longer, and rainfall patterns are making eastern corners of Asia wetter. Source: Inter Press Service |
| Most material here is adapted, not quoted. Views expressed do not |
| necessarily represent ours. Life-Net News biweekly newspage, Club |
| LIFENET online, the Web site www.lifenetradio.org, and |
| broadcast Life-Net Radio (where you can star!) together make |
| up Mr. Ret Z.'s private charitable enterprise. To get Life-Net e-mail |
| free, or to unsubscribe, just ask: lifenetradio@broadcast.net |
| + Iesous Khristos Theou Huios Soter + |