LIFE-NET NEWS

by Ret Z.

Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices

July 23, 2008	No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 12 Number 6	All-Volunteer

"Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal;  give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life."

Magazine Picks Camden 'Hood as #2 Best in US

The Baldwin's Run neighborhood, once notorious for crime, drugs, and prostitution, has been recognized by a national lifestyle magazine as a highly desirable place to live after its "miracle comeback" a couple of years ago. The latest issue of Cottage Living ranks Baldwin's Run second in its annual top 10 list of "cottage neighborhoods."       Formerly known as Westfield Acres, the East Camden NJ neighborhood was built in the 1930s as a 512-unit public housing project. By the 1960s, it was full of squatters, criminals, drug dealers, and gang members. The problems had spread to nearby homes by the 1990s.       "It was by far one of the worst sections of the city," said Councilman Frank Moran, who helped lead the push for redevelopment. "It was an area where even officers wouldn't want to work."       By 2000, the Camden Housing Authority had secured federal HOPE VI grants to demolish Westfield Acres. In total, about $100 million, some of it from the city and the state, was poured into rebuilding the area.       Private developer Pennrose Properties and nonprofit St Joseph's Carpenter Society built more than 500 mixed-income houses in phases between 2003 and 2006. About 200 of those were new houses complete with porches and white picket fences; the rest were rental town houses. The project also included a 74-unit complex for seniors, a community center, and the rehabilitation of more than 100 abandoned houses in adjacent neighborhoods.       Moran said the development has already begun boosting property values. "When you drive into that community -- it really looks like you're in any other gated community."       The other top 10 neighborhoods, "the best places to enjoy life just right -- communities where neighborly houses and pedestrian-scaled streets aren't a thing of the past", are located all over the country and vary in price range and style. The number-one spot was taken by Serenbe in Palmetto GA.       Source: Courier-Post

China's Waistlines Growing with its Economy

Waistlines in China are expanding faster than almost anywhere else, with nearly a quarter of residents in the Earth's most populous nation now overweight, according to a study. Obesity among China's 1.3 billion people doubled among women and tripled in men from 1989 to 2000, according to the study, published on July 8 in the journal Health Affairs. It says that China's rising prosperity, which allows more people to afford meat, dairy foods, vegetable oils, and sedentary living, is feeding the growth.       The number of obese and overweight people in China, now at 325 million, could double in 20 years, spurring more diabetes and heart disease in what was once one of the world's leanest populations, said Barry Popkin, the study's author and a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.       It also could be a boon for drugmakers, said Ray Hill, an analyst with IMS Health Inc, a health-care research company. China "has the highest growth rate for pharmaceutical sales than anywhere in the world," said Hill. China was the world's ninth-largest pharmaceutical market two years ago, he said, and it will be the fifth-largest by 2012.       The study collected data on 20,000 people in China over the last 15 years and found that participants are eating more energy-dense foods, which have higher saturated fats and calories than vegetables and carbohydrates, said Popkin. At the same time, activity levels are dropping as the number of white-collar and manufacturing jobs rises, leaving China with the same caloric imbalance afflicting many Western countries: People eat more food and burn fewer calories.       Deaths from heart disease and cancer linked to diet have climbed 20% since 1985, according to Popkin's research. "The prevalence of hypertension has exploded and every day, China and India are producing more than half of the new cases of diabetes diagnosed daily," said Popkin, who added that China's health care spending doubled from 1978 to 2002.       Source: Bloomberg

Tough Times in Burlington County

Bob Durante has seen his share of good and bad times in the US and abroad. The 65-year-old Army retiree says the last several months definitely qualify as one of the bad periods due to the slumping economy and increasing prices of gasoline, food, and other consumer goods. "This is as bad as I've seen it here."       "We're hurting big time," added Mary Pike, a Burlington City resident living on a fixed income. "Just the basics like bread and butter that you didn't think about before, you now look for a lesser brand or debate whether you can do without."       Americans from all walks of life are feeling the impact of the economic malaise plaguing the country, and Burlington County NJ is not immune. Consider the following: Applications to the county Board of Social Services for programs such as welfare, Medicaid, job placement, and food stamps have increased 22% between May 2007 and May 2008. Applications for food stamps increased 8%. The unemployment rate in the county for the first five months of 2008 was averaging 4.5%, up from an average of 3.8% in 2007. Major county-based employers Jevic Transportation in Delanco, Sybron Chemicals in Pemberton Township, US Pipe in Burlington City, and Sallie Mae in Mt Laurel closed or reduced operations during the past year, resulting in hundreds of layoffs.       Dan Boas, director of the county Board of Social Services, said the increases in applications for food stamps and other assistance programs began last year. He said social workers were able to find employment for many of those enrollees, but that the job market has tightened over the past two months. "We can find activities for people to give them skills that they need to gain employment, but what we also do is track the number of openings that we can send them to where they are looking for (specific workers). Those notices where we can send people, there are just not as many."       County freeholder director Aubrey Fenton acknowledged that the county's unemployment rate has increased, but he stressed that it remains significantly lower than the statewide rate. He also noted that businesses continue to locate in the county, especially along the redeveloped Route 130 corridor.       Source: Burlington County Times

Indonesian Government Losing Control to Corporations

After a decade of reform, the Indonesian government has yet to recognize basic economic, social, and culture rights, said the National Commission on Human Rights in a review on Friday. The commission said that unlike civil and political rights -- which have garnered international recognition -- economic, social and culture rights, including housing, health, education and employment, are still low on the government's list of priorities due to uncontrolled liberalization.       "Liberalization has allowed corporations to appropriate the government's role, causing it to lose control in our society," said the commission's deputy chairman M Ridha Saleh. Under liberalization, he said, corporations have succeeded in taking advantage of Indonesia's regulations and bureaucracy, forcing the government to permit corporate management of the state's natural resources.       "National regulations have served corporate interests. As firms are supported with existing regulations, their legal status is recognized, strengthening their position in society." Since Indonesia's bureaucratic culture supports practices like bribery, said Ridha, no strict measures exist to control corporations, which have exploited the political elite, further weakening governmental authority.       "Our political elite lacks the commitment necessary to support citizens' basic rights. Corporations can too easily manipulate them."       In order to restore threatened rights, the commission has called on the government to reclaim control from corporations. Ridha said, "The commission will prepare an official standing paper to address these issues and provide the government with several recommendations."       One recommendation is to force the business sector to be more responsible toward the public. "Corporations have not fulfilled the public's economic, social and cultural rights. They will have to shift their mind-set and become responsible to the public."       The commission will also push the government to address corporate violations of such rights and to consider criminal punishment for such violations. "To do so, we are urging the government to ratify the optional protocol of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment." According to the commission, the government has pledged to ratify 10 other international human rights agreements by 2009.       Source: Jakarta Post

Controversial NJ Housing Loophole Now Closed

NJ Gov Jon Corzine paid tribute to housing advocate Ethel Lawrence on Thursday when he signed a bill intended to make it easier for low- and middle-income families to find better homes. "Ethel Lawrence would be proud of us today. She'd be happy," Corzine said before signing the bill. He sat surrounded by a group of children who live in an affordable-housing development named after Lawrence, a late Mt Laurel NJ housing activist.       Lawrence sued the township in the 1970s, claiming that zoning laws prevented poor people from living in her town. The case is credited with creating the state's affordable housing laws, which mandate that municipalities have a constitutional responsibility to provide the opportunity for low- and moderate-income housing. The new measure signed by the governor closes a loophole in those laws that allowed suburban and rural towns to enter into regional contribution agreements (RCAs) with cities and poor towns to accept part of their required share of affordable housing in return for funds to rehabilitate existing low-income housing.       Since 1990, Burlington County towns have paid other towns a total of $19.3 million to rehabilitate 953 units of affordable housing, according to statistics from the state Department of Community Affairs. Advocates for the poor say these agreements enabled rich suburbs to circumvent their court-ordered obligation to provide affordable housing. "This is a victory for the children, women and men who have up until now been denied the affordable housing envisioned by the Mount Laurel decision," said Bishop Joseph Galante of the Camden Diocese.       Suburban officials, on the other hand, worry that this new law -- as well as new administrative rules that increase the number of affordable housing units they are required to provide -- will allow developers to build large housing developments that could be burdensome for existing taxpayers. "I'm for affordable housing, but this bill is not about affordable housing. This is an unfunded mandate that will force towns to raise property taxes," said Medford mayor Chris Myers. "There is absolutely nothing affordable about this so-called affordable housing bill for working families and seniors on a fixed income currently residing in suburban communities and struggling every day to make ends meet."       Corzine and other supporters contend that existing land-use laws still would be enforceable and that towns would be free to negotiate with the state Council on Affordable Housing to devise acceptable plans for reaching their fair share of affordable housing. He noted the new law creates a fee on new commercial development that will provide $20 million annually for grants for building new affordable units or rehabilitating existing affordable homes and apartments. The law also requires that towns provide housing for the very poor -- including some earning less than 30% of their area's median income.       Source: Burlington County Times

Africans Genetically Susceptible to HIV

A group of scientists led by a non-resident Indian has suggested that a genetic variation, which evolved to protect people of African descent against malaria, has now been found to increase their susceptibility to HIV infection.       Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) affects 25 million people in sub-Saharan Africa today, an HIV burden greater than any other region of the world. Around 90% of people in Africa carry the genetic variation, meaning that it may be responsible for an estimated 11% of the HIV burden there.       Based on data from a 25-year study of thousands of Americans of different ethnic backgrounds, the research showed that the particular genetic variation found only in people of African descent increased their susceptibility to HIV infection by up to 40%. Conversely, the same variation indicates tendencies to prolong survival of HIV infectees by approximately two years.       "It turns out that having this variation is a double-edged sword. The finding is another valuable piece in the puzzle of HIV-AIDS genetics," said lead author Sunil Ahuja of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.       The discovery marks the first genetic risk factor for HIV found only in people of African descent. It sheds light on the differences in genetic makeup that play a crucial role in susceptibility to HIV and AIDS.       "The big message here is that something that protected against malaria in the past is now leaving the host more susceptible to HIV," said study co-author Robin Weiss. The gene under examination: Duffy Antigen Receptor for Chemokines (DARC), which encodes a binding protein found on the surface of cells.       Source: Express India

Pro-Life Democrats Call for Plank to Reduce Abortions

Adapted from a piece by Tony Campolo, professor emeritus at Eastern University:       As a pro-life Democrat and a member of the party's platform committee, I will be pressing for the inclusion of an abortion reduction plank in this year's platform. Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life, recently unveiled the organization's "95-10 Initiative," which she believes could reduce abortions by 95% over the next 10 years. While I am not that optimistic, I do believe that abortions could be reduced significantly if we would address the economic issues that are driving women into having abortions.       A recent study indicated that as many as 200,000 abortions could be prevented each year if the government included contraception for low-income women on Medicaid. Also if provisions were made for medical coverage for pregnant women who cannot afford doctors and hospital care, and daycare assistance provided for mothers who are gainfully employed to support themselves and their children, the number of abortions per year could be cut even more dramatically. Too many low-income women, especially those who might become single mothers, cannot afford what better-off women take for granted.       Other proposals to decrease abortions include guaranteed maternity leave so that women do not have to choose between job security and motherhood. Raising the minimum wage would help. Studies show that a woman working full time at the present minimum wage cannot afford the rent of even a low-cost apartment, let alone carry the additional cost of raising her unborn child.       Consider an 18-year-old single pregnant woman who is working at the minimum wage and has no health insurance and no prospect of daycare for her unborn child. Wouldn't these realities provide strong inclinations to have an abortion? Sadly, the same members of Congress who claim they are pro-life stand against addressing the economic measures that could dramatically reduce abortions.       Source: God's Politics Blog

Peace Corps Seeks and Signs More Adults Over 50

You probably think of a Peace Corps (PC) volunteer as a 20-something who wants to see the world and do some good after finishing college. There are plenty of those, yes, but the ranks of the foreign service organization created by President John F Kennedy are being filled with a growing number of baby boomers and seniors who prefer volunteering overseas to a retirement spent playing bridge or golf.       "It's something different to do in retirement that also serves a purpose," said Jack Lutz, an 86-year-old Mt Laurel NJ resident who spent two years in Poland with his wife Paz on PC service. Lutz, a former Mt Laurel Board of Education member, worked at a teacher's college where he helped prepare Polish college students to become English teachers. Mrs Lutz developed an environmental program to rescue endangered amphibians from a polluted river. She also helped refurbish an abandoned forester station as a learning center for environmental issues.       The Lutzs said they got so much out of the volunteer experiences that they now serve as PC recruiters. Lutz recently spoke at a PC information session in Mt Laurel. Last year he taught a seniors course at Burlington County College devoted to senior volunteer opportunities in the PC.       Lutz said senior retirees are an appealing demographic that the PC is actively recruiting. There are roughly 8,000 volunteers currently deployed by the PC worldwide. The service has announced a goal of raising its number of 50-and-over volunteers from 5% to 15%.       "Seniors are very reliable, responsible, take care of their health, and have a wealth of career and life experiences that the Peace Corps can use," said Lutz, who formerly worked with the UN and as a professor of education at Glassboro State College (now Rowan U).       PC spokeswoman Merle Geline Rubine said the service is looking for skilled seniors who can share their expertise with others overseas. She said that it is in particular need of volunteers with experience in health, education, small business management, or agriculture. There is no age limit for volunteer service.       The PC provides medical care to volunteers working overseas. Lutz said seniors are typically placed in less remote locations where medical care is readily available if needed.       "The accommodations are quite good. They do a good job looking after us," he said. There's also the opportunity to experience and interact with foreign people and cultures as well as fellow volunteers. Lutz said bridging the age gap was an especially gratifying benefit of their foreign service. "I think [the younger volunteers] admired us for volunteering. It was a real ego trip on that score."       Source: Burlington County Times

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Although least developed countries (LDCs) as a group had registered impressive economic growth over the past 30 years, the number of poor continued to rise, according to a UNCTAD report released on July 14: Some 277 million people in the LDCs lived on less than US$1 a day. The population had grown faster. The food crisis had worsened the situation, with one out of three LDCs depending on food imports. As to achieving the Millennium Development Goal of reducing the incidence of poverty by half by 2015, the countries were off track. (UN) School districts in Camden and Pennsauken had the most dropouts in the tri-county area in the 2006-07 school year, a state report said on July 15. Dropouts totaled 489 students in the Camden district and 100 in Pennsauken, said the state Department of Education. Those districts were trailed by Monroe, 77; the Black Horse Pike regional system, 63; Lindenwold, 58; and Pine Hill, 55. In the Camden district, the number of dropouts was greatest for ninth-graders, at 180. The total was highest in Pennsauken for 11th graders, at 39. The report also noted 41 dropouts in both the Lenape and Willingboro districts, and 34 in both Cherry Hill and Winslow. (Courier-Post) In the space of just 20 years, the American Indian nations have moved from some of the poorest on the continent to some of the wealthiest. But the paradigm shift has not included everyone. There are still those fairly isolated Indian nations that remain at the bottom rung of economic development and stability. The extremes between wealth and poverty in Indian country are astonishing. In some respects the richer tribes will move forward at their own pace and in their own time. There is no such bargain for the poor tribes. They are still dependent upon the US government for much of their sustenance. If a reporter would stand outside of the Sioux Nation Shopping Center and ask any man or woman exiting the store what is most needed to alleviate the poverty on the Pine Ridge Reservation, she would be told by all: homes and jobs. (Indianz) The sky is not falling, but the outlook for South Jersey's economy over the next six months is bleak, according to the Rutgers-Camden Quarterly Business Outlook. The panel of regional business leaders said the region's businesses were barely getting by. One said the area's economic picture would not improve until next spring. Another gave the Delaware River ports economy a below-passing grade and predicted no improvement over the next six months. Chief among the hurdles facing businesses, according to the panel, is a major reduction in consumer spending brought on by a collapsed housing market, tightening credit, a weak job market, and increasing oil and agriculture prices. The good news from the panel was that conditions do not appear likely to get worse and could possibly improve next year. (Burlington County Times, Courier-Post)

Life-Net News Extras

New Method Predicts Who On Death Row Will Die

Many death row inmates will never actually be executed. Until now, nobody has known with scientific accuracy who is more likely to be spared. A new computer system can predict which death row prisoners will live and which will be killed.       The US, the only western democracy to retain the death penalty, executes only a small proportion of the people it sentences to death. For instance, just 53 of the 3,228 inmates on death row were executed in 2006.       So how were those 53 chosen? "We couldn't see any clear patterns in the data," says computer scientist Stamos Karamouzis, who has been investigating this question with criminologist Dee Wood Harper at Loyola University in New Orleans.       Since the direct approach had failed, the researchers turned to an artificial neural network (ANN) -- an intelligent computer system, modelled after the human brain -- that is able to deduce how various factors within a jumble of data relate to each other. The system can then take what it has learned and make predictions about a new set of data. Karamouzis has already used ANNs to predict the likelihood that juveniles given parole will reoffend, and to pinpoint the students most likely to drop out of college courses. Says he, "ANNs surprise us by revealing non-obvious patterns."       To find out which factors might be linked to executions, the researchers first "trained" their ANN by entering the profiles of 1,000 death row inmates between 1973 and 2000. Half of this sample of prisoners had been executed and the other half had survived. Each profile contained 18 factors, including the inmate’s sex, age, race, marital status, educational level, and information on their capital offences.       They then fed in profiles for 300 more inmates from the same period and asked the ANN to predict what had happened to them. To their astonishment, it correctly predicted the fates of more than 90% of those inmates.       The ANN had clearly hit on a strong relationship between the inmates' profiles and their likelihood of execution. But which factors mattered most? To find out, the team repeatedly retrained the ANN from scratch, withholding information about one of the factors each time.       Gender turned out to be the most significant factor -- women are rarely executed. Race, which Harper says has been implicated as a key factor in sentencing criminals to death, was not found to be an important factor when it came to the decision to execute.       The most striking factor by far was educational level -- the number of years the inmate had spent in high school. This may be crucial because it indicates how well an inmate can manage their appeal process. "This finding confirms that being executed is not about what you've done, but more about your ability to defend yourself," says activist Simon Shepherd of Death Watch International.       Source: New Scientist

In Response to Food Crisis, Same Old Tricks

Adapted from a piece by Elizabeth Palmberg:       It's clear that one cause of the current food crisis is that poorer countries have been pressured into dismantling their food policies, leaving peasant farmers and eaters alike to bear all the risks of the extremely volatile world market. This has left corporations free to ship factory-farmed food to those countries, peasants free to migrate to urban slums, and corporate-dominated economic markets free to ignore the starving.       We should blame ourselves, not the corporations. Expecting a corporation to give affordable loans to farmers, look out for the urban poor, and cut carbon emissions -- unless those are the most profitable things it can do, which they aren't -- is like expecting your kitchen stove to go out and join the Missionaries of Charity.       Many of the powers that be refuse to admit that our current trade model is a problem; so some are demanding that we respond to the crisis by drinking more corporate-trade Kool-Aid (by extending the reach of the WTO, for example). Such arguments often blame the food crisis on the only significant farm policy left on the planet: rich-country subsidies for food crops. For example, a story early this month announced that UN head Ban Ki-moon had asked the world to respond to the crisis by "cut[ting] agricultural subsidies, particularly in developed countries."       Now, there are lots of reasons why US farm subsidies, which push the export-driven factory-farming model, are broken and need to be radically reworked. And, of course, subsidies for ethanol production really do drive up the price of food and are a huge problem. But the crisis is that food prices have become way too high. Subsidies to food crops inherently lower food prices.       I believe the underlying argument is that subsidies have dampened "market signals" -- in other words, rising prices -- that would otherwise have caused farmers to gradually increase production. But some key farm inputs, like fuel and fossil-fuel-based fertilizer, have been anything but gradual in their price rise. On top of genuine supply and demand spikes, there's the still-more-volatile behavior of financial speculators.       On a more basic level, farmers often are unable to respond to price increases. In particular, small farmers in the global South don't have access to affordable loans, supplies, or marketing they would need to grow more. Why? Because poor countries have dismantled most of their food policies as trade agreements decimated the government policy toolbox, and IMF pressure forced many governments to slash their farm investment. Now there are belated calls for governments in the Global South to invest in farming once again. Amen to that.       Source: God's Politics Blog

Half of Utah's Indian Students Drop Out of School

Half of Utah's American Indian students drop out of school before earning a diploma, according to the US Department of Education's National Center for Educational Statistics. The situation has dire consequences for the quality of life in Indian Country, says Forrest Cuch, director of Utah's Division of Indian Affairs.       "I see how deficiencies in education impact governance and economic development opportunities on and off the reservation on behalf of American Indians," Cuch says. "I really see how the failure to educate Indian kids, Indian children impacts the quality of life."       Utah's American Indians have the highest poverty rate -- 30% -- of any minority group in the state. Cuch says this is a direct result of Indian students' high dropout rate. On average, 78% of Utah students graduate, compared to only 50% of American Indian students.       The situation could improve if the state's public school system were more culturally sensitive to the unique needs of American Indian students, Cuch says. "American Indians are different in so many ways, and we process information differently. And the school system is designed for the dominant culture. And consequently, our kids have always fallen behind."       The Division of Indian Affairs and the Utah State Office of Ethnic Affairs are looking for new ways to combat the continuing problem. One program is being introduced at a seminar this week: The Dropout Early Warning System is a computer model that helps predict which students are most at risk of dropping out.       Source: KCPW

Subsidy Plans Proposed to Combat Chilean Inflation

With some of the highest inflation rates in recent history, Chile’s economic experts are looking for ways to keep lower-income families above the poverty line. Economists recently recommended providing subsidies as relief to the more than 160,000 families at risk of falling below the poverty line.       Rodrigo Castro, the social programs director at Libertad y Desarrollo, a private economic investigation center, explained that the poverty line is measured by the per-capita monthly income of each family depending on the number of family members. For example, if a six-person Chilean family has a monthly income of CP$300,000 (US$600), then its per capita monthly income would be CP$50,000 (US$100).       According to Castro, record high inflation rates have raised the poverty line from CP$47,099 (US$94) in 2006, to CP$53,015 (US$107) in June 2008. This latest number, he said, was produced by multiplying the 2006 poverty line by the percentage change in the consumer price index.       "The rise in food prices has significantly affected poor families in Latin America, who allot a major part of their budgets toward food products," said Chile's Planning and Cooperation (MIDEPLAN) Minister Paula Quintana. A 2006 MIDEPLAN survey reported that 13.7% of Chile’s population lives in poverty.       "Most people who hover around the poverty line with few changes in their income and cost of living easily fluctuate in and out of poverty," said Dante Contreras, an economist for the UN Development Program. "But with the inflation we are seeing in food products, many people are going to find themselves in a new and unfamiliar state of poverty."       Experts maintain that, in the short term, the most efficient way to help these families avoid dipping below the poverty line is through subsidies. Humberto Vega, an academic at the Universidad Central, supports this idea, commenting, "This method of social protection [subsidies] has worked in the past and should continue to work."       Castro, however, warned that subsidies can generate major increases in spending and could increase inflation rates even more.       Source: La Tercera

Climate Change to Have Serious Consequences for Fisherfolk

Climate change is already impacting the world’s oceans and will have serious consequences for the hundreds of millions of people who depend on fishing for their livelihoods, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Changes in sea temperatures alter the body temperature of aquatic species used for human consumption and therefore impact their metabolism, growth rate, reproduction, and susceptibility to diseases and toxins, said FAO early this month at the start of a four-day scientific seminar in Rome.       Impacts on fisheries that have already been observed: An increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as the El Niño phenomenon in the South Pacific. The warming of the world's oceans, with the Atlantic in particular showing signs of warming deep below the surface. Warmer-water species increasing toward the South and North Poles. An increase in salinity in near-surface waters in hotter regions. A decrease in salinity in colder areas because of greater precipitation, melting ice, and other processes. Increasing oceanic acidity with probable negative consequences for coral-reef and calcium-bearing organisms.       Fishing communities in the world’s high latitudes, as well as those that rely on coral reef systems, will be most exposed to the impact of climate change. Fisheries located in deltas, coral atolls, and ice-dominated coasts will be vulnerable to flooding and coastal erosion because of rises in sea level.       FAO says that some 42 million people work directly in the fishing sector, the great majority in developing countries. Counting those who work in processing, supply, marketing and distribution, the fishing industry supports several hundred million jobs.       Aquatic foods have high nutritional quality, contributing 20% or more of average per capita animal protein intake for more than 2.8 billion people, again mostly in developing countries. Fish is also the world’s most widely traded foodstuff and a key source of export earnings for many poorer countries. The sector has particular significance for small island states.       Source: United Nations

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The Food Bank of Delaware, known for distributing nonperishable food to the needy, is seeking gardeners to share their produce with the poor. It's part of a national program called Plant a Row for the Hungry. Participants grow a little extra to share, but membership isn't required -- anyone can give produce of any kind or quantity. The nonprofit annually distributes about 1 million pounds of produce -- a tenth of its food total -- through a variety of programs. Because of the need for immediate distribution, produce is accepted only at food bank warehouses. (Wilmington News Journal) The FAO is providing seeds, fertilizers, and other supplies to small farmers in 48 countries as part of an initiative to help vulnerable households cope with food inflation. On July 9, the FAO announced some $21 million in new spending to boost the next planting season and to demonstrate that by increasing the supply of key agricultural inputs small farmers can rapidly produce more food. The agency says it hopes the initiative will have a catalytic effect which will encourage development partners to contribute to similar projects, but on a larger scale. With the new money, the FAO’s initiative on soaring food prices now covers 54 countries. (UN) King Mohammed VI launched, last Wednesday in the urban commune of Zaio (province of Nador, Morocco), the integrated housing program "Amerkane", with investments of $26.5 million. To be built on 37 hectares, the project provides for 176 social housing units and 70 economic villas. It also includes a mosque, parks, 13 equipped areas, and 576 lots of land for different types of housing. The project aims to improve the quality of housing and urban landscape of the town, meet an increasing demand in the housing sector, endow the area with modern socio-economic equipment, and ensure the access of disadvantaged and middle-class families to housing in better conditions. (Maghreb Arabe Presse) The EPA in a new report on Thursday said "it is very likely" that more people will die during extremely hot periods in future years -- and that the elderly, the poor, and those in inner cities will be most at risk. Other possible dangers include: More powerful hurricanes. Shrinking supplies of fresh water in the West. Increased spread of diseases contracted through food and water. The report was less notable for its warnings than for its source: The Bush administration has resisted the conclusion that increasing temperatures will harm human health, but in the new report, that finding was unmistakable. More findings: In the West, changing weather patterns could thin snowpack that feeds rivers, affecting hydroelectric dams and water supplies. In coastal areas, it could bring a sea-level rise that eats away at dry land and storm surges that can wash it away in a flash. In Washington DC and other Eastern cities, a warmer climate is likely to produce more bad-air days, because heat speeds up the process by which exhaust byproducts are cooked into smog. Rising temperatures are likely to mean more periods of sustained summer heat. Report co-author Kristie Ebi said that people are "going to look back and think back about how nice the summers used to be." (Washington Post)

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