| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| March 4, 2009 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 12 Number 18 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Nutter Endorses Advocates' Anti-Hunger Platform |
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PHILADELPHIA, PA Hunger advocates went out of their way to praise Mayor Michael Nutter recently. Bill Clark, head of Philabundance, the largest hunger-relief agency in the region, said that he had met with Nutter administration officials more frequently in recent times than he did with anyone from the Street administration for the duration of
Mayor John F Street's tenure.
While no one thinks Nutter can end hunger, advocates believe that they have an ally in the mayor. Combined with President Obama's pledge to end childhood hunger by 2015, Nutter's support gives advocates reason to hope. Mayor Nutter on February 11 endorsed an anti-hunger platform cobbled together by local advocates who had joined for the first time to bolster their fight against hunger. Nutter, who was on his way to Washington after meeting with advocates at City Hall, vowed at the meeting to lobby Congress on expansion of food-stamp benefits in the stimulus bill. Advocates have long said that boosting food-stamp benefits was one of the best ways to help struggling Americans, especially now, as more and more middle-class and working-poor people slip into poverty. Nutter also said he was confident that the Obama administration would overturn the Bush administration's "unwise" decision to end the Universal Feeding program in Philadelphia. In place for 17 years, the program is scheduled to be ended at the close of school year 2009-10. The program, unique to this city, has offered students in 200 of the school district's 280 schools free breakfasts and lunches without the usual paperwork. More students eat when their families don't have to fill out forms, studies have shown. Nutter also praised the school district's plan, begun this year, to offer free breakfast to any student regardless of economic background: "By making all children eligible, the school district is taking a critical step." The Nutter administration is also working to streamline the food-stamp process. There are around 100,000 Philadelphians, many of them elderly, who are eligible for food stamps but do not access them, Nutter senior adviser Pauline Abernathy said, adding that a large reason is the onerous process of filling out forms. "The mayor is asking the Obama administration to do a food-stamp program like Universal Feeding, without excessive paperwork," Abernathy said. She added that Philadelphia may become the only city in the country with such a program if it's enacted. The same day, Nutter met briefly with national hunger expert Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. Saying he wanted to see Universal Feeding restored in Philadelphia and instituted throughout the country, Berg added, "The federal government has a vital national interest in ensuring that every school district in the country has the financial means necessary to make school lunches and breakfasts available universally to all schoolchildren." Source: Philadelphia Inquirer |
| Drug-Resistant Malaria Threatens Border and World |
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GENEVA, SWITZERLAND The UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on February 25 that the emergence of a
drug-resistant form of malaria in southeast Asia could seriously undermine global successes in controlling the disease. WHO told of new evidence that parasites resistant
to artemisinin -- the main drug used to treat the disease -- pose a risk along the Cambodia-Thailand border where workers walk miles daily to clear forests.
"If we do not put a stop to the drug-resistant malaria situation that has been documented in the Thai-Cambodia border," said WHO assistant director-general Dr Hiroki Nakatani in a press statement, "it could spread rapidly to neighboring countries and threaten our efforts to control this deadly disease." Supported by a $22.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and by collaboration with key partners, WHO will aim to contain artemisinin-resistant malaria parasites before they spread. Drug resistance is one of the obstacles to controlling the disease, which kills more than one million people a year and has half the world's population within its range. Other obstacles include resistance of the vector mosquito to insecticides, environmental factors, and counterfeit medicines. Source: All Headline News |
| Tribes Happy with Stimulus but Worried about Poor |
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INDIAN COUNTRY, USA American Indians are expected to receive about
$2.5 billion as part of a $787 billion economic stimulus plan approved last month by President Barack Obama.
Tribal leaders called the money a sign that Obama plans to pay more attention to the needs of American Indians than
previous presidents, but they're still concerned that the stimulus money may not get to where it's most needed.
"A lot of tribes who have needs for these kinds of programs don't have the human resources to put together proposals that would allow them to be competitive," said Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam tribe and a federal policy advocate for Pacific Northwest tribes. Allen said that many of the poorest tribes who are in most need of money to build schools, health clinics, and roads will likely be left out of the loop when it comes to competitive grants. Another concern is that the red tape that's in place to monitor tribal projects won't allow proposals for ways to use the money fast enough. Much of the funding available through the economic stimulus bill is tagged for projects that are "shovel-ready." Tribal governments are often required to submit their plans to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs for approval. That's a process tribal leaders say moves too slowly. South Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, led the effort to provide federal stimulus money to tribes. "There is some concern about how long it takes the BIA to approve things, and Senator Dorgan is urging them to do better," Dorgan spokesman Barry Piatt said. "We have every expectation that they will do better." Source: Everett Herald (WA) |
| New Online Portal an Exchange of Climate Know-How |
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DHAKA, BANGLADESH A new global initiative will generate and share know-how on strategies to help the world's poorest and most vulnerable communities adapt to the impacts of climate change. The Global Initiative on Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change was announced by Saleemul Huq, director of the climate change program at the UK-based International Institute for Environment Development (IIED), at an international conference on community-based adaptation to climate change in Dhaka on February 24.
It will be made up of representatives of donor agencies, research institutes, and NGOs from 50 countries, including the Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies and the IIED. The initiative will support an online platform, Community Based Adaptation Exchange, where stakeholders can share experiences and information about optimal adaptation strategies that show potential for replication and scale-up. They will also hold a number of conferences to share best practices. Delegates of the conference stressed, among other measures, the need to use simple, low-cost technologies to enable poor communities to cope with climate change. But adaptation should not focus excessively on short-term "palliative" adaptation strategies that yield immediate results but might not be sustainable in the long run, warned Ian Burton, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto and scientist emeritus at the Meteorological Service of Canada. "It is important to avoid maladaptation or adaptation that will make the situation worse in the long term as we are focused on what will work in the short term." Potential adaptation techniques include crop varieties that can tolerate drought, floods, and high salinity; drip and other irrigation techniques to conserve scarce water; building storm and cyclone shelters; changing crop growing cycles; and diversifying from crops to the farming of fish, shrimp, crabs, and livestock. The meeting heard about a range of successful experiences from across Africa and Asia. An unusual example from Bangladesh is "floating gardens" -- using a base of aquatic weeds to grow vegetables -- which allow cultivation in waterlogged and flooded areas. In Nepal, local farmers are using their knowledge of traditional varieties and neglected and underutilized crops to breed suitable plants and improve incomes. In Lower Ouémé valley in Benin, communities are seeking solutions such as cultivating fast-growing crops in dried areas of swamp forests. Source: Science and Development Network |
| Despite US Offer, NYC Stands Firm on Food Stamps |
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NEW YORK, NY A provision in President Obama's stimulus package, extending food stamp benefits for able-bodied adults, has revived a dispute in New York City between
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and advocates for the poor. The provision overturns a 1996 rule limiting able-bodied adults who have no dependents to three months of food stamps in a three-year period. But the Bloomberg administration said on February 17 that nothing had changed and that it was not obligated to extend benefits to anyone not enrolled in the Work Experience Program, a workfare program that provides temporary jobs, usually in city agencies.
While cities and states are allowed under the stimulus provision to require participation in such workfare programs, advocates for the poor decried the policy as unwise and counterproductive, particularly as the recession swells the ranks of the jobless who need help buying groceries. "They are wasting city funds to force people to do sometimes 'make-work' jobs in order to get fully funded federal benefits," said Joel Berg, the executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. "Saying that in order to get a measly portion of food you have to work extra hours just doesn't seem like a way to promote economic growth and promote self-sufficiency." City Councilman Bill de Blasio, a Brooklyn Democrat and chairman of the General Welfare Committee, said, "Instead of putting hungry New Yorkers on a path out of poverty, the city is placing them in unpaid jobs before they can receive federal food aid they would be entitled to anyway." But Robert Doar, commissioner of the city's Human Resources Administration, which oversees food stamps and workfare, said the city was ready to expand the Work Experience Program rather than allow people to collect food stamps without working or looking for work. The program, which currently has about 12,000 participants, teaches job skills, like résumé preparation, and places people in jobs -- or, sometimes, internships -- with government agencies or the private sector. The mayor "believes in sending a message that work is the best way to escape poverty," said Doar. "It's a strong principled message that he wants to reaffirm." In 2006, Bloomberg overruled a decision by two of his top aides to seek a federal waiver that would have allowed New Yorkers, along with others in high-unemployment areas, to receive food stamps beyond the time limit. The provision in the federal stimulus package essentially nationalizes such a waiver until October 2010, to encourage spending during the recession. Ellen Vollinger, the legal director for the Food Research and Action Center, an anti-hunger policy organization in Washington, said that each dollar in federal food stamp benefits generates nearly double that in economic activity. She questioned why New York would not take full advantage of food stamps, which are paid for by the federal Agriculture Department, and instead expand the workfare program, which takes part of its funding from the city: "If they were really interested in maximizing federal resources and minimizing the cost of handling this, then eliminating the time limit would be the cost-effective approach." Source: New York Times |
| Developing World Uses Open Science-Paper Access More |
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CHICAGO, IL Making articles freely available online can
widen the participation of developing-world scientists in
global science, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Chicago measured the extent to which making papers available on an open-access basis affected how many times those papers were cited and by whom.
Using Thompson Scientific's Citation Indexes and Fulltext Sources Online, they surveyed 26 million articles from more than 8,000 journals, their associated citations from 1945-2005, and their online availability from 1998-2005. They compared the number of citations scientific papers received when available only in print with the number received by the same articles once they became freely available online. The researchers found that online availability increased citations of recently published articles by around 8%. But they also found variation in the rates of citations from different countries, based on a country's per capita gross national income: The impact of open access was more than twice as strong in developing countries as in developed countries. In England and Germany, for example, open access increased citations of articles by around 5%, while in India the increase was almost 25%, and in Brazil it was close to 30%. "Our study shows that people who have access to journals in poor countries use them," says James A Evans, the leading author of the research, published in Science (February 20). "If they weren't freely available they wouldn't use them with the same frequency, and they may not be able, as a result, to themselves publish in top journals." The researchers also found that the influence of open access dipped back to 12% to 16% in very poor countries, such as Afghanistan, Uganda, and Nepal. Evans believes limited electronic access in these countries explains part of the figures, but it represents just one of the issues limiting their participation in science. "The low average income also means that it is hard to get an education and to become a scientist." Source: Science and Development Network |
| Cathedral Kitchen Starts Converting Guests into Cooks |
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CAMDEN, NJ After six grueling years of shopping for a site for a soup kitchen, slogging through the construction phase, and creating a vast stainless steel workshop to feed the hungry in the state's poorest city, Karen Talarico
decided it wasn't enough. Free daily meals can be temporary lifesavers, but they don't begin to break the cycle of poverty. Job skills and a social service safety net do, said Talarico, executive director of Cathedral
Kitchen, a private nonprofit that has been dishing dinner to Camden's poorest residents since 1976.
Now some of the 288-seat soup kitchen's regular guests are learning to cook. Last month, Cathedral Kitchen launched a free, 14-week culinary arts training program for 20 students at its new facility at 1514 Federal St, eight blocks from its original home at Broadway and Federal St in the former Camden Catholic High School. Prospective students were interviewed, screened for a minimum of sixth-grade reading and math skills, outfitted with new chef clothes and shoes, and issued a textbook. The majority in the first class come from halfway houses and shelters sponsored by Volunteers of America Delaware Valley. Others make the trip by bus and train from Veterans Haven in Winslow. "This is fun but serious work. We learn to cook and to keep the kitchen and the food safe," said Jonathan Jernigan, the program's head chef. "I like to eat and I like changing lives." A prodigious fundraiser, Talarico raised $100,000 largely from area banks to fund two, 14-week sessions of the culinary program and to persuade chefs from Campbell Soup Co headquarters in Camden, Nunzio's Ristorante in Collingswood, Joe's Peking Duck House in Philadelphia, and Wegmans in Cherry Hill to guest-lecture. In a recent class, Jernigan demonstrated how to carve a 22-pound roasted turkey. "The bird will tell you where to cut. Cut straight down the middle, then slice away." Evelyn Lewis, a 29-year-old mother of three, whacked the breast bone with a cleaver and cracked it wide open like a watermelon. No stranger to the kitchen, she said she had learned to cook at her grandmother's side, making pies, potato salad, and soul food. Now she lives alone in a shelter. The program, she said, is giving her direction and opportunity when she needs it most. Sean Brown, 49, lives in a veterans home in Winslow. His dream is to get a job cooking on a cruise ship. "I used to cook in the Air Force. I'm very happy to have been selected for this program. People here are really cool." The collapse of the building industry drove Timothy Ayers, 41, of Camden, to the program. A cement mason by trade, Ayers decided he needed a back-up career. That and a series of setbacks, including a divorce, a period of homelessness, and a jail term, he said, forced him to evaluate his future. "Cooking is a creative, fast-paced job. I won't have to sit at a desk all day," said Ayers. "In this economy, I figure it will be another knife in my bag." Source: Courier-Post |
| 'Don't Call These People Primitive' |
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Adapted from a piece by Survival International director Stephen Corry:
The host of BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze, Michael Buerk, made a moral howler by calling New Guinea tribes "primitive" and accusing them of killing random strangers. His words: "The only really primitive societies to survive into the modern age are the tribes in the remote parts of New Guinea, and whenever they come across a stranger they kill them." The Papuan human rights group Elsham responded by accusing Buerk of "regurgitating racist stereotypes" and "being offensive and totally wrong". Others have weighed in. Here at Survival International, the NGO that defends tribal peoples' rights around the world, we called Buerk "dangerously wrong". The danger is real: The use of terms like "primitive" to describe tribal peoples leads directly to the destruction of tribal peoples. Governments, corporations, and assorted others regularly exploit the idea that tribal peoples are "primitive" in order to remove them from their land or open it up to outsiders, thereby freeing up access to the natural resources on or under their land. Often this is done in the name of "development", justified on the grounds that the so-called "primitive" tribes are backward and out-of-date and need to "catch up" with the rest of us. The consequences for the tribes are almost always catastrophic: Cultural and spiritual alienation. Poverty. Alcoholism. Disease. Death. Buerk could not have chosen a more unfortunate example than the tribes of New Guinea: Evidence suggests that they were practising agriculture thousands of years before anyone in what became the British Isles. The Indonesian government's "transmigration" policy, which has brought millions of Indonesian colonists into West Papua, was, according to one government minister, "probably the only way of getting Stone Age, primitive, and backward people into the mainstream of Indonesian development". What this has actually meant for local Papuans is the loss of their land and economic marginalization -- to say nothing of the imposition of brutal military and police regimes that have intimidated, tortured, and killed about 100,000 Papuan adults and children. Source: Independent (UK) |
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| Affordable Housing Grants Down |
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FRANKLIN COUNTY, PA Commissioners have nearly 30% less money for affordable housing grants this year because of the downturn in the housing market during 2008. Last month, they awarded $120,000 in grant money to five projects.
They also gave the $2,600 left from the 2008 grant to the Indian Lake Camp Corp in Fannettsburg. The corporation that provides drinking water to about 75 mobile homes faces a shortfall. Homeowners are not paying their water bills on time, according to Franklin County planner Dan Wolfe. The county has spent more than $1 million in federal Community Development Block Grants to rebuild the water system in the low-income community. The county approved five projects:
The county gets $13 from the recording of each deed and mortgage. The money goes into the Housing Trust Fund -- $202,000 in 2007 and $143,000 in 2008. Source: Chambersburg Public Opinion |
| China's Water Deficit 'Will Create Food Shortage' |
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BEIJING, CHINA A leading climate change expert has warned that water shortage is the greatest threat to China's agricultural sector this century. The country is undergoing a drought.
As demand for water continues to rise and less is available for agriculture, "China will see a food shortfall of 5% to 10% -- a disastrous outcome in a country of 1.3 billion people -- unless effective and timely measures are taken," said Lin Erda, one of China's top climate change experts and leader of a joint China-UK project. Climate change is affecting an increasingly large area of crop-growing land in China -- up from 3,882 hectares hit by natural disasters in 2005 to 4,899 hectares in 2007, Lin said. "The recent drought, the worst in half a century, is just a fresh reminder," said Lin. "As climate change sets in, we can expect more frequent and damaging droughts in the northern part of China." When the current episode of drought reached its peak in early February it was affecting 1.6 million hectares of farmland in at least 12 provinces in northern China -- considered the country's breadbasket. Thanks to snow and rainfall later in the month, the affected area dropped to 497,000 hectares across eight provinces. China can expect an increase of 7% to 10% in annual precipitation across the country in the coming decades, according to a 2007 government report evaluating the possible results of climate change. "However," Lin said, "most parts in China, especially north areas, will get drier." This is because the higher temperatures will increase water consumption, evaporation, and plant transpiration rates. The recent lack of rainfall has merely exacerbated -- and will continue to exacerbate -- a long-term problem in a naturally dry region where consumption has soared thanks to intensive agriculture, industry, and an increasingly urbanized population, Lin said. The northern half of China has less than 20% of the nation's water, yet it's home to more than 40% of the population, much industry, and over 50% of arable land, according to dry-land farming expert Shan Lun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He says that this has resulted in a water deficit in the North China Plain exceeding 40 billion tons per year. Based on experiments simulating future atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, Lin and his colleagues estimate that China's harvests will decrease 14% to 23% by 2050 due to climate change. Source: Science and Development Network |
| Groups Oppose Revival of Fairness Doctrine |
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WASHINGTON, DC A move to require broadcasters to provide equal time to all sides of controversial issues has religious radio programs worried, even though no formal proposal has been introduced and the White House likely wouldn't support one. At issue is the idea of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, which policed public airwaves from 1949 to 1987 in hopes of giving voice to all sides of an issue. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) scrapped the policy when it was judged ineffective and a possible violation of free-speech rights.
Reviving the policy has been popular among liberals who feel shut out of conservative-dominated talk radio. It has also attracted the support of everyone from former President Bill Clinton to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "You either ought to have the Fairness Doctrine or we ought to have more balance on the other side," Clinton told radio talk show host Mario Solis Marsh on Febuary 15. "Because essentially, there's always been a lot of big money to support the right-wing talk shows." Though fears about a resurrected Fairness Doctrine have circulated for years, concern grew in recent months after Democrats won the White House and solid majorities in Congress. Two Senate Democrats -- Debbie Stabenow (MI) and Tom Harkin (IA) -- also both recently made comments to liberal radio host Bill Press about reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. That's enough to worry Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy at Focus on the Family Action. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson built his career on the airwaves; Focus programs reach 220 million listeners in 155 countries, according to the group. "The idea that serious politicians would try to take a huge bite out of the First Amendment takes my breath away," Minnery said. "I hope they try it, because I believe this is a fight they cannot win, and it will expose the liberal element for what it is -- highly intolerant." Michael DePrimo, special counsel for the Mississippi-based American Family Association, said reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would quell Christian talk radio. "We wouldn't want to run another program with a contrary viewpoint. That would defeat the purpose of our ministry," DePrimo said. "It would be very problematic for us to give equal time to those who do not share our religious beliefs." What's more, Ashley Horne, a federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family, said the Fairness Doctrine would gut Christian programming of its Christian content: "They would rather not air a topic on abortion or homosexual marriage because that would require them to air time on a group that violates their beliefs." Still, all the talk about resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine is just that. The idea has yet to gain serious traction on Capitol Hill, at the FCC or the White House. In fact, President Obama is skeptical about the need for a renewed Fairness Doctrine. According to White House spokesman Ben LaBolt, "As the president stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated." Even some liberal groups, including the Washington-based Center for American Progress, don't support the Fairness Doctrine. CAP said in a position paper, "Simply reinstating the Fairness Doctrine will do little to address the gap between conservative and progressive talk ..." In addition, legal scholars aren't sure the Fairness Doctrine would survive a court challenge, never mind the thorny legislative and political process of reviving it. Gene Policinski, vice president of the First Amendment Center of the Freedom Foundation, said, "I think there are some significant hurdles to adoption." Even so, religious broadcasters are rallying their supporters to keep the Fairness Doctrine dead. The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative law firm founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, has collected 230,000 signatures in support of the Broadcaster Freedom Act, introduced by Rep Mike Pence (R-IN), which would prevent the Fairness Doctrine from returning. Source: Religion News Service |
| New Jamaican Governor General Launches Nation-Building Campaign |
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KINGSTON, JAMAICA Jamaica's new Governor General, Dr Patrick Allen, has encouraged Jamaicans to start an "I believe" campaign as a means of healing the land, which he said had been broken by violence, strife and poverty. Speaking immediately after he was sworn in as the country's sixth Governor General, Allen said that the words "I believe" must be "etched in every classroom, the screensaver on every computer and cellphone, it must be internalized in the heart of every student until dreams are born in the hearts of our children as to whom they can become and the contribution they can make to the development of their nation. It must be the theme in the morning papers and the optimism of the evening news until the waves wash away our shame and we evolve into a nation destined for greatness."
The new Governor General said that he would seek the re-commitment of all Jamaicans to build a great society. "This is a Jamaican dream that has again been realized today. Marcus Garvey was indeed right when he said 'We can accomplish what we will'." Source: Caribbean Net News |
| Puerto Rico Unveils Job Cuts Plan |
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SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO The governor of Puerto Rico has unveiled plans to cut 30,000 public sector jobs and raise taxes to confront a "bankrupt government" in the US territory. Luis Fortuno said he aimed to slash spending by $2 billion and that layoffs would start in July. He also announced plans to jump-start the economy, which has been in recession for three years.
He said failure to act would do massive damage to the economy, which could take a decade to recover. He said the measures were necessary despite about $5 billion earmarked for Puerto Rico in President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus package over the next two years. "The government is too big and spends too much," said the governor in a half-hour televised address. "Simply, the government has to be minimized." He added, "We all must confront the reality of a bankrupt government and work together to return progress, opportunity, and your future to you. The government may be bankrupt, but Puerto Rico is not." About 218,000 people -- or 21% of Puerto Rico's work force -- work for the government, making it the self-governing territory's main employer. The proposed job cuts -- equivalent to 14% of the public work force -- will not include police officers and teachers. Economic experts have been advising Puerto Rico to cut its public payroll for years. It currently has a budget deficit of $3.2 billion. The governor said wages and benefits would be frozen during the next two years. He also said he would impose a two-year ban on tax credits to many businesses and implement a two-year 5% tax on banks, corporations, insurance companies, and co-operatives, as well as on individuals earning $100,000 annually. Taxes will also be increased on cigarettes and alcohol to pay for a healthcare program for the poor. Political opponents and union leaders said they would fight the governor's plans. A public protest is planned for Friday. Source: BBC |
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