| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| November 25, 2009 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 13 Number 10 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Somalia to Join Child Rights Pact |
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GENEVA, SWITZERLAND Somalia has announced it plans to ratify a global treaty aimed at protecting children, leaving the United States as the only country outside the pact, said UNICEF on Friday. Somalia and the US have long been the last hold-outs to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
The most widely ratified international human rights treaty, the CRC declares that those under 18 years old must be protected from violence, exploitation, discrimination, and neglect. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly exactly 30 years ago. "Adherence to and application of the Convention will be of crucial importance for the children of Somalia, who are gravely affected by the ongoing conflict, recurrent natural disasters, and chronic poverty," said UNICEF in a statement welcoming the move. In 2002, Somalia's previous transitional government signed the CRC, which the US also signed under President Bill Clinton in 1995. Neither has ratified it. UNICEF said Somalia's transitional government had told it that the "Somali cabinet of ministers has agreed in principle to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child". Spokeswoman Veronique Taveau told a news briefing in Geneva, "The United States has indicated that a very important review process is going on at the moment in order to arrive as quickly as possible at ratification". Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for the US mission to the UN in New York, said on Thursday the administration of President Barack Obama was "committed to undertaking a thorough and thoughtful review of the Convention on the Rights of the Child". Source: Reuters |
| Hunger in US Hits 14-Year High |
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WASHINGTON, DC The number of Americans who lacked reliable access to sufficient food shot up last year to its highest point since the government began surveying in 1995, the Agriculture Department reported on Nov 16. In its annual report on hunger, the department said that 17 million American households, or 14.6% of the total, "had difficulty putting enough food on the table at times during the year." That was an increase from 13 million households, or 11.1%, the previous year.
The results provided a more human sense of the costs of a recession that has officially ended but continues to take a daily toll on households. It describes the plight not of a faceless General Motors or AIG but of families with too little food on their children's plates. Indeed, while children are usually shielded from the worst effects of deprivation, many more were affected last year than the year before. The number of households in which both adults and children experienced "very low food security" rose by more than half, to 506,000 in 2008 from 323,000 in 2007, according to the report. Overall, one-third of all the families that are affected by hunger, or 6.7 million households, were classified as having very low food security, meaning that members of the household had too little to eat or saw their eating habits disrupted during 2008. That was 2 million households more than in 2007. In a statement, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack emphasized the administration's efforts to combat hunger by creating jobs, providing job training, extending unemployment benefits, and taking other measures. He called hunger "a problem that the American sense of fairness should not tolerate and American ingenuity can overcome." During his campaign, President Obama promised to eliminate hunger among American children by 2015. The administration has yet to offer a detailed plan to do so. The report underscores the daunting dimensions of the challenge. Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America, a nonprofit organization with a national network of more than 200 food banks, said that the Agriculture Department probably understated the problem. With unemployment and other economic indicators continuing to worsen in 2009, she said, "there are likely many more people struggling with hunger than this report states." In September, the group found a sharp increase in requests for emergency food assistance. The food banks in its network reported an average increase in need of nearly 30% this year over 2008. "National socioeconomic indicators, including the escalating unemployment rate and the number of working poor, lead us to believe that the number of people facing hunger will continue to rise significantly over the coming year," added Escarra. The Agriculture Department report was issued as a World Summit on Food Security was opening in Rome. Jacques Diouf, director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, has urged governments to invest $44 billion a year to end chronic hunger afflicting an estimated 1 billion people. But as Bloomberg News reported, a draft of the session's final declaration included promises of reinforced government efforts to sharply reduce world hunger but made no mention of new financial commitments. Source: New York Times |
| Reforms Found to Have Helped India's Poor |
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Adapted from a piece by author and Times of India columnist Gurcharan Das:
If only we would pause and look beyond the horizon of day-to-day events, we would see a trend of great significance. More people on the earth have risen out of poverty in the past 25 years than at any other time in history. One of the primary factors has been India's high economic growth since 1991. Two experts on poverty have come up with new research which shows that this growth is, indeed, pro-poor and has decisively reduced poverty. Gaurav Datt and Martin Ravallion, both respected economists, employed a new series of consumption-based poverty measures from 1950 to 2006 and 47 rounds of National Sample Surveys, to show that slightly more than one person in two lived below the poverty line in India during the 1950s and '60s. By 1990, this had fallen to one person in three. By 2005, it fell again, and only one in five persons now lives below the poverty line. The authors conclude that "the post-reform process of urban economic growth has brought significant gains to the rural poor as well as the urban poor". The poor in urban and rural areas are now linked through trade, migration, and transfers, which explains why rising standards in India's towns are helping to reduce poverty in the villages. Even though agricultural growth has been relatively weak since 1991, overall high growth has affected positively the lives of the rural masses. This is an outcome that the reformers dreamt of. They believed that the reforms would create a more efficient and productive economy, which would raise the overall growth rate and transform both urban and rural society. This had happened during the great transformations which occurred in the West during the 19th century and in East Asia in the second half of the 20th century. It is now happening in India. An earlier study by the two economists examined the period prior to 1991 when the economy grew more slowly. India's per capita GDP grew at an annual rate of barely 1% in the 1960s and 1970s; it picked up to 3% in the 1980s; and it accelerated to 4-5% after 1991. In the pre-1991 period, modest urban growth brought little or no benefit to the rural poor. Rural poverty decreased only through rural growth, such as the green revolution. High growth after 1991 seems to be different -- it has pro-poor backward linkages to the rural economy. Hence, the effort to create a more productive economy through reform is benefiting the poor. Now India has a plausible dream of becoming a middle-class country. Source: Gurcharan Das |
| Low-Cost Plan Could Revive Camden's Broadway |
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CAMDEN, NJ When Sue Brennan was growing up, Camden's main north-south artery, Broadway, was the place to see and be seen. Brennan remembers taking the bus there with her grandmother in the '60s to shop at Lit Brothers department store. Stores, movie theaters, and businesses lined both sides of the street all the way from downtown to South Camden. "It was a hopping place."
Today, decaying buildings and long expanses of vacant land flank the street, with a few stores and take-out joints in between. Some blocks are hot spots for drugs and prostitution. But Brennan believes Broadway can be revived. She's leading an effort by the nonprofit Greater Camden Partnership to do that. One part of her plan -- a beautification program -- will start this winter thanks to a $5,800 grant received on Thursday from the Camden Neighborhood Revitalization Corp. The money will purchase flower planters and light post banners for the nine-block stretch between Martin Luther King Blvd and Pine St. "The idea is to help to build the sense of optimism that this is a place with a bright future," said Frank Fulbrook, the corporation's president. Fulbrook established the nonprofit in 2002 as part of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit he filed to keep billboards from blocking the view. Most of the $210,000 settlement has already been distributed to about a dozen projects in the city, including a new roof for an East Camden community center, safety upgrades to allow a church to host youth programs, and application fees to designate the library as a historic landmark. Brennan said the funding she received will be targeted at the section of Broadway closest to downtown to complement nearby developments. Banners and planters are little things, Brennan said, but making Broadway look better is an easy way to appeal to potential shoppers and business owners. Brennan said she's already noticed a difference since the partnership's "Clean and Safe Team" began picking up trash and patrolling the area last fall. She said that their presence encouraged about 10 business owners to do some sprucing up of their own, from painting storefronts to cleaning out display windows. Brennan has also been helping Broadway business owners take advantage of workshops, Web seminars, and technical support offered through Main Street New Jersey, a state revitalization program that promotes economic redevelopment in historic business districts. Broadway was designated as a "Main Street" corridor in 2004. New banners proclaiming Broadway "a symphony of art, taste and tradition" should be up before the end of the year, Brennan said. Ultimately, she said, the goal is to make the area so nice that new businesses will start filling in the vacant lots. Source: Courier-Post |
| Cholera Outbreaks Linked to River Flow |
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NEW DELHI, INDIA The severity of cholera outbreaks can be linked to the rate at which rivers flow, scientists have
found. Scientists of Tufts University, United States, analyzed Bangladesh's two seasonal cholera outbreaks -- one around March and a second in September-October -- using cholera data from the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research (ICDDR) between 1980 and 2000, and water records from the country's hydrology department.
Cholera, caused by the aquatic bug Vibrio cholerae, spreads through contaminated food and water. It has re-emerged as a major killer in recent decades, with the number of cases up 10% between 2007 and 2008, at 200,000, and the number of deaths up by more than a quarter at 5,000. The team found a link between the severity of the two outbreaks and the volume of water flowing in the deltas of Bangladesh's three major rivers: the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna. The March outbreak coincides with low water levels in the rivers. The team suggests that the lower the water level, the more sea water seeps in from the Bay of Bengal, carrying the microscopic plants and animals that harbour Vibrio cholerae, spreading infection. Severe October outbreaks are linked to high flood years, when fecal contamination in the rivers enters drinking-water sources. The team says its findings can be used to develop an early warning system for cholera. Shafiqul Islam, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the university and lead author of the report, said, "We need a cholera warning system to control outbreaks and minimize their impact by prior planning and implementing effective interventions." It is unlikely that cholera will ever be eradicated, he said, because the germs thrive in sea water, where they cannot be controlled and newer types continually emerge. But environmental indicators provide advanced warning and can be applied to any region. Recent research by the ICDDR has also linked cholera outbreaks in Bangladesh to hours of sunshine and temperature in spring and autumn. Mohammad Yunus, senior scientist at the ICDDR's public health sciences division, said that increases in sea surface temperature and river height also influence outbreaks in Vietnam. Yunus points out such insights will be meaningful only if scientists monitoring environmental indicators inform public health scientists dealing with outbreaks on the ground. Some cholera outbreaks have more to do with public health infrastructure breakdown, he added. He cited the example of Zimbabwe, where ICDDR scientists are helping build local capacity in clinical examination and detection. Source: SciDev.net |
| Soup Kitchen Closes After Less Than a Year |
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PENNSVILLE TWP, NJ After not even a year of service, the soup kitchen at the Queen of Apostles Church RC Church here has closed. Pastor Father Dennis Bajkowski said, "First off, and not necessarily in this order, we closed because of lack of volunteers, transportation, and it being in the wrong location."
The soup kitchen opened in February with the goal of feeding the hungry in a time when the sour economy has taken such a financial toll on so many families. Many felt it was a much-needed service in the area. The soup kitchen committee had originally planned to keep serving food through the end of December. But there was such a small turnout that they decided to go ahead and close up shop. Said Bajkowski, "We tried to keep it open to the end, but why prolong it?" Bajkowski said transportation and the location were a big reason for the lack of residents turning out to the dinners. He feels a soup kitchen would be better suited for a location such as Salem City or Penns Grove. Just a few months ago the committee was hoping to see a greater turnout in hopes of keeping the soup kitchen alive. However, as time has gone on they began delivering more meals than they served at the church. In total they were serving roughly 30 people each week, but most of the meals were delivered. They thought about staying open until at least after Thanksgiving, but there simply weren't enough people coming to the meals. "We thought about waiting until after Thanksgiving, but the bottom line is on Sunday the same two people were coming and on Wednesday we were getting the same two to three people," said Bajkowski. "It was taking a toll." As for the food that was left over, as a lot of food had been donated, it will be distributed for other programs to use. Bajkowski said they will keep some of the food at the church if people call and need it. Bajkowski said he doesn't know if a different soup kitchen location would be successful. "I still don't know what happened to the Oasis and why it closed." The Oasis Soup Kitchen, which was in Salem, closed almost two years ago. "If that or another one were to open, we could partner with them and volunteer wherever it is located." Source: Today's Sunbeam |
| Scholar Pledges More Than Half His Life Earnings |
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LONDON, ENGLAND An ethics researcher has vowed to give away £1 million, more than half of his future earnings, in a bid to fight
poverty in the developing world. Dr Toby Ord, an academic at Oxford University, pledged to give up 10% of his annual salary, plus any yearly earnings above £20,000, for the rest of his career.
He calculated he should earn about £1.5 million and said he realized that if he was to continue living modestly he would be able to give away £1 million of this to help others. He said that the launch of his Giving What We Can society will encourage others to do the same. Ord, a 30-year-old research associate at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, said, "Life on my current income is very good. If I spent the extra money on myself I could go on holiday more often, get an iPhone, eat out at expensive restaurants. It would be nice, but not all that much better. "So I have a choice between greatly improving the lives of tens of thousands of people or adding a few extras to my life. Put like that, it is an easy choice. "Once you get used to the idea, it is actually not much of a burden. "I feel much more purposeful in life. What is difficult is agonizing over whether you can justify each luxury. By making a pledge, you don't have to do that anymore: You just live within your new means. By standing together as a group, we hope to make others see giving this much as a real option and to encourage charities to be more efficient in their programs so as to attract our giving." Source: Press Association Ltd |
| These Food Pantries Aren't Just for Humans |
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ORWIGSBURG, PA In some needy families, four-legged members feel the pinch just as much as their owners. So Brunswick Veterinary Hospital, just outside Orwigsburg, is aiding families with pets by collecting pet food to help stock local food pantries.
At the pantries, the pet food will be available alongside the usual staples for humans. The hospital said that the drive will continue as long as there is a need. "We read in a magazine that there are so many people not able to feed their animals and that they are either returning them to shelters or even worse, putting them out in the street, hoping neighbors will either take them in or feed them," said Brunswick veterinary technician Amy Schantzenbach. "Some animals are being killed by cars while they are out in the streets, and that is just wrong." Dr Denise Jones and the office staff decided to take action to help as many pets as possible stay with their families. "People still need to donate food to the shelters to help the animals that are there, but we are hoping to keep the animals at home by providing help for the families." Staff at Hillside SPCA think the food drive is a good idea. "In this economy, most of the dogs we have been getting are coming in because people can't afford to feed them or have veterinary care," said kennel technician Anna Coleman. "People are also moving because of the economy and can't take pets or are being evicted." Coleman said the shelter takes in two or three dogs every day. "We would encourage anyone that can help to help," Coleman said. "We run on donations and understand how important it is for people to help in whatever way they can. If someone is offering a way for people to keep their pets, that is always a good thing." Schantzenbach said, "We are trying to also encourage adoption versus buying a pet." Source: Pottsville Republican |
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| Recession Rescues Pose New Risks of Poverty |
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SINGAPORE The post-crisis world economy faces new risks from investment bubbles that risk plunging millions back into poverty, according to World Bank chief Robert Zoellick. He said that while unprecedented fiscal and monetary actions by the US and the rest of the world have rescued the global economy from a deep recession, these have inevitably created risks.
Signs of inflated asset prices are especially evident in Asia, including in China, Hong Kong and Singapore, where property prices and stocks have surged this year, Zoellick wrote in a Financial Times article published today. "Asset bubbles could be the next fragility as the world recovers, threatening again to destroy livelihoods and trap millions more in poverty." He urged central banks and policymakers to deal with the issue quickly or else the unprecedented policies that have steered the global economy to recovery would soon backfire. "Waiting for bubbles to burst and then cleaning up the aftermath is now a new lesson of what not to do." The G-20 had better put asset price bubbles and new growth strategies on its agenda. "Otherwise, the solutions of 2008-09 could plant the seeds of trouble in 2010 and beyond." Adopting a tighter monetary policy when the recovery is still fragile, especially in the US, may derail the upturn and may not necessary be the answer to addressing asset bubbles, said Zoellick. He pointed out that Asian policymakers have embarked on alternatives to deal with asset bubbles in their own backyards. In the case of Singapore, where property prices rose 16% in the third quarter, authorities have resorted to releasing more land for residential projects and stopping buyers from deferring payments until construction is completed. Source: Agence France-Presse |
| New York Labor Department Names Brooklyn Eateries that Underpay |
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PARK SLOPE, NY Sotto Voce in Park Slope, Brooklyn, was one of the restaurants named by the state Labor Department (NYSDOL) for underpaying its workers. They ought to be ashamed.
Nearly two dozen Park Slope restaurants stiffed their own employees nearly $1 million. In some cases, they paid workers as little as $2.75 an hour. "I'm disgusted to hear this," said Laurie Kellogg, 52, of Park Slope, a regular customer at the Olive Vine Café on Fifth Ave, where workers were underpaid more than $200,000, according to the NYSDOL. "I'm going to boycott until they change." NYSDOL investigators conducted a surprise sweep of 23 randomly selected Park Slope restaurants on April 29, sending 16 state agents to interview employees and check payroll documents to make sure workers were being paid in compliance with state law. All but two of the restaurants were charged with minimum wage, overtime, and other basic wage violations. The restaurants included some neighborhood favorites and longtime eateries including Sotto Voce, Sweet Melissa Patisserie, Baluchi's, Aunt Suzie's, and Sette Enoteca e Cucina. Two of the eateries, Olive Vine Café and Coco Roco, were so delinquent that NYSDOL agents investigated sister restaurants in nearby neighborhoods, where they found even more violations. "This is an upscale neighborhood that likes to pride itself on political awareness," said Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith. "We will get the workers every penny that they are owed." In total, 207 workers were underpaid more than $912,237 at the 25 restaurants. At Coco Roco on Fifth Ave., delivery workers were paid less than $3 an hour; dishwashers were paid less than $6 per hour. New York State minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. A Coco Roco manager insisted there had been "a misunderstanding" and that restaurant owners were negotiating with Labor Department officials. Investigators found conditions that were almost as bad at Olive Vine Café, which paid cooks less than $6 per hour. In total, the two Olive Vine Café locations underpaid workers more than $200,000. "I don't have $200,000," said Zaid Demis, 35, owner of Olive Vine Café. "Where the hell am I going to get that?" Demis said that he paid his workers fairly. "Now I'm probably going to have to close my doors if they really insist on me paying." Source: New York Daily News |
| New Greenpeace Leader Wants to Protect Poor from Climate Change |
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JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA The new head of environmental group Greenpeace, South African Kumi Naidoo, says he will prioritize the impact of climate change on the world's poor. Naidoo has a background as an anti-poverty and anti-apartheid campaigner.
He also criticized the US president for failing to make the fate of the earth a priority. He said Barack Obama no longer reflected the urgency about the planet he had during his election campaign. Naidoo is the first African to head Greenpeace since it was founded in 1971. The group has perfected the art of using high-profile media events to exert pressure on politicians and big business. The BBC's Jonah Fisher in South Africa says that for Greenpeace the appointment of Naidoo marks a continuing shift in focus from whaling and nuclear testing to climate change. Naidoo said human existence on the planet was "fundamentally under threat" by climate change. "We are seeing every year now, 300,000 more people dying from what can be described as climate-related impacts. We're talking about climate refugees and so on, connecting all of those existing focus on the environment with human concerns, is both the right thing to do." He said Obama had lost his urgency on the issue. "During his election campaign ... every single speech that he gave, he talked about a planet in peril, referring to climate change. We all understood that he 'got it'." "Anything short of a binding treaty in Copenhagen must be read as a failure of leadership on the part of the political class," the Associated Press quoted him as saying. "We can't change the science. The science is clear. We have to change the politics. If we can't change the politics, then we have to put our energies into changing the politicians." Source: BBC |
| University Gives Homeless Vets a Christmas |
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MISSOULA, MT This holiday season, homeless veterans living at the Valor House will receive gifts donated from the University of Montana (UM) homeless veteran shelter's Adopt-a-Veteran program. The Valor House is a transitional housing program in Missoula that offers affordable apartments to homeless veterans, said Kathy Hall, the house's case manager. The house has 17 apartments and is home to many veterans who have drug and alcohol problems.
"When they come to us they have issues with drugs and they have issues with alcohol," Hall said. "We support them in learning to stay sober." She said the Valor House sets these people up with services like Social Security for those who are eligible, food stamps, and jobs. The holiday gift donation program started 14 years ago as Adopt-a-Family. After the Valor House was completed in September 2005, the housing authority extended the program to include veterans. "These are single adults without any kind of family contact," Hall said. "Many of these guys have not had a personal gift in years." UM's Office for Civic Engagement is working to connect the program to UM's campus community. Ashley Widtfeldt, the office's student coordinator for the program, said that she acts as the middleman by handing out a family or veteran's wish list to campus departments. "Outreach is done primarily to departments," Widtfeldt said, adding that the Valor House has also found individuals in the community to donate gifts. The lists that the departments receive about the family or veteran they've adopted are more like information sheets, with clothing sizes, ages and size of family. The sheets have a practical application. Most of the people in the program need the essentials: razors, jeans, shaving cream and shirts. But there is also a space for a list of hobbies and interests. "I found a guy who donated fishing rods," Hall said. "That's a big deal on the forms this year." Other fishing equipment like rods, fishing line, and lures are also popular on the lists. "Usually there's a need and there's a want," said Lanelle Curry, the assistant to the Provost. "There is something that, to them, seems out of reach." Curry said that the sheet the Office of the Provost received was from a veteran who asked for hygiene products and a CD player. One of the veterans simply asked her for a Griz hat. Hall added that last year the gifts made the veterans so happy, she cried the whole time they were opening them. "The people give them a Christmas." Source: Montana Kaimin |
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