Why We Need to Rise up Against Industrial Agriculture (Again)
By Will Allen, AlterNet.
This article is adapted from Will Allen's new book The War on Bugs (Chelsea Green, 2008).
With one member trimming beef in a cannery, and another working in a sausage factory, the family had a first-hand knowledge of the great majority of Packingtown swindles. For it was the custom, as they found, whenever meat was so spoiled that it could not be used for anything else, either to can it or else chop it up into sausage.
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle described the most disgusting practices in the preparation, preservation, and canning of rotten meat. His expos helped create the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which came into being to watch over food safety issues. That was a hundred years ago. Our food supply is now worse than ever, filled with pesticides and pharmaceuticals that are both unnecessary and which are radically harming our ability to survive in an increasingly fragile planet.
As many people know-or at least suspect-the FDA does not do much to protect us from hidden dangers in our food supply. It exists to protect large businesses, large-scale farmers, and corporations that produce various chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) plays a similar role, as recent reports document.
LINK TO CON.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Saturday, May 03, 2008
The time for Food Sovereignty has come!
Henry Saragih
Dear Mr. Diouf, Mr. Fukuda, and Mr. Ashe,
Our movement, La Via Campesina, consists of millions of small farmers and landless workers in more than 60 countries around the world. Although we are the ones producing food for our families and communities, many of us are hungry or living in poverty. Over the last months, the situation has worsened due to the sudden rise in food prices. We are also severely hit by the crisis because many of us do not have enough land to feed our families, and because most producers do not benefit from those high prices. Large traders, speculators, supermarkets and industrial farms are cashing in on and benefitting from this crisis. This current food crisis is the result of many years of deregulation of agricultural markets, the privatization of state regulatory bodies and the dumping of agricultural products on the markets of developing countries. According to the FAO, liberalized markets have attracted huge cash flows that seek to speculate on agricultural products on the “futures” markets and other financial instruments.
The corporate expansion of agrofuels and the initially enthusiastic support for agrofuels in countries such as the US, EU and Brazil have added to the expectation that land for food will become more and more scarce. On top of this in many southern countries hundreds of thousands of hectares are converted from agricultural uses in an uncontrolled way for so-called economic development zones, urbanization and infrastructure. The ongoing land grabbing by Transnational Companies (TNCs) and other speculators will expel millions more peasants who will end up in the mega cities where they will be added to the ranks of the hungry and poor in the slums. Besides this, we may expect especially in Africa and South Asia more severe droughts and floods caused by global climate change. These are severe threats for the rural as well as for the urban areas.
Click to con.
Henry Saragih
Dear Mr. Diouf, Mr. Fukuda, and Mr. Ashe,
Our movement, La Via Campesina, consists of millions of small farmers and landless workers in more than 60 countries around the world. Although we are the ones producing food for our families and communities, many of us are hungry or living in poverty. Over the last months, the situation has worsened due to the sudden rise in food prices. We are also severely hit by the crisis because many of us do not have enough land to feed our families, and because most producers do not benefit from those high prices. Large traders, speculators, supermarkets and industrial farms are cashing in on and benefitting from this crisis. This current food crisis is the result of many years of deregulation of agricultural markets, the privatization of state regulatory bodies and the dumping of agricultural products on the markets of developing countries. According to the FAO, liberalized markets have attracted huge cash flows that seek to speculate on agricultural products on the “futures” markets and other financial instruments.
The corporate expansion of agrofuels and the initially enthusiastic support for agrofuels in countries such as the US, EU and Brazil have added to the expectation that land for food will become more and more scarce. On top of this in many southern countries hundreds of thousands of hectares are converted from agricultural uses in an uncontrolled way for so-called economic development zones, urbanization and infrastructure. The ongoing land grabbing by Transnational Companies (TNCs) and other speculators will expel millions more peasants who will end up in the mega cities where they will be added to the ranks of the hungry and poor in the slums. Besides this, we may expect especially in Africa and South Asia more severe droughts and floods caused by global climate change. These are severe threats for the rural as well as for the urban areas.
Click to con.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Shortages Threaten Farmers’ Key Tool: Fertilizer
By KEITH BRADSHER and ANDREW MARTIN
XUAN CANH, Vietnam — Truong Thi Nha stands just four and a half feet tall. Her three grown children tower over her, just as many young people in this village outside Hanoi dwarf their parents.
The biggest reason the children are so robust: fertilizer.
Ms. Nha, her face weathered beyond its 51 years, said her growth was stunted by a childhood of hunger and malnutrition. Just a few decades ago, crop yields here were far lower and diets much worse.
Then the widespread use of inexpensive chemical fertilizer, coupled with market reforms, helped power an agricultural explosion here that had already occurred in other parts of the world. Yields of rice and corn rose, and diets grew richer.
Now those gains are threatened in many countries by spot shortages and soaring prices for fertilizer, the most essential ingredient of modern agriculture.
LINK TO CON.
By KEITH BRADSHER and ANDREW MARTIN
XUAN CANH, Vietnam — Truong Thi Nha stands just four and a half feet tall. Her three grown children tower over her, just as many young people in this village outside Hanoi dwarf their parents.
The biggest reason the children are so robust: fertilizer.
Ms. Nha, her face weathered beyond its 51 years, said her growth was stunted by a childhood of hunger and malnutrition. Just a few decades ago, crop yields here were far lower and diets much worse.
Then the widespread use of inexpensive chemical fertilizer, coupled with market reforms, helped power an agricultural explosion here that had already occurred in other parts of the world. Yields of rice and corn rose, and diets grew richer.
Now those gains are threatened in many countries by spot shortages and soaring prices for fertilizer, the most essential ingredient of modern agriculture.
LINK TO CON.
Bullets and Bananas: The Violence of Free Trade in Guatemala
by Cyril Mychalejko
Less than 24 hours after President Bush met with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom at the White House on Monday, a worker from a union that filed a trade complaint with Washington against the Guatemalan government was murdered.
Carlos Enrique Cruz Hernández, a banana worker, was assassinated while working at a farm owned by a subsidiary of Del Monte. Cruz Hernández's Union of Izabal Banana Workers (SITRABI), was one of six Guatemalan unions who, along with the AFL-CIO, filed a complaint allowed through labor provisions of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on April 23, charging that the Guatemalan government was not upholding its labor laws and was failing to investigate and prosecute crimes against union members–which include rape and murder.
The complaint states that violence against trade unionists has increased over the past two years (since CAFTA was ratified) and that the Guatemalan government may be responsible for some of the violence. The violence from this year alone includes 8 murders, 1 attempted murder, 2 drive-by shootings, and the kidnapping and gang rape of a top union official's daughter who was targeted because of her father's union work.
LINK TO CON.
by Cyril Mychalejko
Less than 24 hours after President Bush met with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom at the White House on Monday, a worker from a union that filed a trade complaint with Washington against the Guatemalan government was murdered.
Carlos Enrique Cruz Hernández, a banana worker, was assassinated while working at a farm owned by a subsidiary of Del Monte. Cruz Hernández's Union of Izabal Banana Workers (SITRABI), was one of six Guatemalan unions who, along with the AFL-CIO, filed a complaint allowed through labor provisions of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on April 23, charging that the Guatemalan government was not upholding its labor laws and was failing to investigate and prosecute crimes against union members–which include rape and murder.
The complaint states that violence against trade unionists has increased over the past two years (since CAFTA was ratified) and that the Guatemalan government may be responsible for some of the violence. The violence from this year alone includes 8 murders, 1 attempted murder, 2 drive-by shootings, and the kidnapping and gang rape of a top union official's daughter who was targeted because of her father's union work.
LINK TO CON.
Latin America: Why There's a Water Crisis in the Most Water-Rich Region
By Bart Beeson, North American Congress on Latin America
The 16th commemoration of World Water Day came and went in March with little fanfare. Francisco, a retired construction worker in El Salvador, didn't have much to celebrate anyway. When I spoke with him on the poor outskirts of San Salvador last December, water had not come out of his faucets for months. Despite making minimum wage, or about $161 a month, he still dutifully pays his $7 dollar water bill every month. "I keep paying the bill, because if my service is disconnected, then I'll have to pay even more to get it reconnected," he reasons.
Until the water company decides to fix the neighborhood's water pump, Francisco and his neighbors not only pay a useless water bill, but they are also forced to buy barrels of water from a tanker truck for an additional $1.50. "We don't have any other choice," he explains. "We have to have water."
Water troubles like Francisco's are common throughout Latin America, but the region's citizens are increasingly joining together to do something about it, channeling their frustration into action. Social organizing around water rights is not new in Latin America, but with growing problems of access and contamination, these movements have gained greater urgency, strength, and focus.
One of the most famous victories of this growing upsurge occurred in Uruguay, where organizations successfully organized a national referendum on water rights.
LINK TO CON.
By Bart Beeson, North American Congress on Latin America
The 16th commemoration of World Water Day came and went in March with little fanfare. Francisco, a retired construction worker in El Salvador, didn't have much to celebrate anyway. When I spoke with him on the poor outskirts of San Salvador last December, water had not come out of his faucets for months. Despite making minimum wage, or about $161 a month, he still dutifully pays his $7 dollar water bill every month. "I keep paying the bill, because if my service is disconnected, then I'll have to pay even more to get it reconnected," he reasons.
Until the water company decides to fix the neighborhood's water pump, Francisco and his neighbors not only pay a useless water bill, but they are also forced to buy barrels of water from a tanker truck for an additional $1.50. "We don't have any other choice," he explains. "We have to have water."
Water troubles like Francisco's are common throughout Latin America, but the region's citizens are increasingly joining together to do something about it, channeling their frustration into action. Social organizing around water rights is not new in Latin America, but with growing problems of access and contamination, these movements have gained greater urgency, strength, and focus.
One of the most famous victories of this growing upsurge occurred in Uruguay, where organizations successfully organized a national referendum on water rights.
LINK TO CON.
Artificial Foods and Corporate Crops: Can We Escape the 'Frankenstate'?
By Claire Hope Cummings, Beacon Press.
On a frozen island near the North Pole, a huge hole has been blasted out of the side of an Arctic mountain, and a tunnel has been drilled deep into the rock. When the facility under construction here is completed, it will be lined with one-meter-thick concrete, fitted with two high-security blast-proof airlock doors, and built to withstand nuclear war, global warming, terrorism, and the collapse of the earth's energy supplies.
It's known as the "Doomsday Vault," and in it will be stored millions of seeds and mankind's hope for the future of the world's food supply. The idea is that in the event of massive ecological destruction, those seeds could be used to reconstruct the planet's agricultural systems. Exactly who might remain to begin replanting the earth after such a catastrophe is only one of the questions this astounding project raises. The more immediate question is, are seeds in peril?
The answer is yes, especially the seeds that provide us with food, fiber, and fuel. Both the diversity and the integrity of seeds are threatened, in the wild and on our farms. They are being put at risk by agricultural technologies, patents and corporate ownership, and the overall degradation of the environment. The plight of seeds is one of the most important environmental stories of our time. Until now, however, this critical issue has not received the attention it deserves.
LINK TO CON.
By Claire Hope Cummings, Beacon Press.
On a frozen island near the North Pole, a huge hole has been blasted out of the side of an Arctic mountain, and a tunnel has been drilled deep into the rock. When the facility under construction here is completed, it will be lined with one-meter-thick concrete, fitted with two high-security blast-proof airlock doors, and built to withstand nuclear war, global warming, terrorism, and the collapse of the earth's energy supplies.
It's known as the "Doomsday Vault," and in it will be stored millions of seeds and mankind's hope for the future of the world's food supply. The idea is that in the event of massive ecological destruction, those seeds could be used to reconstruct the planet's agricultural systems. Exactly who might remain to begin replanting the earth after such a catastrophe is only one of the questions this astounding project raises. The more immediate question is, are seeds in peril?
The answer is yes, especially the seeds that provide us with food, fiber, and fuel. Both the diversity and the integrity of seeds are threatened, in the wild and on our farms. They are being put at risk by agricultural technologies, patents and corporate ownership, and the overall degradation of the environment. The plight of seeds is one of the most important environmental stories of our time. Until now, however, this critical issue has not received the attention it deserves.
LINK TO CON.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
By the age of 29
by Mangesh
Gary Larson: After working in a music store and playing his banjo for years, Larson decides he hates his job and starts submitting comics to the Seattle Times under the name Nature’s Way. That strip was later retitled The Far Side.
Shel Silverstein: By 29, Shel had already written a book, recorded a music album, and was regularly contributing articles to a young Chicago magazine called Playboy.
Roald Dahl: Had already served as a pilot in WWII, crashed a plane, lost his eyesight, regained his eyesight, and published a kid’s book.
John Cleese: Earned his law degree, had been in a few successful revues, and was one year away from starting Monty Python.
Woody Allen: Had been writing one-liners and comedy bits for shows like Sid Caesar, Ed Sullivan and other comedy greats since age 19, and was just starting to perform his own stand-up.
Bill Watterson: Just two years into drawing Calvin and Hobbes, the elusive Mr. Watterson had already won the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year (he won it around 28, and is - I think- the youngest recipient of it to date).
LINK TO MORE>
by Mangesh
Gary Larson: After working in a music store and playing his banjo for years, Larson decides he hates his job and starts submitting comics to the Seattle Times under the name Nature’s Way. That strip was later retitled The Far Side.
Shel Silverstein: By 29, Shel had already written a book, recorded a music album, and was regularly contributing articles to a young Chicago magazine called Playboy.
Roald Dahl: Had already served as a pilot in WWII, crashed a plane, lost his eyesight, regained his eyesight, and published a kid’s book.
John Cleese: Earned his law degree, had been in a few successful revues, and was one year away from starting Monty Python.
Woody Allen: Had been writing one-liners and comedy bits for shows like Sid Caesar, Ed Sullivan and other comedy greats since age 19, and was just starting to perform his own stand-up.
Bill Watterson: Just two years into drawing Calvin and Hobbes, the elusive Mr. Watterson had already won the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year (he won it around 28, and is - I think- the youngest recipient of it to date).
LINK TO MORE>
Farm Broadcaster Fired After Ripping Monsanto's Goon Squads
By CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
If you have heard of Learfield Communications, it is probably from listening to college football and basketball games.The Jefferson City, Missouri based Learfield is one of the nation’s largest broadcasters of college sports.But it also produces news programming heard throughout the farm belt.Learfield was started 35 years ago by Clyde Lear and Derry Brownfield.
Lear went on to be the chairman of the company. He bought out his friend and partner Brownfield in 1985.Brownfield went on to do market news reports for the Learfield news division until 1997 or so, when he started broadcasting a daily call-in show called The Common Sense Coalition. Derry Brownfield would broadcast The Common Sense Coalition from the studios of Learfield Communications.
Learfield would subsidize the program and allow Brownfield to use its studios and satellite hook-up. Monsanto happens to be a big advertiser of the Learfield news division – to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Brownfield happens to think that Monsanto is an evil corporation. Therein lies the rub.
LINK TO CON.
By CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
If you have heard of Learfield Communications, it is probably from listening to college football and basketball games.The Jefferson City, Missouri based Learfield is one of the nation’s largest broadcasters of college sports.But it also produces news programming heard throughout the farm belt.Learfield was started 35 years ago by Clyde Lear and Derry Brownfield.
Lear went on to be the chairman of the company. He bought out his friend and partner Brownfield in 1985.Brownfield went on to do market news reports for the Learfield news division until 1997 or so, when he started broadcasting a daily call-in show called The Common Sense Coalition. Derry Brownfield would broadcast The Common Sense Coalition from the studios of Learfield Communications.
Learfield would subsidize the program and allow Brownfield to use its studios and satellite hook-up. Monsanto happens to be a big advertiser of the Learfield news division – to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Brownfield happens to think that Monsanto is an evil corporation. Therein lies the rub.
LINK TO CON.
Back-to-basics biking movement takes hold in cities
'Fixie' riders, seeking adventure, dart through streets with bravura and no brakes.
By Patrik Jonsson
Atlanta - John "2Tone" Woodroof rides his bike the way an intrepid sea captain rides a storm: always moving, eyes peeled to the horizon. Zipping around Atlanta's mean streets, Mr. Woodroof is the epitome of two-wheeled bravura.
He and his comrades match a punk rock aesthetic with a bike courier twist: Their essential fashion statement being scuffed Vans sneakers and leg-hugging jeans, a practical chain-avoiding attire that gives them the profile of asphalt-sailing buccaneers.
But the most impressive piece of Woodroof's outfit is his bicycle: A stripped-down race bike with no brakes and a single-speed, fixed-gear rear hub that, in effect, turns man into a cog of the machine. This is biking at its most primal – no stopping, no coasting with the pedals stationary, no helmets. It's a ride built on adrenaline and danger, like walking across a lava flow in flip flops.
LINK TO CON.
'Fixie' riders, seeking adventure, dart through streets with bravura and no brakes.
By Patrik Jonsson
Atlanta - John "2Tone" Woodroof rides his bike the way an intrepid sea captain rides a storm: always moving, eyes peeled to the horizon. Zipping around Atlanta's mean streets, Mr. Woodroof is the epitome of two-wheeled bravura.
He and his comrades match a punk rock aesthetic with a bike courier twist: Their essential fashion statement being scuffed Vans sneakers and leg-hugging jeans, a practical chain-avoiding attire that gives them the profile of asphalt-sailing buccaneers.
But the most impressive piece of Woodroof's outfit is his bicycle: A stripped-down race bike with no brakes and a single-speed, fixed-gear rear hub that, in effect, turns man into a cog of the machine. This is biking at its most primal – no stopping, no coasting with the pedals stationary, no helmets. It's a ride built on adrenaline and danger, like walking across a lava flow in flip flops.
LINK TO CON.
Avoiding the Abyss
by Dr. Dennis Loo
The most infuriating thing about being an American - if you still have a working conscience - is the fact that our government is getting away with murder ... and torture ... and blatant lying ... and tyranny not seen since the Brits were in charge of the colonies. (Indeed, the situation is much worse today than the situation that provoked the American Revolution!) Worse than Bush and Cheney doing all of these things is the fact that the Democrats and the mass media are letting them do it!
That's worth saying again. What's worse than the monstrous things that this White House gang of war criminals are doing is the fact that the rest of the government and the Fourth Estate are permitting it and colluding in it.
Not only is this worse because it means that there are no "checks and balances" at work and any tyrant could get away with anything. It is also worse because it means that there is a rupture underway in the whole political system. It isn't just Bush and Cheney. It's the whole system.
It's not going to be resolved and made right, therefore, by a new administration taking office. The same forces at work that have allowed Bush and Cheney to do all that they have done are at work to ensure that the next president will carry out the fundamental tenets and precedents that Bush and Cheney have spearheaded.
LINK TO CON.
by Dr. Dennis Loo
The most infuriating thing about being an American - if you still have a working conscience - is the fact that our government is getting away with murder ... and torture ... and blatant lying ... and tyranny not seen since the Brits were in charge of the colonies. (Indeed, the situation is much worse today than the situation that provoked the American Revolution!) Worse than Bush and Cheney doing all of these things is the fact that the Democrats and the mass media are letting them do it!
That's worth saying again. What's worse than the monstrous things that this White House gang of war criminals are doing is the fact that the rest of the government and the Fourth Estate are permitting it and colluding in it.
Not only is this worse because it means that there are no "checks and balances" at work and any tyrant could get away with anything. It is also worse because it means that there is a rupture underway in the whole political system. It isn't just Bush and Cheney. It's the whole system.
It's not going to be resolved and made right, therefore, by a new administration taking office. The same forces at work that have allowed Bush and Cheney to do all that they have done are at work to ensure that the next president will carry out the fundamental tenets and precedents that Bush and Cheney have spearheaded.
LINK TO CON.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Suit accuses cosmetic makers of organic ruse
Ilana DeBare, Chronicle Staff Writer
A long-simmering dispute over the definition of organic personal care products boiled over into court Monday, when Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps filed a lawsuit charging many of its competitors with deceptively marketing their soaps and lotions.
The lawsuit - filed in San Francisco Superior Court - targeted many widely known cosmetic manufacturers including Estee Lauder, Kiss My Face, Hain Celestial and Stella McCartney America. It also named smaller firms such as Mill Valley-based Juice Beauty.
In the suit, Dr. Bronner's accused the firms of false advertising by labeling products "organic" that contain relatively little organic material, that contain synthetic chemicals, or that use petrochemicals in processing.
LINK TO CON.
Ilana DeBare, Chronicle Staff Writer
A long-simmering dispute over the definition of organic personal care products boiled over into court Monday, when Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps filed a lawsuit charging many of its competitors with deceptively marketing their soaps and lotions.
The lawsuit - filed in San Francisco Superior Court - targeted many widely known cosmetic manufacturers including Estee Lauder, Kiss My Face, Hain Celestial and Stella McCartney America. It also named smaller firms such as Mill Valley-based Juice Beauty.
In the suit, Dr. Bronner's accused the firms of false advertising by labeling products "organic" that contain relatively little organic material, that contain synthetic chemicals, or that use petrochemicals in processing.
LINK TO CON.
Report Targets Costs Of Factory Farming
By Rick Weiss
Factory farming takes a big, hidden toll on human health and the environment, is undermining rural America's economic stability and fails to provide the humane treatment of livestock increasingly demanded by American consumers, concludes an independent, 2 1/2 -year analysis that calls for major changes in the way corporate agriculture produces meat, milk and eggs.
The report released yesterday, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, finds that the "economies of scale" used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs.
Among those costs are human illnesses caused by drug-resistant bacteria associated with the rampant use of antibiotics on feedlots and the degradation of land, water and air quality caused by animal waste too intensely concentrated to be neutralized by natural processes.
Several observers said the report, by experts with varying backgrounds and allegiances, is remarkable for the number of tough recommendations that survived the grueling research and review process, which participants said was politically charged and under constant pressure from powerful agricultural interests.
In the end, however, even industry representatives on the panel agreed to such controversial recommendations as a ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals -- a huge hit against veterinary pharmaceutical companies -- a phaseout of all intensive confinement systems that prevent the free movement of farm animals, and more vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws in the increasingly consolidated agricultural arena.
LINK TO CON.
By Rick Weiss
Factory farming takes a big, hidden toll on human health and the environment, is undermining rural America's economic stability and fails to provide the humane treatment of livestock increasingly demanded by American consumers, concludes an independent, 2 1/2 -year analysis that calls for major changes in the way corporate agriculture produces meat, milk and eggs.
The report released yesterday, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, finds that the "economies of scale" used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs.
Among those costs are human illnesses caused by drug-resistant bacteria associated with the rampant use of antibiotics on feedlots and the degradation of land, water and air quality caused by animal waste too intensely concentrated to be neutralized by natural processes.
Several observers said the report, by experts with varying backgrounds and allegiances, is remarkable for the number of tough recommendations that survived the grueling research and review process, which participants said was politically charged and under constant pressure from powerful agricultural interests.
In the end, however, even industry representatives on the panel agreed to such controversial recommendations as a ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals -- a huge hit against veterinary pharmaceutical companies -- a phaseout of all intensive confinement systems that prevent the free movement of farm animals, and more vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws in the increasingly consolidated agricultural arena.
LINK TO CON.
Drought Is Spurring Resource Wars
By Ernest Waititu
DUBLUCK, Ethiopia -- On a warm January afternoon in southern Ethiopia, thousands of ill-tempered livestock stand in groups with the pastoralists who have guided them for dozens of miles to drink. The animals dot an expansive field of Acacia trees, severed bits and pieces of dead grass and dust.
Earlier in the day thousands of young goats, sheep and calves took turns to have their fill of water. And the show will not end with the cattle; camels are still waiting in line. For being the best able to resist drought, now they will be last.
As the sun beats down, a human chain of water fetchers forms a line down the gullies and sings work songs to help keep rhythm during the backbreaking work of drawing water from the wells and delivering it to the troughs on the surface -- sometimes from a depth of about 160 feet. This cluster of "singing wells," along with a mechanical well built by the Ethiopian government, are the only things standing between the thousands of animals here and death. Still, this is only the wind before the storm as the animals have to endure three more months of unprecedented drought before the rainy season begins.
LINK TO CON.
By Ernest Waititu
DUBLUCK, Ethiopia -- On a warm January afternoon in southern Ethiopia, thousands of ill-tempered livestock stand in groups with the pastoralists who have guided them for dozens of miles to drink. The animals dot an expansive field of Acacia trees, severed bits and pieces of dead grass and dust.
Earlier in the day thousands of young goats, sheep and calves took turns to have their fill of water. And the show will not end with the cattle; camels are still waiting in line. For being the best able to resist drought, now they will be last.
As the sun beats down, a human chain of water fetchers forms a line down the gullies and sings work songs to help keep rhythm during the backbreaking work of drawing water from the wells and delivering it to the troughs on the surface -- sometimes from a depth of about 160 feet. This cluster of "singing wells," along with a mechanical well built by the Ethiopian government, are the only things standing between the thousands of animals here and death. Still, this is only the wind before the storm as the animals have to endure three more months of unprecedented drought before the rainy season begins.
LINK TO CON.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Grain Market Manipulation = Petrofraud Redux
by Michael Fox
"This money is going to help Americans offset the high prices we're seeing at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and will also give our economy a boost to help us pull out of this economic slowdown.” President George W. Bush, Friday, April 25, 2008 announcing that the “stimulus package” tax rebate checks would begin to be distributed this week.
For once, I think he is being totally honest. This money is going – quite specifically – to your gasoline bill and your grocery bill. And the only reason is that those very commodity markets are being shamefully manipulated. This is a swindle, plain and simple, but one with an unprecedented dynamic: Imagine if a bank robber [Bush] not only robbed the bank, but did so with the permission of the Bank’s president, who went so far as to borrow the money [Pelosi] for the thief to steal! That’s what’s happening here! Here, then, the result…
“…the gas pump”
LINK TO CON.
by Michael Fox
"This money is going to help Americans offset the high prices we're seeing at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and will also give our economy a boost to help us pull out of this economic slowdown.” President George W. Bush, Friday, April 25, 2008 announcing that the “stimulus package” tax rebate checks would begin to be distributed this week.
For once, I think he is being totally honest. This money is going – quite specifically – to your gasoline bill and your grocery bill. And the only reason is that those very commodity markets are being shamefully manipulated. This is a swindle, plain and simple, but one with an unprecedented dynamic: Imagine if a bank robber [Bush] not only robbed the bank, but did so with the permission of the Bank’s president, who went so far as to borrow the money [Pelosi] for the thief to steal! That’s what’s happening here! Here, then, the result…
“…the gas pump”
LINK TO CON.
Corporate Vultures Lurk Behind the World Food Crisis
By Anuradha Mittal, AlterNet.
UN agencies are meeting in Berne to tackle the world food price crisis. Heads of International Financial Institutions (IFIs), including Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank (former U.S. trade representative) and Pascal Lamy, WTO's Director General, are among the attendees. Will the "battle plan" emerging from the Swiss capital, a charming city with splendid sandstone buildings and far removed from the grinding poverty and hunger which has reduced people to eating mud cakes in Haiti and scavenging garbage heaps, be more of the same -- promote free trade to deal with the food crisis?
The growing social unrest against food prices has forced governments to take policy measures such as export bans, to fulfill domestic needs. This has created uproar among policy circles as fear of trade being undermined sets in. "The food crisis of 2008 may become a challenge to globalization," exclaims The Economist in its April 17, 2008 issue. Not surprisingly then, the "Doha Development Round" which has been in a stalemate since the collapse of the 2003 WTO Ministerial in Cancun, largely due to the hypocrisy of agricultural polices of the rich nations, is being resuscitated as a solution to rising food prices.
Speaking at the Center for Global Development, Zoellick passionately argued that the time was "now or never" for breaking the Doha Round impasse and reaching a global trade deal. Pascal Lamy has argued, "At a time when the world economy is in rough waters, concluding the Doha Round can provide a strong anchor." Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the IMF, has claimed: "No one should forget that all countries rely on open trade to feed their populations. [...] Completing the Doha round would play a critically helpful role in this regard, as it would reduce trade barriers and distortions and encourage agricultural trade."
LINK TO CON.
By Anuradha Mittal, AlterNet.
UN agencies are meeting in Berne to tackle the world food price crisis. Heads of International Financial Institutions (IFIs), including Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank (former U.S. trade representative) and Pascal Lamy, WTO's Director General, are among the attendees. Will the "battle plan" emerging from the Swiss capital, a charming city with splendid sandstone buildings and far removed from the grinding poverty and hunger which has reduced people to eating mud cakes in Haiti and scavenging garbage heaps, be more of the same -- promote free trade to deal with the food crisis?
The growing social unrest against food prices has forced governments to take policy measures such as export bans, to fulfill domestic needs. This has created uproar among policy circles as fear of trade being undermined sets in. "The food crisis of 2008 may become a challenge to globalization," exclaims The Economist in its April 17, 2008 issue. Not surprisingly then, the "Doha Development Round" which has been in a stalemate since the collapse of the 2003 WTO Ministerial in Cancun, largely due to the hypocrisy of agricultural polices of the rich nations, is being resuscitated as a solution to rising food prices.
Speaking at the Center for Global Development, Zoellick passionately argued that the time was "now or never" for breaking the Doha Round impasse and reaching a global trade deal. Pascal Lamy has argued, "At a time when the world economy is in rough waters, concluding the Doha Round can provide a strong anchor." Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the IMF, has claimed: "No one should forget that all countries rely on open trade to feed their populations. [...] Completing the Doha round would play a critically helpful role in this regard, as it would reduce trade barriers and distortions and encourage agricultural trade."
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Monday, April 28, 2008
Uighurs struggle in a world reshaped by Chinese influx
In China's far west, the Muslim ethnic group finds itself relegated to menial jobs. Chinese officials also restrict religious practice and use of their language in schools.
By Peter Ford
Kucha, China - King Daoud Mehsut of Kucha, 12th in his royal line and the last man still alive in China to have sat on a monarch's throne, is a man of noble bearing and proud visage.
The old man's fate, however, is dispiriting. Once a leader of his Uighur people – the Muslim ethnic group that predominates in this far western province of Xinjiang – King Daoud is now wheeled out by two young Chinese female assistants presenting him as a tourist attraction to visitors prepared to buy a 200 RMB ($28.60) ticket. "I get a cut," he says simply.
King Daoud's humiliation, say some Uighurs (prounced WEE-gur), is a sign of what is in store for their culture as a whole in the face of the Chinese government's relentless drive to settle more and more ethnic Han Chinese in traditionally Uighur territory, rich in oil and minerals.
"We feel like foreigners in our own land," complains one Uighur teacher in the provincial capital of Urumqi, who offers only a nickname, Batur, for fear of angering the authorities. "We are like the Indians in America." Or Tibetans in Tibet. "Most Uighurs sympathize with the Tibetans," says Batur. "We feel we are all under the same sort of rule."
LINK TO CON.
In China's far west, the Muslim ethnic group finds itself relegated to menial jobs. Chinese officials also restrict religious practice and use of their language in schools.
By Peter Ford
Kucha, China - King Daoud Mehsut of Kucha, 12th in his royal line and the last man still alive in China to have sat on a monarch's throne, is a man of noble bearing and proud visage.
The old man's fate, however, is dispiriting. Once a leader of his Uighur people – the Muslim ethnic group that predominates in this far western province of Xinjiang – King Daoud is now wheeled out by two young Chinese female assistants presenting him as a tourist attraction to visitors prepared to buy a 200 RMB ($28.60) ticket. "I get a cut," he says simply.
King Daoud's humiliation, say some Uighurs (prounced WEE-gur), is a sign of what is in store for their culture as a whole in the face of the Chinese government's relentless drive to settle more and more ethnic Han Chinese in traditionally Uighur territory, rich in oil and minerals.
"We feel like foreigners in our own land," complains one Uighur teacher in the provincial capital of Urumqi, who offers only a nickname, Batur, for fear of angering the authorities. "We are like the Indians in America." Or Tibetans in Tibet. "Most Uighurs sympathize with the Tibetans," says Batur. "We feel we are all under the same sort of rule."
LINK TO CON.
The Politics of Food is Politics
An Alternative Agriculture is Possible
By DE CLARKE and STAN GOFF
In recent days, we have seen the rising price of oil and the devaluation of the dollar create two quantum shifts in the economy: the beginning of the collapse of the air travel industry and a global crisis of food-price inflation. These are related in ways that are crucial to understand — because we are seeing the outlines of an historic opportunity to change the terms of theory and practice for a politics of resistance. As air carriers have gone bankrupt, the knock-on effects on travel agents, airports, airport-colocated hotels, “package” vacation resorts, etc. are considerable.
This is how one cascade pours into another, as the manifold contradictions of our global system merge and co-amplify. Tourism, which was supposed to be a relatively benign, non-extractive industry for colonized nations — an alternative to brutal extraction and cash cropping — turns out to have been just as extractive all along due to the climate (and cultural) damage done by commodified air travel.
The end of cheap air tourism may seem like a good thing. And yet the collapse of tourism, in economies where the culture and scenery have become a last-ditch cash crop, can have effects just as disastrous as the collapse of any other external commodity market in a country that has been sucked into the undertow of global capitalism.
LINK TO CON.
An Alternative Agriculture is Possible
By DE CLARKE and STAN GOFF
In recent days, we have seen the rising price of oil and the devaluation of the dollar create two quantum shifts in the economy: the beginning of the collapse of the air travel industry and a global crisis of food-price inflation. These are related in ways that are crucial to understand — because we are seeing the outlines of an historic opportunity to change the terms of theory and practice for a politics of resistance. As air carriers have gone bankrupt, the knock-on effects on travel agents, airports, airport-colocated hotels, “package” vacation resorts, etc. are considerable.
This is how one cascade pours into another, as the manifold contradictions of our global system merge and co-amplify. Tourism, which was supposed to be a relatively benign, non-extractive industry for colonized nations — an alternative to brutal extraction and cash cropping — turns out to have been just as extractive all along due to the climate (and cultural) damage done by commodified air travel.
The end of cheap air tourism may seem like a good thing. And yet the collapse of tourism, in economies where the culture and scenery have become a last-ditch cash crop, can have effects just as disastrous as the collapse of any other external commodity market in a country that has been sucked into the undertow of global capitalism.
LINK TO CON.
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