Italy's Great Survivor (NEWS BRIEF/BLOG)

By Alan Fisher

Silvio Berlusconi PHOTO CREDIT: Roberto GimmiAs the official turnout was announced, people cheered and clapped and a few even claimed tears.

Spontaneously, people started bouncing up and down, and a wave spread through the crowd.

That Italian voters would reject the resumption of the country's nuclear power programme was never in doubt. The worry for many was how many people would come out to vote.

A number of parties urged people to stay at home, the prime minister himself didn't vote, preferring to spend Sunday and Monday, the two voting days, at the beach and at the office.

He was hoping the votes would fail to pass the barrier of 50 per cent plus one of the electorate voting. Only when that figure was achieved does the result becoming legally binding.

He failed. The official turnout - 57.2 per cent, the highest in an Italian referendum in almost 20 years.

Valerio Rossi Albertini is perhaps an unlikely character to find in the yes campaign - voting for an end to nuclear power. His is after all, one of Italy's best known nuclear physicists and a senior figure in the national research council.

But his vote was cast with the future in mind.

Germany has rejected nuclear power and is looking at alternative energy. If we restart our programme now and concentrate on nuclear it will be 15 to 20 years before we produce one kilowatt and other countries will be well ahead in developing and using alternatives," he said.

Yet he accepts that the vote rejecting nuclear was not because of the worry of being left behind, but the concern in a country that struggles to clear its streets of trash, where earthquakes are not an uncommon occurrence, that disposing of nuclear waste and dealing with a Japan size disaster was too much of a risk to take.

The nuclear option was just one of four issues on the ballot. As Britain debated the role of the Church in politics, the Catholic Church in Italy led the charge against two proposals to privatise local water companies. Many priests said water was a gift from God and shouldn't be used to produce profits for companies and corporations.

It was a message that struck a chord with voters who rejected the idea.

And then there was the vote on the controversial law which allows politicians to avoid court cases if they can prove they are carrying out government business.  Facing four court cases, one for sex with a minor and three for abuse of power, critics called this a law for Berlusconi himself. The country’s constitutional court had all but scrapped the law, but the people also wanted their say and voted to remove the so called "legitimate impediment" defence which has kept the prime minister from a few court appointments.

When he was told the results, Berlusconi said he accepted the decision, and then went shopping for a necklace.

It was the man regarded as a master political communicator sending a message he was untroubled by such a comprehensive defeat.

But the clean sweep in the referenda and an appalling performance for his party in last month's local elections have left many wondering if Berlusconi is past his sell-by date. His government partners will be worried that his unpopularity could drag them down at the next election, and his own party will be wondering if he remains an asset or a liability.

Silvio Berlusconi is an astute and clever politician. That reputation follows him around. But it is his reputation as a survivor that will be tested most in the months to come.

Originally published by Al Jazeera on June 14, 2011 under Creative Commons Licensing 

Sending Children to School in Uganda, Despite the Odds (PERSPECTIVE)

By Karen Snider

Asa and Titus PHOTO CREDIT: Brian PietersWhen tragedy strikes, I often hear people describe survivors as resilient. I’ve been thinking about what that means and whether that describes the children at an orphanage in Uganda which I support – are the children really resilient or are they mere survivors?

There are 85 children at the Nzirambi Talent Development Centre in Kasese, Uganda, and it’s not unusual for them to be ill at any given time. Just last month, eight newborns were hospitalized with pneumonia, malaria and/or extreme diarrhoea. One of the star students, Ellen, 16, who is in her first semester at senior school, nearly failed her classes because of pneumonia – without access to a doctor for a month.Ellen - PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Pieters

The reality is that children die of these illnesses at alarmingly high rates across much of Africa. In fact, the United Nations Children’s Fund states that four million children under age five die every year; of those, 1.5 million are from Eastern or Southern Africa.

The statistics are equally alarming in Uganda, which ranks as the 19^th worst country in the world for child mortality where 188,000 children die every year before their fifth birthday.  At this orphanage, we’ve lost eight children in the last two years.

With those statistics in mind, it was a relief this week when I got news that all of the newborns who had been hospitalized had recovered and were back home. Ellen is also doing better and has returned to school.

Against all of the odds, these children survived.

But when I think of the older children at the orphanage, including Ellen, I think I understand more what it means to be resilient.

Currently, through the Nzirambi Education Fund, we are sponsoring five youth in their senior levels of school, each of them having been brought to the orphanage as a vulnerable baby.Brenda PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Pieters

Twenty years ago, there was no sponsorship program at the orphanage to provide funds and so the children didn’t always have access to healthcare or nutritious food.

There is no question the children carry emotional scars – this I know as they have shared tears with me telling me about parents lost to AIDS, a parent crippled in a car accident and a polygamous father who would not care for his only daughter after her mother died.

Still, they have thrived and managed to excel in their studies.

Now there are new obstacles for them at school: missing classes due to illness; no extra learning from teachers; overcrowded classes; and they are boarding for the first time away from the orphanage.

When Ellen was ill, I spoke to her by phone. She told me not to worry, that (despite illness so severe she was hallucinating) she will be fine – and more importantly, that she was eager for classes to start again. Before she even finished a round of antibiotics, she was on the bus for the six-hour ride back to school.

To me, that is what resiliency is about.

Doreen PHOTO CREDIT: Brian PietersTime and time again, it’s what we see across Africa and around the world when families are struck with disaster or facing extreme poverty. It’s about surviving the unimaginable and forging ahead -- hopeful, optimistic and eager for future possibilities.  

Just last week, the five youth we are currently supporting returned to school for their second semester. To give them a boost to make it through the school year, we are looking into the possibility of hiring a guidance counsellor who can check in on them to ensure they are healthy and doing well in their classes.  That way, if any problems arise – like one of them needing a doctor or extra tutoring – we can address it more quickly.

Veronica and Steven PHOTO CREDIT: Brian PietersThank you to those of you who continue to support the Nzirambi Education Fund. We've recognized the resiliency of the children and now we have an opportunity to truly help make their dreams come true. They so very much deserve the chance.

Want to be involved? Help send one of our children to school. Donate using PayPal on our blog http://africanwalkabout.blogspot.com or contact NzirambiFund@gmail.com. Also, you can join us on Facebook at http://groups.to/orphans

*After volunteering at the Nzirambi Orphans Talent Development Centre in Uganda, Karen launched an education fund to ensure the older children at the orphanage have access to education beyond primary school. To date, the Nzirambi Fund has paid for five youth to go to school. More funding is required to ensure that all of the 85 children at the orphanage will have access to higher levels of education.

It's Open Season for Paki-bashing (PERSPECTIVE)

By Themrise Khan

Its open season for Paki-bashing. For a term that may have originated in the United Kingdom referring to immigrants of Pakistani origin, this activity now applies to Pakistan as a whole by the rest of the world.

Nicholas Kristof in his June 4 New York Times op-ed referred to Pakistan as “a low-tax laissez-faire Eden.

And in an article "From Abbottabad to Worse” in the July issue of Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens declared that “...our [America’s] blatant manipulation by Pakistan is the most diseased and rotten thing in which the United States has ever involved itself”.

With reactions like these, Pakistan is fast on the verge of becoming a swear word in global vocabulary.

There is no denying that Pakistan has dug its own grave after the Abbotabad incident. There is also no denying that we were given the shovel by someone else. But the fact that we chose to accept that shovel is also a reality that we keep denying ourselves.

But another reality is that Pakistan isn’t doing much to improve the situation either. Speak to most ordinary Pakistanis and hardly one in ten of them will paint you a positive picture. As they swelter in 45 Celsius degree heat without any power, its hard not to be negative, especially when you are surrounded with madness that is often, beyond comprehension.

Only last week, a young man was shot at point blank range and left to die by the Rangers, an elite, para-military security force brought in to counter urban lawlessness. The incident took place in broad daylight, in a posh Karachi neighbourhood in a public park named after Benazir Bhutto. The government covered up the story by claiming he was a criminal killed in a police “encounter”. But morbidly enough, the murder was caught on tape by a television cameraman, exposing the brutality to the world. An inquiry has now been ordered, but most believe, it will be yet another sham cover-up by the state protecting its own violent interests.

Kristof pokes fun at “the hum of diesel generators by night” in affluent Pakistani homes. But only a fraction of Pakistanis are affluent. The rest just want to be like them. The young man who was murdered, probably did too. So do most young men and women in Pakistan, who dream for a better, safer and more respected life. Just like anyone in the United States for that matter.

Interestingly enough, both Kristof and Hitchens point to the flaws in the United States political system that have either contributed to or exacerbated Pakistan’s problems.

Kristof is more subtle in pointing out that current public sector budget cuts are leading to a more inequitable American society, ala Pakistan.

Hitchens on the other hand, is much more gratuitous in making Pakistan out to be the evil witch in a saga that has unwittingly sucked US foreign policy into a downward spiral.

 
But is Pakistan the world’s only problem? And does maniacally using it as an example of the big bad wolf help with ridding it (or the world) of its problem?

Granted, things are now far more exacerbated because of Pakistan’s own domestic policies and complexities. Instances like the Karachi murder and other countless episodes are as dangerous and important an issue for us as finding Osama in our backyard. Which is exactly why Osama’s death did not bring people out onto the streets in Pakistan, as was expected.

But then neither did this year’s national budget, which once again allocated an 11% increase in defense spending, while education was down 1.3% to GDP as compared to last year.

And that is the crux of the matter. The world can bash us as much as they like for being a terrorist state, while completely ignoring their own contributions to the situation. Pakistan does have a counter-answer to these accusations if the latter is pointed out intelligently enough, while accepting our own contribution to it as well. Here, the issue is definitely not one-sided and never was, as history has shown.

But Pakistan has no real answer to the questions Pakistanis themselves pose. Why do we not have a stable political system? Why are we still governed by private dynasties? Why don’t most Pakistanis have access to basic social services? For not having answers to these questions is why we really deserve to be maligned, not necessarily by the world, but more by ourselves.

Issues are only as important as one makes them out to be. If the United States and its allies continue to make Pakistan out to be their most important “frenemy”, they will continue to overshadow the real issues of Pakistan such as unemployment and economic and social security. For them, none of this is of any importance unless its connected to terrorism. And viewing economic and social benefit under the lens of counter-terrorism is simply looking at the problem the wrong way.

Lets face it. The Taliban were created out of political and international alliances and not because of poverty or lack of education. If that were the cause, Pakistan would have disintegrated decades ago. And their threat towards Pakistan (and the world) is increasing not because of lack of healthcare and women’s rights, but because of the power struggle between military and civilian governments.

If the Western world wants to paint us as “humorless, paranoid, insecure, eager to take offense, and suffering from self-righteousness, self-pity, and self-hatred” (according to Hitchens), so be it. But it must eventually realize the interconnectedness of these accusations to international politics.

What Pakistan must realize however, is that now, the bashing we are set to receive for our performance as a democratic nation, is connected to our performance alone. Its time we forgot the Taliban and began to focus on ourselves.

- Ms Khan is a HUMNEWS contributor, specializing on South Asia and other issues.

Opposition Growing to Draconian 'Secrecy Bill' in South Africa (REPORT)

South African President Jacob Zuma has shown little tolerance for media criticism. Cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro - famous as 'Zapiro' - was sued last year by Zuma for a 2008 cartoon showing the President preparing to rape Lady Justice. And last Friday, Zapiro did it again - producing a cartoon about the Protection of Information Bill that has Zuma apparently preparing to “rape” a woman labelled “Free Speech”. Photo: The Witness(HN, June 12, 2011) - Opposition to a proposed secrecy bill - also known as the Protection of Information Bill - is presenting the Government in South Africa with one of its biggest-ever challenges.

Observers describe the bill as sweeping in its powers to muzzle civil society, as well as the media; possibly a knee-jerk reaction to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to stinging criticism from the media and civil society - as well as published embarrassing details about the private life of President Jacob Zuma.

Tensions between the Zuma Administration and mainstream media have reached a boiling point. One observer told HUMNEWS Zuma sees the media as essentially an elite, white-dominated entity - hostile to a predominantly black government. 

The Bill is a revised version of a 2008 piece of proposed legislation that was withdrawn after protests that it would give state bodies too much leeway to quash information.

The Bill establishes serious hurdles for the media and civil society to obtain information about official corruption mismanagement and government service delivery issues. It gives government officials wide powers to prevent disclosure in the interests of “national security” which is broadly defined to cover a vast array of information.

The Bill applies to all organs of the state, including national and provincial government departments, independent commissions, municipal and local councils and forums. It empowers the Minister of State Security to “prescribe broad categories and sub-categories” to classify information to prevent it from entering the public sphere. The heads of government departments are further empowered to put in place departmental policies, directives and categories for the purpose of classifying and declassifying information.

Under the Bill, journalists who publish classified information could face draconian punishments ranging up to 25 years in prison for a host of offences, including obtaining, possessing, intercepting and disclosing classified information. A proposed media tribunal would be empowered to punish journalists.

One analyst described the provisions on media as "the most dangerous assault on media freedom since the end of apartheid."

The popular South African cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro - also known as Zapiro - said he has produced stinging depictions of Zuma because he feels strongly about the serious threat posed by the bill. “Silencing the media and whistle blowers is terrible. I wanted to communicate the need to fight for freedom of expression and free speech. I’m angry and upset about the bill. The whole of society will be badly affected. It’s appalling and it’s not what our constitution stands for," Shapiro was quoted as saying.

According to Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT), South African journalists and civil society activists are extremely anxious about their ability to pursue their quest for the truth in the future. 

Dale McKinley, an independent writer, researcher, lecturer and political activist based in Johannesburg, voiced in a column what many people in South Africa have to say about the Bill.

Wrote McKinley: "It is clear that unless many more speak out now, the ANC will use its parliamentary majority to pass a Bill that will 'normalise' the gagging of the very democracy that so many inside and outside this country struggled and sacrificed to realise...Everyone needs to stand up, speak out and put a stop to what now represents an enforced 'marriage' of elite convenience."

In recent weeks, several civil society organisations, political parties and ordinary people have publicly voiced their opposition to the Bill, effectively forcing the ANC as the key backer to temporarily extend the time frame for the Bill's passage by two more months.

One international petition currently being circulated online says the Bill "could take South Africa back to the dark days of impunity -- allowing government institutions to operate without public scrutiny, and stopping the media from exposing corruption, and abuse of power."

The ANC has been ridiculed for arguing that their Bill is on the same footing as similar legislation in countries such as Zimbabwe.

A little over a month, McKinley says, during a sitting of the parliamentary ad-hoc committee tasked with processing the Secrecy Bill, ANC MP Vytjie Mentor energetically argued that Zimbabwe was a good example of how information could be successfully kept secret and thus was worthy of the committee's closer attention as it fashioned South Africa's own secrecy legislation.

Western diplomats have also voiced concern. Last year US Ambassador Donald Gipps suggested the proposed BIll would be a step backwards after hard-won battles to create a model constitution. He said: "South Africa must not turn away from that history now."

Some segments of the business community are worried that the bill could give state-owned organs, such as South African Airways, a competitive edge if it allows them to suppress information about internal operations.

Last year, the state-owned electricity utility, expressed concern, saying restrictions on sharing commercial information under the Bill could complicate negotiations with foreign investors.

One observer told HUMNEWS that, even if the Bill passes, it could face significant challenges from the country's Constitutional Court.

- By a HUMNEWS correspondent in Johannesburg, with files.

(HEADLINES) - The Americas - June 11, 2011

THE AMERICAS

(File: Eva Peron) Latin ladies take crack at presidential glass ceiling

EU challenges and opportunities with LatAm

Latin America ponders role of the renminbi

Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Peru shoppers, most promising for retail expansion

New South American exchange opens with uncertainty

Visit of EC Vice-President Tajani to Chile, Argentina and Brazil

UPS expands Latin American capacity

UN chief starts tour of four Latin American nations

Rainforest Leaders to Sign Sustainability Action Plan in 2012

Latin America’s Glossed Decade  

Central America losing war on crime (commentary)

Argentina

(Photo: NASA, A cloud of ash billows from the erupting Puyehue volcano in southern Chile)Flights resume tonight in Argentina from Aeroparque, Ezeiza airports after Chile Volcano eruption

Argentine satellite launches to monitor ocean saltiness from US base

Yum! Brands looks to Argentina for expansion

Israel and Argentina 'most engaged' on Facebook

Argentina's Film `COLD SWEAT’ Will Dynamite U.S. This Fall

Argentinean doctors claim they have cloned the world’s first cow capable of producing human breast milk

Argentinean Air Force launches new UFO commission

Belize

University of Belize Makes History, Offers First Masters Degree

(Photo: ZUMA Press)Destination of the week: Belize

Overturning the Belize Constitution (commentary)

Bolivia

Bolivia switches on modified foods ban

Bolivia asks Iranian official to leave country after Argentine complaint

Bolivia to strengthen ties with Peru's new government

Swapping sugar cane fields for school in Bolivia

Bolivia's stunning salt flats

(Photo: Bolivia's `Bus-train', JALOPNIK)Take a scenic ride in Bolivia’s bizarre Mercedes bus-train

Brazil

Amazon Deforestation Increases Alarming

Brazil to fight drugs with drones

Italy recalls ambassador to Brazil

Brazil is improving on human rights (Commentary)

Rio's Favela Tours: Helpful or Just an Exercise in Voyeurism? (Commentary)  

Canada

Ensure measles shots up to date, health officials urge, as Quebec cases top 300

Vancouver still leads country in reported gay bashings

The Third International Symposium on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide - a tremendous success (Blog)

Chile

Chinese VP Xi visits 'gateway to Latin America'

(Photo: The Nilahue River, Chile. EPA)Chilean volcanic eruption turns waterway into a steaming torrent

Protest at world’s largest underground copper mine in Chile, drags on (Blog)

(Photo: Lollapalooza, Santiago Chile 4/3/11. Jane's Addiction. Credit: Jeremiah Alexis)Lollapalooza Evolution

Colombia

Ban Ki-Moon arrives in Colombia

Colombian gunman kills victims' rights campaigner

Land and Victims Law Crucial for Millions of Displaced Farmers in Colombia

Costa Rica

Energy expert: Costa Rica needs to define path

(Photo: Containers of Hope. Benjamin Garcia Saxe. INHABIT) Containers of Hope: Cool Costa Rican Shipping Container House Only Costs $40,000

A fair deal for Costa Rica’s indigenous artisans

Ecuador

Ecuador: Correa’s Economic Legacy

Germany's Withdrawal of Funding Threatens Plan to Save Ecuador Forest

The UN Permanent Forum on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Ecuador's 17 year battle against Chevron

Ecuador's vice president to head country’s Special Olympic delegation

El Salvador

Journalist Slain in El Salvador

El Salvador Investigates Mysterious Deaths of Sea Turtles

OAS and El Salvador Work together for a Greener General Assembly

Canada to Give $1 Million to El Salvador to fight crime, human trafficking (blog)

Falkland Islands

(Photo: Gilbert House, Falkland Islands Legislative building. MERCOPRESS)Falklands tells OAS sovereignty is “non negotiable”, but seek “neighbourly relations” with Argentina

Obama Administration Votes Against England, Supporting Argentine-Backed Resolution on the Falkland Islands (commentary)

French Guiana

Astra 1N readies for a July 1 liftoff in French Guiana

Guatemala

Future Interoceanic Corridor in Guatemala Will Rival Panama Canal

Guyana

President Jagdeo named first Goodwill Ambassador for global tropical forest

The Guyana Geology and Mines Commission is advocating the marketing of non- traditional minerals

Land is the most valuable asset a person can have (commentary)

Honduras

'Up in Smoke' Chronicles Slash and Burn Agriculture in Honduras

Zelaya returns to Honduras

Honduras Levies Security Tax to Pay for Prison

Spain to aid Honduras on basic education

Honduras Readmitted to OAS (commentary)

Mexico

Bank of Mexico Gov. Agustin Carstens Remains on IMF Chief Short List

(Photo: US Mexico Ambassador Nominee, Earl Anthony Wayne, Foreign Policy) Obama nominates new ambassador to Mexico

Mexico tourism chief blasts 'ludicrous' travel warnings

Twitter Saves Lives in Mexico (blog)

Nicaragua

Nicaragua to begin cotton production

Nicaragua, Honduras Restore Bilateral Trade

Nicaragua, Ecuador Condemns U.S. Threats against Venezuela at OAS

Solidarity Plan with Cuba Approved in Nicaragua

Panama

More than 60,000 Children Work in Panama

Panama’s “litter pigs” get tongue lashing from Mayor Bosco

Dam construction threatens Ngöbe

Citizens’ groups fight on as government steams ahead with Cinta Costera

Paraguay

Under UN pressure, Paraguay agrees to ‘open debate’ on abortion issue

Indigenous still marginalized 200 years later (commentary)

Paraguayan Senate approves Unasur charter; new Venezuela Mercosur bid

Peru

Humala: 'Peru's economy is rock solid'

Peru’s Humala Visits Brazil To Meet With Rousseff; Looks To Distance Himself From Chávez

(Photo: Lima skyline. Peru is expected to grow by 6.9% this year. LivinginPeru.com) World Bank says that Peru will be star performer in South America

Suriname

Significant mining pollution in Suriname

Heavy rain triples price of some Suriname vegetables

Suriname soccer chief describes alleged bribery attempt

Suriname not giving up claim to New River – Bouterse

United States

Mexicans protest against Alabama's new anti-illegal immigration law

Cancer patients struggle as drug costs soar

Endless 'war on (some) drugs' fills our prisons, wrecks lives and wounds society (commentary)

Uruguay

Hundreds of Dead Penguins Wash Up on Uruguay Shore

(Photo: Uruguay President Jose Mujica received Vice President Xi Jinping of China. MERCOPRESS)China and Uruguay sign 17 cooperation accords and 530m USD trade package

Uruguay: A Bitter Lesson in Forgiving (analysis)

Venezuela

Venezuela ranks sixth in Gallup wellbeing survey

Venezuela-Iran ties go beyond the oil issue

Venezuelan government to borrow additional USD 10.5 billion

Venezuela’s Chavez and Senior Officials in Cuba for Talks (Commentary)

Turkish Expats Vote in Key Election (NEWS BRIEF)

Turkish polling station - PHOTO CREDIT Ayse Alibeyoglu/AlJazeera

by Ayse Alibeyoglu

Awash with colourful campaign posters, banners and streamers, election fever has well and truly gripped Turkey.

However, in a decision that greatly upset Turks in many countries, the Supreme Election Board (YSK) announced last year that Turkish citizens residing abroad could only vote in the June 12 parliamentary election at customs gates.

Only 196,000 voters residing abroad, out of at least 2.5 million eligible expat voters, cast their ballots in the September 12, 2010, constitutional referendum.

According to officials from YSK, a number of polling stations in various airports across Turkey have been approved for expatriate voting. The customs facilities at Istanbul's Ataturk airport is one of them.    

I watched as a Turkish-born resident of Germany placed a sealed yellow envelope carefully into the ballot box.

YSK officials then ushered her to the end of the table where she received a stamp in her passport, signifying that her vote had been cast. 

"I came all this way to vote for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, (leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP), as a thank you for putting Turkey back on the map with a stronger, brighter economy than ever before," said the expatriate lawyer, who has been living in Berlin for a year and who preferred to remain anonymous.

"The YSK has restricted voters’ basic right of citizenship. Having to leave your country of residence to vote is logistically difficult for most people. It's shameful that we have been reduced to voting at customs gates."

Despite the hurdles faced by some, there's something extraordinary about tens of millions of people coming together and deciding who should run their country.

Eser, a taxi driver and staunch supporter of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), who declined to give his full name, alleges the polling booths inside the airports work in Erdogan's favour.

"Citizens are brought from the outside so they could cast their vote for the AKP and tip the balance but no one is reporting this. Journalists are too scared to look into this. I do not trust those poll workers," he said.

Everyone in Turkey has an opinion and is not afraid to share it. 

An exhilarating and impromptu debate ensued among a group of university students who had taken refuge under the shade of a large banner of Erdogan, to escape the searing hot Istanbul sun, with several students switching sides.

There is a palpable sense of excitement in the air among voters and it is likely to reach a crescendo on Sunday.

Originally published by Al Jazeera on June 9, 2011 under Creative Commons Licensing 

HEADLINES - The Caribbean - June 8, 2011

The Carribean:

(Courtesy: CARPHA) It’s World Ocean Day:  A World Ocean

Caribbean countries sign firearms agreement

Caribbean health agency close to establishment

Agenda set for CARICOM meeting next month

Anguilla

Anguilla - independence within Caricom dimmed?

Domestic Violence Bill Presented in Anguilla

Antigua & Barbuda

Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA), Considering Layoffs

Mother, Police Testify in Mullany/Anderson Trial

Government prepares to export first major mango shipment

Aruba

Aruba film festival unveils 2011 lineup

Bahamas

Customs going after officers involved in scams

Bahamian businessman to buy cruise liner

A graduating senior's advice

(Courtesy: Bahamas Press) Madam Senator Maynard Gibson at the IWF’s Rome Cornerstone Conference

Barbados

Two-day fogging of Bridgetown for Mosquitoes

Research proves images have effect on youth (commentary)

Bermuda

Bermuda hosts global tax forum

 Cayman Islands

Shot fired as masked would-be robbers foiled (The scene at the Strand early Tuesday after a shooting was reported. Courtesy: Dennie Warren, Jr.)

Solar powers catboat passion

Cuba

Cuba: Reforms up against the clock

Dominica

Dominica Brewery launches ‘Kubuli Fest’

(Mother “Fingers” and her baby “Thumb,” swim together off the coast of Dominica. Courtesy: DominicaNewsNet)Researchers find that Dominica whales use accents to communicate

Dominican Republic

LatAm health risk managers gather in the Dominican capital

IMF sees Dominican Republic growth of 5.5% on harsher policies

Dominican Republic among hemisphere’s natural gas leaders, AES Dominicana says

Grenada

Grenada hospital fund makes major donation to Ministry of Health 

Grenada Postal Corporation Launches GPC Global

Guadeloupe

Lightning strike forces KLM to divert flight to Guadeloupe

Haiti

Severe Weather Leaves 23 Dead in Haiti

UN provides help to relief efforts in flood-hit Haitian capital

Jamaica

Jamaicans have plenty to cheer about at 2011 Adidas Grand Prix

Rape report for Jamaica

Agriculture Ministry Launches Training Manuals to Guide Farmers in Best Practices

Montserrat

(Chief Minister of Monserrat, Reuben Meade. Courtesy: Monserrat Reporter) ss conference-new power stationsFunds approved for new power station for Montserrat, geothermal energy still to be explored

Cayman entrepreneurs energise Montserrat during YES Caribbean

Puerto Rico

Agents seize Puerto Rican kingpin’s cars, boats, watches, Nuevo Dia reports

Saint Kitts & Nevis

St. Kitts/Nevis PM, Minister Pay Tribute To Alexander Hamilton In NYC

St. Kitts reaches US$84 million deal with IMF

St. Kitts and Nevis in global reef expedition

Saint Lucia

Fuel prices up in St Lucia

St Lucians urged to be ready for hurricane season

Mary Joseph—A different kind of healing

St. Vincent & The Grenadines

Indian Arrival Day (commentary)

Bank of St Vincent & the Grenadines is launched (Guests at the bank launch, held at the FLOW wine bar, Kingstown, St. Vincent & Grenadines. Courtesy: The Vincentian)ch of the new banking entity. (THE VINCENTIAN)

Caribbean regional seminar on decolonisation concludes in St Vincent

Trinidad & Tobago

Four cases of HIV in Trinidad and Tobago a day

Central Bank sues former CLICO directors

Turks and Caicos

The Critical Frontier: Healthcare

Virgin Islands

BVI youth participate in Duke of Edinburgh Awards Programme

Task force reviewing Virgin Islands requirements for high school graduation

Virgin Islands car dealers report strong inventories

VI hosts first-ever insolvency conference

Brazil: Rousseff Nominates Senator Gleisi Hoffman as New Chief of Staff (News Brief)

Nominated Chief-of-Staff Gleisi Hoffman and Fmr. Chief-of-Staff Antonio Palocci PHOTO CREDIT: Fabio Rodriquez, Agencia Brazil by Luciana Lima and Daniela Jinkings 

Brasília – President Dilma Rousseff has nominated senator Gleisi Hoffman (PT-PR) to be the new presidential Chief of Staff (“ministra-chefe da Casa Civil”), replacing Antonio Palocci.

Hoffman has been a member of the PT since 1989. In 2002, she was a member of the transition team as the Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva prepared to take office.

She ran for the senate from Paraná in 2006 and lost. She ran for mayor of Curitiba in 2008 and lost. Shortly after that election, she became the state president of the PT. Last year, she ran for the senate again and was elected with almost 3.2 million votes (two senators were elected and she was the one with the most votes).

Gleisi Hoffman has been a state secretary in Mato Grosso do Sul (Administrative Restructuring), a city official in Londrina (Public Management) and the Director of Finances at the Bi-National Itaipu hydroelectric power plant.

The new minister is a 45-year-old lawyer and is married to Dilma’s minister of Communications, Paulo Bernardo (he was Lula’s minister of Planning). They have two children.

Earlier News Brief  

by by Luciana Lima

Brasília - Shortly after 6:00 pm last night, minister Antonio Palocci, the presidential Chief of Staff (“ministro-chefe da Casa Civil”), submitted a letter of resignation to president Dilma Rousseff. The president accepted his resignation.

According to a note from the Casa Civil, Palocci believes that the decision by the head of the Office of Federal Prosecutors (“procurador-geral da República”), Roberto Gurgel, not to begin a criminal investigation “confirms that his activities were legal and his behavior correct.”

On May 16, the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported that Palocci, during the period he was a representative (PT-SP) (“deputado federal”) and the Dilma Rousseff presidential campaign manager (“coordenou a campanha eleitoral de Dilma Rousseff à Presidência”), that is, between 2006 and 2010, worked as a consultant and made an amount of money that increased his worth some 20 times (“patrimônio do ministro teria aumentado 20 vezes”).

After the campaign, Palocci became a member of the transition team that prepared for the new government to take office in January. He was appointed Chief of Staff at that time.

Palocci is the first member of president Dilma Rousseff’s cabinet to resign, 158 days after the new administration took office.

This is the second time Antonio Palocci has been forced to resign from a prominent and powerful position in the federal government. In March 2006 he resigned as minister of Finance in what became known as the scandal of the violation of the gardener’s bank account. A whistleblower gardener had revealed that Palocci lied about his relations with lobbyists.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English (ABr) 

- Originally published by Agência Brasil June 8, 2011 under Creative Commons Licensing   

The Amazon is Crying (REPORT)

by Gabriel Elizondo

Photo: Jose Claudio Ribeiro's hands. Maria Elena Romero/Al Jazeera.The family home of Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva is a simple, modest 3 bedroom brick building on a dusty side road in Maraba Brazil.

It is fitting for a humble man who told anybody who asked that he preferred to be called simply ‘Ze.’ If you wanted to be formal, ‘Ze Claudio,’ would due.

The house has a small kitchen and a cozy and peaceful backyard with green shrubs providing shade from the sauna-like heat common in this region of Brazil.

Ribeiro did not live here much. He preferred his even simpler home in the Amazon sustainable reserve he ran with his wife, Maria. It is about 40 kilometers from here.

But it’s at his family house, here in Maraba on Wednesday, where I first met Ze and Maria in the cramped living room. Unfortunately, both were in coffins - dead, after being gunned down this week in what police are calling a cold blooded murder likely ordered by Ze's enemies. And Ze had many.

But this was a day of his friends and family.

I was at the house for almost 10 hours on Wednesday. (My video report here)

A steady stream of friends, family, neighbors and other people associated with Ze came by to pass their respects. Many stayed a while. Some all day, sitting on plastic chairs in front of the house. Some stare off to nowhere. What was going through their mind only they know.

It was mostly quiet. There was some crying at times. Lots of hugging. Some just stared at the bodies in the caskets in apparent disbelief. There was no hysterical screaming. These people are Ze’s friends, and they are not a naïve bunch. Most had sunken eyes, weathered skin from years under the sun, and calloused hands from hard work. None wore suit and ties. These we Ze’s people.

Ze loved the forest, so much he used to call the trees his brothers and sisters. He was sickened, he told friends, when 80% of the native forest near his reserve was cut down to 20% in recent years as illegal loggers moved in. Lots of people here feel this way. But few dare do what Ze did. He took pictures on an old digital camera. He filed reports at police stations. He named names.

A relative told me usually nothing came of his denouncements. But it still infuriated powerful people in a region known in Brazil as terra sem lei (land without laws). 

So Ze was threatened. He once woke up to spray paint on his house. Another time he came home to find his dog mysteriously dead.

Ze would get anonymous phone calls; “You better shut up, or else.” Then the person hung up.

But Ze didn’t. And wouldn’t. Because, he told friends, he couldn’t. He was the ‘voice of the forest.’

And for that, he famously told an audience at an environmental conference just six months ago, he could get a bullet in his head any day.

On Wednesday, a middle aged man walked up to me outside Ze’s house and without me asking told me: “Ze always said a bullet would get him someday. I never thought that day would actually arrive. Sad.”  He then sort of shuffled off, without saying anything more.

Photo: People pay their last respect to Jose Claudio Ribeiro and his wife, Maria. Maria Elena Romero/Al Jazeera.Back inside the living room, the two coffins are pushed together. A sign reads: Injustice in the Amazon.

A net is placed over each of their covered bodies, to keep flies off their face.

Only the smallest portions of their faces are exposed. Both Ze and Maria had one of their ears cut off by the gunmen, a sign, police tell me, it was a murder for hire and the gunmen needed proof they killed the intended targets.

One young kid outside told me this: “Five thousand reals. That is the going rate here for killing two environmentalists like Ze and Maria. This was a big one, because both were killed.” Five thousand reals is about $3,000, more or less.

Ze’s 73 year old mother is devastated over his death; too upset to speak.

The Amazon reserve where Ze lived has mostly been abandoned since his death. Many people too scared to go back.

Ze’s sister, Claudelice da Silva, was one of the first to arrive at the remote dirt road where they were gunned down.

“To see my brother thrown on the dirt, full of bullet holes – it was the worst thing you could see in your life. Me and my family are deeply upset. But now we have more thirst for justice.”

I ask her: “Is the fact Ze is dead mean the bad guys have won?”

“No,” she says flatly without hesitation. “This fight continues.”

Photo: Jose Claudio Ribeiro sister, pictured, was one of the first to arrive on scene of his killing. Maria Elena Romero/Al JazeeraAt just about this moment, a little girl not too far from me hunches over, covers her face with her hands and starts weeping uncontrollably. “Who is that?” I ask. “That is my daughter,” Claudelice says. “Her father is not around anymore, so she considered my brother to be her dad. She is taking it hard.” 

About a dozen local environmental activists (‘Ze’s students’ a woman tells me) gather in a circle in the backyard and talk where to go from here. One woman says something to the effect of “fight” and “struggle” and “continue.” But there are no easy answers.  

As the late afternoon turned to evening on Wednesday, at one point well over 200 people are crowding the block in front of Ze’s house. Someone from the church brings the pews out to the street so people have a place to sit.

Many are watching a projection screen set up in the street playing videos and showing a slideshow of pictures of Ze and Maria.

At one point, someone sets up a radio on the front porch area to play an audio recording of one of Ze’s talks. There is no video. No matter, they gather around, hanging on every word. Lost on many of them is that Ze’s body is literally only a few feet away.

Photo: Outside the Jose Claudio Ribeiro family home the sign says 'the forest is crying.' Maria Elena Romero/Al Jazeera.Many people on Wednesday worried aloud that Ze and Maria’s death would go unpunished. On the phone, the state federal prosecutor told me there are over 200 unsolved murders in Para state alone involving ‘rural workers’ (usually code word for environmentalists, in these parts).

I heard 5 words a lot on Wednesday: Chico. Mendes. Dorothy. Stang. Impunity.  If you don’t know, Google it. You can draw your own conclusions.

I didn’t hear one person – not one – utter the words Codigal Florestal.

It is dark now. A couple busloads of MST land rights activists arrive to pay their respects. They, along with about 100 people still remaining, light candles on crosses and place them in the neighborhood. It’s almost 11 pm.

A hand made banner has been sitting out in front of the house all day.

It reads: The forest is crying.

Ze won’t be around anymore to wipe away the tears.

Originally published by Al Jazeera on May 26, 2011 under Creative Commons Licensing 

Sex, The Migrant Laborer and the City (NEWS BRIEF/BLOG)

Migrant Laborer's PHOTO CREDIT: AlJazeeraby Imran Garda

“Today is my girlfriend's birthday sir...”

I wince, eyes reflexively open and shut again at the “sir”, but try instead to focus on the content of the statement.

“Really? Great. Which one?”

He blends a Cheshire cat smile meets the Keralite it’s-unclear-whether-my-head-bobbing-means-yes-or-no into a cheeky boyish smirk. A Casanova symphony. Let’s call him the “Keralite Cat”, for future reference.

“Sir, the Filippina. The hot one, old one, but hot one. The maid.”

“The prettiest, sexiest one?” I asked, already possessing the knowledge that she was one of three in a collection of girlfriends, that included an Indonesian and Nepali too. 

South East Asian unity that would make the UN proud, if it weren't for the fact they were each oblivious to the existence of the others. Smooth. 

“No sir, hot, hot, hawwwt. You understand? She like to do hawwwt things sir...crazy things sir...maybe I’m not enough for her!”, the giggle and resurfacing of the bobbing head-smile symphony. 

And then he made a gesture to me, one that this innocent writer, mind hitherto undefiled, just can’t quite blog about. I could sketch a picture maybe. Or maybe not. But let’s concede that I would never again look at his car’s hand-break, or any car’s hand-break in the same way. Then he showed me a picture of her on his mobile, she looked 15 years his senior. Hello Mrs Filipina Robinson...

“Where do you guys do this, erm, stuff?” I blushingly asked.

“In my accommodation. In the car sometimes, but we must be very very careful. If police catch us...”, his hand assumed a Karate chop shape at his neck, and he swiped across. Then laughter.

Another cabbie story

Yes, I’ve got another cabbie story, so my fellow AJE blogger Evan Hill can look away, spit three times to his left and maybe say, “astaghfirullah” - I’ve heard he finds my taxi driver stories problematic. Sorry Evan. 

Plus, after Michael Paterniti’s GQ feature about Al Jazeera had quoted me giving an analogy about politicians and the men who drive them, I think I’m developing a bit of a reputation as the “man-who-talks-a lot-of-BS-about-men-behind-the-wheel”.

So, pardon my insatiable obsession. I’ll try my best to show how this story has relevance to setting the global news agenda. Evan, if you’re still reading, I’m trying.

This time, I wasn’t in Washington DC talking to immigrant cabbies about Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad lair, and this time I promise my subeditor won’t place a picture of a street scene from a completely different city to the one I’m writing about (a picture of New York City in the winter accompanied my article set in Washington DC in the spring). 

It might be simpler this time, they could just step outside of our air-conditioned hub and into the heat (a different heat/hot/hawwwt to the previously referenced of course) with a camera and click. I’m talking about Doha. 

My driver friend officially works on call 24/7, for a far-eastern businessman, running the Middle Eastern operation of some far-eastern company, whose penchant for herculean spells of imbibing the stuff you can only get at 5-star hotels in Qatar (so I’ve heard) after work, tends to give the Keralite Cat some free time to do some “illegal” driving on the side. He earns QR900 (roughly $250) a month, so I’m happy to  contribute to some of the illegality.

Hence, when providence doth bless this humble writer to embark on another spell of work in the Doha desert, devoid of my 4X4 in days of old when I actually lived here, he’s the first person I call. We talk a lot. We talk about work, sometimes politics, sometimes cricket, sometimes football. We talk a lot about inequality too.

Would you believe it?

But this is not the platform for another “the horrors of the Gulf” splash.

Johann Hari and Nesrine Malik have written about Dubai in particular, the latter calling it a “place where the worst of western capitalism and Gulf Arab racism meet in a horrible vortex”. 

I could tell you about the labour camps I visited where 10 men sleep in a cramped room that they cook in too; of the many I spoke to over the years whose employers choose (on a whim, not for want of money) not to pay them their salaries, or ever return their passports to them; of the hundreds of thousands of these migrants from overpopulated nations further east - those who build this modern day materialist paradise, where once only the folk-songs of bedouins and malnourished pearl-divers echoed through the whirling grains of sand - and little else existed, until oil and gas reared their controversial, sticky, bubbly heads from the sleepy infertile surface.

I could tell you of “Family Day” signs at the entrances to the malls across the country on the weekends, designed to keep the wretched of the earth out so Arabs and Westerners can savour their Krispy Kreme Donuts and carry their oversized shopping bags from Armani Exchange without the experience being soiled by those smelly Indians, or Nepalis.

While Qatar considers reforming labour laws and scrapping it’s “sponsorship” system that even the prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor al-Thani once called “unacceptable and close to slavery”; while Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch play catchup and get some amnesty themselves from reporting about Darfur or Libya or Syria or China or North Korea and one day hope to raise the issue of workers’ rights in the Gulf; while those of us who earned our tax-free salaries cried crocodile tears for the workers that by default allowed us to assume our roles as lords and “madams” and “sirs”, and while we drove our 4X4s past the little men in one size-fits-all blue jumpsuits bought in bulk from Carrefour, drilling a foundation for a new phallic tower in the blazing 49 degree celsius midday heat, we forgot something. We forgot something important. 

The Keralite Cat's tales, in all its frivolity, made a profound point about the drivers, construction workers, the maids and cleaners:

Can you believe that these people make love?

Can you believe they even cheat on each other? 

Can you believe that they buy each other birthday presents too?

And one day, just one day, these subhumans, like the Keralite Cat and Mrs Filipina Robinson, might even take the “hawwwt” stuff to a new level, might even have the audacity to pull up the hand-break on their own destiny, despite the macro constraints of an unequal “globalised economy” that makes them travel to dusty places far away, where the rule is simple - they must work so we can eat.

Originally published by Al Jazeera on June 3, 2011 under Creative Commons Licensing 

First Tunisia, Then Egypt, Next Palestine? (NEWS BRIEF/BLOG)

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki has a master plan to expedite Palestinian statehood /Photo: Wikipediaby Kristen Saloomey

With Mideast peace talks at an impasse, Palestinians have been looking for another route to statehood: the United Nations.

“We are taking our destiny in our hands,” the Palestinian’s top UN diplomat told a small group of reporters in New York on Tuesday.

Ambassador Riyad Mansour predicted millions of Palestinians would take to the streets come September, when the UN General Assembly meets, to support the cause. He drew parallels to the peaceful Arab uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

“The battle for our independence is not only the battle of the Palestinian leadership. This is the battle of millions of Palestinians,” Mansour said.

“I believe the Palestinian people are capable and I believe also that they want to engage in this last chapter of the struggle of ending occupation.”

He said work is already underway behind the scenes at the United Nations, as he lobbies countries to recognize a Palestinian state.

Palestine is already recognized by 112 countries. But 130 would give them a 2/3 majority in the UN’s General Assembly - the number necessary to become an official member.

There’s just one problem; according to the UN Charter, a country cannot become a member state without first getting the support of nine members of the Security Council. The United States has indicated it will veto a statehood request, saying the only way is through direct negotiations with Israel.

Mansour said the Palestinians have “other options” but refused to elaborate.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki has said that the Palestinians will seek an emergency session of the General Assembly known as "Uniting for Peace" to override any veto.

General Assembly President Joseph Deiss and Security Council diplomats have all said that membership is not possible without a referral by the Security Council. The legal question currently open to debate is whether or not a vote of support in the General Assembly would be anything more than symbolic.

For now, the Palestinians’ emphasis is on building international support for their statehood - and by extension putting pressure on the United States.

“What would be the argument of President Barack Obama in trying really to disregard this wish,” Mansour said, pointing to the President's stated admiration for democratic movements in Tunisia and Egypt. “Not only of the Palestinian leadership but the entire Palestinian population?”

Originally published by Al Jazeera on June 2, 2011 under Creative Commons Licensing 

The Coffee Paradox: How Farmers and Consumers are Held Hostage by the Market Dominance of a Few (PERSPECTIVE)

Women sort coffee beans at a USAID-assisted processing facility in Ethiopia, where USAID is working with local farmers to increase specialty coffee production and sales. Credit: Christof Krackhardt/USAIDBy Saliem Fakir

About 2.5 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day.

Culture and coffee are treated as synonymous. Ever since the first coffee shops opened doors in the Middle East, around the 15th century onwards, coffee culture spread like wild fire in the western world.

Coffee houses are places where artists, writers, intellectuals and those seeking the pleasures of good conversation are meant to hang out. However, this image of civility belies the real world of coffee trade, which is far more Hobbesian if you are a coffee grower.

And, where a good cup of coffee mediates civil culture in one world, poor prices for producers imposes upon them many un-civilities. The ‘hidden hand’ of monopoly control can heap upon poor farmers untold misery and cruelty.

A documentary about the coffee trade, Black Gold, was launched by the Fair Trade Label South Africa (FLSA) at the Labia theatre in down-town Cape Town in early May.

It provides for sober examination the unfairness in price that coffee farmers get against the price at which a cup of coffee is sold at a Starbucks Café or any other coffee shop in developed economies or middle class emerging markets.

Coffee pickers. From the movie, Black Gold.The movie’s focus on coffee lays also open the wider canvass under which developing countries, especially, in Africa, suffer the consequences of adverse agricultural trade practices.

Without a resolution of agricultural trade disputes at the World Trade Organization and the on-going subsidisation of agriculture in most developed economies, the vulnerability of farmers to unfair practices will continue.

Black Gold offers a sliver of a view of the relationship between agricultural trade practices in dominant markets and the negative development consequences for developing countries dependent on the agricultural sector for exports and foreign earnings.

Coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil, but those who produce it happen to be some of the poorest commodity crop farmers in the world.

In Ethiopia alone 77 000 small-scale farmers depend on the coffee trade for a livelihood. If coffee produces low returns, farmers are forced to shift from palatable urbane caffeine addictions to the production of the cheap narcotic ‘chat’, which fetch better prices in the east African market.Tadesse Meskela, manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co-operative Union, talking with farmers in Ethiopia. From the movie Black Gold.

One cup of coffee can buy up to 10 kilos of coffee beans from a coffee grower. A kilo of coffee can produce between 80-100 cups of coffee with one cup fetching close to US$2 or more.

On the path between the farmer and the consumer there are many different people making money along the coffee value chain. Indeed, there are at least six steps in the value chain before a warm cup of coffee hits your lips.

There is a vast gap in price between what the farmer earns and what the consumer pays at a coffee shop.

Women harvesting coffee beans in Burundi. About 90% of the impoverished country's export earnings are derived from 'Black Gold.'Traders in coffee have called this phenomenon the “coffee paradox” – declining prices for producers and increasing prices for consumers. Or putting it in a more stark way: the coffee market is valued between US$70-80 billion of which coffee producers only get US$5 billion of this market value.

Diminished prices tend to also pit producer countries against each other because every producing country is reduced to a zero-sum game. It’s the coffee market’s way of divide and rule.

Both consumers and coffee growers are slaves to the price setting advantage that dominant market players hold. The price gap also reflects the relative powerlessness of the resource provider and consumer’s unawareness of their own power to shape the market. Both, though, live with information asymmetry.

The seller of coffee knows little of the working of the trading houses where coffee is sold or bought. The consumer knows little about the world and conditions under which the seller of coffee has to live and produce his or her coffee.

In between sits the giant of coffee dealers and their middlemen who have perfect knowledge of where to buy, from whom and at what price.

In a far-off world from the hardships of the highlands of Ethiopia or the capital of Addis Abba where poor peasants bring their bags of ‘Black Gold’ (some of the world’s best coffee beans), traders in the US and London hold the farmers’ lives on a tether and ultimately the key to their future.

Coffee prices are dictated by four dominant multinationals that control most of the world’s trade in coffee. Four large companies set the price. They are Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, Kraft and Sara Lee.

For a long time coffee prices were managed by an international quota system for importers and exporters through the International Coffee Agreement, which collapsed in 1989 as the US withdrew its support for the agreement.

The Agreement was not always fair, but it at least stabilised coffee prices for exporters and provided stability in the market.

The current situation of no controls together with market dominance has devastated the prosperity of many coffee growers. The collapse of the Agreement has affected 25 million households in coffee growing areas of Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Black Gold’s powerful visuals take us deep into rural Ethiopia and shows how this has wrought havoc.

An Ethiopian farmer, perhaps, is far better off trading his/her raw labour in Europe than growing coffee in Ethiopia. His/her family would be better off from remittances than farming. But not all farmers can work overseas.

While the consumer lives ignorant of the world of the peasant and the peasant of the life of the rich world’s coffee lover, they need not be so far apart.

Irony would have it that while geographic separation and information asymmetry is as much a source of weakness it is also their strength.

Morally conscious consumers can shift the balance. Better organized farmers, either through strong co-operatives or through the support of state enterprises, can intervene directly in the coffee market by bringing strength through numbers in the negotiation of better coffee prices.

The fair trade movement is trying to break the price logjam by educating coffee consumers about growers’ conditions while at the same time trying to negotiate better prices for coffee growers. At this stage, it is still a battle of David versus Goliath, but at least it’s a start.

Fakir is an independent writer based in Cape Town. This article first appeared on the website of the South African Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS).

On World No Tobacco Day The Ubiquitous Hookah Comes Under Attack (NEWS BRIEF)

A Hookah lounge in the UK(HN, May 31, 2011) -- On World No Tobacco Day the World Health Organization (WHO) once again warns smokers and others of the dangers of smoking. While the dangerous habit is declining it is still the leading preventable cause of death.

This year, WHO says more than 5 million people will die from a tobacco-related heart attack, stroke, cancer, lung ailment or other disease. That does not include the more than 600,000 people – more than a quarter of them children – who will die from exposure to second-hand smoke.

Now with use of the so-called Hookah, or water-pipe (also known as "shisha" and "narghile"), proliferating globally - including in the United States - WHO is taking a tough stand on the exotic habit - saying it is no less safe than ordinary smoking.

That the practice is seen to be safe is an "unsubstantiated belief" and reinforced by misleading marketing, WHO says. In an advisory note, the Geneva-based organization says that the label of a popular water-pipe tobacco brand sold in South-West Asia and North America claims 0.5% nicotine and zero percent tar.

The New York Times reports today that many US campuses, where Hookah smoking is becoming extremely popular among college students, are banning the practice all together because of health concerns. Several municipalities are following suit. The habit is also popular among young people in Brazil and European countries.

Hookah pipes and accessories are now easily available online and there is no lack of on-line forums celebrating the practice, such as the Hookah Forum.

Hookah smoking is especially popular in US cities with large numbers of immigrants from the Middle East. The aromatic smoke, filtered through a water bowl, seems to lull users into thinking that the health effects are minimal.

But WHO says that, because the inhaled air passes over not just the tobacco but heated charcoal as well, that users are inhaling very harmful charcoal combustion products.

"Contrary to ancient lore and popular belief, the smoke that emerges from a water-pipe contains numerous toxicants known to cause lung cancer, heart disease and other disease," WHO says. It adds that because the tobacco products contain nicotine it can cause addiction.

Alarmingly, WHO calculates that because a typical Hookah session can last up to more than one hour and include as many as 200 puffs, the water-pipe smoker may therefore inhale as much smoke during one session as a cigarette smoker would inhale consuming 100 cigarettes or more."

WHO says that in South-West Asia and North Africa, it is not uncommon for children to smoke with their parents.

Globally, the highest rates of water-pipe smoking are in North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean region and South-East Asia, WHO says. Most street cafes in Cairo offer water-pipes, alongside cups of strong coffee, and the practice often replaces alcohol in bars and cafes during the holy month of Ramadan in such cities as Amman, Jordan.

The annual death toll from the global epidemic of tobacco use could rise to 8 million by 2030. Having killed 100 million people during the 20th century, tobacco use could kill 1 billion during the 21st century, WHO said.

- HUMNEWS staff

Palestinian Territory: A Spring Forgotten (PERSPECTIVE)

By Ronit Avi

Responding to the rising tide across the Arab world in his speech on May 19, President Obama aptly directed his focus away from politicians and toward the people, from the "raw power of the dictator" to the "dignity of the street vendor." It was a convincing argument, driving home the President's message that the United States has "a stake not just in the stability of nations, but in the self-determination of individuals."Waiting for their Arab Spring: feelings of hopelessness and isolation among young people in the Palestinian Territory are well documented. CREDIT: M Bociurkiw

Yet when it came to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, President Obama curiously fell back on language about governments and treaties rather than individual freedom and human dignity. While he acknowledged that in an increasingly democratic Middle East peace cannot be made by leaders alone, Obama failed to grant the same recognition that he gave to demonstrators standing up for freedom across the Arab world to the thousands of Palestinians and scores of Israelis who are doing the same on a daily basis in places like Nabi Saleh, Al-Walajeh, Bil'in, Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan.

It was a striking omission in light of Obama's call in his Cairo Speech in 2009 for Palestinians to adopt nonviolence, and was particularly disheartening given the urgency of the moment.

Only a few weeks ago, Bassem and Naji Tamimi, two leaders of the nonviolent movement in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, were arrested on dubious charges aimed at crushing the resolve of a village that has been struggling without arms to prevent the encroachment of nearby Israeli settlements upon its land and water supply. These arrests come as part of a broader crackdown that the Israeli army has been implementing against nonviolent Palestinian, Israeli and international protesters. Faced with the prospect of a broadening unarmed movement against occupation, the Israeli military has apparently decided to hunker down and deter protestors through a process of intimidation, repression and attrition.

This is bad news for any of us who value the universal rights Obama laid out in his speech, and it is especially alarming given the highly charged atmosphere on the ground. As we've seen across the region, where nonviolence fails, bloodshed follows. Those of us who wish for a peaceful end to the conflict and to the occupation, and who oppose a return to the violence of recent years, cannot afford to ignore the voices of those in places like Budrus and Bil'in who assert that the most effective and courageous response to oppression is not suicide attacks or rockets, but rather unarmed protest and collective organizing.

In recognizing the bravery and resolve of these Palestinians and Israelis, President Obama would have sent an important message of support to those who believe that a nonviolent path is the most constructive way forward -- even in the absence of real negotiations. Instead, a fragile and increasingly threatened movement is met with silence from an American President who is willing to press Arab allies into uncomfortable corners. The same Obama who tells the leadership of Bahrain that "you can't have real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail" is seemingly looking the other way when unarmed Palestinian and Israeli protestors are routinely met with violence and face arrest, often without credible charges.

What's more, those protests taking place in the West Bank and East Jerusalem often bring Israelis and Palestinians together, creating powerful bonds around a common cause of justice, peace and dignity. The President was right to reference Israelis like Yitzhak Frankenthal of the Parents Circle-Bereaved Families Forum, profiled in our first film Encounter Point, and Palestinians like Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, who despite unimaginably painful losses actively pursue reconciliation rather than revenge. Yet equally important, and especially crucial at this volatile time are the Israelis and Palestinians who join forces and take direct nonviolent action against injustices on the ground. Whether they succeed, as they did in the village of Budrus, or fail, the common struggle has an unmistakably humanizing impact. In places like the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, which we focus on in our upcoming documentary film, Israelis from increasingly diverse political, social and religious backgrounds are joining Palestinian residents in a common struggle for justice. 

These are the kind of grassroots partnerships that will give real meaning to agreements signed on paper, and that will develop the trust necessary for any peace accord to endure. Rather than ignoring them, the President should be placing them front and center in his vision for the region. As he so eloquently stated, "we cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights, knowing that their success will bring about a world that is more peaceful, more stable, and more just." This is true for all those across the region who employ nonviolence to bring about a better future, and Palestinians and Israelis certainly deserve no less. 

Ronit Avni is the Founder & Executive Director of Just Vision, which researches and documents Palestinian and Israeli nonviolence and peacebuilding efforts. She recently produced the award-winning film, Budrus. Her opinion piece is reproduced here with permission.

Reporting in China (REPORT/BLOG)

By Melissa Chan

A recent survey by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China had some discouraging numbers about reporting conditions in the country.  Ninety-four percent of journalists who responded felt the work environment had deteriorated over the last year.  Seventy percent had experienced harassment or violence of some kind.  And a whopping 99% said reporting conditions in China do not meet international standards.

While many people outside China might have a cognitive understanding that reporting here is difficult, there's less knowledge of just exactly what kind of difficulties we come across.  Our most recent reporting trip serves as a good example of the particular challenges the press corps here faces.

The first thing we must consider as journalists is which hotel we plan on staying in.  And by that, I don't mean checking out TripAdvisor to see which one has the best buffet breakfast.  By law in China, all check-ins require passport identification, which the front desk photocopies along with our visa.  Hotel staff must then send over the details of all foreign nationals staying at the hotel for the night to the local police station.  It's unlikely officers carefully look over all incoming lists of names, but our journalist visas are different from your usual tourist or business visas -- and it tips local officials off there are strangers in their land, nosing about.

On our trip to Hunan Province, the nearest town center to the village we were trying to reach was about 40 minutes away, and we judged it would be too close to the area to spend the night without getting a knock on the door by police.

A good strategy is to check in to a hotel hours away from our final destination, so police officers don't necessarily make a connection between our arrival and that area's news story.  That also gives us the opportunity to set out before dawn and hopefully get to our interview by mid-morning before most people would spot a TV crew in the neighborhood.

Depending on whether the family or person we're visiting has nosy neighbors, our team can get quickly reported to local officials who then dispatch a team to investigate.  You might wonder why anyone would do such a thing to someone they know.  I don't understand it myself, though I suspect it's a combination of just how the state has always operated, what people have been taught to do, a historical distrust of foreigners, and finally -- I do wonder about the legacy of the Cultural Revolution and the habit of tattling as a show of loyalty to the Communist Party and to the community.

In any case, we've nicknamed such men who show up "the Black Audis," after the vehicles they drive.  I don't know why government officials here love Audis so much, but they do.  Audis are almost synonymous with them.  I hate looking up to see one of these vehicles appearing around the corner -- it usually means our filming will be delayed -- if not permanently over.  And our opportunity to provide a report to viewers -- gone.

Sometimes men show up but don't do anything to stop us.  It is against the law in China to obstruct foreign journalists from reporting freely.  This was set out in a directive signed by Premier Wen Jiabao.  Government officials therefore have come up with creative ways to make reporting difficult and circumvent the central government's rules without technically breaking the law.  They might hire local boys to intimidate our team.  By sub-contracting out intimidation to non-uniformed groups, there's no proof the government is behind any reporting interference.

It was sheer luck that thugs showed up at Yang Libing's house while he was away.  Mr. Yang, if you've had a chance to watch our report (below), is the father whose baby daughter was forcefully taken away from him by corrupt officials looking to profit by handing children over to adoption agencies.  He was running late that morning, and what ended up happening was a rather awkward uncertainty as our team and these thugs looked at each other.  They knew we were from Al Jazeera.  I don't know how they knew that.  They had been driving around searching specifically for us.  They stood there and sized us up.  In the end, the men sauntered away, ambivalent about the situation themselves.  Had Mr. Yang been there, I imagine they would have stayed, their very presence meant to unnerve the person we hoped to interview. I must say we are often saved by the fact that many of the "Black Audi" types don't really understand how television newsgathering is conducted.  Perhaps they believed we would also saunter off after a time, given the absence of Mr. Yang.  We did not walk away, of course, but waited until he returned to speak to him.

We later learned that after our interview and past midnight that evening, those men came back -- and were not so ambivalent.  They interrogated Mr. Yang for more then ten hours and warned him to stop talking to journalists.  Since then, Mr. Yang's phone has generally been off.

Intimidating sources and not reporters has become a more common practice by the Chinese government to block information.  Often we speak to incredibly vulnerable people at the lowest socio-economic rung.  It is easy to bully them into submission.  But even then, it is remarkable that in my years of reporting in China, many people remain willing to speak to journalists despite the danger of retaliation.  They perceive that a great injustice has been done to them and feel the need to articulate that.  Many also feel they have nothing to lose.  In the case of Mr. Yang, I do believe he must've felt he had nothing to lose.  He'd lost his child.  His house was a wood and brick shack, his floor of dirt, and his farming tools not much changed, it appeared, from the ones farmers used in the 19th century.

In the afternoon our team decided to drive around and film the town and surrounding countryside.  It would be included in our piece to show viewers how remote this place was.  At some point, our hired driver noticed a van had been tracking us for some time.  My first inclination was to ignore the van -- they can be quite harmless, and the men from earlier in the day had chosen to check us out, then leave us alone.  Sometimes these plainclothes officers or thugs would follow us around, taking digital pictures of us as we worked in order to have a record.  As long as you're not self-conscious about it, it is fine.

The van drove past us, looking to leave.  But, on a narrow street, it slowed... slowed... then stopped in front of us, blocking our way.  We sat there a moment, and then the van doors opened and a number of men jumped out, looking ugly.  We locked our doors.

One banged on the window.  We didn't do anything.  But -- following some hesitation, our driver opened the window cautiously, about halfway.  They asked what we were doing there, and if we could come with them. They said we needed to stop what we were doing.  My producer shouted back that we needed their identification.  With no proof they were with police, on what basis should we do anything?

Remarkably, it was that question that eased the tension.  The men scuttled off.  I'm confused, but suspect these thugs had never been questioned over their authority by the villagers they terrorized.  The question was unexpected and baffled them.  After the incident, we continued to film, though much more warily.

The next morning, as we were heading to the airport to fly back to Beijing, we received word that a domestic Chinese journalist we'd given a ride to in the countryside had been told that by doing so, she was complicit in "colluding with foreigners on anti-China missions."  It was a completely absurd charge, and the journalist stood her ground at the police station.  It reminded me that though we may run into trouble out in the field, Chinese journalists remain in far trickier positions, and an easier target for authorities to go after.

You develop a level of paranoia sometimes, engrossed in the mission of filming enough footage before getting stopped.  On this mission in Hunan, we managed to gather enough material and information to build the report you see below.

Originally published by Al Jazeera on May 25, 2011 under Creative Commons Licensing