Two new flags will be flying high at the Olympic Games in Rio.
For the first time, South Sudan and Kosovo have been recognized by the International Olympic Committee. Kosovo, which was a province of the former Yugoslavia, will have 8 athletes competing; and a good shot for a medal in women's judo: Majlinda Kelmendi is considered a favorite. She's ranked first in the world in her weight class.
(PHOTO: Workers set up camp at Santiago's Rio Mapocho/Mason Bryan, The Santiago Times)Chile nears 1 month without mail service as postal worker protests continue. This week local branches of the 5 unions representing Correos de Chile voted on whether to continue their strike into a 2nd month, rejecting the union's offer. For a week the workers have set up camp on the banks of Santiago's Río Mapocho displaying banners outlining their demands; framing the issue as a division of the rich & the poor. The strike’s main slogan? “Si tocan a uno, nos tocan a todos,” it reads - if it affects 1 of us, it affects all of us. (Read more at The Santiago Times)
WHO convenes emergency talks on MERS virus
(PHOTO: Saudi men walk to the King Fahad hospital in the city of Hofuf, east of the capital Riyadh on June 16, 2013/Fayez Nureldine)The World Health Organization announced Friday it had convened emergency talks on the enigmatic, deadly MERS virus, which is striking hardest in Saudi Arabia. The move comes amid concern about the potential impact of October's Islamic hajj pilgrimage, when millions of people from around the globe will head to & from Saudi Arabia. WHO health security chief Keiji Fukuda said the MERS meeting would take place Tuesday as a telephone conference & he told reporters it was a "proactive move". The meeting could decide whether to label MERS an international health emergency, he added. The first recorded MERS death was in June 2012 in Saudi Arabia & the number of infections has ticked up, with almost 20 per month in April, May & June taking it to 79. (Read more at Xinhua)
LINKS TO OTHER STORIES
Dreams and nightmares - Chinese leaders have come to realize the country should become a great paladin of the free market & democracy & embrace them strongly, just as the West is rejecting them because it's realizing they're backfiring. This is the "Chinese Dream" - working better than the American dream. Or is it just too fanciful? By Francesco Sisci
The South: Busy at the polls - South Korea's parliamentary polls will indicate how potent a national backlash is against President Lee Myung-bak's conservatism, perceived cronyism & pro-conglomerate policies, while offering insight into December's presidential vote. Desire for change in the macho milieu of politics in Seoul can be seen in a proliferation of female candidates. By Aidan Foster-Carter
Pakistan climbs 'wind' league - Pakistan is turning to wind power to help ease its desperate shortage of energy,& the country could soon be among the world's top 20 producers. Workers & farmers, their land taken for the turbine towers, may be the last to benefit. By Zofeen Ebrahim
Turkey cuts Iran oil imports -Turkey is to slash its Iranian oil imports as it seeks exemptions from United States penalties linked to sanctions against Tehran. Less noticed, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the Iranian capital last week, signed deals aimed at doubling trade between the two countries. By Robert M. Cutler
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(HN, November 5, 2010) -- Blistering gas from Mt. Merapi, Indonesia’s most volatile volcano spewed further than expected Friday. The eruption, which began on Thursday night, pushed the death tolls from the eruptions that began October 26th to the triple digits and burned villages up to nine miles from the crater.
This latest eruption has continued nonstop and the stream of ash spewing from the volcano has darkened the sky over nearby Jogjakarta and the ash is has turned the Gendol River grey from the debris. All flights to the city have been cancelled.
Nearly 90,000 people are in need of shelter since the eruptions first began 10 days ago.
Merapi has erupted four times in the past decade, but he last time the volcano took such a toll was in 1930, when 1,300 people were killed. Until Friday, most of the fatalities had been from the initial blast on October 26.
The scale of the latest eruption has prompted President Yudhoyono to transfer responsibility for the response from local agencies to the national disaster agency, as well as ordering the addition of more police and soldiers.
(HN, November 4, 2010 ) -- After months of preparation and the promise of “free and fair” elections, the polls in Myanmar (also known as Burma) will be open for the first time in 20 years on November 7th. The general election forms the fifth step of the seven-step "road map to democracy" proposed by the ruling junta in Myanmar, the `State Peace and Development Council’ (SPDC) in 2003. The sixth and seventh steps being the gathering of elected representatives and the building of a modern, democratic nation, consecutively.
Although the international consensus is that there will be no such thing as a “free and fair” election this Sunday there is support of the generals from India, China, Thailand and others; and the world’s top diplomat, Ban Ki-moon is keeping optimistic.
The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) is expected to emerge as the new “civilian leaders” backed by millions of Burmese who have been enticed or coerced into joining the proxy party.
The USDP, led by current Prime Minister Thein Sein, began on a populist platform, offering low-interest loans to Burma’s poorest. The cash-for-vote ploy may prove to be too hard to refuse for the average Burmese citizen to refuse as approximately 33 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. After decades of military rule, Burma has the lowest per capita GDP in South East Asia.
The wealth of the USDP has meant that it can promote a candidate in 1,112 of the 1,158 districts around the country, while most other parties struggle with high registration fees. In 52 of those districts, USDP faces no competition at all and in fact has actually been canceling balloting in at least 12 villages in six districts in Kayah state "as conditions are not conducive to holding a free and fair election," according to an official notice seen on November 2nd. The announcement in the states official newspaper gave no further explanation for the action, but in September, the election commission canceled voting in about 300 villages in 33 townships where ethnic minorities are dominant.
Funding for the USDP comes from the disbanded Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), the so-called "social welfare" wing of the junta, which also boasts the country's most powerful political and business figures. Most of the 26 million USDA members are now with the USDP.
Since 1990, world attention has focused on Aung San Suu Kyi, National League for Democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party won 58 percent of the vote in parliamentaryelections in 1990, only to see the results annulled and Suu Kyi put under house arrest, imprisoned where she’s been since. Her house arrest was due to end in May 2009, but was extended for eighteen months after she was convicted for violating the terms of her house arrest.
From her house arrest she has called for an election boycott and supporters of the (NLD) are holding "lightning" protests telling the public that a vote on Sunday will legitimize military rule.
Currently the strongest opposition party, the National Democratic Force, formed by former members of the NLD, is fielding 163 candidates against the USDP’s 1,100 and faces added competition from the boycott lobby. What opposition exists faces little hope of winning any clout in the new parliament as 25% of those seats are already reserved for the military.
"You cannot hope the election to be free and fair by world standards," said Dr Than Nyein, the chairman of the NDF. "But at least we can have a civilian government in place of a military one and I think this is a great step forward.”
(VIA: DVB.NO)
In addition to this on October 22nd the country’s West Coast state of Rakhine was hit by Cyclone Giri which devastated the area, leaving 71,000 people homeless and affecting over 200,000 according to government estimates who, according to the UN will require food aid over the next three months following the Cyclone's destruction of rice fields. Although petitions have been filed asking for a delay in elections to take place in the affected areas, the government has not replied and elections will take place on Sunday as scheduled. This is not the first time the government has proceeded with voting after a natural disaster. In the 2008 referendum, which set the ball rolling for these elections, the junta claimed a 98% voter turnout, with 92% approval, despite 15% of the country having been left crippled by cyclone Nargis.
Compounding matters are reports that there has been an increase in fighting in border areas where there has been a long-running war between ethnic groups and the Burmese military; and stories of villages being attacked due to assumed affiliation with border rebels are also increasing.
Added to all of this are the 2,200 political prisoners, more than half a million internally displaced persons, 400,000 monks and hundreds of thousands of refugees abroad – all of whom would likely vote opposition in a democratic election; but all of whom cannot vote in Sunday’s election.
How the election will be reported to the rest of the world is also an issue. The ban on foreign journalists and election monitors is intended to lock the country's physical and virtual borders; a campaign that has already seen aggressive aggressive cyber attacks on independent media, the slowing of the country's internet, and a ban on domestic journalists going near the polls.
The international NGO Human Rights Watch along with other world leaders have already issued their view on the upcoming election saying "The international community doesn't need to wait until November 7 to know these elections are rigged from top to bottom," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
The group is urging the new government for real change in Burma and calling on the global community to take various steps, including calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, while pressing the new government to respect human rights, commit to an inclusive political process that includes increased access for humanitarian agencies and the media, and increasing the role of civil society and development groups.
The SPDC announced the elections on August 13th and results are expected to take several days to weeks to return.
You may not have heard about an individual named David Beckmann, president of the Washington D.C.-based nonprofit Bread for the World, whose focus is to urge decision makers to “end hunger at home and abroad.” I hadn’t, until he was awarded the World Food Prize at the 2010 Laureate Award Ceremony in Des Moines, Iowa.
As a 501(c)4 organization, Bread for the World is a little different from other nonprofits, because of its ability to devote its time, resources and energy not only to educating decision makers about ending hunger, but also to advocating specific policy change, or directly lobbying policy makers on this issue. Beckmann recently published a book called, Exodus from Hunger: We Are Called to Change the Politics of Hunger.
In one commentary I wrote for PeaceMeal, entitled “Billions Undernourished” was on the eve of World Food Day, and I learned a lot about what world hunger means in a nutshell: nearly one billion people in the world suffer from chronic hunger. The 1 Billion Hungry awareness campaign by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations called upon us to tap into our anger over this piece of information and do something to change this sad reality.
One billion people is alot of people.
Rick Steves, a well-known travel guide writer and public television travel host, wrote in an inspired blog post about his recent trip—not to Europe, but to the World Food Prize ceremonies: “With all my travel experience, I've gained empathy for the struggles of people in developing nations, but my concern used to be confused and directionless.”
Indeed, humanitarians and world leaders are challenged with suggesting solutions and introducing policy to balance the forces that have wreaked havoc on the earth—from the natural disasters that have emerged as a result of climate change to the laws of capitalism that are still beholden to the cold realities of supply and demand, and the sometimes colder political motivations that tamper with the international trade economy’s so-called “invisible hand”.
Earlier this week, a headline in The Guardian announced, “Scramble to meet shortfall in food aid: Tens of thousands in Swaziland to miss out on food aid as lack of donor funding forces the WFP to cut assistance.”
Tens of thousands. That’s a lot of people, too.
The article elaborates on some of the elements that complicate delivering food aid in Swaziland:
In one anecdote from Steves’ blog post, he describes a discussion panel about keeping young people interested in farming. When asked about this, Afghanistan’s minister of agriculture, Mohammad Asif Rahimi said, “Remember, in your society one percent of the people are farmers. In Afghanistan, 80 percent of our people are farmers. Encouraging young people to farm is not an issue for us.”
Still, the Guardian spoke with Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agriculture Development who would like to see countries investing in agriculture, making the sector “more attractive to youth and less dependent on rainfall for irrigation.”
It appears that the causes of, and approaches to, addressing world hunger are as numerous as its victims. An approach that would seem reasonable in Afghanistan and Swaziland might seem ludicrous in the United States, or vice versa. But this should not stop you from taking at least one step towards doing good.
Campaigns such as “1 Billion Hungry” have the potential to raise eyebrows, but they also have the potential to overpower and devastate action with crushingly huge numbers that reduce the individual to feelings of helplessness—or directionlessness. As we approach the end of the year, please do not allow your concern to feel directionless. Hopefully, a growing awareness of our global interconnectedness can help us feel obligated to move into a future where undernourishment is just a scientific definition, not a human reality.
--- The author is Cynthia Thomet, a humanitarian, and co owner and doyenne of the award winning downtown Atlanta, Georgia; US restaurant, Lunacy Black Market.
(HN, November 2, 2010) -- The US-based World Bank said in a study released on Tuesday in Maputo, Mozambique that gender disparities in African labour markets are caused by jobs scarcity and not discrimination while highlighting that investments in education and job creation are key to fostering gender equality.
The study analyses household survey data collected in the early 2000s in 18 countries across Africa, looking into gender dimensions in employment, unemployment, pay gap, as well as the role of educational attainment.
For Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, women’s employment ratio over the survey period is 25 percent lower than for men, respectively at 53 percent and nearly 70 percent.
“We found little evidence to support the idea that labour market discrimination is a key explanation for gender gaps in underdeveloped economies, especially those whose job markets are small and can only supply formal employment for a minority of the population,” says World Bank Senior Economist Jorge Arbache, one of the book’s editors.
Arbache added that disparities are indeed greater in countries that have few job opportunities to begin with and, conversely, countries with the highest job rate for men are also those with the least gender disparities.
Another co-editor of the survey, Ewa Filipiak, project manager at Agence Française de Développement, said “ensuring women’s access to jobs is essential to the fight against poverty and reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)... because it has been shown that well-paid jobs empower them to redirect spending on essential needs, notably in favour of children’s health and education.”
Survey data shows that on average the male-to-female earnings ratio is as high as 2.8 among individuals with no education, and as low as 0.9 among those with post-secondary education.
The authors therefore recommend that policy-makers adopt targeted measures that facilitate women’s access to education, such as conditional cash transfer programmes, that encourage families to enrol girls in schools.
Case studies were conducted in the Congo Republic, Ethiopia, Guinea, Madagascar, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania while cross-country studies were done in Benin, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Senegal and Uganda.
Dilma Rousseff greets supporters during her victory meeting in Brasilia, Brazil. (Marcelo Sayao, EPA / October 31, 2010)
(HN, November 1, 2010) -- Dilma Rousseff, the former Marxist rebel who was imprisoned and tortured during Brazil’s military dictatorship, has become the country’s first female leader, winning 56% of the total votes compared to rival Jose Serra’s 44%
Ms. Rousseff, the protégée of current leader, Luiz inacio Lula da Silva (Lula), has vowed to follow in her predecessor's footsteps by continuing to work to eradicate extreme poverty in Brazil, which approximately 20 million people in Brazil suffer from.
Ms. Rousseff takes office on 1 January next year when President Lula steps down after completing the constitutional limit of two consecutive terms.
Her election as Brazil’s first female leader was a sign of the democratic progress Brazil has made, Rousseff said in her victory speech in the capital, Brasilia. “I am here stating my first post-election commitment: to honor Brazilian women so that this fact – unprecedented until now – becomes something normal and can be repeated and expanded in companies, public institutions, and organizations that are representative of our entire society.” She continued: “I would like very much today for fathers and mothers of daughters to look in their eyes and tell them ‘Yes, woman can.”
Rousseff, 62, had never before held elected office. She is an economist and worked her way up through local and state governments.
She joined President Lula’s cabinet as energy minister in 2003-5 and then became his chief of staff.
She is expected to emphasize government efficiency, expand the role of state in some sectors such as mining, and upgrade the country’s dilapidated infrastructure.
Paying respect to her predecessor she said, “The task of succeeding him is difficult and challenging. But I know I will honor this legacy and extend his work”
In the near future Ms. Rousseff will oversee a huge expansion of Brazil’s oil industry, following the discovery of major offshore fields that should make Brazil one of the world’s top 10 oil exporters.
She can count on strengthened majorities for the governing coalition in both houses of Congress to help ease the task of pushing her legislative agenda.
President Lula said of Rousseff that she will have “to form a government in her own image – I only hope she achieves more than I did.”
The iconic UNICEF Trick-or-Treat box (CREDIT: US Fund for UNICEF)
(HN, October 28, 2010) -- This weekend marks the 60th anniversary of UNICEF's `Trick-or-Treat’ campaign, symbolized by the iconic orange collection box that millions of school children in the US carry around each Halloween.
The campaign - where children go door-to-door to collect sweets and donations - has raised $160 million over the past 60 years, averaging about $4 million-a-year.
Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF started as an ad hoc fundraising effort by a group of kids in Philadelphia in 1950, who wanted to raise money for children suffering from the after-effects of World War II. That year, $17 was collected in home-decorated milk cartons, and earmarked for powdered milk for European children.
That initiative turned into one of America's longest-running youth initiatives, raising donations for UNICEF's work in more than 150 countries for items ranging from water purification tablets and insecticide-treated bednets, to high nutrition biscuits and vaccines.
In 2005, in response to the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, the campaign raised a record $18.25 million.
Today, at the Silver Oak Elementary School in San Jose, CA, Michael Bociurkiw, who has worked for UNICEF in several regions of the world, and most recently in Lesotho, addressed 400 children in grades fourth to sixth about UNICEF and his work in the field. He described carrying the Trick-or-Treat box as a child, and what it's like to work in the field, in often the most challenging and inhospitable conditions.
Silver Oak Elementary School in San Jose, CA; grades 4-6. (CREDIT: HUMNEWS)
Silver Oak raised more than $4,300 in donations last year - and about $30,600 since 1999.
Bociurkiw spoke about Lesotho in southern Africa, and how UNICEF is helping children there battle the HIV and AIDS epidemic; and, about efforts to keep children, especially orphans, in school. The mountain kingdom of 2-million people has the third-highest HIV infection rate in the world and suffers from poverty, malnutrition and joblessness.
Bociurkiw also cited recent success in battling polio in Nigeria, where according to UNICEF the number of cases has plummeted this year by more than 90 percent, compared to last year.
This year, UNICEF has recruited its youngest Goodwill Ambassador, teen sensation Selena Gomez, to promote UNICEF's Trick-or-Treat campaign.
HALLOWEEN ORIGINS:
Halloween is an annual holiday observed on October 31, primarily in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Today the celebration is largely a secular one.
Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have placed its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, (the goddess of fruits and seeds), or in the Festival of the Dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain. The name is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end".
The word Halloween is first noted in the 16th century and represents a Scottish variant of the fuller All-Hallows-Even ("evening"), that is, the night before All Hallows Day. Up through the early 20th century, the spelling "Hallowe'en" was frequently used, eliding the "v" and shortening the word.Assembling UNICEF boxes in a combined class of Grades 2 nd 3 at Silver Oak
Halloween is not celebrated in all countries and regions of the world, and among those that do the traditions and importance of the celebration vary significantly. Celebration in the United States and Canada has had a significant impact on how the holiday is observed in other nations, particularly the commercial elements which have extended Halloween to places such as South America, Australia, Europe, and Japan as well as to other parts of East Asia. (VIA WIKIPEDIA)
Photo UNICEF – A baby in Haiti suffers from diarrhea (HN, October 27, 2010) --- Over 3000 cases of cholera have been reported in Haiti this week resulting in over 250 deaths so far. More than 1,500 people have been hospitalized with a variety of diarrhea-related side effects, including dehydration, vomiting and abdominal pain. The confirmed cases are clustered around the Artibonite River in a region two hours north of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Additional cases of watery diarrhea in Port-au-Prince are worrying health officials who are working to prevent the spread of the disease into the crowded camps of displaced.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Haiti's Chief of Health, Dr. Jean-Claude Mubalama, said the situation was hectic and the local hospital in Saint-Marc was overwhelmed with sick people.
"The people here—the medical [staff] and the nurses—are not very familiar with this kind of disease," said Mr. Mubalama. As a result, UNICEF is managing the available resources, as well as coordinating with government and local partners, to try to treat people as quickly as possible, he added.
North of St. Marc, additional cases have appeared in the small community of Dessalines.
Photo: An MSF staff member attends to patients receiving treatment at the St. Nicholas Hospital in St. Marc"We have 35 hospitals beds, but we now have 61 patients spread throughout the hospital," says Dr. John Fequier, director of Claire Heureuse in Dessalines. Only 5 years out of medical school, Dr. Fequier is quick to admit he has never seen anything like this.
Dr. David Olson of Doctors without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical advisor and cholera specialist in Haiti says “The best way to contain the spread of cholera is through prevention, and ensuring people have access to clean drinking water” . He adds that “ in refugee settings in conflict areas, people are forced to seek water wherever they can find it. By contrast, in many of the displacement camps in Port-au-Prince, people are provided with water that is less likely to be contaminated. This will hopefully mitigate the threat."
Nigeria In Nigeria a cholera outbreak has led to 40,000 cases and resulted in 1,555 deaths, the United Nations confirmed yesterday.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) the number of cases is three times higher than last year and seven times higher and in 2008. The disease’s spread seems to be largely contained in Nigeria, where new cases are still being reported in the country, particularly in the northeast.
Women and children account for 80 percent of the cases, according to the UN report.
Two-thirds of rural Nigerians do not have access to safe drinking water or proper sanitation.
In the African nations of Cameroon, Chad and Niger there have been far more cases of cholera than usual this year according to the United Nations
Cholera is caused by a bacterial infection of the intestine and, in severe cases, is characterized by diarrhea, vomiting and leg cramps, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) . In such cases, rapid loss of body fluids can lead to dehydration and shock. Without treatment death can occur within hours.
A person can get cholera by drinking water or eating food contaminated with the bacteria. During epidemics, the source of the contamination is often the feces of an infected person, and infections can spread rapidly in areas where there is poor sewage treatment and a lack of clean drinking water.
Treatment
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Cholera is an easily treatable disease. The prompt administration of oral rehydration salts to replace lost fluids nearly always results in cure. In especially severe cases, intravenous administration of fluids may be required to save the patient's life.
(photo: UN News) (HN, October 26, 2010) -- In an effort to check rising rural poverty and hunger in Nicaragua, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is helping the country’s government to support small-scale farmers boost their production of beans, maize, rice and other staple crops.
The agency said that there are 52.5 million hungry people in Latin America, citing high food prices and the global recession as among the main reasons for the region’s increasing food insecurity.
Although Nicaragua has made strides in the fight against hunger and poverty, it is still the second poorest country in the region after Haiti. In 2009 the GDP fell by almost 3% due to decreased export demand in the US and Central American markets, lower commodity prices for key agricultural exports, and lower remittance growth – remittances are equivalent to almost 15% of GDP.
In Nicaragua, poverty is a rural phenomenon, with two out of three people in the country-side living on less than $1 a day.
FAO is working with the Ministry of Agriculture and the European Union (EU) to help farmers’ associations increase their yields through a two-year, €3 million scheme which will, among other activities, focus on the delivery of high-quality seeds as well as the provision of technical support and marketing assistance
During the planting season which lasted from May to June, nearly 5,000 hectares of land were planted with improved bean, maize and rice seeds provided by FAO to more than 4,000 farmers.
No results are available yet, but looking back on the harvest of late last year, Leonard Fagot, the agency’s project coordinator, said he is optimistic. At the time, FAO assistance led to productivity increases of up to three times the national average in the central area of Jinotega.
Drought and pests hit the department of Nueva Guinea in south-eastern Nicaragua, and yields remained slightly under average. Nevertheless, Fagot is looking forward to the upcoming season. Many farmers will come and work with us again.
Related economic information
The US-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has been in effect since April 2006 and has expanded export opportunities for many agricultural and manufactured goods. Textiles and apparel account for nearly 60% of Nicaragua's exports, but increases in the minimum wage during the ORTEGA administration will likely erode its comparative advantage in this industry. Nicaragua relies on international economic assistance to meet internal- and external-debt financing obligations. Foreign donors have curtailed this funding, however, in response to November 2008 electoral fraud. In early 2004, Nicaragua secured some $4.5 billion in foreign debt reduction under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, and in October 2007, the IMF approved a new poverty reduction and growth facility (PRGF) program.
(HN, October 25, 2010) -- Nearly 700,000 people have been affected by severe flooding in the West African country ofBeninand at least 60 people have been killed, according to theUnited Nations.
“Seasonal heavy rains have been hitting West Africa for several months and normally last until November,” said Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for theUN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)in a statement. “However, what has happened this year goes well beyond normal flooding for Benin.”
The deluge – the most extreme since 1963 – has had an impact on 51 out of 77 communes in the last five weeks. Along rivers and lakes, fragile huts have been submerged in up to two meters of water.
Edwards said that while the UNHCR's normal work in Benin was with the refugee and asylum-seeking population of some 7,300, "we have been called upon to help with the emergency shelter needs of some of the homeless people in southern parts of the country where we have a presence.”
Food production has also been badly hit by the floods. Elisabeth Byrs of the UN's Office for theCo-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)said an appeal for funds and aid is being planned. Experts had assessed needs for fresh water and purification measures, food and shelter, she added.
Earlier this month the U.N. reported that the floods affected 1.5 million people in regions in West and Central Africa with Benin being hit the worst. The floods have destroyed entire villages, killing more than 100 people in Nigeria alone. There have been 377 flood related deaths according to the report.
A cholera outbreak has added to the misery, with over 800 cases counted across Benin. In the aftermath of the flooding, Chad,NorthernCameroon, Niger, and Nigeria are also facing serious cholera epidemics, according to the U.N.
The heavy floods are caused by torrential rains and high water level waters of the Niger and other rivers.
George Clooney speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC about his recent trip to Sudan (photo HUMNews) (HN, October 20, 2010) --- Actor George Clooney and author and human rights activist John Prendergast recently told the Washington political leadership - including President Obama, that the United States needs to stay involved in Sudan to avoid an “inferno.”
They also urged the US to put pressure on leaders in advance of southern Sudan’s independence referendum scheduled for 9 January 2011.
“We have an opportunity to prevent war from happening instead of mopping up a mess later on,” Clooney said.
Clooney is a co-founder of ‘Not On Our Watch’, an organization whose mission it is to focus global attention and resources to stop and prevent atrocities in Darfur; Prendergast is co-founder of the Enough Project. The two were in Washington reporting on their recent fact finding trip to Sudan.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement
The referendum was promised by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which was signed in 2005, ending decades of the north-south civil war. Under the agreement, the south formed its own government, which has limited autonomy and in which the north has a small representation. South Sudan is represented in the government of national unity, which is led by the Khartoum-based National Congress Party (NCP).
According to Clooney and Prendergast there have been 5 years to implement the CPA. However, Prendergast said: “The ball got dropped the day the peace agreement was signed...as we do so often we go off to the next thing and left the Sudanese to their own devices. If we don’t urgently attend to Sudan the south will be an inferno again.”
Sudan this week and the question of Abyei
This week President Omar al-Bashir has said he is still committed to hold the referendum on the south’s independence, but insisted both sides first had to settle differences over their borders. Other oustanding issues include the sharing of oil, debt and Nile river water.
Southern Sudan president Salva Kiir vowed that the country would not return to civil war. "We do not want Abyei to become a potential trigger for a conflict again between the south and the north," Kiir said.
Much of the attention focuses on Abyei - a historical bridge between north and south which sits in the oil-rich Muglad Region.
Sudan (photo: CIA World Factbook) In July 2009, an international tribunal redefined the borders of the disputed oil region by splitting the contested zone between the two sides. In its ruling the tribunal, seated at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, overruled a decision by an international commission that Sudan's government rejected four years earlier. The ruling gives the north uncontested rights to rich oil deposits like the Heglig oil field, which had previously been placed within the Abyei region, which sits on the border between north and south. But the decision leaves at least one oil field in Abyei and gives a symbolic victory to the Ngok Dinka, an ethnic group loyal to southern Sudan that has pushed to join it in a referendum.
Last Thursday, October 14, Dirdiri Mohammad Ahmad, of the National Congress Party (NCP), said the January 9 vote on whether it should be part of the north or the south of the country could be delayed for months or the territorial row would be settled without a poll.
"It is very clear that right now it is not possible to have the Abyei referendum on 9 January, 2011. We all agree that this is no longer practical," he told reporters in Khartoum
Ahmad said Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) could reach "a conclusion on the final status of the Abyei area" without having to decide the matter through a referendum.
Abyei's administrator and a member of the SPLM, Deng Arop Kuol, said the region's residents would not accept a delay and may hold their own vote without the central government's approval.
"A delayed vote is unacceptable," he said. "The people of Abyei are still holding out for the referendum to be held on January 9. If the government does not give them that option, we can have a self-run referendum."
Another real concern in Sudan is that, two years after the peace treaty, much of the south is heavily militarized. The reason has been that the north has grown dependent on the oil from the south and if the south secedes, the north stands to lose billions of dollars yearly.
Both the north and south claim the oil-producing region and fought over it during the two-decades long war, in which around two million people died.
A delay of either the Abyei or secession referendum threatens to revive a new conflict between the two sides.
Nothing says “comfort” quite like freshly baked bread. Everything about it feels good. Making it, there’s the sifting of flour, carefully adding water to knead the combination into smooth dough. Baking it, the leavening has a fragrance that can draw crowds. Significantly, making bread is a process that takes time.
The positive impact is even greater for relief efforts. Today, I came across a little story published on the World Food Programme website entitled, “Pakistan: Food Aid Means Fresh Bread for Homeless Families,” the article underlines the basic human need to eat food for survival, but more importantly, it’s about people surviving the devastating impact of broken families, ruptured communities.
The recent floods washed through Pakistan as I was coincidentally wrapping up a book called “Three Cups of Tea,” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. It is a non-fiction account of Greg Mortenson’s commitment and travels to build schools for girls and youth in the most rural areas of Northern Pakistan following a troublesome K2 climb. Throughout the book are scenes of poor families and struggling villages preparing feasts from what little they have to create a lifelong bond with Greg, and to secure a commitment from him to build another school for their children.
People who break bread together can develop a deeper understanding for meeting basic needs to build better communities.
There’s one scene in this book where Greg was frustrated to learn that the money he raised in the United States was re-appropriated by village elders in Korphe, Pakistan to build a bridge across a treacherous ravine—one that for decades was bridged by a zip-line of sorts. Greg was immediately aware that bridge project would eat all the funds he raised for a school and would put off building the school for at least another year.
Greg worried what his backers would think. He had approached the village with the vision of building a school. As he fretted and micro-managed construction of the bridge, he was taken aside by Haji Ali, a village elder, who taught him one of the most important lessons for helping communities: “We’re the country of thirty-minute power lunches. Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.”
After that meeting with Ali, Greg let go. The bridge was the best solution for this village, as it was the only reasonable way to transport tons of construction materials across the canyon through which some of Central Asia’s coldest glacial waters flowed. The following year, the school was built and led to a domino effect over the next several years of school-building projects throughout this mountainous region of Central Asia. All because he took the time to drink three cups of tea.
In my mind, the two stories written years apart connected in my consciousness this week. Food is more than fuel, just as my sitting next to a stranger is more than a random occurrence. The moment can carry the impact of a butterfly fluttering its wings on the opposite end of the earth. It can breathe comfort into your soul like freshly baked bread.
--- The author is Cynthia Thomet, a humanitarian, and co owner and doyenne of the award winning downtown Atlanta, Georgia; US restaurant, Lunacy Black Market. http://www.lunacyblackmarket.com/
(HN, October 19, 2010) – Wrapping up our look at hunger and malnutrition in honor of World Food Day, HUMNEWS’ presents, “LUNCH: The Film”. Produced by Filmmaker Avis Richards, Founder of Bird’s Nest Productions and the Bird’s Nest Foundation, LUNCH explores the pervasively unhealthy food which the US school lunch program provides to children in the public school system. This lack of quality can lead to malnourishment and disease, even if children are stuffed full of empty calories. Healthy food is the right of all the world’s population.
About LUNCH
As nation-wide funding for school cafeterias rapidly decreases and high-calorie, low-nutrient meals have become order of the day, our nation's children are being afflicted by a slew of diet-based diseases from high-blood pressure and cholesterol to diabetes and obesity. In LUNCH, a revealing documentary short, director Avis Richards investigates the causes and the consequences of “growing up in a junk-food culture.” Through numerous on-site interviews with food workers, doctors, educators, and students, LUNCH provides a candid, penetrating, and disturbing account of the National School Lunch Program's failure to promote the proper dietary habits to ensure our youth's physical, social, and psychological well-being. The documentary also explores viable alternatives to the hamburger hegemony, talking with farmers and other community leaders about their efforts to put locally-grown, whole foods back on the menu and make diet and nutrition a core part of every school's educational model. LUNCH serves up an eye-opening account of a national crisis and its potential solutions, a film that should interest anyone concerned about the future of our students and our society.
Storyline
LUNCH is a short documentary exploring the effects of the National School Lunch Program on America’s children today in schools and seeks to shed light on the current situation through candid interviews with doctors, teachers, farmers and various specialists.
The National School Lunch Program feeds some 28 Million children who eat 1 and sometimes 2 meals a day at school. Sadly the food that is served to them too often resembles fast food. The effects are far reaching.
Statistics have shown that kids today will have a lower life expectancy than their parents. Many doctors have had no training in diagnosing adult onset diabetes in younger patients. In 2007 the total cost of diabetes treatment was $174 Billion and that is only expected to rise as more and more people are diagnosed everyday.
One of the major problems is that parents, students, and even school administrators do not pay attention to poor food quality. Ironically even fast food chains have to supply information on what they are serving. So why isn’t that the case with our schools?
With a school system underfunded and a school food surplus sold in bulk and “on the cheap”, the results have been the downsizing of proper kitchen in school cafeterias to the point where pre-made fast food style lunches are the only meals available. This is a recipe for disaster and it is having an adverse effect not only on kid’s health, but it is teaching kids to identify food as being fast food and the result goes beyond heath and weight issues but to self-esteem and abilities to function properly in classrooms. From healthcare to national test average scores, everything is tied to what we eat.
The most common argument that children will not eat healthy food however many in the field disagree with this statement and say its simply a matter of making nutritional food available to them. The film explores how some schools, dubbing themselves as “Green Schools” such as Hamstead Hill Academy in Baltimore, have made nutrition a core part of their educational model. From school garden to cooking classes these schools have taught children to make healthy choices by including them in the preparation of their own meals.
The film also targets a broader range of social issues beyond school and healthcare touching on economics where the importance of locally grown produce in the Baltimore school system has lead to a partnership with Great Kids Farm. Not only does this farm supply produce for the school system but it also educates kids on where their food comes from and offers affordable alternatives to the expensive national distribution plan current in existence. Farms like Great Kids Farm not only create jobs locally but studies have shown that small farms, which use their soil to grow a variety of multiple produce are far more effective than their larger monocropping farm counterparts.
There is a national movement in the US to build a real connection to the food we eat starting with local farmers and schools all the way to Michelle Obama’s white House garden all to show that people don’t need a big farm to have a positive impact on each other and on America.
Production Notes
The idea for LUNCH was born when producer and director Avis Richards realized that our country’s National School Lunch Program was not working and decided to do something about it. With Earth Day Network's input, Avis embarked on a year-long research process. Once she analyzed and understood the issue, she decided to share her findings in a film that would not only expose the problem but also recommend solutions.
Traveling from Boston to New York to Washington D.C. to Baltimore, Avis and her team interviewed medical doctors, teachers, chefs, school directors, food producers, volunteers, and others from various walks of life to ensure that documentary would feature various opinions.
As they compiled interviews, their passion for the subject grew stronger and they became motivated to create a piece that would create impact both the general public and policy makers, so that children across the country may have access to healthy meals on a daily basis, and more importantly, that they can learn the importance of a healthy diet, a lesson that will last a lifetime.
SOME STATISTICS:
■ The US Child Nutrition Act, which supplies breakfast and lunch to some 31 million students = $12 billion annually.
■ The US elementary school lunches average 821 calories per lunch.
■ 80% of US schools do not meet the USDA standards for fat composition.
■ Children who consume US school lunches are about 2% more likely to be obese than those who brown bag their lunches.
■ Soda vending machines are present in 43% of elementary schools, 74% of middle schools and nearly all of high schools.”
■ Nutrition requirements for school lunches: “Current regulations require schools to meet the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommend that no more than 30 percent of an individual's calories come from fat, and less than 10 percent from saturated fat. Regulations also establish a standard for school meals to provide one-third of the Recommended Daily Allowances of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories.”
■ “The National School Lunch Program gets about 15 to 20 percent of its food from the federal government each year, the paper says, with beef and chicken making up a big portion of the largess. But the meat received from the USDA receives far less testing for contamination than it would be by fast-food outlets that have had past troubles.”
■ “Most public schools offer students a government-subsidized lunch that is supposed to adhere to certain fat, caloric and nutritional standards. 20% of schools also sell branded fast foods such as Pizza Hut and Little Caesars pizza or McDonald's burgers and fries, according to a 2000 study of school health policies and programs by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
■ According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 percent of children (over 9 million) 6-19 years old are overweight or obese -- a number that has tripled since 1980. For children born in the United States in 2000, the lifetime risk of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives is estimated to be about 30 percent for boys and 40 percent for girls. ("Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance, 2005," Institute of Medicine.)
■ In case reports limited to the 1990s, Type 2 diabetes accounted for 8 to 45 percent of all new pediatric cases of diabetes, in contrast with fewer than 4 percent before the 1990s. ("Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance, 2005," Institute of Medicine.)
■ By as early as 7 years of age, being obese may raise a child's risk of future heart disease and stroke, even in the absence of other cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
■ “The likelihood of developing Type 2 diabetes and hypertension rises steeply with increasing body fatness. Confined to older adults for most of the 20th century, this disease now affects obese children even before puberty. Approximately 85% of people with diabetes are type 2, and of these, 90% are obese or overweight…Raised BMI also increases the risks of cancer of the breast, colon, prostate, endometroium, kidney and gallbladder.” (World Health Organization)
■ The CDC reviewed the discharge records of hospitals nationwide from 1979 to 1999, specifically of children ranging in age from 6 to 17 years and analyzed the results for all obesity-related illnesses. The researchers found that the incidence of:
• Diabetes had nearly doubled • Obesity and gallbladder disease tripled • Sleep apnea increased five-fold
■ More than 70% obese adolescents retain their overweight and obese condition even during their adulthood.
■ As the percentages of obese children raises, so does the percentage of those affected with juvenile diabetes at nearly the same rate.
---HUMNEWS wishes to thank Avis Richards and her production team for sharing LUNCH with our audience.
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HUMNEWS: CLOSING THE GEOGRAPHIC GAP IN MEDIA. Human Media, 2017.
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