POVERTY AND GENDER INEQUALITY

The 2005 World Summit confronts us with a challenge: world leaders must either find the will to work together to make the vision of the Millennium Declaration a reality for people everywhere, or millions of people will be left to live in deprivation and fear, writes Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). In this analysis, Heyzer writes that UNIFEM focuses a spotlight on the links between poverty and gender inequality and the role of employment in reducing or perpetuating both. In the developing world, with the exception of North Africa, women are not only concentrated in informal employment, but also in the more precarious forms of informal employment, where earnings are meagre and highly unreliable. Not achieving these goals is unthinkable. Widening gaps between rich and poor, and between women and men, can only contribute to greater insecurity and violence in the world. Above all else, economic priorities must be re-ordered to focus on employment rather than simply growth, looking at the needs of women as workers, not only as citizens or members of a vulnerable group.

UN WORLD SUMMIT 2005: WHAT IS AT STAKE

Over the last few weeks, the focus of the world\'s media has turned towards negotiations within the United Nations on the outcome document for the September World Summit. While detailed negotiations on 39-page bureaucratic documents don\'t usually make for great headlines, the battles raging between Member States have caught the attention of the international press. This is because Member States have been arguing about the most minimal of collective commitments, even simple restatements of past promises. Most worrying has been the possibility that Member States dilute their commitment to the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), writes Eveline Herfkens, Secretary General\'s Executive Coordinator for the Millennium Development Goals Campaign. The first five years since the adoption of the Goals show why we cannot rest on our laurels. While there has some progress, it is limited and patchy and it has been slow. If current trends continue there will be large gaps between targets and outcomes by 2015. The human costs of the failure to meet the Goals would be staggering. Focusing on just one indicator, according to the 2005 Human Development Report, based on current trends we are likely to miss the target for reducing child mortality, meaning an additional 41 million of avoidable child deaths between now and 2015. Perhaps most crucially and this is an area where quite frankly there has been very little progress developed countries need to reform trade and agricultural policies. Even if rich countries prefer to make formal commitments in the context of WTO negotiations, they need to fully engage now to ensure that the Doha round of negotiations will indeed be a development round as promised. They need to be proactive in pushing the negotiations forward, for example by setting dates for the elimination of agricultural subsidies that distort the markets that poor countries depend upon, and by committing to full duty- and quota-free access for all low-income countries to allow them to sell their products on rich country consumer markets.

THE LIES OF WAR

Wars give noble reasons for why they occur: international security, national dignity, democracy, freedom, order, the mandate of Civilisation, or the will of God. Not one has the honesty to confess: I kill to steal, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of \'\'The Open Veins of Latin America\'\' and \'\'Memories of Fire\'\'. In this article, Galeano writes that the denial of the evidence, a practice unjustly attributed to drunks, is in fact the most notorious characteristic of the president of the planet, who thank God doesn\'t drink a drop. He continues to sustain, day after day, that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with oil. A certain Lawrence of Arabia wrote from Iraq in 1920: \'\'The people of England have been led to Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be difficult to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information.\'\' I know that history never repeats itself, but sometimes I wonder. And the obsession with Chavez? Does oil have nothing to do with this frenetic campaign to kill in the name of democracy the dictator who won nine clean elections? And the continuous alarms raised about the nuclear threat from Iran, are they unrelated to the fact that the country has among the largest natural gas reserves in the world?

WOMEN, HEALTH, AND DEVELOPMENT

From September 14-16, world leaders will meet in New York to discuss the Millennium Development Goals, writes Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund. In this article, Obaid points out that the most successful developing countries in terms of economic growth, less poverty, longer lives, and healthier people were those with slower population growth. And that was achieved not by government directive but by helping ordinary men and women make their own decisions about how many children to have, and when. Now, reproductive health problems account for a third of the burden of disease among women of reproductive age (15-44) worldwide. In Africa, the figure is two thirds. Healthy people make better workers, better workers make stronger economies, and stronger economies allow people to live better and make good choices. Poor women have known this for a long time. To strengthen the Millennium Goals, the Millennium Project team has recommended a new target: universal access to reproductive health by 2015 to be achieved through the primary health care system. At this Summit, leaders will have an unprecedented chance to change women\'s lives, to end poverty, not just in their lifetimes, but in the next few years. And the women of the world will find out if their well-being is a priority or not.

A CHINESE APPROACH TO BEATING POVERTY

Given the recent G-8 summit\'s focus on reducing poverty in Africa, it is worth calling attention to a successful anti-poverty programme in China, write Fred Dubee, a long-time advisor to the UN Global Compact and a graduate of the European University Centre, for Peace Studies (EPU) in Stadtschlaining, Austria, and Dietrich Fischer, Academic Director of EPU. Both are members of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network. In 1994, the China Society for the Promotion of the Guangcai (glory) Programme was founded by a group of ten concerned, dedicated, and brilliant young Chinese entrepreneurs, the authors write in this article. In contrast to other poverty relief projects, the Guangcai Programme encourages social responsibility among private entrepreneurs. It facilitates investment in sustainable development projects in China\'s less-developed areas, thus bringing to disadvantaged groups the fruits of economic development. When Deng Xiaoping changed the laws in China in 1994 to encourage private enterprise, they knew they would become very successful, because they had good business plans, and opportunities abounded. But they also realized that if they did not share their success, they would arouse the envy of the public and local officials. For this reason, and because they wanted to help their fellow citizens, they set out to create a multitude of small and medium enterprises to help generate jobs and income, especially in the poorer regions of China.

SAYINGS

\'\'NEW YORK, MADRID, LONDON: TERRORISM STRIKES ANEW.\'\' This was the headline of many of the world\'s newspapers reporting the recent explosions in London. They didn\'t mention either Afghanistan or Iraq. Weren\'t --aren\'t-- the bombings there terrorist attacks as well, which in the case of Iraq occur daily? asks Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of \'\'The Open Veins of Latin America\'\' and \'\'Memories of Fire\'\'. In this article, Galeano writes that the military industry needs to produce fear to justify its existence. It is a vicious circle: the world becomes a slaughterhouse which becomes a madhouse which becomes a slaughterhouse ... Iraq, bombarded, occupied, humiliated, becomes the preeminent school for crime of our day. Its invaders, who call themselves liberators, have set up there the world\'s most prolific nursery of terrorists. \'\'The Devil provides the weapons.\'\' At last a true saying. God couldn\'t be such a bastard. It must be the Devil that provides the weapons, or at least the weapons of mass destruction, the real ones, the ones Iraq didn\'t have and that are ripping the world apart: the bombardment of lies from the factories of public opinion; the chemical weapons of consumer society that are maddening the climate and polluting the air; the poison gas from the factories of fear that make us accept the unacceptable and turn indignity into a feature of destiny; the deadly impunity of the serial killers become heads of state; the double-edged swords of the major powers which multiply in tandem poverty and arguments against poverty while they sow anti-personnel mines and sell prostheses, and rain from the sky bombs and contracts for the reconstruction of the countries they annihilate.

AN UNSTABLE WORLD IN SEARCH OF WORLD LEADERSHIP

The statement issued by the G8 on the 8th July illuminates the many blind spots, the deep divisions, the lack of ambition and above all, the failure of world leadership by eight presidents and prime ministers. Their blind spots have grown to the size of moats; their divisions have deepened; and their ambitions for climate change and for Africa have been slashed to fit in with the apathy and torpor of US oil companies and high-worth taxpayers. The question we must pose is this: do these men deserve the accolade - “world leaders”? , writes Ann Pettifor, director of Advocacy International and editor of “Real World Economic Outlook”. It is in relation to Africa that these eight men have most clearly illuminated the feebleness of their ambition, and the weakness of their leadership. The talk was of increasing aid to Africa by $50 billion in 2006 to tackle the plague that is AIDS, to replace the past stripping of Africa's assets, and to address the impoverishment of that continent. Instead, after a long statement hectoring African leaders on “good governance” and “promoting growth” the eight leaders committed no new money to Africa in 2006. Instead they simply reiterated past commitments to increase aid to Africa by $25 billion in five years time. As UK NGOs have noted, only £10 billion of this commitment will be new money in 2010 far less than the additional $50 billion in 2006 that the social movement “Make Poverty History” had campaigned for.

THE REAL THREAT IS NUCLEAR TERRORISM

If the world continues on its current course, the terrorist bombs in London should be considered a mere foretaste of far worse future catastrophes, writes Dietrich Fischer, Academic Director of the European University Centre for Peace Studies in Stadtschlaining, Austria, and a member of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network. As long as the major powers insist on maintaining nuclear weapons, they cannot expect to prevent other countries and terrorist organisations from acquiring and using them. Those who still believe in the fairy tale of \"deterrence theory\" better wake up to the age of suicide bombers. Ee need a vastly more open world, where all nuclear weapons are verifiably destroyed and the manufacturing of new ones cannot be hidden. The IAEA can now inspect only sites that member countries voluntarily place under its supervision; such an \"inspection\" is meaningless. If we cling to obsolete ways of thinking --that threatening others will make us safe-- we face extinction as a human species. Is getting rid of all nuclear weapons a realistic prospect? Certainly more realistic than waiting until they are used. Some have argued that we cannot disinvent nuclear weapons and therefore will have to live with them as long as civilisation exists. But nobody disinvented cannibalism either; we simply learned to abhor it.

JUST ONE MORE CUP OF COFFEE

As the campaign against global poverty gathers steam in the run-up to the G-8 summit, the pressure on leaders is mounting to increase the measly amounts they currently give in aid to the poorest countries, writes Kumi Naidoo, Chair of the Global Call to Action against Poverty. Along with cancelling debt and reforming unfair trade rules, an immediate increase of USD 50 billion in aid from the richest countries is a pivotal demand of campaigners worldwide, the author writes in this article. Ending global poverty, the kind of poverty that kills one child every three seconds, is not a distant dream but a practical, achievable objective, an economic essential, and a moral imperative. The eight men that will meet July 6-8 in Gleneagles know that by making a small change to the policies of the richest countries in the world, they can play their part in halting the 50,000 deaths from poverty every day. Millions of people in the world\'s largest anti-poverty campaign, The Global Call to Action against Poverty, are demanding pro-poor policies from governments that are transparent and accountable to citizens. They are all calling for justice, not charity and marching on their capitals, all wearing white bands, they are a visible demonstration of the power of people to unite, across borders, around a simple ask: take action to stop poverty.

WHITE BAND DAY: A GLOBAL CALL TO END POVERTY

In September the heads of state will return to the UN in New York to evaluate their progress on the UN Millennium goal of ending poverty by 2015. Before that, G-8 leaders will meet in Scotland, and for the first time their agenda will focus on Africa and poverty. In December in Hong Kong trade ministers will meet in an effort to restart the talks that were begun at Cancun and which are absolutely central to development. In response to these three fundamental meetings, a global movement was created to exert pressure to bring about an end to poverty, write Eveline Herfkens, representative of the UN Secretary General for the Millennium Development Goals, and Walter Veltroni, mayor of Rome. The authors write in this article that the Global Call to Action Against Poverty is a movement comprised of more than 1000 international networks. Three dates for mobilisations in more than seventy countries have been set before the three major meetings. The symbol that will unite all of these events will be a white band, a sign of commitment, which will encircle not only wrists but also important buildings, for example, Rome\'s Trevi Fountain (a band of light in this case) and the Colosseum (an 80 metre band). Wearing the white band serves as a reminder to the powers of this earth that eradicating poverty is a duty, and that the path to the future passes through every part of the earth, not only the developed world.

WHITE BAND DAY: A GLOBAL CALL TO END POVERTY

In September the heads of state will return to the UN in New York to evaluate their progress on the UN Millennium goal of ending poverty by 2015. Before that, G-8 leaders will meet in Scotland, and for the first time their agenda will focus on Africa and poverty. In December in Hong Kong trade ministers will meet in an effort to restart the talks that were begun at Cancun and which are absolutely central to development. In response to these three fundamental meetings, a global movement was created to exert pressure to bring about an end to poverty, write Eveline Herfkens, representative of the UN Secretary General for the Millennium Development Goals, and Walter Veltroni, mayor of Rome. The authors write in this article that the Global Call to Action Against Poverty is a movement comprised of more than 1000 international networks. Three dates for mobilisations in more than seventy countries have been set before the three major meetings. The symbol that will unite all of these events will be a white band, a sign of commitment, which will encircle not only wrists but also important buildings, for example, Rome\'s Trevi Fountain (a band of light in this case) and the Colosseum (an 80 metre band). Wearing the white band serves as a reminder to the powers of this earth that eradicating poverty is a duty, and that the path to the future passes through every part of the earth, not only the developed world.

IS US OF PRESIDENT BUSH THE GULAG OF OUR TIMES?

A hooded prisoner balanced on a box with wires dangling from his outstretched arms. A naked man cowering in terror as soldiers threatened him with snarling dogs. A Quran being desecrated. \'\'Offensive.\'\' \'\'Irresponsible.\'\' \'\'Reprehensible.\'\' \'\'Unfortunate and sad.\'\' \'\'Absurd.\'\' It would be natural to assume that these words were used to describe the horrific images detailed above -- but they were not. In fact, they are the words used over recent weeks by senior US officials in response to Amnesty International\'s Report 2005, writes Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International. This defensive reaction was the latest in a long series of attempts by the US administration to deflect and divert attention from allegations of serious human rights abuses committed against detainees held in US custody in Guant namo, Bagram, and other undisclosed locations around the world. The outrage expressed by senior US officials including the President, the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense at AI\'s condemnation of US policies and practices is not merely hypocritical but also a diversionary tactic to deflect attention from some hard truths. The Bush administration must stop attacking the messenger and begin dealing with the message, which is simple: close Guant namo detention camp and charge the detainees under US law in US courts or release them. Disclose the rest and carry out a full, independent investigation into US policies and practices on detention and interrogation including torture and ill-treatment.

ACEH: PEACE IS NECESSARY FOR RECONSTRUCTION

As the Indonesian government embarks on the formidable task of rebuilding the province of Aceh, which suffered the full brunt of the December 26 tsunami, peace is becoming indispensable, writes Hasballah Saad, chairman of the Tifa Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that promotes human rights, democracy, and civil society in Indonesia. He is also a commissioner of the Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights. In this article, Saad writes that without peace, any reconstruction effort may go nowhere. Infrastructure built by the government in the morning could be burned down by unknown people in the evening. The recent initiation of the fourth round of peace talks between the rebels and the Indonesian government in Helsinki, Finland, has rekindled hopes for peace and reconciliation in the troubled province. The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) has hinted at giving up its struggle for independence in favour of self-government. What GAM means by self-government, however, remains unclear. GAM, whose strength seems to have been reduced considerably by the military offensive by government troops in the past few years, has to spell out what it means by self-government. Does it mean independence, a federal system, or special autonomy? Independence is certainly out of question, while the other options open to GAM must not violate the country\'s constitution.

WHITE BAND DAY: A GLOBAL CALL TO END POVERTY

In September the heads of state will return to the UN in New York to evaluate their progress on the UN Millennium goal of ending poverty by 2015. Before that, G-8 leaders will meet in Scotland, and for the first time their agenda will focus on Africa and poverty. In December in Hong Kong trade ministers will meet in an effort to restart the talks that were begun at Cancun and which are absolutely central to development. In response to these three fundamental meetings, a global movement was created to exert pressure to bring about an end to poverty, write Eveline Herfkens, representative of the UN Secretary General for the Millennium Development Goals, and Walter Veltroni, mayor of Rome. The authors write in this article that the Global Call to Action Against Poverty is a movement comprised of more than 1000 international networks. Three dates for mobilisations in more than seventy countries have been set before the three major meetings. The symbol that will unite all of these events will be a white band, a sign of commitment, which will encircle not only wrists but also important buildings, for example, Rome\'s Trevi Fountain (a band of light in this case) and the Colosseum (an 80 metre band). Wearing the white band serves as a reminder to the powers of this earth that eradicating poverty is a duty, and that the path to the future passes through every part of the earth, not only the developed world.

AFTER THE FRENCH ‘NON’: IS THERE LIFE BEYOND THE EU CONSTITUTION?

The European Constitution is dead; long live the European Union, writes, Joaquin Roy, \'Jean Monnet\' Professor and Director of the European Union Center at the University of Miami. In this article for IPS, the author writes that there is still a future for the EU. Among other reasons, the EU enjoys a solid legacy, and its present lasts at least as long as the current stage of ratification of the Constitution. In France, the process of ratifying the EU constitution was considered as plebiscite on the incumbent government. To consider the French or Dutch vote as a general EU plebiscite would be comparable to accepting that some citizens are more equal than others and thus can vote in Marseille or Rotterdam on behalf of the people of Warsaw or Prague. In an EU that is on its way to reducing the number of decisions subject to unanimous approval, it is contradictory that today\'s electoral decisions cannot be made on a Europe-wide basis with no regard to state borders. In a EU-wide majority vote, the Europeans would easily approve the Constitution.

AIDS PREVENTION AND TREATMENT IS A LIFE-LONG COMMITMENT

In the worst-case scenario of a recent report by UNAIDS on the evolution of the AIDS epidemic in Africa by 2025, up to 83 million Africans could die of AIDS-related illnesses in the next twenty years, unless concrete action is taken today to scale up the response to the disease, writes Mark Stirling, director of the UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Eastern and Southern Africa. What is essential, the author writes in this article, is investment in both HIV prevention and treatment. We cannot sacrifice one at the expense of the other. As impressive as the recent gains in the fight against AIDS may sound, the bottom line remains that today only 8 percent of Africans who need treatment are getting it. If the commitment displayed by African governments and the international community in scaling-up treatment during the last six months of 2004 is any indication, in all likelihood the worst-case scenario is the least likely scenario. But this will only be so if we remember that the commitments to scaling up prevention and treatment today are the beginning of a life-long commitment to improving the health and well-being of all Africans, especially those vulnerable to, living with and affected by HIV and AIDS.

A LONG ROAD AHEAD IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HUNGER

Almost nine years since heads of state and governments representing 186 countries gathered at the World Food Summit pledged to half hunger by 2015, progress is insufficient, writes Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In this analysis, Diouf writes that in three of the four developing regions, more people were undernourished in 2000-2002 than in 1995-1997. Only Latin America and the Caribbean achieved a modest reduction in the number of hungry people. While the main responsibility for addressing poverty and food insecurity in the developing countries remains with the countries themselves, their efforts can only be fruitful within a favourable international environment. Indeed, we have seen expressions of solidarity and strong commitment to address the problem of food insecurity and poverty. Unfortunately, there is still a notable gap between commitments and action. The urgent measures that need to be taken at the international level include: creation of a fair and equitable international trading environment and the reduction and cancellation of the debt burden of the poorest developing countries. The recent announcement by the G8 finance ministers to write off more than USD 40 billion of debts of 18 African countries is a step in the right direction. But we still need to enhance international development assistance in conformity with relevant international commitments and to reverse the negative trend of resource allocation to the agriculture sector.

LET THEM DRINK COKE

As water scarcity becomes an increasingly urgent issue around the world, a recent ruling by an Indian high court provides a troubling perspective on how water rights can play out in contests between foreign corporations and local governments, writes Vandana Shiva In this article, Shiva writes that in 2000, Coca-Cola set up a plant in Kerala, India. Within a year the groundwater started to decline, and wells were polluted. After protests, the local government denied renewal of the plant\'s license and the Kerala High Court supported its action. On April 7, 2005, however, this decision was overruled by two other judges of the same court who placed Coca-Cola\'s right to use water over the local government\'s right to regulate water use. The issue is whether public regulation will be democratic and in the hands of local communities or whether they will be controlled through a state bureaucracy which can be corrupted and influenced by the power of corporations. The local government has taken an appeal to the Supreme Court. But the real judgment in this case will come from the people. Coca-Cola has unleashed a war against the earth, and the people of areas where Coca-Cola is mining water are committed to stopping the theft of their water and the hijack of their institutions.

HUMAN RIGHTS BEST PROTECTION AGAINST INSECURITY AND TERROR

In the face of terrorism, the politics of fear call for a total surrender of liberty in favour of security, secrecy, randomness, racial profiling, involuntary renditions, and the use of torture, writes Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In this article, Arbour writes that the international human rights framework stands as a counterweight to the politics of fear. A response to insecurity based on human rights is both more balanced and rational, and presents the singular advantage of dismantling, rather than perpetrating, the root causes of insecurity. Arbour asserts that human rights do not impede the protection of national security but are, at least in democratic societies, at the heart of national identity. Indeed, in my view, a country and the ideals it stands for are as much at risk of destruction from the collapse of its human rights norms and the rule of law that protects them as they are from the explosion of bombs on its territory. The most profound insecurity does not emanate from foreign threats but from internal temptations to allow to erode the foundations upon which national identity is built. To fight insecurity within the framework of human rights is to fight with our strongest weapon: our deepest values. This is the protection of human security in the most profound sense.

JUSTICE LONG OVERDUE FOR KOREAN “COMFORT WOMEN”

Surviving Korean \"comfort women\", forced to serve as sex slaves to Japanese military officers during WWII, have waited over half a century for an apology from the Japanese government, and with mounting international pressure, they just may get one, writes Elisa Gahng, a senior at the University of California at Berkeley and intern with the Women of Colour Resource Centre in Oakland, CA. In this article, Gahng writes that these women, now aged 65 to 80, were among 200,000 young women kidnapped from Korea\'s poorest regions. In three years, the average comfort woman was raped 7,500 times and some by as many as 30 military officers a day. Their quest for justice began in 1991 when a group of Korean grandmothers publicly told their tragic stories and filed a class action law suit against the Japanese government demanding reparations. Japan\'s government still refuses to assume responsibility and even denies the existence of comfort stations. But growing global pressure may turn the tide. Multiple inter- governmental agencies, such as the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), have urged the Japanese government to make an official apology and assume responsibility.

EU CONSTITUTION: GOOD FOR EUROPE AND THE WORLD

A \"No\" vote on the EU Constitution would not be a mere pause in the path forward but a giant step backwards, desired only by those who always wanted a Europe that was no more than a free-trade area, writes Mario Soares, President of Portugal from 1986-1996. In this article, Soares argues that rejection would introduce a tremendous risk of disintegration and spell the end of a political, social, and environmentally-committed Europe. Worse, it would mean the rejection of the EU as a \'\'global power\'\', a counterweight in European-US relations able to resist efforts at imperial hegemony by forces that consider the UN just a stumbling block. The hawks who advise George W. Bush would certainly be pleased by a \"No\" win. The \"No\" forces, in France and elsewhere, are a contradictory mix. Many are inspired by nationalistic notions. There are leftists and communists guided by immediate and ideological criteria. Then there are the neo-conservatives, ultraconservatives, economic neo-liberals, and religious fanatics. And among the French socialists, who are divided on the constitution, the group headed by ex-prime minister Laurent Fabius is for a \"No\" vote with the idea of using the referendum as a means of protesting the centre-right government of Jacques Chirac. All are partisans of the notion that \"the worse things are, the better they are\", which historically has tended to backfire on those who live by it.