POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT: SPARSE MEDIA COVERAGE MAY MAKE THEM WORSE

Journalists who specialise in development and cooperation face a very difficult reality, and one that is very hard to change: there is very little room for this subject in the media, writes Mario Lubetkin, Director General of IPS. If the media give this subject so little room, are we to conclude that, despite their prominence in the agenda of the international community, that development issues simply aren\'t that important? If nothing changes, while information and the debate on economic development and the fight against poverty do not reach the general public, international cooperation will remain the exclusive domain of specialists and functionaries, far from the people. And without the participation and commitment of the people, it is unlikely that governments will do all that they can and should to carry out a programme as ambitious and strewn with obstacles as the MDGs.

PROHIBITED OBJECTS

What is natural about these poor-icidal natural disasters? Is their nature so perverse? Or are we mistaking the executioner for the victim? Is it nature that is poisoning the air, polluting the water, razing the forests, and driving the climate into the madhouse? asks Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of \'\'The Open Veins of Latin America\'\' and \'\'Memories of Fire\'\'. The disaster of cyclone Stan in Chiapas would have been only half as severe, experts assert, if the region had still been protected by its forests. In Cancun, where Wilma left nothing standing and beaches stripped of sand, the immense megahotels of the tourist business had annihilated the dunes and mangroves that had protected the coast. And those other hurricanes that sweep desperate people from the South to the North -- are these natural disasters as well? Misfortunes are disguised as acts of fate and presented as natural. But is it natural for a country to condemn its poorest children to gamble their lives chasing hope at the cost of humiliation and rootlessness?

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN BRAZIL ?

Brazil is undergoing a profound crisis, writes, Joao Pedro Stedile, one of the leaders of the Landless Movement (MST) and Via Campesina Brazil. In this article, Stedile writes that the Lula administration was wrong about everything. It did whatever the right wanted and nevertheless all of the sectors of the right are in the opposition and dedicated to its moral, political, and electoral defeat and to winning power in 2006. The left is in serious need of a profound self evaluation of its approach. It am not talking about corruption but rather the fact that the left has essentially abandoned the ideological struggle for the illusion of governing. It traded voluntary activism for paid employment as functionaries. It abandoned a plan of social change for the vanity of being in power. Perhaps in a collective self-delusion, many convinced themselves that class struggle had been superseded by competition between corporate bodies in which the most expert would prevail. Brazil\'s social movements are working from the assumption that the real way forward is neither the government nor elections but instead the creation of popular force and a grass-roots organisation to generate in the medium term a true mass movement.

FOOD AID OR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY?

International food aid, initiated in 1954, is the most publicised instrument put forward to fight hunger, especially in southern countries, where millions of tons of food are shipped each year. However, geared towards the dumping of cereal surpluses in developing countries, the aid system has promoted the trade and foreign policy interests of the donor countries at the expense of the hungry over the last fifty years, writes Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, a research and educational institute. The opening up of markets, along with food aid in kind, has deluged developing countries with agricultural commodities dumped by developed nations at below the cost of production. This has deepened the agrarian crisis in the developing countries, whose one billion-dollar food trade surplus of the 1970s became an 11 billion-dollar deficit by 2001, converting developing countries into major importers of food while destroying livelihoods of small family farmers. What the hungry really need is an enforcement mechanism that ensures the human right to food. This would require support for national policies that protect the livelihoods of small farmers and increase national food availability. Examples from hunger crises around the world clearly prove that policies that help countries develop their own agricultural sector and strengthen their small-scale farmers actually help feed more people in the long run.

Article distributed on the occasion of upcoming anniversary of the of the ‘discovery’ of America, 12 October 1492.: FACES AND MASKS

Did Christopher Columbus discover America in 1492? Or was it the Vikings before him? And before the Vikings, what about the people who lived there? Didn\'t they exist? writes Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan writer and journalist, is the author of \'\'The Open Veins of Latin America\'\' and \'\'Memories of Fire\'\'. In this article, Galeano writes: We have been told, and still are, that it was the pilgrims of the Mayflower that populated America? Was it empty before? Because Columbus didn\'t understand what they were saying, he concluded the Indians didn\'t know how to speak. Because they wore no clothes, were gentle, and gave away everything they had, he concluded they lacked the capacity for reason. And because he was certain of having discovered the Orient by the back door, he believed they were Indians from India. After, during the second voyage, the admiral promulgated an act establishing that Cuba was part of Asia. The document of 14 June 1494 stated as evidence that the crew of their three ships recognised it such. Whoever said otherwise was given thirty lashes, fined 10,000 maravedies, and had his tongue cut out.

FIGHT BIRD FLU IN ANIMALS FIRST SO IT DOESN

The current bird flu scenario should not cause panic and fear but spur rational and immediate action to fight the disease at its origin: in animals, writes Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. In this article, Diouf writes that avian influenza is first of all an animal disease that requires a veterinary response. The virus can be defeated and contained if countries and the international community work closely together and set up efficient surveillance and disease control programmes. Virus outbreaks in animals need to be detected at a very early stage; infected poultry has to be slaughtered, and animals at risk have to be vaccinated. Affected countries and the international community urgently need to invest more in support of veterinarians and animal health workers, because they represent the first line of defence against the virus. We cannot afford to wait to battle the disease in pharmacies and hospitals, but need to get rid of the virus in infected farmers\' backyards. Investing in prevention will be cheaper in the longer run than the cure.

HELP CHINA HELP ITSELF

As international leaders gathered at the United Nations in the middle of September to address plans to eradicate global poverty, the Bush administration notified Congress that it will withhold the U.S. contribution ($34 million) to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for the fourth consecutive year, writes Kerry Kennedy, founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights. This aid provides vital services for the world\'s poorest women and girls, so why would the U.S. fail to help? Because, despite the U.S. State Department claims to the contrary, the administration asserts that the fund supports China\'s forced sterilization policy. The truth is, in order to change that policy, Washington should support the population fund, not cripple it. The U.S. government can leverage change. This is hard, because China is an important trading partner and increasingly holds more of the U.S. debt. So we also need to engage the international community. I take a back seat to no one in my horror at China\'s abuses in its one-child policy. To end them, we must support many efforts, and that includes the United Nations Population Fund. Elie Wiesel, who survived the Holocaust, said the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. We must no longer be indifferent to what is going on in China.

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.