October 18, 2008
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/world/africa/18congo.html?hp
BUKAVU, Congo — Honorata Kizende looked out at the audience and began with a simple, declarative sentence.
“There was no dinner,” she said.
“It was me who was dinner. Me, because they kicked me roughly to the ground, and they ripped off all my clothes, and between the two of them, they held my feet. One took my left foot, one took my right, and the same with my arms, and between the two of them they proceeded to rape me. Then all five of them raped me.”
The audience, which had been called together by local and international aid groups and included everyone from high-ranking politicians to street kids with no shoes, stared at her in disbelief.
Congo, it seems, is finally facing its horrific rape problem, which United Nations officials have called the worst sexual violence in the world. Tens of thousands of women, possibly hundreds of thousands, have been raped in the past few years in this hilly, incongruously beautiful land. Many of these rapes have been marked by a level of brutality that is shocking even by the twisted standards of a place riven by civil war and haunted by warlords and drug-crazed child soldiers.
After years of denial and shame, the silence is being broken. Because of stepped-up efforts in the past nine months by international organizations and the Congolese government, rapists are no longer able to count on a culture of impunity. Of course, countless men still get away with assaulting women. But more and more are getting caught, prosecuted and put behind bars.
European aid agencies are spending tens of millions of dollars building new courthouses and prisons across eastern Congo, in part to punish rapists. Mobile courts are holding rape trials in villages deep in the forest that have not seen a black-robed magistrate since the Belgians ruled the country decades ago.
The American Bar Association opened a legal clinic in January specifically to help rape victims bring their cases to court. So far the work has resulted in eight convictions. Here in Bukavu, one of the biggest cities in the country, a special unit of Congolese police officers has filed 103 rape cases since the beginning of this year, more than any year in recent memory.
In Bunia, a town farther north, rape prosecutions are up 600 percent compared with five years ago. Congolese investigators have even been flown to Europe to learn “CSI”-style forensic techniques. The police have arrested some of the most violent offenders, often young militiamen, most likely psychologically traumatized themselves, who have thrust sticks, rocks, knives and assault rifles inside women.
“We’re starting to see results,” said Pernille Ironside, a United Nations official in eastern Congo.
The number of those arrested is still tiny compared with that of the perpetrators on the loose, and often the worst offenders are not caught because they are marauding bandits who attack villages in the night, victimize women and then melt back into the forest.
This is all happening in a society where women tend to be beaten down anyway. Women in Congo do most of the work —at home, in the fields and in the market, where they carry enormous loads of bananas on their bent backs — and yet they are often powerless. Many women who are raped are told to keep quiet. Often, it is a shame for the entire family, and many rape victims have been kicked out of their villages and turned into beggars.
Grass-roots groups are trying to change this culture, and they have started by encouraging women who have been raped to speak out in open forums, like a courtroom full of spectators, just with no accused.
At the event in Bukavu in mid-September, Ms. Kizende’s story of being abducted by an armed group, then putting her life back together after months as a sex slave, drew tears — and cheers. It seems that the taboo against talking about rape is beginning to lift. Many women in the audience wore T-shirts that read in Kiswahili: “I refuse to be raped. What about you?”
Activists are fanning out to villages on foot and by bicycle to deliver a simple but often novel message: rape is wrong. Men’s groups are even being formed.
But these improvements are simply the first, tentative steps of progress in a very troubled country.
United Nations officials said the number of rapes had appeared to be decreasing over the past year. But the recent surge of fighting between the Congolese government and rebel groups, and all the violence and predation that goes with it, is jeopardizing those gains.
“It’s safer today than it was,” said Euphrasie Mirindi, a woman who was raped in 2006. “But it’s still not safe.”
Poverty, chaos, disease and war. These are the constants of eastern Congo. Many people believe that the rape problem will not be solved until the area tastes peace. But that might not be anytime soon.
Laurent Nkunda, a well-armed Tutsi warlord, or a savior of his people, depending on whom you ask, recently threatened to wage war across the country. Clashes between his troops, many of them child soldiers, and government forces have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in the past few months. His forces, along with those from the dozens of other rebel groups hiding out in the hills, are thought to be mainly responsible for the epidemic of brutal rapes.
United Nations officials say the most sadistic rapes are committed by depraved killers who participated in Rwanda’s genocide in 1994 and then escaped into Congo. These attacks have left thousands of women with their insides destroyed. But the Congolese National Army, a ragtag undisciplined force of teenage troops who sport wrap-around shades and rusty rifles, has also been blamed. The government has been slow to punish its own, but Congolese generals recently announced they would set up new military tribunals to prosecute soldiers accused of rape.
No one — doctors, aid workers, Congolese and Western researchers — can explain exactly why Congo’s rape problem is the worst in the world. The attacks continue despite the presence of the largest United Nations peacekeeping force, with more than 17,000 troops. Impunity is thought to be a big factor, which is why there is now so much effort on bolstering Congo’s creaky and often corrupt justice system. The sheer number of armed groups spread over thousands of miles of thickly forested territory, fighting over Congo’s rich mineral spoils, also makes it incredibly difficult to protect civilians. The ceaseless instability has held the whole eastern swath of the country hostage.
In Bukavu, everywhere you look, something is broken: a railing, a window, a pickup cruising around with no fenders, a woman trudging along the road with no eyes.
The Congolese government admits it is at a loss, especially in keeping women safe.
“Every day, women are raped,” said Louis Leonce Muderhwa, the governor of South Kivu Province. “This isn’t peace.”
Activists from overseas have been pouring in. Few are more passionate than Eve Ensler, the American playwright who wrote “The Vagina Monologues,” which has been performed in more than 100 countries. She came to Congo last month to work with rape victims.
“I have spent the past 10 years of my life in the rape mines of the world,” she said. “But I have never seen anything like this.”
She calls it “femicide,” a systematic campaign to destroy women.
Ms. Ensler is helping open a center in Bukavu called the City of Joy, which will provide counseling to rape victims and teach leadership skills and self-defense. Her hope is to build an army of rape survivors who will push with an urgency — that has so far been absent — for a solution to end Congo’s ceaseless wars.
The City of Joy is rising behind Panzi Hospital, where the worst of the worst rape cases are treated. But even this refuge has come under attack. Last month, an irate mob stormed the hospital. The mob demanded that the doctors give them the body of a thief, so it could be burned. When the doctors refused, several angry young men beat up nurses and smashed windows. But it was not clear if the body was the only thing that had set them off.
“They don’t like our work,” said Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist. “Maybe what we’re doing is disturbing people.”
The stories of these rapes are clearly disturbing. But that is the point, to shake people up and grab their attention.
“The details are the scariest part,” Ms. Ensler said.
At the event last month, many people in the audience covered their mouths as they listened. Some could not bear it and burst out of the room crying.
One speaker, Claudine Mwabachizi, told how she was kidnapped by bandits in the forest, strapped to a tree and repeatedly gang-raped. The bandits did unspeakable things, she said, like disemboweling a pregnant woman right in front of her. “A lot of us keep these secrets to ourselves,” she said.
She was going public, she said, “to free my sisters.”
But Congo, if anything, is a land of contrasts. The soil here is rich, but the people are starving. The minerals are limitless, but the government is broke.
After the speaking-out event was over, Ms. Mwabachizi said she felt exhausted.
But, she added, “I feel strong.”
She was given a pink shawl with a message printed on it.
“I have survived,” it read. “I can do anything.”
23 October 2008
The Presidential Candidates & the Enviroment - 3 Great Articles
The Real Problem With Foreign Oil? Climate Change
WorldChanging Team
October 16, 2008 10:12 AM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008877.html
Memo to Senators Obama and McCain:
Last night in your debates, you missed an opportunity. You faced the question,
Would each of you give us a number, a specific number of how much you believe we can reduce our foreign oil imports during your first term?
You led your responses, very similarly, with the following statements (excerpts taken from this transcript):
McCain:
I think we can, for all intents and purposes, eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and Venezuelan oil. Canadian oil is fine.
Obama:
I think that in ten years, we can reduce our dependence so that we no longer have to import oil from the Middle East or Venezuela. I think that's about a realistic timeframe.
Senators, we think that you missed the point to address the real problem, which is not which nation the oil comes from, but rather the very fact that it is oil. Your statements do not acknowledge that fossil fuels are a finite natural resource that we will eventually run out of, and which, when burned, poison the planet.
By addressing the larger issue -- climate change -- and pushing for a United States that no longer needs fossil fuels to do its daily business, you will inherently solve the problem of sending U.S. dollars to hostile oil-producing nations. But the reverse scenario does not work. America could remove all the foreign oil from its energy supply and still be economically disadvantaged and ecologically imperiled. And weaning America off select supplies of foreign oil does little to help the rest of the world transition to a post-carbon economy.
True, both of you mentioned alternative energy later on in your answers:
Obama:
But understand, we only have three to four percent of the world's oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world's oil, which means that we can't drill our way out of the problem.
That's why I've focused on putting resources into solar, wind, biodiesel, geothermal. These have been priorities of mine since I got to the Senate, and it is absolutely critical that we develop a high fuel efficient car that's built not in Japan and not in South Korea, but built here in the United States of America.
McCain:
So the point is with nuclear power, with wind, tide, solar, natural gas, with development of flex fuel, hybrid, clean coal technology, clean coal technology is key in the heartland of America that's hurting rather badly.
And, to be fair, moderator Bob Schieffer could have done a better job with this question. He took the topic – originally identified as "energy and climate control" – straight to the issue of "foreign oil."
By consistently addressing the problem of oil as if it is first and foremost an issue of national security, we believe that the entire discussion is misleading the public. Dependence on oil is an issue of planetary security, because continuing to yoke the systems that define our lives to a resource that has no future is the very antithesis of sustainability.
While we realize that foreign oil and its implications for security and the economy are at the forefront of American minds, we still believe that there is a crucial subject here that is being avoided by the two men competing to lead the world's most fuel-dependent, most polluting (per capita) nation on earth.
We worry that this persistent air of surreality won't clear up nearly soon enough.
Job One, Day One: Bright Green Economic Recovery
Alex Steffen
October 14, 2008 9:43 AM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008866.html
"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late."
--Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
With the U.S. presidential race in its final few weeks, and momentum towards a possible Obama/ Democratic landslide building, it's worth beginning to ask, "What next? What happens here in America after the election?"
The world needs a strong and future-focused United States, but what we have is a U.S. nearing complete collapse. Our financial institutions have nearly failed, our dollar is weak, our government is in deficit spending, our people are neck-deep in debt. Our infrastructure is literally falling apart. Our military is in a shambles. Our health care system is the joke of the developed world, our education system fails half of our children, and we imprison more people than China. Meanwhile, we are the world's worst polluter, having built a car-dependent suburban way of life that pumps money out of our economy and planet-threatening emissions into the sky.
Many Americans, especially young Americans, see this nation's future disintegrating in front of their eyes, and realize that we no longer have options or time to debate. We have only one choice: launch ourselves immediately into a bright green economic transformation, or sink into a potentially irrecoverable decline.
We know that transformation is within our grasp. We know that we can move quickly to transition to smart growth and urban revitalization, green building, efficient electric cars, power generation from renewables, sustainable farming, ecological restoration of our wild lands and rivers, green taxes (with a carbon cap) and a strong commitment to education, public science and diplomacy. Solutions exist to the problems we face.
We know that making this transition quickly and strongly will produce millions of green jobs, and propel America back into the lead of the global economy while benefiting people everywhere. We know too that making this transition will leave Americans healthier, more prosperous and safer, while restoring fiscal stability to our government. A bright green transformation would not be a drag on the economy, but the means of its rescue. Finally, we know that only an all-out effort to make our prosperity sustainable offers us any hope of staving off a planetary ecological disaster.
With all we know, and all that's at stake, you'd think a strong, outspoken and immediate commitment to building a green economy would be something we could take for granted. It's not.
There's an old joke told to those going into a legislative process for the first time which goes something like this: "Write down a list of your expected accomplishments. Cut the list in half and put each half in a different envelope. Throw the envelopes out and take what you can get."
That kind of thinking now will destroy this nation, and the planet, in the very short term.
But that kind of thinking may be what we get. The next U.S. president and congressional leaders will find themselves under immediate fire from neo-conservatives, reactionary businesses and industries that are irredeemably unsustainable (like the Oil and Coal Lobbies) and will find themselves very quickly pressured to scale back their plans, to speak in the most triangulated language possible, to confine change to the smallest, most halting steps. Those in the U.S. who oppose change are strong, wealthy, unprincipled and ruthless. They're already gearing up to demand that given the tough times, change must be weak, small and slow.
But we don't have another decade to embrace change. We may not have another election, even. Indeed, we need a president and congressional leaders who stand up on their very first days on the job, and commit this nation to big, bold, rapid and visionary change. We need to set the terms of the fight at a level with the order of magnitude of change we need. The stakes are a nation transformed within the next couple years. Without that, even a landslide will prove to have been meaningless.
We are rapidly coming up on the rusted sign by the side of the road that says, simply, "too late." We need to demand action before we get there. If we don't win action now, there's no point in preserving power to fight for change later.
The task for all of us, over the next few months, is to figure out how to raise the largest ruckus imaginable in the public debate and in our communities and workplaces, demanding real change and articulating the kinds of solutions that are within our power to implement immediately.
Critically, we lack a real vision of what a bright green American would actually look like -- that's why we're hard at work on a book that explores what this nation could make itself into in 20 years, and how it might feel to live in that country.
But we needn't wait for the whole vision to advocate real change and the politics of optimism, and on that, expect more here soon.
The election was just a prelude. The fight that matters has not yet even started.
The Candidates and Climate: A Persistant Air of Surreality
Alex Steffen
October 7, 2008 6:07 PM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008827.html
Watching the U.S. presidential debates felt like an exercise in describing the problems of another planet altogether.
Consider this exchange:
QUESTION: Sen. McCain, I want to know, we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate change and green jobs?
MCCAIN: Well, thank you. Look, we are in tough economic times; we all know that. And let's keep -- never forget the struggle that Americans are in today.
But when we can -- when we have an issue that we may hand our children and our grandchildren a damaged planet, I have disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this issue. I traveled all over the world looking at the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, Joe Lieberman and I.
And I introduced the first legislation, and we forced votes on it. That's the good news, my friends. The bad news is we lost. But we kept the debate going, and we kept this issue to -- to posing to Americans the danger that climate change opposes.
Now, how -- what's -- what's the best way of fixing it? Nuclear power. Sen. Obama says that it has to be safe or disposable or something like that.
Look, I -- I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe, and it's clean, and it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs.
And -- and I know that we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel. The Japanese, the British, the French do it. And we can do it, too. Sen. Obama has opposed that.
We can move forward, and clean up our climate, and develop green technologies, and alternate -- alternative energies for -- for hybrid, for hydrogen, for battery-powered cars, so that we can clean up our environment and at the same time get our economy going by creating millions of jobs.
We can do that, we as Americans, because we're the best innovators, we're the best producers, and 95 percent of the people who are our market live outside of the United States of America.
BROKAW: Sen. Obama?
OBAMA: This is one of the biggest challenges of our times.
And it is absolutely critical that we understand this is not just a challenge, it's an opportunity, because if we create a new energy economy, we can create five million new jobs, easily, here in the United States.
It can be an engine that drives us into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades.
And we can do it, but we're going to have to make an investment. The same way the computer was originally invented by a bunch of government scientists who were trying to figure out, for defense purposes, how to communicate, we've got to understand that this is a national security issue, as well.
And that's why we've got to make some investments and I've called for investments in solar, wind, geothermal. Contrary to what Sen. McCain keeps on saying, I favor nuclear power as one component of our overall energy mix.
But this is another example where I think it is important to look at the record. Sen. McCain and I actually agree on something. He said a while back that the big problem with energy is that for 30 years, politicians in Washington haven't done anything.
What Sen. McCain doesn't mention is he's been there 26 of them. And during that time, he voted 23 times against alternative fuels, 23 times.
So it's easy to talk about this stuff during a campaign, but it's important for us to understand that it requires a sustained effort from the next president.
One last point I want to make on energy. Sen. McCain talks a lot about drilling, and that's important, but we have three percent of the world's oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world's oil.
So what that means is that we can't simply drill our way out of the problem. And we're not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming.
We're going to have to come up with alternatives, and that means that the United States government is working with the private sector to fund the kind of innovation that we can then export to countries like China that also need energy and are setting up one coal power plant a week.
We've got to make sure that we're giving them the energy that they need or helping them to create the energy that they need.
Note that neither candidate, both supposedly standard-bearers for straight talk and change, puts the planetary crisis in anything like the proper perspective. Both candidates gave pandering, half-answers: for supposed climate champions, neither gave the kind of answers that will either inspire the American people nor prepare the kind of mandate we'll need to take action of the proper scale.
Now, of course, being an armchair candidate is the easiest thing in the world, but still, I wish one of them had said something more like this:
"Thank you for that question.
We hear a lot about climate change and other environmental problems these days, and that makes sense, because we place a planetary crisis of historic proportions. Humanity's future is at stake.
We know that we must change our economy, if we're going to avoid catastrophe. We need to slash our greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts, and that means we're going to have to change the ways generate energy. We're going to have to change how we get around. We're going to have to change the way we build. We're going to have to change the way we grow food, and manage forests, and run our factories. We're going to have to change everything.
To the people of another country, that might be scary. But we're Americans, and we know that the changes we need to make offer us the best opportunity we have to also change the things about our country that aren't working as well as we'd like. If we commit to building an economy that grows by protecting the environment, we will create whole new industries and millions of jobs, develop technologies and products we can sell overseas, rebuild our cities and infrastructure, and bring prosperity back to our farms and forest-dependent communities.
When I am elected president, one of my first actions will be to hold a top-level "climate crisis summit" to develop a comprehensive plan to move America into the carbon-neutral, bright and green economy of the future, so that we avoid catastrophe and renew our nation."
Because here's the thing: whichever candidate wins, he is going to need to stand up in front of the American people and tell them that we face an emergency, if we are going to have any chance of acting quickly enough on climate and other planetary problems to stave off disaster. It'd be nice to see that leadership now, and not just hope it blooms after 1/20/9.
WorldChanging Team
October 16, 2008 10:12 AM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008877.html
Memo to Senators Obama and McCain:
Last night in your debates, you missed an opportunity. You faced the question,
Would each of you give us a number, a specific number of how much you believe we can reduce our foreign oil imports during your first term?
You led your responses, very similarly, with the following statements (excerpts taken from this transcript):
McCain:
I think we can, for all intents and purposes, eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and Venezuelan oil. Canadian oil is fine.
Obama:
I think that in ten years, we can reduce our dependence so that we no longer have to import oil from the Middle East or Venezuela. I think that's about a realistic timeframe.
Senators, we think that you missed the point to address the real problem, which is not which nation the oil comes from, but rather the very fact that it is oil. Your statements do not acknowledge that fossil fuels are a finite natural resource that we will eventually run out of, and which, when burned, poison the planet.
By addressing the larger issue -- climate change -- and pushing for a United States that no longer needs fossil fuels to do its daily business, you will inherently solve the problem of sending U.S. dollars to hostile oil-producing nations. But the reverse scenario does not work. America could remove all the foreign oil from its energy supply and still be economically disadvantaged and ecologically imperiled. And weaning America off select supplies of foreign oil does little to help the rest of the world transition to a post-carbon economy.
True, both of you mentioned alternative energy later on in your answers:
Obama:
But understand, we only have three to four percent of the world's oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world's oil, which means that we can't drill our way out of the problem.
That's why I've focused on putting resources into solar, wind, biodiesel, geothermal. These have been priorities of mine since I got to the Senate, and it is absolutely critical that we develop a high fuel efficient car that's built not in Japan and not in South Korea, but built here in the United States of America.
McCain:
So the point is with nuclear power, with wind, tide, solar, natural gas, with development of flex fuel, hybrid, clean coal technology, clean coal technology is key in the heartland of America that's hurting rather badly.
And, to be fair, moderator Bob Schieffer could have done a better job with this question. He took the topic – originally identified as "energy and climate control" – straight to the issue of "foreign oil."
By consistently addressing the problem of oil as if it is first and foremost an issue of national security, we believe that the entire discussion is misleading the public. Dependence on oil is an issue of planetary security, because continuing to yoke the systems that define our lives to a resource that has no future is the very antithesis of sustainability.
While we realize that foreign oil and its implications for security and the economy are at the forefront of American minds, we still believe that there is a crucial subject here that is being avoided by the two men competing to lead the world's most fuel-dependent, most polluting (per capita) nation on earth.
We worry that this persistent air of surreality won't clear up nearly soon enough.
Job One, Day One: Bright Green Economic Recovery
Alex Steffen
October 14, 2008 9:43 AM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008866.html
"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late."
--Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
With the U.S. presidential race in its final few weeks, and momentum towards a possible Obama/ Democratic landslide building, it's worth beginning to ask, "What next? What happens here in America after the election?"
The world needs a strong and future-focused United States, but what we have is a U.S. nearing complete collapse. Our financial institutions have nearly failed, our dollar is weak, our government is in deficit spending, our people are neck-deep in debt. Our infrastructure is literally falling apart. Our military is in a shambles. Our health care system is the joke of the developed world, our education system fails half of our children, and we imprison more people than China. Meanwhile, we are the world's worst polluter, having built a car-dependent suburban way of life that pumps money out of our economy and planet-threatening emissions into the sky.
Many Americans, especially young Americans, see this nation's future disintegrating in front of their eyes, and realize that we no longer have options or time to debate. We have only one choice: launch ourselves immediately into a bright green economic transformation, or sink into a potentially irrecoverable decline.
We know that transformation is within our grasp. We know that we can move quickly to transition to smart growth and urban revitalization, green building, efficient electric cars, power generation from renewables, sustainable farming, ecological restoration of our wild lands and rivers, green taxes (with a carbon cap) and a strong commitment to education, public science and diplomacy. Solutions exist to the problems we face.
We know that making this transition quickly and strongly will produce millions of green jobs, and propel America back into the lead of the global economy while benefiting people everywhere. We know too that making this transition will leave Americans healthier, more prosperous and safer, while restoring fiscal stability to our government. A bright green transformation would not be a drag on the economy, but the means of its rescue. Finally, we know that only an all-out effort to make our prosperity sustainable offers us any hope of staving off a planetary ecological disaster.
With all we know, and all that's at stake, you'd think a strong, outspoken and immediate commitment to building a green economy would be something we could take for granted. It's not.
There's an old joke told to those going into a legislative process for the first time which goes something like this: "Write down a list of your expected accomplishments. Cut the list in half and put each half in a different envelope. Throw the envelopes out and take what you can get."
That kind of thinking now will destroy this nation, and the planet, in the very short term.
But that kind of thinking may be what we get. The next U.S. president and congressional leaders will find themselves under immediate fire from neo-conservatives, reactionary businesses and industries that are irredeemably unsustainable (like the Oil and Coal Lobbies) and will find themselves very quickly pressured to scale back their plans, to speak in the most triangulated language possible, to confine change to the smallest, most halting steps. Those in the U.S. who oppose change are strong, wealthy, unprincipled and ruthless. They're already gearing up to demand that given the tough times, change must be weak, small and slow.
But we don't have another decade to embrace change. We may not have another election, even. Indeed, we need a president and congressional leaders who stand up on their very first days on the job, and commit this nation to big, bold, rapid and visionary change. We need to set the terms of the fight at a level with the order of magnitude of change we need. The stakes are a nation transformed within the next couple years. Without that, even a landslide will prove to have been meaningless.
We are rapidly coming up on the rusted sign by the side of the road that says, simply, "too late." We need to demand action before we get there. If we don't win action now, there's no point in preserving power to fight for change later.
The task for all of us, over the next few months, is to figure out how to raise the largest ruckus imaginable in the public debate and in our communities and workplaces, demanding real change and articulating the kinds of solutions that are within our power to implement immediately.
Critically, we lack a real vision of what a bright green American would actually look like -- that's why we're hard at work on a book that explores what this nation could make itself into in 20 years, and how it might feel to live in that country.
But we needn't wait for the whole vision to advocate real change and the politics of optimism, and on that, expect more here soon.
The election was just a prelude. The fight that matters has not yet even started.
The Candidates and Climate: A Persistant Air of Surreality
Alex Steffen
October 7, 2008 6:07 PM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008827.html
Watching the U.S. presidential debates felt like an exercise in describing the problems of another planet altogether.
Consider this exchange:
QUESTION: Sen. McCain, I want to know, we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate change and green jobs?
MCCAIN: Well, thank you. Look, we are in tough economic times; we all know that. And let's keep -- never forget the struggle that Americans are in today.
But when we can -- when we have an issue that we may hand our children and our grandchildren a damaged planet, I have disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this issue. I traveled all over the world looking at the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, Joe Lieberman and I.
And I introduced the first legislation, and we forced votes on it. That's the good news, my friends. The bad news is we lost. But we kept the debate going, and we kept this issue to -- to posing to Americans the danger that climate change opposes.
Now, how -- what's -- what's the best way of fixing it? Nuclear power. Sen. Obama says that it has to be safe or disposable or something like that.
Look, I -- I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe, and it's clean, and it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs.
And -- and I know that we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel. The Japanese, the British, the French do it. And we can do it, too. Sen. Obama has opposed that.
We can move forward, and clean up our climate, and develop green technologies, and alternate -- alternative energies for -- for hybrid, for hydrogen, for battery-powered cars, so that we can clean up our environment and at the same time get our economy going by creating millions of jobs.
We can do that, we as Americans, because we're the best innovators, we're the best producers, and 95 percent of the people who are our market live outside of the United States of America.
BROKAW: Sen. Obama?
OBAMA: This is one of the biggest challenges of our times.
And it is absolutely critical that we understand this is not just a challenge, it's an opportunity, because if we create a new energy economy, we can create five million new jobs, easily, here in the United States.
It can be an engine that drives us into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades.
And we can do it, but we're going to have to make an investment. The same way the computer was originally invented by a bunch of government scientists who were trying to figure out, for defense purposes, how to communicate, we've got to understand that this is a national security issue, as well.
And that's why we've got to make some investments and I've called for investments in solar, wind, geothermal. Contrary to what Sen. McCain keeps on saying, I favor nuclear power as one component of our overall energy mix.
But this is another example where I think it is important to look at the record. Sen. McCain and I actually agree on something. He said a while back that the big problem with energy is that for 30 years, politicians in Washington haven't done anything.
What Sen. McCain doesn't mention is he's been there 26 of them. And during that time, he voted 23 times against alternative fuels, 23 times.
So it's easy to talk about this stuff during a campaign, but it's important for us to understand that it requires a sustained effort from the next president.
One last point I want to make on energy. Sen. McCain talks a lot about drilling, and that's important, but we have three percent of the world's oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world's oil.
So what that means is that we can't simply drill our way out of the problem. And we're not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming.
We're going to have to come up with alternatives, and that means that the United States government is working with the private sector to fund the kind of innovation that we can then export to countries like China that also need energy and are setting up one coal power plant a week.
We've got to make sure that we're giving them the energy that they need or helping them to create the energy that they need.
Note that neither candidate, both supposedly standard-bearers for straight talk and change, puts the planetary crisis in anything like the proper perspective. Both candidates gave pandering, half-answers: for supposed climate champions, neither gave the kind of answers that will either inspire the American people nor prepare the kind of mandate we'll need to take action of the proper scale.
Now, of course, being an armchair candidate is the easiest thing in the world, but still, I wish one of them had said something more like this:
"Thank you for that question.
We hear a lot about climate change and other environmental problems these days, and that makes sense, because we place a planetary crisis of historic proportions. Humanity's future is at stake.
We know that we must change our economy, if we're going to avoid catastrophe. We need to slash our greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts, and that means we're going to have to change the ways generate energy. We're going to have to change how we get around. We're going to have to change the way we build. We're going to have to change the way we grow food, and manage forests, and run our factories. We're going to have to change everything.
To the people of another country, that might be scary. But we're Americans, and we know that the changes we need to make offer us the best opportunity we have to also change the things about our country that aren't working as well as we'd like. If we commit to building an economy that grows by protecting the environment, we will create whole new industries and millions of jobs, develop technologies and products we can sell overseas, rebuild our cities and infrastructure, and bring prosperity back to our farms and forest-dependent communities.
When I am elected president, one of my first actions will be to hold a top-level "climate crisis summit" to develop a comprehensive plan to move America into the carbon-neutral, bright and green economy of the future, so that we avoid catastrophe and renew our nation."
Because here's the thing: whichever candidate wins, he is going to need to stand up in front of the American people and tell them that we face an emergency, if we are going to have any chance of acting quickly enough on climate and other planetary problems to stave off disaster. It'd be nice to see that leadership now, and not just hope it blooms after 1/20/9.
22 October 2008
In Turkey, Mosque Gets A Woman's Touch
by Ivan Watson
All Things Considered, October 21, 2008 ·
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95940942
(If you want to listen to the interview click on the link above!)
The role of women in Islam is an issue that's been furiously debated, especially in Turkey — an overwhelmingly Muslim country with a strict secular constitution.
The governing pro-Islamic political party was almost banned this year after it tried to allow women who wear Islamic head scarves to study at universities.
In the midst of this controversy, several Muslim women who do not wear head scarves have quietly reached a new milestone — these artists are helping build a mosque.
For centuries, Istanbul was the seat of the caliphate, the capital of the Islamic world and home to hundreds of magnificent old mosques. Now this city of countless domes and minarets is about to get a unique new addition.
Zeynep Fadillioglu is one member of a team of interior designers and architects overseeing the construction of the Sakirin Mosque. It is Fadillioglu's first mosque.
"I think I don't know of any other person — a woman — who has designed a mosque before," she says.
Tall and fashionably dressed, with long blond hair, Fadillioglu is better known in Turkey as a figure from the country's cocktail-sipping jet set. She made a career decorating restaurants, boutique hotels and homes for the very wealthy.
A Contemporary Spin On Ancient Art
In the mosque, Fadillioglu is putting a contemporary spin on religious art from the Ottoman era.
The iron on the mosque's enormous iron and glass facade was hand-crafted by specialists in Istanbul, Fadillioglu says. "The glass etching has got different layers of gilding on it, which is from verses of the Koran," she says. "We wanted people to feel more left alone with God in this place, rather then being distracted by too much ornamentation. I think that makes it more contemporary at the same time"
Fadillioglu also brought in other female artists to help her on the project.
On one particular day, beneath the mosque's 130-foot diameter dome, Nahide Buyukkaymakci instructs a worker on how to hang dozens of blown-glass rain drops from an asymmetrical bronze and Plexiglas chandelier.
The glass drops are inspired by a prayer that says Allah's light should fall on you like rain, Buyukkaymakci explains.
"Even though I'm not really a practicing Muslim, this is a very special project for me, because it's the first mosque to be designed by women," she says.
Professor Ali Kose studies the psychology of religion at Marmara University's School of Theology.
"Traditionally, the mosque is thought to be a place for men only," Kose says. But he says women played a much greater public role in mosques in the days of the Prophet Muhammad. That role, he says, deteriorated over time.
"Islamic societies, by time, have become male dominant societies," Kose says, "and this affected every part of life, and also affected the religion as well."
'More Room For Us To Pray'
Istanbul's Mihrimah Sultan Mosque was built in 1547 in honor of a daughter of the sultan. Muslim women are allowed to attend prayers here in specially designated women's sections.
They are ushered with their children to a small, curtained-off area in the back of the mosque, while the men kneel in front on a vast carpet enjoying an unobstructed view of the mosque's beautiful stained glass windows.
After prayers, a woman named Deniz Urash and her mother complain that the women's section is too small and crowded.
"It would be nice if they made more room for us to pray," Urash says.
Fadillioglu says in many Turkish mosques, the women's sections have suffered from neglect.
"I have been to some mosques of that sort, and that disturbed me," Fadillioglu says. "So, I prefer the women to use the mosque as much as the man if they want to, of course, and the same way."
As workmen paint and sand this new place of worship, Fadillioglu vows to make the second-floor balcony — where the women will one day pray — every bit as beautiful as the men's part of the mosque.
Related Story on BBC.com
All Things Considered, October 21, 2008 ·
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95940942
(If you want to listen to the interview click on the link above!)
The role of women in Islam is an issue that's been furiously debated, especially in Turkey — an overwhelmingly Muslim country with a strict secular constitution.
The governing pro-Islamic political party was almost banned this year after it tried to allow women who wear Islamic head scarves to study at universities.
In the midst of this controversy, several Muslim women who do not wear head scarves have quietly reached a new milestone — these artists are helping build a mosque.
For centuries, Istanbul was the seat of the caliphate, the capital of the Islamic world and home to hundreds of magnificent old mosques. Now this city of countless domes and minarets is about to get a unique new addition.
Zeynep Fadillioglu is one member of a team of interior designers and architects overseeing the construction of the Sakirin Mosque. It is Fadillioglu's first mosque.
"I think I don't know of any other person — a woman — who has designed a mosque before," she says.
Tall and fashionably dressed, with long blond hair, Fadillioglu is better known in Turkey as a figure from the country's cocktail-sipping jet set. She made a career decorating restaurants, boutique hotels and homes for the very wealthy.
A Contemporary Spin On Ancient Art
In the mosque, Fadillioglu is putting a contemporary spin on religious art from the Ottoman era.
The iron on the mosque's enormous iron and glass facade was hand-crafted by specialists in Istanbul, Fadillioglu says. "The glass etching has got different layers of gilding on it, which is from verses of the Koran," she says. "We wanted people to feel more left alone with God in this place, rather then being distracted by too much ornamentation. I think that makes it more contemporary at the same time"
Fadillioglu also brought in other female artists to help her on the project.
On one particular day, beneath the mosque's 130-foot diameter dome, Nahide Buyukkaymakci instructs a worker on how to hang dozens of blown-glass rain drops from an asymmetrical bronze and Plexiglas chandelier.
The glass drops are inspired by a prayer that says Allah's light should fall on you like rain, Buyukkaymakci explains.
"Even though I'm not really a practicing Muslim, this is a very special project for me, because it's the first mosque to be designed by women," she says.
Professor Ali Kose studies the psychology of religion at Marmara University's School of Theology.
"Traditionally, the mosque is thought to be a place for men only," Kose says. But he says women played a much greater public role in mosques in the days of the Prophet Muhammad. That role, he says, deteriorated over time.
"Islamic societies, by time, have become male dominant societies," Kose says, "and this affected every part of life, and also affected the religion as well."
'More Room For Us To Pray'
Istanbul's Mihrimah Sultan Mosque was built in 1547 in honor of a daughter of the sultan. Muslim women are allowed to attend prayers here in specially designated women's sections.
They are ushered with their children to a small, curtained-off area in the back of the mosque, while the men kneel in front on a vast carpet enjoying an unobstructed view of the mosque's beautiful stained glass windows.
After prayers, a woman named Deniz Urash and her mother complain that the women's section is too small and crowded.
"It would be nice if they made more room for us to pray," Urash says.
Fadillioglu says in many Turkish mosques, the women's sections have suffered from neglect.
"I have been to some mosques of that sort, and that disturbed me," Fadillioglu says. "So, I prefer the women to use the mosque as much as the man if they want to, of course, and the same way."
As workmen paint and sand this new place of worship, Fadillioglu vows to make the second-floor balcony — where the women will one day pray — every bit as beautiful as the men's part of the mosque.
Related Story on BBC.com
15 October 2008
Urgent Action: High court turns down Ga. death row inmate
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Troy Anthony Davis' appeal. His fate is back in the hands of Georgia authorities who may seek a new execution date at any time.
The Supreme Court's decision to deny Troy Davis' petition means that no court of law will ever hold a hearing on the witnesses who have recanted their trial testimony in sworn affidavits.
Doubts about his guilt raised by these multiple witness recantations will never be resolved. An execution under such a cloud of doubt would undermine public confidence in the state's criminal justice system and would be a grave miscarriage of justice.
The state of Georgia can still do the responsible thing and prevent the execution of Troy Davis:
Write a letter to the editor calling on Georgia to stop the execution of Troy Davis!
Call on the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its previous decision and grant clemency to Troy Davis.
Urge your friends and family to go to amnestyusa.org/troydavis or text TROY to 90999 to add their voices to the over 200,000 that have already taken action on this case.
Justices halted execution to consider appeal of conviction of killing cop
The Associated Press
updated 3:55 p.m. ET, Tues., Oct. 14, 2008
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for a man to be put to death for killing a police officer, despite calls from his supporters to reconsider the case because seven of nine key witnesses against him have recanted their testimony.
The high court granted Troy Davis a reprieve Sept. 23, less than two hours before his scheduled execution. But the justices declined Tuesday to give his appeal a full-blown hearing, clearing the last hurdle toward his death by lethal injection.
It was not immediately clear when his execution will take place.
Davis, 39, was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of 27-year-old Mark MacPhail, a police officer in Savannah, Ga. But doubts about his guilt and a high-profile publicity campaign have won him the support of prominent advocates including former President Jimmy Carter and South Africa Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Options are few
Davis' legal team said it was frantically searching for other recourse, but those prospects seem dim.
"I think it's disgusting, terrible. I'm extremely disappointed," said Martina Correia, Davis' sister, when told about the decision. "Well, we still have to fight. We can't stop."
MacPhail's family said it was relieved by the ruling.
"I'm hoping that soon we will have some peace, that this will all be over," said MacPhail's mother, Anneliese MacPhail, who is 75.
MacPhail was working off-duty as a security guard at a bus station when he rushed to help a homeless man who had been pistol-whipped at a nearby parking lot. He and was shot twice when he approached Davis and two other men.
Witnesses identified Davis as the shooter at his 1991 trial.
New evidence
But Davis' lawyers say new evidence proves their client was a victim of mistaken identity. Besides those who have recanted their testimony, three others who did not testify have said Sylvester "Red" Coles — who testified against Davis at his trial — confessed to the killing.
Coles refused to talk about the case when contacted by The Associated Press during a 2007 court appearance and has no listed phone number.
Prosecutors have said the case is closed. They also say some of the witness affidavits simply repeat what a trial jury has already heard, while others are irrelevant because they come from witnesses who never testified.
A divided Georgia Supreme Court twice rejected his request for a new trial, and the pardons board turned down his bid for clemency last month after considering the case again.
Two hours before Davis' scheduled Sept. 23 execution, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the stay, sparking a celebration among Davis supporters.
"This is not over yet," said Davis, who sounded upbeat speaking to the crowd by phone. "This is the beginning of my blessing."
Davis' supporters blast decision
As word of the top U.S. court's latest decision trickled down Tuesday, Davis' supporters sent out dispatches blasting the move.
"It is disgraceful that the highest court in the land could sink so low when doubts surrounding Davis' guilt are so high," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, which has lobbied for the inmate's release.
Chatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton, who has declined to speak to the media about the Davis case while it was still pending, broke his silence with a 14-page statement after the Supreme Court's decision.
In it, he said the witness recantations failed to meet the legal threshold required to call a new trial. The high rate of recantations, he said, also "invites a suggestion of manipulation, making it very difficult to believe."
In a telephone interview, Lawton said his reaction to the ruling was "ambivalence."
"I'm not a great fan of the death penalty," he said. "I wish of course that none of this had happened, but it has. And I've done what I had to do. The law is the law. It says you kill a police officer, you're subject to the death penalty."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27179641/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSN Privacy . Legal
© 2008 MSNBC.com
The Supreme Court's decision to deny Troy Davis' petition means that no court of law will ever hold a hearing on the witnesses who have recanted their trial testimony in sworn affidavits.
Doubts about his guilt raised by these multiple witness recantations will never be resolved. An execution under such a cloud of doubt would undermine public confidence in the state's criminal justice system and would be a grave miscarriage of justice.
The state of Georgia can still do the responsible thing and prevent the execution of Troy Davis:
Write a letter to the editor calling on Georgia to stop the execution of Troy Davis!
Call on the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its previous decision and grant clemency to Troy Davis.
Urge your friends and family to go to amnestyusa.org/troydavis or text TROY to 90999 to add their voices to the over 200,000 that have already taken action on this case.
Justices halted execution to consider appeal of conviction of killing cop
The Associated Press
updated 3:55 p.m. ET, Tues., Oct. 14, 2008
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for a man to be put to death for killing a police officer, despite calls from his supporters to reconsider the case because seven of nine key witnesses against him have recanted their testimony.
The high court granted Troy Davis a reprieve Sept. 23, less than two hours before his scheduled execution. But the justices declined Tuesday to give his appeal a full-blown hearing, clearing the last hurdle toward his death by lethal injection.
It was not immediately clear when his execution will take place.
Davis, 39, was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of 27-year-old Mark MacPhail, a police officer in Savannah, Ga. But doubts about his guilt and a high-profile publicity campaign have won him the support of prominent advocates including former President Jimmy Carter and South Africa Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Options are few
Davis' legal team said it was frantically searching for other recourse, but those prospects seem dim.
"I think it's disgusting, terrible. I'm extremely disappointed," said Martina Correia, Davis' sister, when told about the decision. "Well, we still have to fight. We can't stop."
MacPhail's family said it was relieved by the ruling.
"I'm hoping that soon we will have some peace, that this will all be over," said MacPhail's mother, Anneliese MacPhail, who is 75.
MacPhail was working off-duty as a security guard at a bus station when he rushed to help a homeless man who had been pistol-whipped at a nearby parking lot. He and was shot twice when he approached Davis and two other men.
Witnesses identified Davis as the shooter at his 1991 trial.
New evidence
But Davis' lawyers say new evidence proves their client was a victim of mistaken identity. Besides those who have recanted their testimony, three others who did not testify have said Sylvester "Red" Coles — who testified against Davis at his trial — confessed to the killing.
Coles refused to talk about the case when contacted by The Associated Press during a 2007 court appearance and has no listed phone number.
Prosecutors have said the case is closed. They also say some of the witness affidavits simply repeat what a trial jury has already heard, while others are irrelevant because they come from witnesses who never testified.
A divided Georgia Supreme Court twice rejected his request for a new trial, and the pardons board turned down his bid for clemency last month after considering the case again.
Two hours before Davis' scheduled Sept. 23 execution, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the stay, sparking a celebration among Davis supporters.
"This is not over yet," said Davis, who sounded upbeat speaking to the crowd by phone. "This is the beginning of my blessing."
Davis' supporters blast decision
As word of the top U.S. court's latest decision trickled down Tuesday, Davis' supporters sent out dispatches blasting the move.
"It is disgraceful that the highest court in the land could sink so low when doubts surrounding Davis' guilt are so high," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, which has lobbied for the inmate's release.
Chatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton, who has declined to speak to the media about the Davis case while it was still pending, broke his silence with a 14-page statement after the Supreme Court's decision.
In it, he said the witness recantations failed to meet the legal threshold required to call a new trial. The high rate of recantations, he said, also "invites a suggestion of manipulation, making it very difficult to believe."
In a telephone interview, Lawton said his reaction to the ruling was "ambivalence."
"I'm not a great fan of the death penalty," he said. "I wish of course that none of this had happened, but it has. And I've done what I had to do. The law is the law. It says you kill a police officer, you're subject to the death penalty."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27179641/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSN Privacy . Legal
© 2008 MSNBC.com
07 October 2008
Global turmoil could reverse prosperity
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27058577/
Will the $700 billion bailout be enough to stem a worldwide financial crisis?
By David Cho and Binyamin Appelbaum
The Washington Post
updated 12:07 a.m. ET, Tues., Oct. 7, 2008
What went wrong?
Last week, the nation's political leaders said the financial system would collapse unless they passed a $700 billion rescue package for Wall Street. On Monday, the first day of trading after the plan passed, the financial system continued to melt down anyway.
Here's why: The plan developed by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to buy troubled U.S. mortgage assets might not start for another month. And, despite its huge price tag, it already seems paltry compared with the scale of the rapidly evolving global crisis.
"People are realizing that the Paulson plan is not going to be nearly enough. It's not because the plan is ill-conceived. It looks like it's the right thing to do, but the problem is just growing astronomically," said Martin Evans, a professor of finance and economics at Georgetown University.
The bailout plan is focused on buttressing U.S. financial institutions. But it was global markets that plunged yesterday, as investors sold off commodities in Brazil, currency in Mexico, bank stocks in Russia and the short-term debt of the state of California.
Robert B. Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said the global financial system may have reached a "tipping point" -- the moment when a crisis cascades into a full-blown meltdown and becomes extremely difficult for governments to contain.
The mushrooming problems "will trigger business failures and possibly banking emergencies. Some countries will slip toward balance of payment crises," he said yesterday, speaking at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The crisis threatens to reverse years of prosperity that financed the economic growth in developed and emerging countries through a global financial system that made credit widely available. Banks and governments were able to borrow money on an unprecedented scale by selling debt in new kinds of packages, allowing even the least credit-worthy consumers to borrow and spend.
China exported goods and then loaned the money back to the United States by buying those new debt packages. The story was similar for Russia, which exported massive amounts of energy to Europe, and for Brazil, which exported commodities including orange juice and sugar. All used the massive inflows of borrowed money from the developed world to fuel economic expansions and stock market bubbles.
Yesterday, trading on the major stock exchanges in Russia and Brazil was halted after prices crashed. China's major indexes fell about 5 percent. The bubbles appear to be bursting in rapid succession.
Faced with these developments, the markets have not been in a mood to cheer the passage of the Paulson rescue package. At one point yesterday, the Dow Jones industrial average had fallen nearly 800 points, more than 7 percent. It ended the day off 3.6 percent, below 10,000 for the first time since 2004.
"Quite frankly, what the market is looking for is some kind of coordinated action from central banks around the world." said Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT Forex. The Paulson plan, she added, is like a "Band-Aid for a problem that stretches way beyond the banking system now."
Treasury officials say that ramping up the rescue package will take time, and that they are working as fast as possible.
Yesterday, the department released the contracting rules for the asset managers they expect to hire to oversee its rescue program, requiring interested parties to apply by tomorrow. The Treasury also named Neel Kashkari as the interim assistant secretary of the Treasury for financial stability to oversee the rescue program until January when the next administration takes office.
Despite the mammoth bailout, Zoellick and other leaders are now urging central banks from the leading economies around the world to devise a coordinated response.
They don't have a lot of time.
It's been nearly three weeks since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned lawmakers that the nation was at risk of a full-blown meltdown.
Since then, the same problems have afflicted Europe. Governments have bailed out five large financial firms, including two this weekend, triggering fears of additional bank collapses in Europe.
Hypo Real Estate, a German real estate lender, is collapsing under the weight of its own bad loans, forcing the German government and leading banks to announce Sunday that they would lend the company up to $68 billion.
The rescue follows the nationalization of one of England's largest real estate lenders, Bradford & Bingley. Iceland also has been forced to rescue one of its largest banks, Glitnir. And several European countries were forced to invest billions of dollars in Fortis, one of the largest banks on the Continent, in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to stave off its collapse. Fortis, too, has now been nationalized.
With confidence in banks basically shattered, governments increasingly have been forced to issue explicit guarantees that bank deposits will remain safe.
Ireland last week guaranteed all deposits and liabilities, totaling about $540 billion, at six domestic banks. The pledge included branches of the six banks outside of Ireland, and excluded branches of other banks in Ireland, raising concerns that deposits would now flow from rivals into the coffers of the six government-protected banks as investors fled to safety.
Germany promised Sunday to guarantee all private savings accounts, which hold at least $800 billion. Denmark yesterday announced that it would guarantee all deposits as well.
The economies of Ireland and Denmark have officially fallen into recession. Investors meanwhile are worried that Pakistan and Argentina might default on their debts. In India, the average interest on loans between banks jumped above 11 percent, reflecting a breakdown of trust.
The bailout has not even thawed critical segments of the U.S. credit markets.
U.S. corporations sold $1.25 billion in bonds last week, marking the sharpest drop in sales volume since 1999, according to Bloomberg. Short-term commercial borrowing fell to $1.6 trillion, down 9 percent in the past two weeks, almost entirely because of a massive decline in borrowing by financial companies that cannot find lenders at any price.
September saw the worst monthly losses in the history of the hedge fund industry. Investor withdrawals could lead to the collapse of major funds, triggering further sell-offs and exacerbating the financial crisis.
Investors are also increasingly concerned that more U.S. banks will fail before the Treasury can launch the rescue program. Shares of National City, a regional bank based in Cleveland, fell 27 percent yesterday.
Bank of America said its third-quarter profit fell 68 percent, largely because of losses on mortgage loans and credit cards. The company reduced the dividend on its widely held shares by half, and said it would try to raise another $10 billion from investors. Its shares were down about 7 percent to $32.22.
"These are the most difficult times for financial institutions that I have experienced in my 39 years in banking," chief executive Ken Lewis said in a conference call.
© 2008 The Washington Post Company
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27058577/
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Will the $700 billion bailout be enough to stem a worldwide financial crisis?
By David Cho and Binyamin Appelbaum
The Washington Post
updated 12:07 a.m. ET, Tues., Oct. 7, 2008
What went wrong?
Last week, the nation's political leaders said the financial system would collapse unless they passed a $700 billion rescue package for Wall Street. On Monday, the first day of trading after the plan passed, the financial system continued to melt down anyway.
Here's why: The plan developed by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to buy troubled U.S. mortgage assets might not start for another month. And, despite its huge price tag, it already seems paltry compared with the scale of the rapidly evolving global crisis.
"People are realizing that the Paulson plan is not going to be nearly enough. It's not because the plan is ill-conceived. It looks like it's the right thing to do, but the problem is just growing astronomically," said Martin Evans, a professor of finance and economics at Georgetown University.
The bailout plan is focused on buttressing U.S. financial institutions. But it was global markets that plunged yesterday, as investors sold off commodities in Brazil, currency in Mexico, bank stocks in Russia and the short-term debt of the state of California.
Robert B. Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said the global financial system may have reached a "tipping point" -- the moment when a crisis cascades into a full-blown meltdown and becomes extremely difficult for governments to contain.
The mushrooming problems "will trigger business failures and possibly banking emergencies. Some countries will slip toward balance of payment crises," he said yesterday, speaking at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The crisis threatens to reverse years of prosperity that financed the economic growth in developed and emerging countries through a global financial system that made credit widely available. Banks and governments were able to borrow money on an unprecedented scale by selling debt in new kinds of packages, allowing even the least credit-worthy consumers to borrow and spend.
China exported goods and then loaned the money back to the United States by buying those new debt packages. The story was similar for Russia, which exported massive amounts of energy to Europe, and for Brazil, which exported commodities including orange juice and sugar. All used the massive inflows of borrowed money from the developed world to fuel economic expansions and stock market bubbles.
Yesterday, trading on the major stock exchanges in Russia and Brazil was halted after prices crashed. China's major indexes fell about 5 percent. The bubbles appear to be bursting in rapid succession.
Faced with these developments, the markets have not been in a mood to cheer the passage of the Paulson rescue package. At one point yesterday, the Dow Jones industrial average had fallen nearly 800 points, more than 7 percent. It ended the day off 3.6 percent, below 10,000 for the first time since 2004.
"Quite frankly, what the market is looking for is some kind of coordinated action from central banks around the world." said Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT Forex. The Paulson plan, she added, is like a "Band-Aid for a problem that stretches way beyond the banking system now."
Treasury officials say that ramping up the rescue package will take time, and that they are working as fast as possible.
Yesterday, the department released the contracting rules for the asset managers they expect to hire to oversee its rescue program, requiring interested parties to apply by tomorrow. The Treasury also named Neel Kashkari as the interim assistant secretary of the Treasury for financial stability to oversee the rescue program until January when the next administration takes office.
Despite the mammoth bailout, Zoellick and other leaders are now urging central banks from the leading economies around the world to devise a coordinated response.
They don't have a lot of time.
It's been nearly three weeks since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned lawmakers that the nation was at risk of a full-blown meltdown.
Since then, the same problems have afflicted Europe. Governments have bailed out five large financial firms, including two this weekend, triggering fears of additional bank collapses in Europe.
Hypo Real Estate, a German real estate lender, is collapsing under the weight of its own bad loans, forcing the German government and leading banks to announce Sunday that they would lend the company up to $68 billion.
The rescue follows the nationalization of one of England's largest real estate lenders, Bradford & Bingley. Iceland also has been forced to rescue one of its largest banks, Glitnir. And several European countries were forced to invest billions of dollars in Fortis, one of the largest banks on the Continent, in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to stave off its collapse. Fortis, too, has now been nationalized.
With confidence in banks basically shattered, governments increasingly have been forced to issue explicit guarantees that bank deposits will remain safe.
Ireland last week guaranteed all deposits and liabilities, totaling about $540 billion, at six domestic banks. The pledge included branches of the six banks outside of Ireland, and excluded branches of other banks in Ireland, raising concerns that deposits would now flow from rivals into the coffers of the six government-protected banks as investors fled to safety.
Germany promised Sunday to guarantee all private savings accounts, which hold at least $800 billion. Denmark yesterday announced that it would guarantee all deposits as well.
The economies of Ireland and Denmark have officially fallen into recession. Investors meanwhile are worried that Pakistan and Argentina might default on their debts. In India, the average interest on loans between banks jumped above 11 percent, reflecting a breakdown of trust.
The bailout has not even thawed critical segments of the U.S. credit markets.
U.S. corporations sold $1.25 billion in bonds last week, marking the sharpest drop in sales volume since 1999, according to Bloomberg. Short-term commercial borrowing fell to $1.6 trillion, down 9 percent in the past two weeks, almost entirely because of a massive decline in borrowing by financial companies that cannot find lenders at any price.
September saw the worst monthly losses in the history of the hedge fund industry. Investor withdrawals could lead to the collapse of major funds, triggering further sell-offs and exacerbating the financial crisis.
Investors are also increasingly concerned that more U.S. banks will fail before the Treasury can launch the rescue program. Shares of National City, a regional bank based in Cleveland, fell 27 percent yesterday.
Bank of America said its third-quarter profit fell 68 percent, largely because of losses on mortgage loans and credit cards. The company reduced the dividend on its widely held shares by half, and said it would try to raise another $10 billion from investors. Its shares were down about 7 percent to $32.22.
"These are the most difficult times for financial institutions that I have experienced in my 39 years in banking," chief executive Ken Lewis said in a conference call.
© 2008 The Washington Post Company
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27058577/
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AmEx rates credit risk by where you live, shop
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27055285/
Credit-card firm confirms members' mortgage lenders also may be a factor
By Mike Stuckey
Senior news editor
updated 6:42 a.m. ET, Tues., Oct. 7, 2008
As the global credit crunch reaches from Wall Street to Main Street, guilt by association has become a tool for evaluating the creditworthiness of American Express customers.
Among other criteria, cardholders are seeing limits reduced because of where they live, where they shop and who holds their mortgage.
“Absolutely unbelievable!” said Jesse Gilleland of suburban Washington, D.C., who says revisions of his American Express accounts and credit limits, at least partly for those reasons, could force him to close his once-thriving computer-consulting firm.
A letter sent to Gilleland by American Express, one of the nation’s largest credit-card issuers, includes these reasons why the spending limit on his Platinum Card was reduced:
“Our credit experience with customers who have made purchases at establishments where you have recently used your card.”
“Our analysis of the credit risk associated with customers who have residential loans from the creditor(s) indicated in your credit report.”
Credit-card experts and consumer advocates say that while such practices have been rumored for some time, this is the first time they’ve seen them cited as criteria for a credit limit reduction.
American Express spokeswoman Kim Forde confirmed that the company is analyzing its exposure to risk more closely as it reviews its cardholders’ credit profiles, including considerations it has always weighed — from payment history to credit bureau reports and income.
But, she said, “We are looking at some other factors, too, in light of the economy. We are looking at consumers holding subprime mortgages (and) those living in areas where there has been a greater deterioration in home prices.”
Asked about the letter to Gilleland, which cites shopping practices and merely obtaining a mortgage from a lender who also loans to other borrowers with "credit risk," Forde said, “You have to remember that this is one contributing factor. That’s not the sole reason, but it’s certainly data that we’re looking at.”
Limits revised for 20 percent each year
Forde said that in a typical year, American Express changes credit limits for about 20 percent of its cardholders. In recent years, about 80 percent of those members saw their limits raised while 20 percent saw them lowered, she said. Now, the ratio is about 50-50.
Limit reductions have pinched cardholders like Gilleland, who said he counted on three American Express accounts to fund startup and travel costs of his firm, based in Stafford, Va. Earlier this year, American Express shut two of the accounts and began lowering the limit on the third to match the balance as he paid it down. When he saw the letter outlining the reasons, he was stunned. He contacted msnbc.com in response to a solicitation asking small-business owners to talk about their challenges in the current financial crisis.
Gilleland said he has had an American Express Platinum Card for about six years.
“I’ve never had a problem," he said. "They’ve never imposed a limit on me before."
His computer security and data recovery work is “profitable, it’s busy,” he said. "I burn through between $6,000 and $8,000 in travel each month,” which is billed to his clients, he added. He has relied on credit cards to pay for that before being reimbursed and said “it’s been very painful” to have his limit continuously lowered, making his business less viable.
Consumer advocates and credit experts contacted by msnbc.com said they had never seen the profiling considerations cited as contributing to a credit limit reduction, but they were not surprised.
“It’s horrible,” said Linda Sherry, spokeswoman for the advocacy group Consumer Action. “It seems horribly unfair, but they are the ones doing the lending and there’s nothing under the law that can prevent them from doing that.”
Greg McBride, senior financial analyst with the personal finance Web site Bankrate.com, said, “This is something that’s coming across the radar screen as more and more consumers are being denied credit or seeing existing credit scaled back as a result of specific purchase behavior or other entities that they do business with. … Card issuers across the board are playing defense now. Nobody’s giving out credit like it’s candy anymore.”
Ed Mierzwinski, federal consumer program director with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said, “There’s no question that this type of behavioral score is used by everyone. They just don’t like to admit it. … It sounds like American Express is dialing up the impact.”
Dialing up 'the ding'
For instance, Mierzwinski said, “For years, you’ve been dinged if you purchased your stuff at a rent-to-own store on your credit card. The ding used to be very small. It sounds to me like they’ve dialed up the ding.”
Gilleland was mystified about what among his own purchases may have drawn attention from American Express’ risk analysis system.
“I’ll tell you where 90 percent of my purchases are: Avis, Hertz, Target and Best Buy,” he said. He also is irritated that a mortgage he obtained from the embattled lender Countrywide — now owned by Bank of America — had apparently brought scrutiny because it was a refinancing to get out of an adjustable-rate loan and into a 30-year fixed product.
Spokeswoman Forde said American Express would not divulge any of the "establishments" where a cardholder’s shopping might trigger a review. That is “one of the many factors in our property risk model, and it actually changes frequently,” she said.
The company does not review actual items purchased by its cardholders in assessing risk, Forde said.
On the mortgage issue, she said the company does not differentiate between loans obtained directly from a lender and those sold in the secondary market to such lenders. “In the aggregate, outstanding loans with certain lenders tend to have a higher proportion of credit issues on our card member base,” she said.
Forde stressed that “we take all appropriate measures to meet all fair lending laws.” “I think you have to keep in mind that these are not the only decisive factors,” she said. “We are looking at somebody’s overall profile. … It’s a holistic look at someone’s overall credit profile.”
For Gilleland, the father of three young boys, the credit crunch is just one of a number of financial blows hitting at once. His Virginia home has plummeted in value to far below the amount of his mortgage, and his business expenses are climbing.
“I’m literally at the point where I have to fold the business up, and another dream bites the dust,” he said. “I went out to Monster.com and uploaded my resume because I have to look for a W-2 job. … It will take years for me to recover from this, especially as I’m firmly committed to not filing bankruptcy.”
Consumers: Pay attention!
McBride, of Bankrate.com, said what happened to Gilleland is “something people need to know about, even if there’s not a lot of direct consumer action you can take.”
Consumers with good credit also need to be aware of the flip side of the story, he said.
“If you have a credit score of 700 and up, you should be seeing lower rates now than you did a year ago,” McBride said. “If you find that your card issuer isn’t playing ball, it’s time to shop around.”
© 2008 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27055285/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSN Privacy . Legal
© 2008 MSNBC.com
Credit-card firm confirms members' mortgage lenders also may be a factor
By Mike Stuckey
Senior news editor
updated 6:42 a.m. ET, Tues., Oct. 7, 2008
As the global credit crunch reaches from Wall Street to Main Street, guilt by association has become a tool for evaluating the creditworthiness of American Express customers.
Among other criteria, cardholders are seeing limits reduced because of where they live, where they shop and who holds their mortgage.
“Absolutely unbelievable!” said Jesse Gilleland of suburban Washington, D.C., who says revisions of his American Express accounts and credit limits, at least partly for those reasons, could force him to close his once-thriving computer-consulting firm.
A letter sent to Gilleland by American Express, one of the nation’s largest credit-card issuers, includes these reasons why the spending limit on his Platinum Card was reduced:
“Our credit experience with customers who have made purchases at establishments where you have recently used your card.”
“Our analysis of the credit risk associated with customers who have residential loans from the creditor(s) indicated in your credit report.”
Credit-card experts and consumer advocates say that while such practices have been rumored for some time, this is the first time they’ve seen them cited as criteria for a credit limit reduction.
American Express spokeswoman Kim Forde confirmed that the company is analyzing its exposure to risk more closely as it reviews its cardholders’ credit profiles, including considerations it has always weighed — from payment history to credit bureau reports and income.
But, she said, “We are looking at some other factors, too, in light of the economy. We are looking at consumers holding subprime mortgages (and) those living in areas where there has been a greater deterioration in home prices.”
Asked about the letter to Gilleland, which cites shopping practices and merely obtaining a mortgage from a lender who also loans to other borrowers with "credit risk," Forde said, “You have to remember that this is one contributing factor. That’s not the sole reason, but it’s certainly data that we’re looking at.”
Limits revised for 20 percent each year
Forde said that in a typical year, American Express changes credit limits for about 20 percent of its cardholders. In recent years, about 80 percent of those members saw their limits raised while 20 percent saw them lowered, she said. Now, the ratio is about 50-50.
Limit reductions have pinched cardholders like Gilleland, who said he counted on three American Express accounts to fund startup and travel costs of his firm, based in Stafford, Va. Earlier this year, American Express shut two of the accounts and began lowering the limit on the third to match the balance as he paid it down. When he saw the letter outlining the reasons, he was stunned. He contacted msnbc.com in response to a solicitation asking small-business owners to talk about their challenges in the current financial crisis.
Gilleland said he has had an American Express Platinum Card for about six years.
“I’ve never had a problem," he said. "They’ve never imposed a limit on me before."
His computer security and data recovery work is “profitable, it’s busy,” he said. "I burn through between $6,000 and $8,000 in travel each month,” which is billed to his clients, he added. He has relied on credit cards to pay for that before being reimbursed and said “it’s been very painful” to have his limit continuously lowered, making his business less viable.
Consumer advocates and credit experts contacted by msnbc.com said they had never seen the profiling considerations cited as contributing to a credit limit reduction, but they were not surprised.
“It’s horrible,” said Linda Sherry, spokeswoman for the advocacy group Consumer Action. “It seems horribly unfair, but they are the ones doing the lending and there’s nothing under the law that can prevent them from doing that.”
Greg McBride, senior financial analyst with the personal finance Web site Bankrate.com, said, “This is something that’s coming across the radar screen as more and more consumers are being denied credit or seeing existing credit scaled back as a result of specific purchase behavior or other entities that they do business with. … Card issuers across the board are playing defense now. Nobody’s giving out credit like it’s candy anymore.”
Ed Mierzwinski, federal consumer program director with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said, “There’s no question that this type of behavioral score is used by everyone. They just don’t like to admit it. … It sounds like American Express is dialing up the impact.”
Dialing up 'the ding'
For instance, Mierzwinski said, “For years, you’ve been dinged if you purchased your stuff at a rent-to-own store on your credit card. The ding used to be very small. It sounds to me like they’ve dialed up the ding.”
Gilleland was mystified about what among his own purchases may have drawn attention from American Express’ risk analysis system.
“I’ll tell you where 90 percent of my purchases are: Avis, Hertz, Target and Best Buy,” he said. He also is irritated that a mortgage he obtained from the embattled lender Countrywide — now owned by Bank of America — had apparently brought scrutiny because it was a refinancing to get out of an adjustable-rate loan and into a 30-year fixed product.
Spokeswoman Forde said American Express would not divulge any of the "establishments" where a cardholder’s shopping might trigger a review. That is “one of the many factors in our property risk model, and it actually changes frequently,” she said.
The company does not review actual items purchased by its cardholders in assessing risk, Forde said.
On the mortgage issue, she said the company does not differentiate between loans obtained directly from a lender and those sold in the secondary market to such lenders. “In the aggregate, outstanding loans with certain lenders tend to have a higher proportion of credit issues on our card member base,” she said.
Forde stressed that “we take all appropriate measures to meet all fair lending laws.” “I think you have to keep in mind that these are not the only decisive factors,” she said. “We are looking at somebody’s overall profile. … It’s a holistic look at someone’s overall credit profile.”
For Gilleland, the father of three young boys, the credit crunch is just one of a number of financial blows hitting at once. His Virginia home has plummeted in value to far below the amount of his mortgage, and his business expenses are climbing.
“I’m literally at the point where I have to fold the business up, and another dream bites the dust,” he said. “I went out to Monster.com and uploaded my resume because I have to look for a W-2 job. … It will take years for me to recover from this, especially as I’m firmly committed to not filing bankruptcy.”
Consumers: Pay attention!
McBride, of Bankrate.com, said what happened to Gilleland is “something people need to know about, even if there’s not a lot of direct consumer action you can take.”
Consumers with good credit also need to be aware of the flip side of the story, he said.
“If you have a credit score of 700 and up, you should be seeing lower rates now than you did a year ago,” McBride said. “If you find that your card issuer isn’t playing ball, it’s time to shop around.”
© 2008 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27055285/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSN Privacy . Legal
© 2008 MSNBC.com
05 October 2008
Woman's idea saves thousands of Nepalese girls
Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/22/MNVJ11RHRQ.DTL
(07-21) 20:17 PDT -- Olga Murray of Sausalito had been volunteering for five years in Nepal, helping abandoned and disabled children get an education, when she read something in the newspaper that she couldn't believe.
In the southern Dang district, rural Tharu farming families trapped in extreme poverty - earning less than a dollar a day - were making horrible sacrifices: selling their daughters as domestic slaves to wealthy Kathmandu families for $35 to $75.
"These girls are 7, 8, 9 and 10, and no one was checking up on them," said Murray, 83. "I was shocked."
That was in 1989. Her solution to break the practice has since made her a philanthropic legend in the area.
Her ingenious idea? Piglets.
Murray asked the Tharu village fathers to keep their daughters home and send them to school instead of selling them at the annual Maghe Sakranti Festival every January. In exchange, families could raise the pigs and sell them for the same amount they could fetch for their daughters. Murray's nonprofit organization, the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation, also would pay for the girls' school expenses. Plus, it would kick in a kerosene lamp and 2 liters of kerosene a month - coveted items in an area without electricity.
It was an experiment based on Murray's understanding of Nepali culture after living there off and on for five years and sponsoring the education of orphans and street children. She knew pork is a prized meat and that for some families, selling a daughter was the only way to afford food for the rest of the family.
Of the 37 families she and her Nepalese counterpart Som Paneru approached that first year, 32 took the deal. Some asked for and received a goat instead of a pig.
Murray and Paneru have since steered 3,000 girls away from slavery and all but eradicated the long-held tradition of indentured servitude in the Tharu village.
Instead of spending their lives washing, baby-sitting, cooking and - in the worst cases - working in brothels, the girls are getting an education. Many have also become vocal about their hardships, unveiling the horrors of domestic slavery on radio programs and in street plays and marches. Some have formed a watchdog committee to visit the Tharu village and monitor the bus stops to make sure girls aren't being sold.
"The local schools are full of former kamlaris (girl slaves), and the size of the classrooms are swollen, and girls are outnumbering boys," Paneru wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle. "We've already built over 35 new classrooms, but the need is still not fully met."
It's illegal to employ children younger than 14 outside the home in Nepal, but in Tharu, one of the country's poorest villages, some fathers persist. In those cases, Murray, an attorney who worked for 37 years helping write opinions for two California Supreme Court chief justices in San Francisco, files a lawsuit in Nepal.
Typically, a warning letter persuades the father to keep his daughter home, Murray said. She has had to go to court only a few times, and she has won every time.
Selling girls has become shameful in Dang, and if it's done, it's done in secret now, Murray said.
The girls are resilient and have become fierce activists. The only time their voices quaver, Murray said, is when they talk about their little sisters.
"At rallies, or on the radio, they promise out loud that their little sisters will never, ever go through what they did, and that's when you hear them start to cry."
Murray and Paneru have been so successful in Dang, they have started to bring their pigs-for-girls program to the neighboring district of Bardiya. Since January, they have liberated 500 girls there, Murray said.
Her foundation is putting 1,500 girls through school at an annual cost of $100 per student. The Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation also runs two boarding schools, one for boys and one for girls who are abandoned or disabled. So far they've been able to send 30 of their boarding school graduates to college.
Murray shows no signs of slowing. She spends six months a year in Nepal and the rest of the year in her Sausalito home. Her coffee table books are unique - binders filled with before-and-after pictures of Nepalese children who were severely malnourished before spending two months in the Nutrition Rehabilitation Home she started for starving hospital patients.
"I saw three sick children die after being sent home from the hospital because they were so hungry, so we created a discharge place where they could go and eat, and the mothers can get education on nutrition and family planning and basic hygiene," Murray said.
For her work, Murray has been honored by the Dalai Lama and the former king of Nepal and was a guest on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
Her life has been one long ride, and it just keeps getting better, she said.
As a child, she liked to linger at New York's Grand Central Station to watch the signs and see where all the trains were going. When she finished high school at 16, after skipping two grades, she hopped on one of those trains and never looked back.
She's crisscrossed the globe, has been married and widowed, and has had some interesting jobs, including opening the fan mail of the famous McCarthy-era muckraker journalist Drew Pearson in the 1950s. But nothing compares to the feeling she has now, when she marches in the streets of Dang with 2,700 freed girls to protest domestic slavery.
"I'm having the best dotage of anybody I know," she said. "Every morning I wake up knowing I'm going to be helping. I feel like I am making a difference."
To get involved
Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation 3030 Bridgeway, Suite 123 Sausalito, CA 94965
-- (415) 331-8585
-- www.nyof.org
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/22/MNVJ11RHRQ.DTL
(07-21) 20:17 PDT -- Olga Murray of Sausalito had been volunteering for five years in Nepal, helping abandoned and disabled children get an education, when she read something in the newspaper that she couldn't believe.
In the southern Dang district, rural Tharu farming families trapped in extreme poverty - earning less than a dollar a day - were making horrible sacrifices: selling their daughters as domestic slaves to wealthy Kathmandu families for $35 to $75.
"These girls are 7, 8, 9 and 10, and no one was checking up on them," said Murray, 83. "I was shocked."
That was in 1989. Her solution to break the practice has since made her a philanthropic legend in the area.
Her ingenious idea? Piglets.
Murray asked the Tharu village fathers to keep their daughters home and send them to school instead of selling them at the annual Maghe Sakranti Festival every January. In exchange, families could raise the pigs and sell them for the same amount they could fetch for their daughters. Murray's nonprofit organization, the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation, also would pay for the girls' school expenses. Plus, it would kick in a kerosene lamp and 2 liters of kerosene a month - coveted items in an area without electricity.
It was an experiment based on Murray's understanding of Nepali culture after living there off and on for five years and sponsoring the education of orphans and street children. She knew pork is a prized meat and that for some families, selling a daughter was the only way to afford food for the rest of the family.
Of the 37 families she and her Nepalese counterpart Som Paneru approached that first year, 32 took the deal. Some asked for and received a goat instead of a pig.
Murray and Paneru have since steered 3,000 girls away from slavery and all but eradicated the long-held tradition of indentured servitude in the Tharu village.
Instead of spending their lives washing, baby-sitting, cooking and - in the worst cases - working in brothels, the girls are getting an education. Many have also become vocal about their hardships, unveiling the horrors of domestic slavery on radio programs and in street plays and marches. Some have formed a watchdog committee to visit the Tharu village and monitor the bus stops to make sure girls aren't being sold.
"The local schools are full of former kamlaris (girl slaves), and the size of the classrooms are swollen, and girls are outnumbering boys," Paneru wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle. "We've already built over 35 new classrooms, but the need is still not fully met."
It's illegal to employ children younger than 14 outside the home in Nepal, but in Tharu, one of the country's poorest villages, some fathers persist. In those cases, Murray, an attorney who worked for 37 years helping write opinions for two California Supreme Court chief justices in San Francisco, files a lawsuit in Nepal.
Typically, a warning letter persuades the father to keep his daughter home, Murray said. She has had to go to court only a few times, and she has won every time.
Selling girls has become shameful in Dang, and if it's done, it's done in secret now, Murray said.
The girls are resilient and have become fierce activists. The only time their voices quaver, Murray said, is when they talk about their little sisters.
"At rallies, or on the radio, they promise out loud that their little sisters will never, ever go through what they did, and that's when you hear them start to cry."
Murray and Paneru have been so successful in Dang, they have started to bring their pigs-for-girls program to the neighboring district of Bardiya. Since January, they have liberated 500 girls there, Murray said.
Her foundation is putting 1,500 girls through school at an annual cost of $100 per student. The Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation also runs two boarding schools, one for boys and one for girls who are abandoned or disabled. So far they've been able to send 30 of their boarding school graduates to college.
Murray shows no signs of slowing. She spends six months a year in Nepal and the rest of the year in her Sausalito home. Her coffee table books are unique - binders filled with before-and-after pictures of Nepalese children who were severely malnourished before spending two months in the Nutrition Rehabilitation Home she started for starving hospital patients.
"I saw three sick children die after being sent home from the hospital because they were so hungry, so we created a discharge place where they could go and eat, and the mothers can get education on nutrition and family planning and basic hygiene," Murray said.
For her work, Murray has been honored by the Dalai Lama and the former king of Nepal and was a guest on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
Her life has been one long ride, and it just keeps getting better, she said.
As a child, she liked to linger at New York's Grand Central Station to watch the signs and see where all the trains were going. When she finished high school at 16, after skipping two grades, she hopped on one of those trains and never looked back.
She's crisscrossed the globe, has been married and widowed, and has had some interesting jobs, including opening the fan mail of the famous McCarthy-era muckraker journalist Drew Pearson in the 1950s. But nothing compares to the feeling she has now, when she marches in the streets of Dang with 2,700 freed girls to protest domestic slavery.
"I'm having the best dotage of anybody I know," she said. "Every morning I wake up knowing I'm going to be helping. I feel like I am making a difference."
To get involved
Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation 3030 Bridgeway, Suite 123 Sausalito, CA 94965
-- (415) 331-8585
-- www.nyof.org
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