September 24, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/world/europe/24diet.html?emBy ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
KASTELI, Greece — Dr. Michalis Stagourakis has seen a transformation of his pediatric practice here over the past three years. The usual sniffles and stomachaches of childhood are now interspersed with far more serious conditions: diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. A changing diet, he says, has produced an epidemic of obesity and related maladies.
Small towns like this one in western Crete, considered the birthplace of the famously healthful Mediterranean diet — emphasizing olive oil, fresh produce and fish — are now overflowing with chocolate shops, pizza places, ice cream parlors, soda machines and fast-food joints.
The fact is that the Mediterranean diet, which has been associated with longer life spans and lower rates of heart disease and cancer, is in retreat in its home region. Today it is more likely to be found in the upscale restaurants of London and New York than among the young generation in places like Greece, where two-thirds of children are now overweight and the health effects are mounting, health officials say.
“This is a place where you’d see people who lived to 100, where people were all fit and trim,” Dr. Stagourakis said. “Now you see kids whose longevity is less than their parents’. That’s really scaring people.”
That concern has been echoed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which said in a report this summer that the region’s diet had “decayed into a moribund state.”
“It is almost a perfect diet, but when we looked at what people were eating we noticed that much of the highly praised diet didn’t exist any more,” said the report’s author, Josef Schmidhuber, a senior economist at the food organization. “It has become just a notion.”
Greece, Italy, Spain and Morocco have even asked Unesco to designate the diet as an “intangible piece of cultural heritage,” a testament to its essential value as well as its potential extinction.
The most serious effects of its steady disappearance are on people’s health and waistlines. Alarmed by the trends, the Greek government has been swooping into schools in villages like Kasteli annually for the past few years to weigh children and lecture them on nutrition. The lessons include a food pyramid focused on the Mediterranean diet.
It is an uphill battle, though. This spring, a majority of children who were tested at the elementary school of this sleepy port town of 3,000, also known as Kissamos, were found to have high cholesterol. “It was the talk of the school,” said Stella Kazazakou, 44. “Instead of grades, the moms were comparing cholesterol levels.”
In Greece, three-quarters of the adult population is overweight or obese, the worst rate in Europe “by far,” according to the United Nations. The rates of overweight 12-year-old boys rose more than 200 percent from 1982 to 2002 and have been rising even faster since.
Italy and Spain are not far behind, with more than 50 percent of adults overweight. That compares with about 45 percent in France and the Netherlands.
In the United States, 66 percent of adults older than 20 were overweight in 2004, and 31.9 percent of children 2 through 19 were overweight in 2006, although childhood statistics are compiled somewhat differently in different countries.
In Greece, the increase in the number of fat children has been particularly striking, parents and doctors say.
“Their diet is totally different than ours was,” said Soula Sfakianakis, 40, recalling breakfasts of goat milk, bread and honey. Her son, Vassilis, a husky 9-year-old who had a chocolate mustache from a recently conquered ice cream cone, said he preferred cornflakes in the morning and steak or macaroni and cheese for dinner.
Dr. Antonia Trichopoulou, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Athens Medical School, said the problem had grown acute with the spread of supermarkets and, especially, convenience foods.
“In the last five years it’s become really bad,” she said. “The children are all quite heavy. The market is pushing a lot, and parents and schools seem unable to resist.”
Advertising geared toward children has invaded Greece full force, stretching into the countryside. On television there are commercials for chips; at supermarkets there are stands of candy. Last year, Coca-Cola sponsored a play about healthful eating.
But facing both aggressive convenience food marketing and obesity for the first time, many rural residents here have little resistance to or knowledge of the dangers.
Dr. Trichopoulou said that some older people might have been tolerant of childhood chubbiness because Greece had for so long been a poor nation where hunger was a recurrent problem.
Outside one of Kasteli’s several ice cream parlors, Argyro Koromylla said, “You don’t want your child complaining or feeling left out, so you give him what he wants.” Her son Manolis, 12, was finishing a cone, a large T-shirt draped over his stocky frame.
Dimitris Loukakis, 44, said he was so concerned about changing eating habits that he had bought a farm to grow traditional crops himself. Sitting at an outdoor cafe by the beach, he and his wife drank iced coffee while their chunky 9-year-old daughter, Maria, nibbled on spinach pie and glumly drank water.
“I’m on a diet; I have to eat less,” Maria piped up, noting that the local school had recently started to teach students about nutrition.
“Some diet,” interjected her father. “We’re trying to keep her off sugar now. If we continue like this, we’re going to become like Americans, and no one wants that.”
The traditional diet, low in saturated fats and high in nutrients like flavonoids, was based on vegetables, fruit, unrefined grains, olive oil for cooking and for flavoring, and a bit of wine — all consumed on a daily basis.
Fish, nuts, poultry, eggs, cheese and sweets were weekly additions. Red meat, refined sugar or flour, butter and other oils or fats were consumed rarely, if at all.
Research on the diet took off in the 1990s, as scientists noted that people in Mediterranean countries lived longer and had low rates of serious disease despite a penchant for patently unhealthy habits like smoking and drinking. But that protection is now seen as rapidly eroding.
A generation ago, the typical diet in all Mediterranean countries complied with nutritional recommendations by the World Health Organization that less than 10 percent of calories come from saturated fats and that less than 300 milligrams of cholesterol be consumed per day.
Today, the typical diet in all of the countries exceeds those limits significantly, Dr. Schmidhuber said. In Greece, average daily cholesterol consumption has risen to 400 milligrams from 190 in 1963. Germany’s is similar. In Portugal, consumption went to 460 milligrams from 155.
In 2002, a British study found that 31 percent to 34 percent of 12-year-olds in Greece were overweight — a 212 percent increase since 1982 — and “it has gotten worse, much worse, since then,” Dr. Stagourakis said. One-quarter of all children on Crete have cholesterol problems, he said, and seeing children with diabetes and high blood pressure is no longer uncommon.
Unlike in the United States, where obesity is more pronounced in adults than in children, in the Mediterranean region the rise in weight problems has been more common among the young. Parents’ taste buds still tend to hew to a more traditional diet.
A survey by the World Health Organization last year of statistics from various countries found that among children in the first half of primary school, 35.2 percent in Spain were overweight — the worst rate — and 31.5 percent in Portugal. The lowest rates were in Slovakia (15.2 percent), France (18.1 percent) and Switzerland (18.3 percent). Greece was not included.
Being overweight, particularly being obese, is associated with a wide variety of medical problems, like diabetes and liver disease. While heavy children may not suffer immediate health effects, they are statistically far more likely to grow into obese adults than their trimmer classmates. And in adulthood the conditions can be lethal.
On traditional Crete, there was no need for calorie counting or food pyramids. People were poorer then, so their food was mostly homegrown, and producing it required more physical activity.
“We ate what we grew and what we could make from it,” said Eleni Klouvidaki, 46, who lives in Kalidonia, a mountain village outside Kasteli, and describes her preferred diet as “whatever’s green.” On a recent day she prepared a meal of her staple mix of zucchini, tomatoes and other vegetables, and tossed it all in homemade olive oil. Now and again, she augments this dish with beans, or meat from her chickens or rabbits.
But she said that as more women worked and shops had moved in, the food culture had changed. “We’ve entered an era of convenience,” she said. “Even in this rural village, the diet is very different than it used to be.”
She, too, occasionally grabs dinner in town, and four nights a week her son, who works in a car repair shop, drives to a fast-food restaurant. “They don’t deliver here yet,” she explained.
24 September 2008
Experts offer alternatives to bailout
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26861562/
Leading economists argue that other solutions could address financial crisis
By Anthony Faiola and David Cho
The Washington Post
updated 11:38 p.m. ET, Tues., Sept. 23, 2008
To hear Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Ben S. Bernanke tell it, there is only one plan to save the economy -- use $700 billion in taxpayer money to take the worst of Wall Street's assets off its books.
But leading economists and financial thinkers argue that there are a host of alternatives that would reduce taxpayers' liabilities and perhaps more effectively address the urgent crisis in financial markets. Although these experts concede that the clock is ticking, they say different approaches have been dismissed too quickly.
While the government's plan is built around buying troubled assets, other options offer sharply different visions.
One approach seeks to reduce taxpayers' liability by offering collateral-backed loans to troubled banks, leaving them to work out their own solutions. Another idea is to have the government set up a profit-driven investment fund with the aim of infusing the financial system with cash without taking on bad debt. Still others suggest radically different tactics of directly helping homeowners by reducing mortgage principal or bolstering banks by suspending capital gains taxes.
The administration has said it is willing to negotiate key parts of its plan -- including a possible concession allowing the government to take equity stakes in financial firms in exchange for bailing them out -- but senior officials stand by the fundamental approach they have adopted to solve the crisis.
"They presented this as a comprehensive, decisive solution, but it's clearly not comprehensive and probably not decisive," said Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The cost of a mistake could be huge. It could result in a catastrophic collapse of the U.S. financial system that could ripple across the world or in a staggering clean-up bill for taxpayers. At the core of the debate is whether Paulson, the former chief executive of Goldman Sachs now charged with rescuing Wall Street as Treasury secretary, and Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman and one of the leading academics on financial crises, are serving up the best possible recipe for purging the U.S. financial system of billions of dollars worth of distressed mortgage-related debt.
Under the administration's rescue plan, the Treasury secretary would have broad discretion to buy up to $700 billion worth of troubled mortgage-backed assets and other securities that Wall Street firms have been struggling to sell. Administration officials hope that once those assets are cleansed, money will flow freely through the financial system once again and that the government can hold onto the securities until they recover some of their value.
In testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday, Bernanke and Paulson explained that they formulated their plan after considering past crises, from the U.S. savings-and-loan bailouts of the 1980s to the bursting of Japan's economic bubble a few years later. But they ultimately decided that the response to the current crisis needed to be a fast and massive fix.
"The situation we have now is unique and new," Bernanke said. He later continued, "The firms we're dealing with now are not necessarily failing, but they are contracting. They are de-leveraging. They're pulling back. And they will be unwilling to make credit available as long as these market conditions are in the condition they are."
Many of the alternatives fall under four basic approaches:
Government as lender
Critics of the administration's plan argue that an alternative could be crafted to minimize the exposure of the government -- and taxpayers -- to risk. Johnson, the MIT professor, suggested that the government, instead of taking on the bad debt, could offer loans to troubled banks, allowing them to put up their sickened portfolios of mortgage-backed debt as collateral.
This would give the banks access to badly needed cash at attractive interest rates set by the government. But it would not completely let them off the hook for making those bad investments in the first place. Because government money would come in the form of loans, rather an outright purchase of the risky investments, taxpayers would be offered greater protection. Ultimately, the banks would have to pay off the loans and take back the securities, though at a time when the market for them may have improved. If the value of the securities is still depressed, that would be the banks' problem, not the taxpayers'.
"The risk to the government/taxpayer is that the bank goes out of business and so isn't around to settle up," Johnson said. "But the government is also the regulator, and they can do a more forceful job of making sure the banks have enough capital, so the incentives are pretty well aligned."
Interest rates would be set at a level attractive to banks, the relatively low rate at which the Treasury borrows plus a small premium. Only if the banks were nearing default would the government take a more active role in propping them up, perhaps even taking them over outright.
Government as hedge fund
Some market analysts and fund managers worry that the Paulson plan would allow Wall Street to dump the worst kind of mortgage securities on the federal government. One solution could be the establishment of a fund that limits its purchases to profitable mortgage securities and other assets.
The creation of a $700 billion investment fund could help reinvigorate the business of trading mortgage securities, greasing the wheels of the credit markets by bringing in a new, cash-rich investor: the federal government. While this solution runs the risk of not cleaning up enough of the bad debt on firms' books, taxpayers could be more confident of getting their money back because the government would be selective about which securities it bought.
Mortgage breaks
Liberal thinkers say the government could intervene in the financial system by addressing the ailing mortgages at the heart of the crisis. Under this approach, the government could reduce the amount of principal that struggling homeowners owe.
"It's about foreclosures, stupid," said John Taylor, chief executive of the liberal National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
One idea is for the government to take control of some mortgage-backed securities -- most likely by buying them from financial firms -- and then work to restructure the underlying loans into something homeowners could afford. The value of the securities, both those bought by the government and those in private hands, could improve as foreclosures and late payments drop. If so, financial firms holding mortgage-backed securities could see a recovery in their balance sheets.
To make it fair for homeowners who keep up with their payments, borrowers who receive federal help would be required to give the government some of their gains if they eventually sell their homes for a profit.
But advocates of the idea acknowledge that it may take time to address the problems of millions of struggling homeowners. In the meantime, critics of this approach say the financial system could fall into chaos.
Tax breaks for Wall Street
Conservative analysts take a different tack, though their criticism of the Paulson plan has been no less sharp. They say that because the proposal forgives Wall Street for its past sins, it creates an incentive for investors to behave irresponsibly in the future.
Some of these thinkers complain that the government's rescue punishes taxpayers too severely for Wall Street's mistakes. They propose a cheaper alternative that calls for the repeal of the capital gains tax for two years, which would provide Wall Street a stimulus to reinvigorate the financial system.
Accounting rules that require banks to estimate the market value of their troubled mortgage securities would also be suspended for five years, giving financial firms the ability to value these assets at prices more reflective of the market before the panic gripped Wall Street.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) said this plan, which he announced on Capitol Hill yesterday, was still being finalized. Hensarling said the precise cost of the capital gains tax repeal, for instance, was still being determined.
"We agreed that inaction is not an option, but that doesn't mean that we've concluded that the Paulson plan is the only option," said Hensarling. "There are alternatives to consider, and we think we have a worthy one."
All of these alternatives try to get at the root of the turmoil facing the financial markets and the economy but in different ways. According to Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary, the government might have to try multiple approaches.
"If you have hypertension, you're way overweight and you're in the process of having a heart attack, what's your most fundamental problem? It's really not that useful to distinguish between them," Summers said at a Brookings Institute forum. "They're all components of the situation, and you're not going to get to a very satisfactory place unless you address all of them. That's how I think of our financial reality right now."
© 2008 The Washington Post Company
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26861562/
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© 2008 MSNBC.com
Leading economists argue that other solutions could address financial crisis
By Anthony Faiola and David Cho
The Washington Post
updated 11:38 p.m. ET, Tues., Sept. 23, 2008
To hear Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Ben S. Bernanke tell it, there is only one plan to save the economy -- use $700 billion in taxpayer money to take the worst of Wall Street's assets off its books.
But leading economists and financial thinkers argue that there are a host of alternatives that would reduce taxpayers' liabilities and perhaps more effectively address the urgent crisis in financial markets. Although these experts concede that the clock is ticking, they say different approaches have been dismissed too quickly.
While the government's plan is built around buying troubled assets, other options offer sharply different visions.
One approach seeks to reduce taxpayers' liability by offering collateral-backed loans to troubled banks, leaving them to work out their own solutions. Another idea is to have the government set up a profit-driven investment fund with the aim of infusing the financial system with cash without taking on bad debt. Still others suggest radically different tactics of directly helping homeowners by reducing mortgage principal or bolstering banks by suspending capital gains taxes.
The administration has said it is willing to negotiate key parts of its plan -- including a possible concession allowing the government to take equity stakes in financial firms in exchange for bailing them out -- but senior officials stand by the fundamental approach they have adopted to solve the crisis.
"They presented this as a comprehensive, decisive solution, but it's clearly not comprehensive and probably not decisive," said Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The cost of a mistake could be huge. It could result in a catastrophic collapse of the U.S. financial system that could ripple across the world or in a staggering clean-up bill for taxpayers. At the core of the debate is whether Paulson, the former chief executive of Goldman Sachs now charged with rescuing Wall Street as Treasury secretary, and Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman and one of the leading academics on financial crises, are serving up the best possible recipe for purging the U.S. financial system of billions of dollars worth of distressed mortgage-related debt.
Under the administration's rescue plan, the Treasury secretary would have broad discretion to buy up to $700 billion worth of troubled mortgage-backed assets and other securities that Wall Street firms have been struggling to sell. Administration officials hope that once those assets are cleansed, money will flow freely through the financial system once again and that the government can hold onto the securities until they recover some of their value.
In testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday, Bernanke and Paulson explained that they formulated their plan after considering past crises, from the U.S. savings-and-loan bailouts of the 1980s to the bursting of Japan's economic bubble a few years later. But they ultimately decided that the response to the current crisis needed to be a fast and massive fix.
"The situation we have now is unique and new," Bernanke said. He later continued, "The firms we're dealing with now are not necessarily failing, but they are contracting. They are de-leveraging. They're pulling back. And they will be unwilling to make credit available as long as these market conditions are in the condition they are."
Many of the alternatives fall under four basic approaches:
Government as lender
Critics of the administration's plan argue that an alternative could be crafted to minimize the exposure of the government -- and taxpayers -- to risk. Johnson, the MIT professor, suggested that the government, instead of taking on the bad debt, could offer loans to troubled banks, allowing them to put up their sickened portfolios of mortgage-backed debt as collateral.
This would give the banks access to badly needed cash at attractive interest rates set by the government. But it would not completely let them off the hook for making those bad investments in the first place. Because government money would come in the form of loans, rather an outright purchase of the risky investments, taxpayers would be offered greater protection. Ultimately, the banks would have to pay off the loans and take back the securities, though at a time when the market for them may have improved. If the value of the securities is still depressed, that would be the banks' problem, not the taxpayers'.
"The risk to the government/taxpayer is that the bank goes out of business and so isn't around to settle up," Johnson said. "But the government is also the regulator, and they can do a more forceful job of making sure the banks have enough capital, so the incentives are pretty well aligned."
Interest rates would be set at a level attractive to banks, the relatively low rate at which the Treasury borrows plus a small premium. Only if the banks were nearing default would the government take a more active role in propping them up, perhaps even taking them over outright.
Government as hedge fund
Some market analysts and fund managers worry that the Paulson plan would allow Wall Street to dump the worst kind of mortgage securities on the federal government. One solution could be the establishment of a fund that limits its purchases to profitable mortgage securities and other assets.
The creation of a $700 billion investment fund could help reinvigorate the business of trading mortgage securities, greasing the wheels of the credit markets by bringing in a new, cash-rich investor: the federal government. While this solution runs the risk of not cleaning up enough of the bad debt on firms' books, taxpayers could be more confident of getting their money back because the government would be selective about which securities it bought.
Mortgage breaks
Liberal thinkers say the government could intervene in the financial system by addressing the ailing mortgages at the heart of the crisis. Under this approach, the government could reduce the amount of principal that struggling homeowners owe.
"It's about foreclosures, stupid," said John Taylor, chief executive of the liberal National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
One idea is for the government to take control of some mortgage-backed securities -- most likely by buying them from financial firms -- and then work to restructure the underlying loans into something homeowners could afford. The value of the securities, both those bought by the government and those in private hands, could improve as foreclosures and late payments drop. If so, financial firms holding mortgage-backed securities could see a recovery in their balance sheets.
To make it fair for homeowners who keep up with their payments, borrowers who receive federal help would be required to give the government some of their gains if they eventually sell their homes for a profit.
But advocates of the idea acknowledge that it may take time to address the problems of millions of struggling homeowners. In the meantime, critics of this approach say the financial system could fall into chaos.
Tax breaks for Wall Street
Conservative analysts take a different tack, though their criticism of the Paulson plan has been no less sharp. They say that because the proposal forgives Wall Street for its past sins, it creates an incentive for investors to behave irresponsibly in the future.
Some of these thinkers complain that the government's rescue punishes taxpayers too severely for Wall Street's mistakes. They propose a cheaper alternative that calls for the repeal of the capital gains tax for two years, which would provide Wall Street a stimulus to reinvigorate the financial system.
Accounting rules that require banks to estimate the market value of their troubled mortgage securities would also be suspended for five years, giving financial firms the ability to value these assets at prices more reflective of the market before the panic gripped Wall Street.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) said this plan, which he announced on Capitol Hill yesterday, was still being finalized. Hensarling said the precise cost of the capital gains tax repeal, for instance, was still being determined.
"We agreed that inaction is not an option, but that doesn't mean that we've concluded that the Paulson plan is the only option," said Hensarling. "There are alternatives to consider, and we think we have a worthy one."
All of these alternatives try to get at the root of the turmoil facing the financial markets and the economy but in different ways. According to Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary, the government might have to try multiple approaches.
"If you have hypertension, you're way overweight and you're in the process of having a heart attack, what's your most fundamental problem? It's really not that useful to distinguish between them," Summers said at a Brookings Institute forum. "They're all components of the situation, and you're not going to get to a very satisfactory place unless you address all of them. That's how I think of our financial reality right now."
© 2008 The Washington Post Company
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26861562/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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© 2008 MSNBC.com
20 September 2008
War and Drought Threaten Afghan Food Supply
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/world/asia/19afghan.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
By CARLOTTA GALL
YAKOWLANG, Afghanistan — A pitiable harvest this year has left small farmers all over central and northern Afghanistan facing hunger, and aid officials are warning of an acute food shortage this winter for nine million Afghans, more than a quarter of the population.
The crisis has been generated by the harshest winter in memory, followed by a drought across much of the country, which come on top of the broader problems of deteriorating security, the accumulated pressure of returning refugees and the effects of rising world food prices.
The failure of the Afghan government and foreign donors to develop the country’s main economic sector, agriculture, has compounded the problems, the officials say. They warn that the food crisis could make an already bad security situation worse.
The British charity Oxfam, which conducted a provisional assessment of conditions in the province of Daykondi, one of the most remote areas of central Afghanistan, has appealed for international assistance before winter sets in. “Time is running out to avert a humanitarian crisis,” it said.
That assessment is echoed by villagers across the broader region, including in Bamian Province. “In all these 30 years of war, we have not had it as bad as this,” said Said Muhammad, a 60-year-old farmer who lives in Yakowlang, in Bamian. “We don’t have enough food for the winter. We will have to go to the towns to look for work.”
Underlying the warnings are growing fears of civil unrest. The mood in the country is darkening amid increasing economic hardship, worsening disorder and a growing disaffection with the government and its foreign backers, particularly over the issue of government corruption.
Returning refugees are already converging on the cities because they cannot manage in the countryside, and they make easy recruits for the Taliban or other groups that want to create instability, said Ashmat Ghani, an opposition politician and tribal leader from Logar Province, south of Kabul, the nation’s capital.
“The lower part of society, when facing hunger, will not wait,” he said. “We could have riots.”
The Afghan government, together with United Nations organizations, was quick to mount an appeal at the beginning of the year to prevent a food shortage as world food prices soared and neighboring countries stopped wheat exports.
The World Food Program, which was assisting 4.5 million of the most vulnerable Afghans with food aid in recent years, widened its program to include an additional 1.5 million Afghans and extended it further because of the drought to reach a total of nine million people until the end of next year’s harvest.
Several weeks ago, Oxfam warned in a letter to ministers responsible for development in some countries assisting Afghanistan that the $404 million appeal by the government and the United Nations was substantially underfinanced.
“If the response is slow or insufficient, there could be serious public health implications, including higher rates of mortality and morbidity, which are already some of the highest in the world,” the letter said.
It also warned of internal displacement of families who had no work or food, and even of civil disturbances. “The impact as a whole could further undermine the security situation,” Oxfam said.
The United States government announced this week that it would supply nearly half the emergency food aid requested in the appeal.
Susana Rico, the director of the World Food Program in Afghanistan, said last-minute contributions had come in to cover the immediate emergency. But there is still a rush to get supplies to the countryside before the first winter snows arrive next month, she said.
Development officials say that deteriorating security has made it harder to do that job in the countryside. Aid workers have become the targets of an increasing number of attacks from insurgents and criminals.
The dangers have restricted the scale and scope of aid operations, said the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella group of nongovernmental organizations.
Those dangers, the agency says, have even spread to areas previously considered relatively secure. In the first seven months of the year, it reported, 19 workers for nongovernmental organizations were killed, more than the number in all of 2007.
The agency appealed for governments to take a broad range of measures, beyond the military, to combat the escalating insurgency.
“The conflict will not be brought to an end through military means,” the agency said in a statement. “A range of measures is required to achieve a sustainable peace, including strong and effective support for rural development.”
Neglecting a lifeline as vital as agriculture has been dangerous for stability in Afghanistan, as people are unable to feed themselves, several provincial governors said in interviews.
The governor of Bamian, Habiba Sarabi, has repeatedly complained that because her province has been one of the most law-abiding and trouble-free, it has been forgotten in the big distribution of resources from international donors.
Donors, and in particular the United States government, have spent far larger amounts in the provinces in the south and southeast to help combat the dual problems of the insurgency and narcotics, she said.
Hasan Samadi, 23, the deputy administrator of Yakowlang District in Bamian Province, said, “The economic situation of the people here is very bad and the government is not focused to help.
“They focus on other provinces and unfortunately not on Bamian, and not on remote districts of Bamian,” he said.
Daykondi, adjacent to Bamian, is one of the most underfinanced provinces in the country. It receives half the budget of its neighbor to the south, Oruzgan, which has two-thirds the population and a poor record on combating insurgency and the cultivation of the opium poppy, said Matt Waldman, a spokesman for Oxfam in Kabul.
In Daykondi, 90 percent of the population relies on subsistence farming, yet the provincial Department of Agriculture has a budget of only $2,400 for the whole year, he added.
The imbalance in aid to the provinces is being corrected now, Governor Sarabi said, but in the meantime it has put great strain on the people in her province.
She estimated that a quarter of Bamian’s population would need food aid this winter because of the drought. There have already been local conflicts over water supplies in two regions, she said.
Development officials warn that neglecting the poorest provinces can add to instability by pushing people to commit crimes or even to join the insurgency, which often pays its recruits.
While the severe drought contributed to the decline of poppy cultivation in the central and northern provinces, it also pushed farmers into debt. If they do not get help now, they could turn back to poppy-growing and lose their faith in the government, said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Mr. Costa called for urgent assistance for farmers and regions that have abandoned poppy cultivation. He and others have also criticized the inefficiency of international aid.
Of $15 billion of reconstruction assistance given to Afghanistan since 2001, “a staggering 40 percent has returned to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries,” the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief said in a March report.
“Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world,” Mr. Costa said during a recent visit to Kabul. “I insist on the importance of increasing development assistance, making it more effective. Too much of it is eaten up by various bureaucracies and contractors.”
By CARLOTTA GALL
YAKOWLANG, Afghanistan — A pitiable harvest this year has left small farmers all over central and northern Afghanistan facing hunger, and aid officials are warning of an acute food shortage this winter for nine million Afghans, more than a quarter of the population.
The crisis has been generated by the harshest winter in memory, followed by a drought across much of the country, which come on top of the broader problems of deteriorating security, the accumulated pressure of returning refugees and the effects of rising world food prices.
The failure of the Afghan government and foreign donors to develop the country’s main economic sector, agriculture, has compounded the problems, the officials say. They warn that the food crisis could make an already bad security situation worse.
The British charity Oxfam, which conducted a provisional assessment of conditions in the province of Daykondi, one of the most remote areas of central Afghanistan, has appealed for international assistance before winter sets in. “Time is running out to avert a humanitarian crisis,” it said.
That assessment is echoed by villagers across the broader region, including in Bamian Province. “In all these 30 years of war, we have not had it as bad as this,” said Said Muhammad, a 60-year-old farmer who lives in Yakowlang, in Bamian. “We don’t have enough food for the winter. We will have to go to the towns to look for work.”
Underlying the warnings are growing fears of civil unrest. The mood in the country is darkening amid increasing economic hardship, worsening disorder and a growing disaffection with the government and its foreign backers, particularly over the issue of government corruption.
Returning refugees are already converging on the cities because they cannot manage in the countryside, and they make easy recruits for the Taliban or other groups that want to create instability, said Ashmat Ghani, an opposition politician and tribal leader from Logar Province, south of Kabul, the nation’s capital.
“The lower part of society, when facing hunger, will not wait,” he said. “We could have riots.”
The Afghan government, together with United Nations organizations, was quick to mount an appeal at the beginning of the year to prevent a food shortage as world food prices soared and neighboring countries stopped wheat exports.
The World Food Program, which was assisting 4.5 million of the most vulnerable Afghans with food aid in recent years, widened its program to include an additional 1.5 million Afghans and extended it further because of the drought to reach a total of nine million people until the end of next year’s harvest.
Several weeks ago, Oxfam warned in a letter to ministers responsible for development in some countries assisting Afghanistan that the $404 million appeal by the government and the United Nations was substantially underfinanced.
“If the response is slow or insufficient, there could be serious public health implications, including higher rates of mortality and morbidity, which are already some of the highest in the world,” the letter said.
It also warned of internal displacement of families who had no work or food, and even of civil disturbances. “The impact as a whole could further undermine the security situation,” Oxfam said.
The United States government announced this week that it would supply nearly half the emergency food aid requested in the appeal.
Susana Rico, the director of the World Food Program in Afghanistan, said last-minute contributions had come in to cover the immediate emergency. But there is still a rush to get supplies to the countryside before the first winter snows arrive next month, she said.
Development officials say that deteriorating security has made it harder to do that job in the countryside. Aid workers have become the targets of an increasing number of attacks from insurgents and criminals.
The dangers have restricted the scale and scope of aid operations, said the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella group of nongovernmental organizations.
Those dangers, the agency says, have even spread to areas previously considered relatively secure. In the first seven months of the year, it reported, 19 workers for nongovernmental organizations were killed, more than the number in all of 2007.
The agency appealed for governments to take a broad range of measures, beyond the military, to combat the escalating insurgency.
“The conflict will not be brought to an end through military means,” the agency said in a statement. “A range of measures is required to achieve a sustainable peace, including strong and effective support for rural development.”
Neglecting a lifeline as vital as agriculture has been dangerous for stability in Afghanistan, as people are unable to feed themselves, several provincial governors said in interviews.
The governor of Bamian, Habiba Sarabi, has repeatedly complained that because her province has been one of the most law-abiding and trouble-free, it has been forgotten in the big distribution of resources from international donors.
Donors, and in particular the United States government, have spent far larger amounts in the provinces in the south and southeast to help combat the dual problems of the insurgency and narcotics, she said.
Hasan Samadi, 23, the deputy administrator of Yakowlang District in Bamian Province, said, “The economic situation of the people here is very bad and the government is not focused to help.
“They focus on other provinces and unfortunately not on Bamian, and not on remote districts of Bamian,” he said.
Daykondi, adjacent to Bamian, is one of the most underfinanced provinces in the country. It receives half the budget of its neighbor to the south, Oruzgan, which has two-thirds the population and a poor record on combating insurgency and the cultivation of the opium poppy, said Matt Waldman, a spokesman for Oxfam in Kabul.
In Daykondi, 90 percent of the population relies on subsistence farming, yet the provincial Department of Agriculture has a budget of only $2,400 for the whole year, he added.
The imbalance in aid to the provinces is being corrected now, Governor Sarabi said, but in the meantime it has put great strain on the people in her province.
She estimated that a quarter of Bamian’s population would need food aid this winter because of the drought. There have already been local conflicts over water supplies in two regions, she said.
Development officials warn that neglecting the poorest provinces can add to instability by pushing people to commit crimes or even to join the insurgency, which often pays its recruits.
While the severe drought contributed to the decline of poppy cultivation in the central and northern provinces, it also pushed farmers into debt. If they do not get help now, they could turn back to poppy-growing and lose their faith in the government, said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Mr. Costa called for urgent assistance for farmers and regions that have abandoned poppy cultivation. He and others have also criticized the inefficiency of international aid.
Of $15 billion of reconstruction assistance given to Afghanistan since 2001, “a staggering 40 percent has returned to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries,” the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief said in a March report.
“Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world,” Mr. Costa said during a recent visit to Kabul. “I insist on the importance of increasing development assistance, making it more effective. Too much of it is eaten up by various bureaucracies and contractors.”
19 September 2008
Ten Year Old Girl Dies from FGM - Circumciser Arrested
http://v10.vday.org/news-alerts/cry-of-a-girl
On August 18, in the village of Narosura in the Rift Valley, a 10 year-old girl died from Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). At 5 that morning she was cut. By 10, she had bled to death.
Her family wrapped the body in a sheet and secretly buried it a few yards from their huts. By that afternoon, there was no evidence of the crime.
If it were not for the network of conscience that Agnes Pareyio has woven into the Maasai community, this child's death would have gone unnoticed. But an anonymous "informer" called her on the morning of the ceremony, in time for her to send one of her collaborators and an officer of the law to the hasty funeral.
As a result, for the first time in Maasai history, a circumciser has been arrested.
I have known of Agnes' work since the late nineties when Eve Ensler, founder of V-Day (www.vday.org), the worldwide movement to stop violence against women and girls, began collaborating with her. I remember hearing Ensler describe how she met Agnes in the Rift Valley, where the Maasai woman was traveling on foot from village to village, speaking out against her people's practices of FGM and ECM (Early Childhood Marriage) and educating the community about alternatives. At that time, she walked the miles of treacherous roads and donkey paths alone, carrying the "model" which has now become well known among those who work to stop FGM. The "model" is a plastic sculpture of a woman's pelvis with removable parts that fit into the pubic area. Each of seven or so exchangeable parts graphically represents a different form of FGM, as well as the medical complications that can ensue with time. The model, and the education Agnes brought with it, has had a huge impact in helping to eradicate this practice among the Maasai.
When Eve asked Agnes how V-Day could help her, she replied, "A Jeep would make it possible for me to get around more easily and save more girls." So V-Day bought Agnes a Jeep, not only enabling her to reach farther than she could on foot, but attracting trust and respect as people came to know her and her mission. Soon there was more interest in her work than she could address alone, and now she has trained several others to travel to the villages to teach girls, boys, parents, elders and leaders.
As Agnes reached more and more girls, some gained the courage to take control of their own lives and run away when they were in danger of being cut or forced into marriage. It soon became clear that a Safe House was needed for those girls who remained in danger living with their parents. The V-Day Safe House for the Girls (also called the Tasaru Rescue Center) was the next collaboration between V-Day and Agnes.
What began as Agnes' personal commitment to stopping FGM through education and sensitization has now become a multi-layered approach to community transformation. Through educational outreach into the villages, an invisible network of caring individuals has been put in place—women and men who are parents, teachers, church officials, and community leaders committed to informing the law of clandestine cutting ceremonies and aiding girls who need to seek refuge from them. The anonymous "informer" who called Agnes on August 18 was one of these.
I was visiting the Safe House when the call came in. I had come to work with the 40 or so girls who were living there during their vacation from boarding school. Girls at the Safe House are not only given refuge from FGM and ECM, each is placed in a primary or secondary school, and her school expenses are paid through graduation. This is revolutionary among the Maasai, where women and girls have been seen more as commodities than as contributing members of the community. In many villages, young girls are not permitted to go to school or are forced to drop out in order to be circumcised and sold into marriage. For a "bride price" of several cattle or sheep, a girl as young as 10 years old will become one of several wives belonging to a man many times her age.
August is a very busy month for the Tasaru Ntomonok Initiative. The Safe House is alive with girls home from school—studying, cooking, cleaning, playing soccer, or washing their clothes and laying them out to dry in colorful swatches strewn over the bushes and lawns. Between periods of study, the dining hall overflows with groups practicing line dances to "Bongo Flava" music (a kind of Kenyan hip hop), and singing in chorus in Swahili or Maa, the language of the Maasai. In the dorm, the girls engage in activities akin to teenagers all over the world—trying a new hat on one another, sharing jewelry, or watching the Olympics on a grainy-screened TV as they braid each other's hair.
August is also the time of the "Alternative Rite of Passage," a groundbreaking event that Agnes and her organization offer bi-annually. The ARP was created with the recognition that an alternative coming-of-age ritual was needed for girls to take the place of FGM. During the event, 60 – 80 girls from throughout the district gather for five days to learn about such things as sexuality, the dangers of FGM, and how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS, rape, and early pregnancy. Tasaru provides them with lodging and food in a local boarding school free of charge.
The girls attend lectures in the mornings and afternoons, and everyday they meet in small groups with "Godmothers," older women from the Maasai community who are available to talk with them and answer their questions. The participants write songs and poems, take copious notes, and play games all focused on stopping FGM and empowering girls. At the end of the five days, they perform their creations at a joyful ceremony which many parents, district officials, religious leaders and activists attend.
August also has a darker side in Maasailand. Because schools in Kenya are on vacation, this is when many FGM and forced marriage ceremonies take place. It is a time when girls arrive at the Safe House, having fled a cutting ceremony or a wedding. Sometimes Agnes will be alerted by an informant before such an event, and will go with the police to rescue the girl.
The call on August 18 came too late to save the child in Narosura. However it was not too late to arrest those who circumcised her and make sure that justice prevailed. As soon as Agnes heard the news, she took action. Sending witnesses to the funeral and having the circumciser arrested was only the beginning. Even though FGM and ECM have been illegal in Kenya since 2001, many officers, as well as public officials and prosecutors, grew up in villages where these traditions are still practiced. It is not difficult to convince them to compromise. Agnes knew that the girl's family and others, including the local elected Counselor, would probably attempt to buy off the police to keep the story hidden. She knew that if she did not personally mobilize the police, the local Medical Officer and the Children's Officer to exhume the body and gain official proof of the cause of death, this girl would have died in vain.
It was only after hours of waiting at the police station, dozens of phone calls, and personally paying not only for the fuel for two vehicles to travel the treacherous road to Narosura, but also a stipend for the accompanying officers that the police agreed to the expedition.
When Agnes suggested that I accompany the men on the mission, I had no idea of the danger involved. I was unaware that the villagers, intent on keeping the exhumation from happening, had already planned to track our vehicle and set up an ambush.
So I was surprised when, arriving at the gas station in the center of town where we were to begin the journey, Agnes told me to leave the blue V-Day Jeep and get into one of the many battered, unmarked taxis that fill the streets of Narok. "We had to change the vehicle and travel undercover," she explained to me later. "The day before, three different people had casually asked me whether we were planning to take the Jeep to the exhumation—the man at the petrol station, one of the policemen, and the elected counselor from Narosura. It was then that I realized they must have already paid off the police and were planning an ambush. This is why you had to travel in a car they could not recognize."
I joined the Children's Officer, the doctor and Chris, who is the treasurer of Agnes' organization and her most active collaborator, in the taxi. After waiting for the police for half an hour at the agreed upon meeting point, we decided to go to look for them at the police station. There they were, unprepared, with no intention of making the journey. After another half hour of negotiations, three officers finally boarded the truck and were joined by were joined by the videographer that Agnes had hired to document the event.
Though this was usually the time of a short rainy season in Narok District, not a drop had been seen in months. As the taxi bounded and crashed over the rough terrain, the swirling clouds of dust were so thick that at times we were literally blinded and had to stop until visibility returned. Everything looked thirsty, the stunted brown bushes, the herds of wandering cows with their protruding ribs casting shadows on their skin, and even the herders, each wrapped in his bright red shuka (a Maasai blanket), the sudden stroke of color like an outcry against the relentless beige of the drought.
Suddenly the taxi stopped. All of us except the driver got out and began to walk across the barren savannah towards two huts about 10 minutes away. The taxi came too, leaving the road and bumping along behind us. "Stay close to the car," Chris warned me. "In case we have to run."
As we approached the huts, two Maasai men in western clothing and a woman in traditional Maasai dress of brightly colored material and many layers of beaded jewelry strode towards us. One of the men said he was the uncle of the girl. The other was the local elected Counselor.
An animated conversation ensued in whispered Maa between the uncle, the counselor and the doctor. Apparently the villagers were trying to "buy off" the officials. But in spite of the repeated offers, the doctor explained that there was no way to avoid the exhumation. Because of the presence of the witnesses from Tasaru, his reputation was at stake. He had to ascertain with his own eyes the cause of death.
After quite a while an agreement was reached. The doctor could exhume the body, but only the police could bear witness. One of the officers took my camera to document the exhumation. The police truck was maneuvered into a position that hid the proceedings.
I could certainly understand that the girl's community did not want the grave to be disturbed. I imagined this was because of religious beliefs and fears of black magic or other superstitions. Even while we were there several groups of women carrying 20 liter plastic water kegs on their backs, started to run as they approached, as if to pass through this blighted zone as quickly as possible. Chris had told me the death and the exhumation would cause many of the villagers to believe the area to be cursed now. They would take their livestock and move away. The girl's family, too, would probably burn their dung huts and evacuate, leaving the unmarked grave to disappear, anonymous in the dusty landscape.
It was not until I saw the photographs of the body of the 10 year old lying naked in the dirt that I realized what Agnes must have intuited all along. This was more complex than a simple case of FGM. The child's body, wrapped only in a blanket, was obviously about seven months pregnant. Maasai people who practice FGM believe the blood of an uncircumcised woman is unclean and will curse whoever comes in contact with it. So unless the girl was hurriedly cut, no one could help with such a birth and the child will be marked for life.
I learned later that the girl had already been promised to a very old man in marriage. The "bride price" had been paid. Apparently the wedding was planned as soon as the girl was cut and the baby was born and out of the way. Another reason for rushed FGM ceremony.
As the taxi driver negotiated the potholes and dust of the long road back to Narok, there was silence in the car. Seeing the photographs of the girl's body had thrown everyone into the heartbreak of the situation, not only putting a face on the child who had been victimized, but bringing home the reality that these violent practices are still being perpetrated upon Maasai girls in spite of years of activism against them.
"The fate of our girls is no longer a family issue," Agnes Pareyio said to 63 girls, their parents and local political and religious leaders at the closing ceremony of Tasaru Ntomonok's Alternative Rite of Passage the following Friday. "It is no longer even a tribal or national issue. It is an international necessity that these outdated practices be stopped. Though she may not die physically like the unfortunate young girl whose life was taken this week, each girl who is cut and forced into marriage undergoes a kind of death. Her future is changed forever. She cannot fulfill her potential and go on to give back to the community. And the world is denied a valuable participant in the evolution of Maasai life and culture."
Were it not for Agnes' work in the community, her insistence on justice, and the funds paid for the exhumation, this child's death would have gone unnoticed. "My work is to raise consciousness, to let everybody know," she said. "There is no way that I could ignore the cry of a girl who was killed by FGM then brutally buried. I must raise the alarm so she doesn't disappear into the ground without bringing awareness."
When I left the Safe House, Agnes' work had only just begun. The legal system that will try the case is easily compromised. It is not only possible to buy off the authorities at myriad junctures in the process, it is expected. At the time of this writing, the Tasaru Ntonomok Initiative hopes to raise the money to hire a lawyer to insure the prosecution proceeds truthfully, otherwise the case will surely go underground and never be recognized as the historic event that it truly is.
At the closing ceremony of the Alternative Rite of Passage, the girls who live at the Safe House performed several poems and songs about the importance of stopping FGM and educating girls. While most poems were spoken in chorus, Reginah Renu Masiaine, a petite girl of 15, spoke hers alone. Her voice rang out over the crowd, surprisingly clear and strong. The last stanza has stayed with me, sounding a summons for change:
Without a cut I can build a nation.
I can bring unity, love and hope where there is despair.
Father and mother, I am a child like a boy child.
Love, care and protection I needed from you.
Father, let me be me.
Though the work of Agnes and many others has greatly decreased the incidence of FGM in the Rift Valley, the child's death in Narosura is reminder that the work is not done. Please join V-Day and other anti-FGM initiatives to help put an end to these practices forever.
On August 18, in the village of Narosura in the Rift Valley, a 10 year-old girl died from Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). At 5 that morning she was cut. By 10, she had bled to death.
Her family wrapped the body in a sheet and secretly buried it a few yards from their huts. By that afternoon, there was no evidence of the crime.
If it were not for the network of conscience that Agnes Pareyio has woven into the Maasai community, this child's death would have gone unnoticed. But an anonymous "informer" called her on the morning of the ceremony, in time for her to send one of her collaborators and an officer of the law to the hasty funeral.
As a result, for the first time in Maasai history, a circumciser has been arrested.
I have known of Agnes' work since the late nineties when Eve Ensler, founder of V-Day (www.vday.org), the worldwide movement to stop violence against women and girls, began collaborating with her. I remember hearing Ensler describe how she met Agnes in the Rift Valley, where the Maasai woman was traveling on foot from village to village, speaking out against her people's practices of FGM and ECM (Early Childhood Marriage) and educating the community about alternatives. At that time, she walked the miles of treacherous roads and donkey paths alone, carrying the "model" which has now become well known among those who work to stop FGM. The "model" is a plastic sculpture of a woman's pelvis with removable parts that fit into the pubic area. Each of seven or so exchangeable parts graphically represents a different form of FGM, as well as the medical complications that can ensue with time. The model, and the education Agnes brought with it, has had a huge impact in helping to eradicate this practice among the Maasai.
When Eve asked Agnes how V-Day could help her, she replied, "A Jeep would make it possible for me to get around more easily and save more girls." So V-Day bought Agnes a Jeep, not only enabling her to reach farther than she could on foot, but attracting trust and respect as people came to know her and her mission. Soon there was more interest in her work than she could address alone, and now she has trained several others to travel to the villages to teach girls, boys, parents, elders and leaders.
As Agnes reached more and more girls, some gained the courage to take control of their own lives and run away when they were in danger of being cut or forced into marriage. It soon became clear that a Safe House was needed for those girls who remained in danger living with their parents. The V-Day Safe House for the Girls (also called the Tasaru Rescue Center) was the next collaboration between V-Day and Agnes.
What began as Agnes' personal commitment to stopping FGM through education and sensitization has now become a multi-layered approach to community transformation. Through educational outreach into the villages, an invisible network of caring individuals has been put in place—women and men who are parents, teachers, church officials, and community leaders committed to informing the law of clandestine cutting ceremonies and aiding girls who need to seek refuge from them. The anonymous "informer" who called Agnes on August 18 was one of these.
I was visiting the Safe House when the call came in. I had come to work with the 40 or so girls who were living there during their vacation from boarding school. Girls at the Safe House are not only given refuge from FGM and ECM, each is placed in a primary or secondary school, and her school expenses are paid through graduation. This is revolutionary among the Maasai, where women and girls have been seen more as commodities than as contributing members of the community. In many villages, young girls are not permitted to go to school or are forced to drop out in order to be circumcised and sold into marriage. For a "bride price" of several cattle or sheep, a girl as young as 10 years old will become one of several wives belonging to a man many times her age.
August is a very busy month for the Tasaru Ntomonok Initiative. The Safe House is alive with girls home from school—studying, cooking, cleaning, playing soccer, or washing their clothes and laying them out to dry in colorful swatches strewn over the bushes and lawns. Between periods of study, the dining hall overflows with groups practicing line dances to "Bongo Flava" music (a kind of Kenyan hip hop), and singing in chorus in Swahili or Maa, the language of the Maasai. In the dorm, the girls engage in activities akin to teenagers all over the world—trying a new hat on one another, sharing jewelry, or watching the Olympics on a grainy-screened TV as they braid each other's hair.
August is also the time of the "Alternative Rite of Passage," a groundbreaking event that Agnes and her organization offer bi-annually. The ARP was created with the recognition that an alternative coming-of-age ritual was needed for girls to take the place of FGM. During the event, 60 – 80 girls from throughout the district gather for five days to learn about such things as sexuality, the dangers of FGM, and how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS, rape, and early pregnancy. Tasaru provides them with lodging and food in a local boarding school free of charge.
The girls attend lectures in the mornings and afternoons, and everyday they meet in small groups with "Godmothers," older women from the Maasai community who are available to talk with them and answer their questions. The participants write songs and poems, take copious notes, and play games all focused on stopping FGM and empowering girls. At the end of the five days, they perform their creations at a joyful ceremony which many parents, district officials, religious leaders and activists attend.
August also has a darker side in Maasailand. Because schools in Kenya are on vacation, this is when many FGM and forced marriage ceremonies take place. It is a time when girls arrive at the Safe House, having fled a cutting ceremony or a wedding. Sometimes Agnes will be alerted by an informant before such an event, and will go with the police to rescue the girl.
The call on August 18 came too late to save the child in Narosura. However it was not too late to arrest those who circumcised her and make sure that justice prevailed. As soon as Agnes heard the news, she took action. Sending witnesses to the funeral and having the circumciser arrested was only the beginning. Even though FGM and ECM have been illegal in Kenya since 2001, many officers, as well as public officials and prosecutors, grew up in villages where these traditions are still practiced. It is not difficult to convince them to compromise. Agnes knew that the girl's family and others, including the local elected Counselor, would probably attempt to buy off the police to keep the story hidden. She knew that if she did not personally mobilize the police, the local Medical Officer and the Children's Officer to exhume the body and gain official proof of the cause of death, this girl would have died in vain.
It was only after hours of waiting at the police station, dozens of phone calls, and personally paying not only for the fuel for two vehicles to travel the treacherous road to Narosura, but also a stipend for the accompanying officers that the police agreed to the expedition.
When Agnes suggested that I accompany the men on the mission, I had no idea of the danger involved. I was unaware that the villagers, intent on keeping the exhumation from happening, had already planned to track our vehicle and set up an ambush.
So I was surprised when, arriving at the gas station in the center of town where we were to begin the journey, Agnes told me to leave the blue V-Day Jeep and get into one of the many battered, unmarked taxis that fill the streets of Narok. "We had to change the vehicle and travel undercover," she explained to me later. "The day before, three different people had casually asked me whether we were planning to take the Jeep to the exhumation—the man at the petrol station, one of the policemen, and the elected counselor from Narosura. It was then that I realized they must have already paid off the police and were planning an ambush. This is why you had to travel in a car they could not recognize."
I joined the Children's Officer, the doctor and Chris, who is the treasurer of Agnes' organization and her most active collaborator, in the taxi. After waiting for the police for half an hour at the agreed upon meeting point, we decided to go to look for them at the police station. There they were, unprepared, with no intention of making the journey. After another half hour of negotiations, three officers finally boarded the truck and were joined by were joined by the videographer that Agnes had hired to document the event.
Though this was usually the time of a short rainy season in Narok District, not a drop had been seen in months. As the taxi bounded and crashed over the rough terrain, the swirling clouds of dust were so thick that at times we were literally blinded and had to stop until visibility returned. Everything looked thirsty, the stunted brown bushes, the herds of wandering cows with their protruding ribs casting shadows on their skin, and even the herders, each wrapped in his bright red shuka (a Maasai blanket), the sudden stroke of color like an outcry against the relentless beige of the drought.
Suddenly the taxi stopped. All of us except the driver got out and began to walk across the barren savannah towards two huts about 10 minutes away. The taxi came too, leaving the road and bumping along behind us. "Stay close to the car," Chris warned me. "In case we have to run."
As we approached the huts, two Maasai men in western clothing and a woman in traditional Maasai dress of brightly colored material and many layers of beaded jewelry strode towards us. One of the men said he was the uncle of the girl. The other was the local elected Counselor.
An animated conversation ensued in whispered Maa between the uncle, the counselor and the doctor. Apparently the villagers were trying to "buy off" the officials. But in spite of the repeated offers, the doctor explained that there was no way to avoid the exhumation. Because of the presence of the witnesses from Tasaru, his reputation was at stake. He had to ascertain with his own eyes the cause of death.
After quite a while an agreement was reached. The doctor could exhume the body, but only the police could bear witness. One of the officers took my camera to document the exhumation. The police truck was maneuvered into a position that hid the proceedings.
I could certainly understand that the girl's community did not want the grave to be disturbed. I imagined this was because of religious beliefs and fears of black magic or other superstitions. Even while we were there several groups of women carrying 20 liter plastic water kegs on their backs, started to run as they approached, as if to pass through this blighted zone as quickly as possible. Chris had told me the death and the exhumation would cause many of the villagers to believe the area to be cursed now. They would take their livestock and move away. The girl's family, too, would probably burn their dung huts and evacuate, leaving the unmarked grave to disappear, anonymous in the dusty landscape.
It was not until I saw the photographs of the body of the 10 year old lying naked in the dirt that I realized what Agnes must have intuited all along. This was more complex than a simple case of FGM. The child's body, wrapped only in a blanket, was obviously about seven months pregnant. Maasai people who practice FGM believe the blood of an uncircumcised woman is unclean and will curse whoever comes in contact with it. So unless the girl was hurriedly cut, no one could help with such a birth and the child will be marked for life.
I learned later that the girl had already been promised to a very old man in marriage. The "bride price" had been paid. Apparently the wedding was planned as soon as the girl was cut and the baby was born and out of the way. Another reason for rushed FGM ceremony.
As the taxi driver negotiated the potholes and dust of the long road back to Narok, there was silence in the car. Seeing the photographs of the girl's body had thrown everyone into the heartbreak of the situation, not only putting a face on the child who had been victimized, but bringing home the reality that these violent practices are still being perpetrated upon Maasai girls in spite of years of activism against them.
"The fate of our girls is no longer a family issue," Agnes Pareyio said to 63 girls, their parents and local political and religious leaders at the closing ceremony of Tasaru Ntomonok's Alternative Rite of Passage the following Friday. "It is no longer even a tribal or national issue. It is an international necessity that these outdated practices be stopped. Though she may not die physically like the unfortunate young girl whose life was taken this week, each girl who is cut and forced into marriage undergoes a kind of death. Her future is changed forever. She cannot fulfill her potential and go on to give back to the community. And the world is denied a valuable participant in the evolution of Maasai life and culture."
Were it not for Agnes' work in the community, her insistence on justice, and the funds paid for the exhumation, this child's death would have gone unnoticed. "My work is to raise consciousness, to let everybody know," she said. "There is no way that I could ignore the cry of a girl who was killed by FGM then brutally buried. I must raise the alarm so she doesn't disappear into the ground without bringing awareness."
When I left the Safe House, Agnes' work had only just begun. The legal system that will try the case is easily compromised. It is not only possible to buy off the authorities at myriad junctures in the process, it is expected. At the time of this writing, the Tasaru Ntonomok Initiative hopes to raise the money to hire a lawyer to insure the prosecution proceeds truthfully, otherwise the case will surely go underground and never be recognized as the historic event that it truly is.
At the closing ceremony of the Alternative Rite of Passage, the girls who live at the Safe House performed several poems and songs about the importance of stopping FGM and educating girls. While most poems were spoken in chorus, Reginah Renu Masiaine, a petite girl of 15, spoke hers alone. Her voice rang out over the crowd, surprisingly clear and strong. The last stanza has stayed with me, sounding a summons for change:
Without a cut I can build a nation.
I can bring unity, love and hope where there is despair.
Father and mother, I am a child like a boy child.
Love, care and protection I needed from you.
Father, let me be me.
Though the work of Agnes and many others has greatly decreased the incidence of FGM in the Rift Valley, the child's death in Narosura is reminder that the work is not done. Please join V-Day and other anti-FGM initiatives to help put an end to these practices forever.
6 Weeks Until the Election!
September 18, 2008
Step Two: Know Your Candidates
Do you really know who you're voting for? Make sure you do your homework before you step into the polling booth on November 4th. Ask questions, review the candidates' voting records, and find out more than what the campaign commercials tell you.
Candidates' Nights Kick Off this Saturday...
Miami will play host to the first of many Candidates' Nights that AAI is hosting in key battleground states. Florida, Michigan, California, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey and New York are all hosting a Candidates' Night or Issues Forum in the next six weeks. Don't see your state on the list? Volunteer to host an event. These events offer an excellent opportunity to hear from and speak with local candidates and elected officials in addition to surrogates from both the McCain and Obama campaigns.
It's the economy, stupid...
The latest AAI poll released this week, "How Arab Americans Will Vote in 2008 and Why," shows that the economy is the number one issue on Arab American minds this election season. Think you know what other factors are helping to decide the Arab American vote? You just might be surprised...
Unhealthy "Obsession"...
"Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" will hit over 28 million homes this month in battleground states in the midst of an election already loaded with slurs, innuendos, and backpedaling on issues that most concern Arab Americans. On the surface, "Obsession" resembles an educational DVD, but scratch that surface and you'll find a propaganda tool wielding fear and hatred in a direct attempt to influence America's vote. America needs a balanced understanding of Islam, not disinformation and fear. Read the Action Alert and find out what you can do about it, and how to make your voice heard from now until the election.
November's not as far away as it seems. Don't forget to sign the Yalla Vote '08 National Declaration and subscribe to the Yalla Vote RSS feed or visit yallavote.org to keep up to date on how this year's elections are shaping up across the nation. Help AAI make Arab American voices heard in this election.
September 18, 2008
Step Two: Know Your Candidates
Do you really know who you're voting for? Make sure you do your homework before you step into the polling booth on November 4th. Ask questions, review the candidates' voting records, and find out more than what the campaign commercials tell you.
Candidates' Nights Kick Off this Saturday...
Miami will play host to the first of many Candidates' Nights that AAI is hosting in key battleground states. Florida, Michigan, California, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey and New York are all hosting a Candidates' Night or Issues Forum in the next six weeks. Don't see your state on the list? Volunteer to host an event. These events offer an excellent opportunity to hear from and speak with local candidates and elected officials in addition to surrogates from both the McCain and Obama campaigns.
It's the economy, stupid...
The latest AAI poll released this week, "How Arab Americans Will Vote in 2008 and Why," shows that the economy is the number one issue on Arab American minds this election season. Think you know what other factors are helping to decide the Arab American vote? You just might be surprised...
Unhealthy "Obsession"...
"Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" will hit over 28 million homes this month in battleground states in the midst of an election already loaded with slurs, innuendos, and backpedaling on issues that most concern Arab Americans. On the surface, "Obsession" resembles an educational DVD, but scratch that surface and you'll find a propaganda tool wielding fear and hatred in a direct attempt to influence America's vote. America needs a balanced understanding of Islam, not disinformation and fear. Read the Action Alert and find out what you can do about it, and how to make your voice heard from now until the election.
November's not as far away as it seems. Don't forget to sign the Yalla Vote '08 National Declaration and subscribe to the Yalla Vote RSS feed or visit yallavote.org to keep up to date on how this year's elections are shaping up across the nation. Help AAI make Arab American voices heard in this election.
17 September 2008
Congress to Vote on Off-Shore Drilling
I'm not much of a gambler myself, but I would never have bet that Congress would roll the dice and gamble against Mother Nature to open up the nation's coastlines to offshore drilling. Last night you and I were dealt a bad hand by the House of Representatives, and Big Oil walked away as the big winner - again.
On the heels of two major hurricanes in the Gulf, the oil spills and gas price spikes we've already seen in recent weeks, this vote basically places a bet on the big oil companies at a time when we should be placing all our chips on energy efficiency and clean renewable energy sources.
But the game isn't over yet. The next round of this high stakes game of political poker comes next week when the Senate votes on offshore drilling. We still have time to change our luck.
TAKE ACTION! Tell your Senators NOT
to play with our national coastlines
or our global climate.
It's time to stop giving big oil companies tax breaks they don't need and handing over irreplaceable national assets for their corporate profits.
Congress should focus instead on passing legislation that cuts tax breaks for Big Oil and returns that money to taxpayers to help offset rising fuel costs; doubles the average fuel efficiency of existing cars to at least 50 miles per gallon; invests in public transportation; and provides incentives for renewable energy so we can move toward a clean energy future.
Global warming isn't just a risk, it's a certainty, and we have to reshuffle the deck now if we want to avoid big losses from sea level rise, stronger hurricanes, and intense droughts in the near future. We have to quit our addiction to oil and invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy now.
Renewable energy, efficiency and cleaner transportation choices are a win-win for all of us. Changes like these will bring clean energy production into the US, create lasting new jobs, and help stabilize our economy.
On the heels of two major hurricanes in the Gulf, the oil spills and gas price spikes we've already seen in recent weeks, this vote basically places a bet on the big oil companies at a time when we should be placing all our chips on energy efficiency and clean renewable energy sources.
But the game isn't over yet. The next round of this high stakes game of political poker comes next week when the Senate votes on offshore drilling. We still have time to change our luck.
TAKE ACTION! Tell your Senators NOT
to play with our national coastlines
or our global climate.
It's time to stop giving big oil companies tax breaks they don't need and handing over irreplaceable national assets for their corporate profits.
Congress should focus instead on passing legislation that cuts tax breaks for Big Oil and returns that money to taxpayers to help offset rising fuel costs; doubles the average fuel efficiency of existing cars to at least 50 miles per gallon; invests in public transportation; and provides incentives for renewable energy so we can move toward a clean energy future.
Global warming isn't just a risk, it's a certainty, and we have to reshuffle the deck now if we want to avoid big losses from sea level rise, stronger hurricanes, and intense droughts in the near future. We have to quit our addiction to oil and invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy now.
Renewable energy, efficiency and cleaner transportation choices are a win-win for all of us. Changes like these will bring clean energy production into the US, create lasting new jobs, and help stabilize our economy.
Get educated and read AI's election brief and then RSVP for AI's national conference call.
Elections aren't just about candidates, press conferences and TV ads. During campaigns, the American people have a national conversation about where the country has been and where it's going.
I'm writing today to offer you a special opportunity to participate in that conversation with a vitally important question in mind:
How can we as Americans ensure that the next president -- no matter who it is -- restores our country's dedication to human rights?
As a nonpartisan, tax-exempt 501(c3) organization, Amnesty International USA neither supports nor opposes any political party or any candidate for public office, nor do we seek to influence the elections. But, we do think it's crucial to provide you and other human rights supporters with the information you need to engage candidates and fellow voters in a substantive discussion about human rights.
Get educated and read our election brief. Then, RSVP to attend our national conference call on September 23rd, 25th, or October 1st about the elections.
This is a crucial time for our country, so we're doing everything we can to spark a serious human rights debate.
We even brought our Guantanamo cell tour to both the Republican and Democratic conventions. It was the most dramatic way we could think of to educate both the public and the candidates about this decisive moment for human rights.
As a nation, we were once the champion of human rights. We helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the founding document for all human rights work, and then spearheaded its adoption by the world’s most powerful countries.
Tragically, our government has renounced the rule of law, rejecting fundamental human rights principles and engaging in reprehensible human rights abuses. The U.S. government sanctions the use of torture; detains people without giving them any legal recourse; and then publicly states that we’re in fact following the letter and spirit of the law.
To make matters worse, the government has shielded those responsible for such acts of inhumanity from being held accountable for what they've done.
Find out how you can help bring human rights concerns to the center of this election.
I hope you'll take a moment to read our elections briefs. Better still, I hope you'll accept our invitation to attend our upcoming conference call.
Thanks so much for all you are doing to help restore respect for human rights and to help Amnesty counter terror with justice.
I'm writing today to offer you a special opportunity to participate in that conversation with a vitally important question in mind:
How can we as Americans ensure that the next president -- no matter who it is -- restores our country's dedication to human rights?
As a nonpartisan, tax-exempt 501(c3) organization, Amnesty International USA neither supports nor opposes any political party or any candidate for public office, nor do we seek to influence the elections. But, we do think it's crucial to provide you and other human rights supporters with the information you need to engage candidates and fellow voters in a substantive discussion about human rights.
Get educated and read our election brief. Then, RSVP to attend our national conference call on September 23rd, 25th, or October 1st about the elections.
This is a crucial time for our country, so we're doing everything we can to spark a serious human rights debate.
We even brought our Guantanamo cell tour to both the Republican and Democratic conventions. It was the most dramatic way we could think of to educate both the public and the candidates about this decisive moment for human rights.
As a nation, we were once the champion of human rights. We helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the founding document for all human rights work, and then spearheaded its adoption by the world’s most powerful countries.
Tragically, our government has renounced the rule of law, rejecting fundamental human rights principles and engaging in reprehensible human rights abuses. The U.S. government sanctions the use of torture; detains people without giving them any legal recourse; and then publicly states that we’re in fact following the letter and spirit of the law.
To make matters worse, the government has shielded those responsible for such acts of inhumanity from being held accountable for what they've done.
Find out how you can help bring human rights concerns to the center of this election.
I hope you'll take a moment to read our elections briefs. Better still, I hope you'll accept our invitation to attend our upcoming conference call.
Thanks so much for all you are doing to help restore respect for human rights and to help Amnesty counter terror with justice.
15 September 2008
Clemency DENIED: help stop the imminent execution of Troy Davis!
On Friday, September 12, the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles voted to deny clemency for Troy Anthony Davis. Troy Davis is still scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia on September 23, even though his serious claims of innocence have never been heard in court.
Urge the board to reconsider its decision today!
Troy Davis was convicted of murder solely on the basis of witness testimony, and seven of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony, several citing police coercion. Others have signed affidavits implicating one of the remaining two witnesses as the actual killer. But due to an increasingly restrictive appeals process, none of this new evidence has ever been heard in court.
Take action and then forward this action to ten friends!
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles gave no reason for its denial of Troy Davis' clemency petition, yet Board members do have the authority to reconsider their decision. On July 16, 2007, the Board did stay Troy Davis' execution, stating that it would "not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused" (emphasis added).
The failure of courts to hear the compelling evidence of innocence in this case means that massive doubts about Troy Davis' guilt will remain unresolved.
Urge the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its decision and prevent this execution from proceeding!
In solidarity,
Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn
Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA
Urge the board to reconsider its decision today!
Troy Davis was convicted of murder solely on the basis of witness testimony, and seven of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony, several citing police coercion. Others have signed affidavits implicating one of the remaining two witnesses as the actual killer. But due to an increasingly restrictive appeals process, none of this new evidence has ever been heard in court.
Take action and then forward this action to ten friends!
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles gave no reason for its denial of Troy Davis' clemency petition, yet Board members do have the authority to reconsider their decision. On July 16, 2007, the Board did stay Troy Davis' execution, stating that it would "not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused" (emphasis added).
The failure of courts to hear the compelling evidence of innocence in this case means that massive doubts about Troy Davis' guilt will remain unresolved.
Urge the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its decision and prevent this execution from proceeding!
In solidarity,
Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn
Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA
14 September 2008
In Tangle of Young Lips, a Sex Rebellion in Chile
September 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/world/americas/13chile.html?_r=1&oref=sloginBy ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
SANTIAGO, Chile — It is just after 5 p.m. in what was once one of Latin America’s most sexually conservative countries, and the youth of Chile are bumping and grinding to a reggaetón beat. At the Bar Urbano disco, boys and girls ages 14 to 18 are stripping off their shirts, revealing bras, tattoos and nipple rings.
The place is a tangle of lips and tongues and hands, all groping and exploring. About 800 teenagers sway and bounce to lyrics imploring them to “Poncea! Poncea!”: make out with as many people as they can.
And make out they do — with stranger after stranger, vying for the honor of being known as the “ponceo,” the one who pairs up the most.
Chile, long considered to have among the most traditional social mores in South America, is crashing headlong into that reputation with its precocious teenagers. Chile’s youths are living in a period of sexual exploration that, academics and government officials say, is like nothing the country has witnessed before.
“Chile’s youth are clearly having sex earlier and testing the borderlines with their sexual conduct,” said Dr. Ramiro Molina, director of the University of Chile’s Center for Adolescent Reproductive Medicine and Development.
The sexual awakening is happening through a booming industry for 18-and-under parties, an explosion of Internet connectivity and through Web sites like Fotolog, where young people trade suggestive photos of each other and organize weekend parties, some of which have drawn more than 4,500 teenagers. The online networks have emboldened teenagers to express themselves in ways that were never customary in Chile’s conservative society.
“We are not the children of the dictatorship; we are the children of democracy,” said Michele Bravo, 17, at a recent afternoon party. “There is much more of a rebellious spirit among young people today. There is much more freedom to explore everything.”
The parents and grandparents of today’s teenagers fought hard to give them such freedoms and to escape the book-burning times of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. But in a country that legalized divorce only in 2004 and still has a strict ban on abortion, the feverish sexual exploration of the younger generation is posing new challenges for parents and educators. Sex education in public schools is badly lagging, and the pregnancy rate among girls under 15 has been on the rise, according to the Health Ministry.
Indeed, adolescent sexuality has changed throughout Latin America, Dr. Ramiro said, and underlying much of the newfound freedom is an issue that societies the world over are grappling with: the explosion of explicit content and social networks on the Internet.
Chilean society was shaken last year when a video of a 14-year-old girl eagerly performing oral sex on a teenage boy on a Santiago park bench was discovered on a video-hosting Web site. The episode became a national scandal, stirring finger-pointing at the girl’s school, at the Internet provider — at everyone, it seemed, but the boys who captured the event on a cellphone and distributed the video.
Chile’s stable, market-based economy has helped to drive the changes, spurring a boom in consumer spending and credit unprecedented in the country’s history. Chile has become Latin American’s biggest per-capita consumer of digital technology, including cellphones, cable television and Internet broadband accounts, according to a study by the Santiago consulting firm Everis and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Navarra in Spain.
Chileans are plugged into the Internet at higher rates than other South Americans, and the highest use is among children ages 6 to 17. Therein lies a central factor in the country’s newfound sexual exploration, said Miguel Arias, a psychologist and head of the Santiago consulting firm Divergente.
Fotolog, a photo-sharing network created in the United States, took off in the last two years in this country. Today Chile, which has a population of 16 million, has 4.8 million Fotolog accounts, more than any other country, the company says. Again, children ages 12 to 17 hold more than 60 percent of the accounts.
Party promoters use Fotolog, as well as MSN Messenger, to organize their weekend gatherings, inviting Fotolog stars — the site’s most popular users, based on the number of comments they get — to help publicize the parties and attend as paid V.I.P.’s. Many of the partygoers use their online nicknames exclusively, and some of the wildest events are dominated by teenagers who call themselves the “Pokemones,” with their multiple piercings, angular and pressed hair, and devil-may-care attitude.
Dr. Arias did a study of the Fotolog phenomenon, scrutinizing the kinds of photos teenagers are posting, even the angles and distances of the pictures — all of which are part of an “identifiable” language, he said. “The kids of today are expressing their sexuality in erotic ways for the whole world to see.”
That online world also carries over to Santiago’s parks, plazas and the afternoon parties, where teenagers go to discover the physical side of their digital flirtations. At the Bar Urbano disco on a Friday afternoon, a 17-year-old boy, Claudio, danced with Francisca Durán, also 17, whom he had just met, and soon the two were kissing and rubbing their bodies together. They posed eagerly for photos, sucking each other’s fingers as Claudio put his hands under the girl’s T-shirt. Within minutes they separated and he began playing with the hair of another girl. Soon, they, too, were kissing passionately. Claudio, who declined to give his last name, made out with at least two other girls that night.
“Before, someone would meet and fall in love and start dating seriously here; at a party today, you meet like three people and make out with all three,” said Mario Muñoz, 20, co-owner of Imperio Productions, which organizes some of the larger 18-and-under parties.
“There are very few kids having serious relationships,” he said, an observation shared by some doctors trying to reduce teenage pregnancy here.
On a recent Saturday, about 1,500 teenagers piled into the cavernous Cadillac Club, another downtown disco, for Imperio Productions’ weekly event. The partygoers, many no more than five feet tall, lined up at the bar to buy orange Fanta and Sprite, wearing oversize sunglasses.
Not too long ago, Mr. Muñoz and his brother Daniel were teenagers attending such parties themselves. Now they defend their parties as good, clean fun. Alcohol is not allowed, and cigarettes are not sold, though smoking was widespread among the teenagers at the Cadillac Club. Security guards monitor bathrooms and regularly throw out boys whose groping crosses the line — if the girls complain.
The Muñoz brothers said that party promoters feel pressure to be “hotter” than their competitors.
That includes scantily clad, older male and female dancers; strip shows that hold back just enough to remain legal; and party names intended to titillate, like “What would you do in the dark?” On this night, dancing was interrupted for a “slapping” contest onstage in which a boy, pulled randomly from the crowd, was blindfolded and had his arms held behind his back. A lineup of girls and boys took turns slapping him, with the final blow delivered by a heavyset D.J. that sent the slender boy flying across the stage. As he rubbed his reddened face, the boy got his reward: the chance to make out with the girl of his choice in public to the screams of other teenagers.
“Everything starts with the kiss,” Nicole Valenzuela, 14, said during a break from dancing at the Cadillac Club.
“After the kiss follows making out, and after that, penetration and oral sex,” she added. “That’s what’s going on, sometimes even in public places.”
Her mother, Danitza Geisel, a 34-year-old sex therapist, said in an interview that she did not worry about her daughter’s attending the parties and, expressing a somewhat contrarian view among academics here, she said the current generation of teenagers was no more promiscuous than previous ones. But Ms. Geisel lamented the dearth of sex education in Chile.
The parents of most adolescents today never received formal sex education. Chile’s first public school programs were put in place at the end of the 1960s. But after the 1973 military coup, the Pinochet government ordered sex education materials destroyed, and moral conservatism took hold. It was not until 20 years later, in 1993, that a new sex curriculum was introduced in the schools. Even so, by 2005, 47 percent of students said they were receiving sex education only once or twice a year, if at all. And now educators say they are struggling to keep up with the avalanche of sexual information and images on the Internet.
“Of course we are not happy with that,” said María de la Luz Silva, head of the sexual education unit of the Education Ministry. She said that the explosion of Internet access had created a “tremendous cultural breach” that was straining the limits of educators, but added that the ministry was putting in place a new sex education curriculum this year to better “protect” children.
For now, Chile’s teenagers are making decisions on their own.
“This is about being alive,” Cynthia Arellano, 14, said after the Bar Urbano party. “It is all about dancing, laughing, changing the words of the songs to something dirty.”
And with a slight giggle creeping in, she said, “Well, it’s about making out with other boys.”
Pascale Bonnefoy and Tomás Munita contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/world/americas/13chile.html?_r=1&oref=sloginBy ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
SANTIAGO, Chile — It is just after 5 p.m. in what was once one of Latin America’s most sexually conservative countries, and the youth of Chile are bumping and grinding to a reggaetón beat. At the Bar Urbano disco, boys and girls ages 14 to 18 are stripping off their shirts, revealing bras, tattoos and nipple rings.
The place is a tangle of lips and tongues and hands, all groping and exploring. About 800 teenagers sway and bounce to lyrics imploring them to “Poncea! Poncea!”: make out with as many people as they can.
And make out they do — with stranger after stranger, vying for the honor of being known as the “ponceo,” the one who pairs up the most.
Chile, long considered to have among the most traditional social mores in South America, is crashing headlong into that reputation with its precocious teenagers. Chile’s youths are living in a period of sexual exploration that, academics and government officials say, is like nothing the country has witnessed before.
“Chile’s youth are clearly having sex earlier and testing the borderlines with their sexual conduct,” said Dr. Ramiro Molina, director of the University of Chile’s Center for Adolescent Reproductive Medicine and Development.
The sexual awakening is happening through a booming industry for 18-and-under parties, an explosion of Internet connectivity and through Web sites like Fotolog, where young people trade suggestive photos of each other and organize weekend parties, some of which have drawn more than 4,500 teenagers. The online networks have emboldened teenagers to express themselves in ways that were never customary in Chile’s conservative society.
“We are not the children of the dictatorship; we are the children of democracy,” said Michele Bravo, 17, at a recent afternoon party. “There is much more of a rebellious spirit among young people today. There is much more freedom to explore everything.”
The parents and grandparents of today’s teenagers fought hard to give them such freedoms and to escape the book-burning times of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. But in a country that legalized divorce only in 2004 and still has a strict ban on abortion, the feverish sexual exploration of the younger generation is posing new challenges for parents and educators. Sex education in public schools is badly lagging, and the pregnancy rate among girls under 15 has been on the rise, according to the Health Ministry.
Indeed, adolescent sexuality has changed throughout Latin America, Dr. Ramiro said, and underlying much of the newfound freedom is an issue that societies the world over are grappling with: the explosion of explicit content and social networks on the Internet.
Chilean society was shaken last year when a video of a 14-year-old girl eagerly performing oral sex on a teenage boy on a Santiago park bench was discovered on a video-hosting Web site. The episode became a national scandal, stirring finger-pointing at the girl’s school, at the Internet provider — at everyone, it seemed, but the boys who captured the event on a cellphone and distributed the video.
Chile’s stable, market-based economy has helped to drive the changes, spurring a boom in consumer spending and credit unprecedented in the country’s history. Chile has become Latin American’s biggest per-capita consumer of digital technology, including cellphones, cable television and Internet broadband accounts, according to a study by the Santiago consulting firm Everis and the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Navarra in Spain.
Chileans are plugged into the Internet at higher rates than other South Americans, and the highest use is among children ages 6 to 17. Therein lies a central factor in the country’s newfound sexual exploration, said Miguel Arias, a psychologist and head of the Santiago consulting firm Divergente.
Fotolog, a photo-sharing network created in the United States, took off in the last two years in this country. Today Chile, which has a population of 16 million, has 4.8 million Fotolog accounts, more than any other country, the company says. Again, children ages 12 to 17 hold more than 60 percent of the accounts.
Party promoters use Fotolog, as well as MSN Messenger, to organize their weekend gatherings, inviting Fotolog stars — the site’s most popular users, based on the number of comments they get — to help publicize the parties and attend as paid V.I.P.’s. Many of the partygoers use their online nicknames exclusively, and some of the wildest events are dominated by teenagers who call themselves the “Pokemones,” with their multiple piercings, angular and pressed hair, and devil-may-care attitude.
Dr. Arias did a study of the Fotolog phenomenon, scrutinizing the kinds of photos teenagers are posting, even the angles and distances of the pictures — all of which are part of an “identifiable” language, he said. “The kids of today are expressing their sexuality in erotic ways for the whole world to see.”
That online world also carries over to Santiago’s parks, plazas and the afternoon parties, where teenagers go to discover the physical side of their digital flirtations. At the Bar Urbano disco on a Friday afternoon, a 17-year-old boy, Claudio, danced with Francisca Durán, also 17, whom he had just met, and soon the two were kissing and rubbing their bodies together. They posed eagerly for photos, sucking each other’s fingers as Claudio put his hands under the girl’s T-shirt. Within minutes they separated and he began playing with the hair of another girl. Soon, they, too, were kissing passionately. Claudio, who declined to give his last name, made out with at least two other girls that night.
“Before, someone would meet and fall in love and start dating seriously here; at a party today, you meet like three people and make out with all three,” said Mario Muñoz, 20, co-owner of Imperio Productions, which organizes some of the larger 18-and-under parties.
“There are very few kids having serious relationships,” he said, an observation shared by some doctors trying to reduce teenage pregnancy here.
On a recent Saturday, about 1,500 teenagers piled into the cavernous Cadillac Club, another downtown disco, for Imperio Productions’ weekly event. The partygoers, many no more than five feet tall, lined up at the bar to buy orange Fanta and Sprite, wearing oversize sunglasses.
Not too long ago, Mr. Muñoz and his brother Daniel were teenagers attending such parties themselves. Now they defend their parties as good, clean fun. Alcohol is not allowed, and cigarettes are not sold, though smoking was widespread among the teenagers at the Cadillac Club. Security guards monitor bathrooms and regularly throw out boys whose groping crosses the line — if the girls complain.
The Muñoz brothers said that party promoters feel pressure to be “hotter” than their competitors.
That includes scantily clad, older male and female dancers; strip shows that hold back just enough to remain legal; and party names intended to titillate, like “What would you do in the dark?” On this night, dancing was interrupted for a “slapping” contest onstage in which a boy, pulled randomly from the crowd, was blindfolded and had his arms held behind his back. A lineup of girls and boys took turns slapping him, with the final blow delivered by a heavyset D.J. that sent the slender boy flying across the stage. As he rubbed his reddened face, the boy got his reward: the chance to make out with the girl of his choice in public to the screams of other teenagers.
“Everything starts with the kiss,” Nicole Valenzuela, 14, said during a break from dancing at the Cadillac Club.
“After the kiss follows making out, and after that, penetration and oral sex,” she added. “That’s what’s going on, sometimes even in public places.”
Her mother, Danitza Geisel, a 34-year-old sex therapist, said in an interview that she did not worry about her daughter’s attending the parties and, expressing a somewhat contrarian view among academics here, she said the current generation of teenagers was no more promiscuous than previous ones. But Ms. Geisel lamented the dearth of sex education in Chile.
The parents of most adolescents today never received formal sex education. Chile’s first public school programs were put in place at the end of the 1960s. But after the 1973 military coup, the Pinochet government ordered sex education materials destroyed, and moral conservatism took hold. It was not until 20 years later, in 1993, that a new sex curriculum was introduced in the schools. Even so, by 2005, 47 percent of students said they were receiving sex education only once or twice a year, if at all. And now educators say they are struggling to keep up with the avalanche of sexual information and images on the Internet.
“Of course we are not happy with that,” said María de la Luz Silva, head of the sexual education unit of the Education Ministry. She said that the explosion of Internet access had created a “tremendous cultural breach” that was straining the limits of educators, but added that the ministry was putting in place a new sex education curriculum this year to better “protect” children.
For now, Chile’s teenagers are making decisions on their own.
“This is about being alive,” Cynthia Arellano, 14, said after the Bar Urbano party. “It is all about dancing, laughing, changing the words of the songs to something dirty.”
And with a slight giggle creeping in, she said, “Well, it’s about making out with other boys.”
Pascale Bonnefoy and Tomás Munita contributed reporting.
28 August 2008
Witnesses to Dream Speech See a New Hope
August 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/us/politics/28race.html?_r=1&hp&oref=sloginBy MICHAEL POWELL
DENVER — She figured this dream for dead so many decades ago.
Dezie Woods-Jones plans to stand Thursday night with her California delegation in a stadium here and listen to Barack Obama, the first black major-party presidential nominee in the nation’s history, give his acceptance speech. Ms. Woods-Jones, now in her 60s, is one of a tiny handful of delegates who on the same day in 1963, Aug. 28, stood with hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington and heard a young minister, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., deliver his soaring “I Have a Dream” speech.
“I was young, naïve enough to think I would see that in 5, 10 years,” she said. “Then you see leaders killed, you see police brutality, residential segregation in cities. About 10 years ago I thought: I won’t see this. This is something for my grandchildren.”
She paused, her eyes now red-rimmed.
“What to say except, ‘Oh, hallelujah!’ ” she said. “We have a lot of work, a lot, but we are so much closer than I expected.”
These veterans of the March on Washington are the living connective tissue to the America of 1963, when the police in some cities and towns still beat blacks with truncheons, and the story of their journey is as complicated as race itself.
At least five veterans of that march traveled to Denver this week as Democratic delegates, among them Representative John Lewis of Georgia, who is the last man alive of the 10 who spoke that day at the Lincoln Memorial. This son of sharecroppers, who was almost beaten to death by police officers in Selma, Ala., when he marched with civil rights activists across a bridge, stood on a sun-splashed street in Denver and considered the distance traveled.
His bald head still bears near half-century-old scars.
“We’ve had disappointments since then, but if someone told me I would be here,” Mr. Lewis said, shaking that head. “When people say nothing has changed, I feel like saying, ‘Come walk in my shoes.’ ”
Many veterans of the march will gather at televisions in their living rooms Thursday night, or sit with friends and old comrades and watch an event they would have considered impossible not just in 1963, but perhaps in 1983, or 1993. Theirs is often a cautious optimism; time has left them with a sense of the provisional nature of progress.
David R. Jones, now president of the Community Service Society in New York, recalled milling about in Washington in 1963, a 15-year-old there with classmates from a lefty school in Manhattan. Then Dr. King began to speak, and they fell quiet. “I never saw that kind of a speech,” Mr. Jones said.
He was transported. But the years ahead often cast a deep shadow. Mr. Jones, who is black, was beaten by the side of the road in Maine. He fought for decades to integrate middle-class housing developments and saw young whites wave watermelons at black marchers in Brooklyn. There were great victories, too, not least the election of dozens and dozens of black members of Congress, a few senators, and in his own city, Mayor David N. Dinkins. But he is left with a chary view of history’s march.
“Obama doesn’t have all the burdens of my generation,” Mr. Jones said. “We have one foot in both eras. We’re still living out a lot of anger.”
The Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy can bubble with anger still; his 75 years have not dulled his outrage. He served as the District of Columbia’s delegate in the House in the 1970s and 1980s, and often raged at what he saw as the racism of denying Washington statehood and full voting rights.
Years earlier, as a 30-year-old, he was asked by Dr. King to coordinate the logistics for the March on Washington. Those were precarious days; just a week before, white segregationists had marched through Washington carrying signs reading “Martin Luther Coon go home.” When he traveled across the Potomac to Virginia, he rode in the back of the bus.
“People ask what has changed, and I say don’t trivialize the changes,” Mr. Fauntroy said. “I’m seeing the fruit of the changes that began in 1964. I was close to Bobby Kennedy. He said to me: ‘You know, America’s going to change. Forty years from now, a black man could achieve what my brother has achieved.’ ”
At least 20,000 whites were among the marchers who stood on the Washington Mall that hot and sticky day 45 years ago. Many had ventured south to work for civil rights in the hamlets of Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi.
Cappy Harmon, 59, remembered her father, an Episcopal minister who had been jailed in North Carolina, loading her two sisters and her mother into a Volkswagen bus and driving south from Roxbury, Mass.
“It was one of those times when it was very clear what was right and what was wrong,” Ms. Harmon said.
The years to come offered less clarity. The civil rights movement fractured, Dr. King was assassinated, and Ms. Harmon, who works at Atlanta Habitat for Humanity, spoke of exploring her views with a new clarity.
“I was learning about my own racism, which was ingrained in ways that you don’t always understand,” she said. “It really was a long journey for all of us. But, in a way, an exciting one, too.”
On Thursday night she plans to watch the candidate she has supported from the beginning accept the nomination, an experience she likens to that march 45 years ago. “It’s incredibly exciting,” she said.
And yet, even for these veterans, fear can temper their joy. They have seen too many defeats — many supported Jesse Jackson’s two losing runs at the nomination in the 1980s — to assume a near majority of white voters would elect a black man.
Ms. Woods-Jones, president of Black Women Organized for Political Action, nearly vibrates with the joy of living in this moment. She describes her 35-year-old son sitting on a couch with her grandson, crying as he watched Mr. Obama this week. This is a hopeful woman tempered by history.
“The concern for me, well, America has grown to a point,” she said. “Having said that, there will still be those who go into the booth, their closet, and can’t vote for him. I hope, I pray, most of us are past that.”
A little earlier, Archie Spigner, a retired New York city councilman from Queens, sat on a park bench in Denver in his pin-striped suit. Gray now, he was a Young Turk in 1963 when he and other activists forced their white-run union to send buses to Washington. He came back enraptured but noticed that the world had not changed.
Mr. Spigner recalls real estate agents who would not return calls, burger joints in Queens that would not hire his constituents. Months ago, he endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton, because she is his state’s senator (he harbors a lifelong allegiance to the powerful Queens Democratic Party machine) and because she might have had an easier joust with history.
“Would it have been easier with Hillary? Maybe,” he said. “We’re rolling the dice. As a black man, I hope, I hope.”
Ralph Blumenthal contributed reporting from New York, Robbie Brown from Atlanta, and Rachel L. Swarns from Washington.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/us/politics/28race.html?_r=1&hp&oref=sloginBy MICHAEL POWELL
DENVER — She figured this dream for dead so many decades ago.
Dezie Woods-Jones plans to stand Thursday night with her California delegation in a stadium here and listen to Barack Obama, the first black major-party presidential nominee in the nation’s history, give his acceptance speech. Ms. Woods-Jones, now in her 60s, is one of a tiny handful of delegates who on the same day in 1963, Aug. 28, stood with hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington and heard a young minister, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., deliver his soaring “I Have a Dream” speech.
“I was young, naïve enough to think I would see that in 5, 10 years,” she said. “Then you see leaders killed, you see police brutality, residential segregation in cities. About 10 years ago I thought: I won’t see this. This is something for my grandchildren.”
She paused, her eyes now red-rimmed.
“What to say except, ‘Oh, hallelujah!’ ” she said. “We have a lot of work, a lot, but we are so much closer than I expected.”
These veterans of the March on Washington are the living connective tissue to the America of 1963, when the police in some cities and towns still beat blacks with truncheons, and the story of their journey is as complicated as race itself.
At least five veterans of that march traveled to Denver this week as Democratic delegates, among them Representative John Lewis of Georgia, who is the last man alive of the 10 who spoke that day at the Lincoln Memorial. This son of sharecroppers, who was almost beaten to death by police officers in Selma, Ala., when he marched with civil rights activists across a bridge, stood on a sun-splashed street in Denver and considered the distance traveled.
His bald head still bears near half-century-old scars.
“We’ve had disappointments since then, but if someone told me I would be here,” Mr. Lewis said, shaking that head. “When people say nothing has changed, I feel like saying, ‘Come walk in my shoes.’ ”
Many veterans of the march will gather at televisions in their living rooms Thursday night, or sit with friends and old comrades and watch an event they would have considered impossible not just in 1963, but perhaps in 1983, or 1993. Theirs is often a cautious optimism; time has left them with a sense of the provisional nature of progress.
David R. Jones, now president of the Community Service Society in New York, recalled milling about in Washington in 1963, a 15-year-old there with classmates from a lefty school in Manhattan. Then Dr. King began to speak, and they fell quiet. “I never saw that kind of a speech,” Mr. Jones said.
He was transported. But the years ahead often cast a deep shadow. Mr. Jones, who is black, was beaten by the side of the road in Maine. He fought for decades to integrate middle-class housing developments and saw young whites wave watermelons at black marchers in Brooklyn. There were great victories, too, not least the election of dozens and dozens of black members of Congress, a few senators, and in his own city, Mayor David N. Dinkins. But he is left with a chary view of history’s march.
“Obama doesn’t have all the burdens of my generation,” Mr. Jones said. “We have one foot in both eras. We’re still living out a lot of anger.”
The Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy can bubble with anger still; his 75 years have not dulled his outrage. He served as the District of Columbia’s delegate in the House in the 1970s and 1980s, and often raged at what he saw as the racism of denying Washington statehood and full voting rights.
Years earlier, as a 30-year-old, he was asked by Dr. King to coordinate the logistics for the March on Washington. Those were precarious days; just a week before, white segregationists had marched through Washington carrying signs reading “Martin Luther Coon go home.” When he traveled across the Potomac to Virginia, he rode in the back of the bus.
“People ask what has changed, and I say don’t trivialize the changes,” Mr. Fauntroy said. “I’m seeing the fruit of the changes that began in 1964. I was close to Bobby Kennedy. He said to me: ‘You know, America’s going to change. Forty years from now, a black man could achieve what my brother has achieved.’ ”
At least 20,000 whites were among the marchers who stood on the Washington Mall that hot and sticky day 45 years ago. Many had ventured south to work for civil rights in the hamlets of Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi.
Cappy Harmon, 59, remembered her father, an Episcopal minister who had been jailed in North Carolina, loading her two sisters and her mother into a Volkswagen bus and driving south from Roxbury, Mass.
“It was one of those times when it was very clear what was right and what was wrong,” Ms. Harmon said.
The years to come offered less clarity. The civil rights movement fractured, Dr. King was assassinated, and Ms. Harmon, who works at Atlanta Habitat for Humanity, spoke of exploring her views with a new clarity.
“I was learning about my own racism, which was ingrained in ways that you don’t always understand,” she said. “It really was a long journey for all of us. But, in a way, an exciting one, too.”
On Thursday night she plans to watch the candidate she has supported from the beginning accept the nomination, an experience she likens to that march 45 years ago. “It’s incredibly exciting,” she said.
And yet, even for these veterans, fear can temper their joy. They have seen too many defeats — many supported Jesse Jackson’s two losing runs at the nomination in the 1980s — to assume a near majority of white voters would elect a black man.
Ms. Woods-Jones, president of Black Women Organized for Political Action, nearly vibrates with the joy of living in this moment. She describes her 35-year-old son sitting on a couch with her grandson, crying as he watched Mr. Obama this week. This is a hopeful woman tempered by history.
“The concern for me, well, America has grown to a point,” she said. “Having said that, there will still be those who go into the booth, their closet, and can’t vote for him. I hope, I pray, most of us are past that.”
A little earlier, Archie Spigner, a retired New York city councilman from Queens, sat on a park bench in Denver in his pin-striped suit. Gray now, he was a Young Turk in 1963 when he and other activists forced their white-run union to send buses to Washington. He came back enraptured but noticed that the world had not changed.
Mr. Spigner recalls real estate agents who would not return calls, burger joints in Queens that would not hire his constituents. Months ago, he endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton, because she is his state’s senator (he harbors a lifelong allegiance to the powerful Queens Democratic Party machine) and because she might have had an easier joust with history.
“Would it have been easier with Hillary? Maybe,” he said. “We’re rolling the dice. As a black man, I hope, I hope.”
Ralph Blumenthal contributed reporting from New York, Robbie Brown from Atlanta, and Rachel L. Swarns from Washington.
25 August 2008
Pakistan coalition in major split
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7580931.stm
Page last updated at 13:47 GMT, Monday, 25 August 2008 14:47 UK
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says his PML-N party is pulling out of the country's multi-party governing coalition.
He has been in dispute with the country's biggest party, the PPP, over who should be the next president.
The two sides also disagree on the reinstatement of judges sacked by former President Pervez Musharraf.
The move throws Pakistan into further turmoil at a time of economic gloom and growing threats from militants.
'Constructive role'
Mr Sharif told journalists in Islamabad that the PPP had broken promises, in particular over the issue of the judges. "When written documents are repeatedly flouted, trust cannot remain," he said. "We cannot find a ray of hope."
However, he said his party wanted to play a constructive role in opposition, indicating that he will not try to bring down the government for now.
PPP leader Asif Zardari, whose wife Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December, has announced that he will stand for the presidential election on 6 September.
Mr Sharif now says his party will put up a candidate against him.
Uncomfortable
The PPP fears that if all the judges sacked by Mr Musharraf get their jobs back, they may invalidate an amnesty that paved the way for Mr Zardari and Ms Bhutto to return to the country last year.
That would leave Mr Zardari open to prosecution on long-standing corruption charges.
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Islamabad says the PPP has other parties in coalition and the government will not fall. However, the PPP may find Mr Sharif to be an uncomfortably powerful figure to have in opposition at a time when the country lacks a sense of political direction.
Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif worked together to threaten Mr Musharraf with impeachment which led him to resign last week.
The two party leaders had also agreed to reduce the powers of the presidency in a country where the president has in the past dismissed democratically elected governments.
Mr Sharif says as long as the presidency remains a powerful post, a non-partisan candidate acceptable to everyone, rather than Mr Zardari, should have been agreed on.
Page last updated at 13:47 GMT, Monday, 25 August 2008 14:47 UK
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says his PML-N party is pulling out of the country's multi-party governing coalition.
He has been in dispute with the country's biggest party, the PPP, over who should be the next president.
The two sides also disagree on the reinstatement of judges sacked by former President Pervez Musharraf.
The move throws Pakistan into further turmoil at a time of economic gloom and growing threats from militants.
'Constructive role'
Mr Sharif told journalists in Islamabad that the PPP had broken promises, in particular over the issue of the judges. "When written documents are repeatedly flouted, trust cannot remain," he said. "We cannot find a ray of hope."
However, he said his party wanted to play a constructive role in opposition, indicating that he will not try to bring down the government for now.
PPP leader Asif Zardari, whose wife Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December, has announced that he will stand for the presidential election on 6 September.
Mr Sharif now says his party will put up a candidate against him.
Uncomfortable
The PPP fears that if all the judges sacked by Mr Musharraf get their jobs back, they may invalidate an amnesty that paved the way for Mr Zardari and Ms Bhutto to return to the country last year.
That would leave Mr Zardari open to prosecution on long-standing corruption charges.
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Islamabad says the PPP has other parties in coalition and the government will not fall. However, the PPP may find Mr Sharif to be an uncomfortably powerful figure to have in opposition at a time when the country lacks a sense of political direction.
Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif worked together to threaten Mr Musharraf with impeachment which led him to resign last week.
The two party leaders had also agreed to reduce the powers of the presidency in a country where the president has in the past dismissed democratically elected governments.
Mr Sharif says as long as the presidency remains a powerful post, a non-partisan candidate acceptable to everyone, rather than Mr Zardari, should have been agreed on.
23 August 2008
Wall*E + Kleenex = Iron*E
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/wall-e-kleenex-iron-e#embed
Disney/Pixar's new animated film Wall*E is set in a distant future when the Earth is barren of all life forms and humans have survived only by leaving the wasted planet to live in outer space. The sole inhabitant of planet Earth in this doomsday scenario is Wall*E, a lovable but lonely robot that has been tasked with cleaning up the mess us humans left behind. If you’ve seen the movie, you probably got the same thrill out of its environmental theme as us here at Greenpeace. Meanwhile, the movie's smashing success at the box office is a clear indicator that its message resonates with Americans' concerns for the future.
That’s why it’s perplexing to see that K-C is featuring Wall*E on boxes of Kleenex. If you look on the bottom of these boxes, you’ll see a little recycled symbol that says: “This box is made from 100% recycled paper.” What you won’t see on the bottom of that box is a message telling you that the tissues inside it are made from centuries-old trees that were cut from forests that had been around for as much as 10,000 years – until K-C came along with its clearcutting practices, that is. Nor will the box tell you that K-C refuses to use any recycled material in Kleenex even though doing so would save huge areas of ancient forests.
Wall*E + Kleenex = Iron*E
For the past few years, Greenpeace has been running the Kleercut campaign to pressure K-C to stop devastating ancient forests. Naturally, we couldn’t let K-C’s blatant attempt to use Wall*E as a means of greenwashing Kleenex’s image go by without comment. So we commissioned celebrated political cartoonist Mark Fiore to create an animated movie of our own.
Our animated short features a new character called Kleer*E who gobbles up forests and spits out boxes of Kleenex. He is a precursor to Wall*E, who spends his days cleaning up a world where all the forests (and animals and people) are gone, a world where nothing is left but trash and empty boxes. Like Kleer*E, Kimberly-Clark is working to bring you that world, one box of Kleenex — and one forest — at a time.
In order to make sure K-C’s attempts at deceiving the public are unsuccessful, we need to band together to get the truth out about the company’s dishonest marketing. Help save the world’s ancient forests by viewing the Kleer*E video and then telling all your friends and family about it. The more people who are aware of K-C’s destructive business practices and refuse to buy Kleenex or other disposable products made by the company, the sooner they’ll change their ways.
Join us in telling K-C to stop the Iron*E! Instead of putting money towards looking like they’re “green,” the company needs to actually become green by improving their environmental practices. Specifically, they need to stop clearcutting ancient forests and start using recycled material in Kleenex and other consumer paper products. And when they do have to use virgin pulp, they should be sourcing it sustainably through the Forest Stewardship Council.
If we stop Kimberly-Clark from destroying any more of the world’s ancient forests, we will be able to avoid the dismal fate depicted in Wall*E. Untold future generations will surely thank us for giving them hope and a healthy planet to live on.
____________________________________
Disney/Pixar's new animated film Wall*E is set in a distant future when the Earth is barren of all life forms and humans have survived only by leaving the wasted planet to live in outer space. The sole inhabitant of planet Earth in this doomsday scenario is Wall*E, a lovable but lonely robot that has been tasked with cleaning up the mess us humans left behind. If you’ve seen the movie, you probably got the same thrill out of its environmental theme as us here at Greenpeace. Meanwhile, the movie's smashing success at the box office is a clear indicator that its message resonates with Americans' concerns for the future.
That’s why it’s perplexing to see that K-C is featuring Wall*E on boxes of Kleenex. If you look on the bottom of these boxes, you’ll see a little recycled symbol that says: “This box is made from 100% recycled paper.” What you won’t see on the bottom of that box is a message telling you that the tissues inside it are made from centuries-old trees that were cut from forests that had been around for as much as 10,000 years – until K-C came along with its clearcutting practices, that is. Nor will the box tell you that K-C refuses to use any recycled material in Kleenex even though doing so would save huge areas of ancient forests.
Wall*E + Kleenex = Iron*E
For the past few years, Greenpeace has been running the Kleercut campaign to pressure K-C to stop devastating ancient forests. Naturally, we couldn’t let K-C’s blatant attempt to use Wall*E as a means of greenwashing Kleenex’s image go by without comment. So we commissioned celebrated political cartoonist Mark Fiore to create an animated movie of our own.
Our animated short features a new character called Kleer*E who gobbles up forests and spits out boxes of Kleenex. He is a precursor to Wall*E, who spends his days cleaning up a world where all the forests (and animals and people) are gone, a world where nothing is left but trash and empty boxes. Like Kleer*E, Kimberly-Clark is working to bring you that world, one box of Kleenex — and one forest — at a time.
In order to make sure K-C’s attempts at deceiving the public are unsuccessful, we need to band together to get the truth out about the company’s dishonest marketing. Help save the world’s ancient forests by viewing the Kleer*E video and then telling all your friends and family about it. The more people who are aware of K-C’s destructive business practices and refuse to buy Kleenex or other disposable products made by the company, the sooner they’ll change their ways.
Join us in telling K-C to stop the Iron*E! Instead of putting money towards looking like they’re “green,” the company needs to actually become green by improving their environmental practices. Specifically, they need to stop clearcutting ancient forests and start using recycled material in Kleenex and other consumer paper products. And when they do have to use virgin pulp, they should be sourcing it sustainably through the Forest Stewardship Council.
If we stop Kimberly-Clark from destroying any more of the world’s ancient forests, we will be able to avoid the dismal fate depicted in Wall*E. Untold future generations will surely thank us for giving them hope and a healthy planet to live on.
____________________________________
16 August 2008
Under the Abbaya: Female Producers in Saudi Arabia
After you read the blog, watch the episode below!!
July 15, 2008 4:47 PM
By Amy Teuteberg, Producer
http://no-reservations-crew-blog.travelchannel.com/2008/07/under-the-abbaya-female-produc.html
“Did you have to wear the black thing?”
Just got back from my first “No Reservations” road trip, and the number one question from friends, family and co-workers isn’t about the food, the shoot, or how it was to work with Tony. It’s about what I had to wear.
Of course, the question is less about the garment, than how far I had to go to conform. It’s about what the garment represents, or at least what everyone thinks it represents. It’s about what it was like to be a woman working in Saudi Arabia.
I’m a producer. That means I’m ultimately responsible for everything that happens on a shoot: directing, story, logistics, details, feeding, transporting, lodging, gear, crew happiness, you name it. Big job, but I don’t do it alone. My right arm is known as a Segment Producer, and is an unbelievably crucial member of the team. This position was also held by a woman, Nari Kye. Of course the winner of the contest, ultimately responsible for making it all happen, was Danya Alhamrani, yet another woman.
And yes, we all wore the black thing. It’s called an abbaya, and it’s basically a long-sleeved, floor-length dress that you pull over your head, and wear over your clothes. We also covered our hair with matching black scarves, so three women in abbayas produced an episode of “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” in Saudi Arabia. Oh, but I’m leaving out someone else who moved mountains making this episode: Dania Nassief, yep, another woman.
How did a group of women pull off a TV show in a country where women can’t drive, can’t vote, and really aren’t supposed to hang out with non-related males? Well, they have a saying in Danya’s hometown, “Jeddah is different.” And for the record, so is she.
When we stepped off the plane after a brutally long flight from New York, I had no idea what to expect. Would Nari and I be shunned, ignored, treated like a lesser by the men we’d come in contact with? Having spent the last 15 years working as a woman in a male-dominated industry, I didn’t really worry about it, since I’ve been dealing with that crap for years. That said, I’ve never had to do it in a country where the separation of the sexes was so strictly enforced by both law and culture.
One of the first and most obvious signs of that division was the abbaya. You can’t help but notice, since literally every woman is wearing one. Most men wear a thobe, which is a long white cotton tunic, worn over white pants. So it’s women in black, men in white. Needless to say, the contrast is striking. After all, what could be more “black and white” than black and white?
But that wasn’t the only sign. In fact, there were literally signs, signs denoting separate male and female entrances for mosques, the “single” section (for men only) and a “family” section (for men and women) at many restaurants. No women allowed in the hotel pool. At the hotel restaurant, Nari and I were seated behind a screen, which Nari called it our “pen”, separating us from male diners. I found myself wondering, “If even the breakfast buffet is segregated, how are we going to make this work?”
Nari and I had arrived ahead of the crew, to scout, bring over the equipment, and take care of last minute details. For about a week, we worked with Danya and Dania (names pronounced the same) taking care of the gazillion details that go into making a TV show. It took about 15 minutes in their company to realize that the separation of the sexes may dictate seating arrangements in certain restaurants, but it was not going to get in the way of making this show. Although the law may prevent the Danyas from literally taking the driver’s seat, it did not prevent them from taking charge. Together they were an abbaya-clad dynamic duo of problem-solving, refusing to take no as an answer from anyone, male or female, that got in the way - my kind of ladies.
We also worked with a lot of local men: drivers, government officials and a “fixer” helping us out. Nearly every place we shot was male-owned, operated and staffed, and a whole host of male characters lent a hand along the way. And you know how all of them responded to women in charge? Great. Actually, they were a lot more than great. They were about the most warm, wonderful, welcoming group of people that you could possibly imagine. That bunch, with Danya at its center, was an extraordinary collection of people.
Now, before you think I drank the Kool-Aid, there was also plenty of evidence that things aren’t exactly free and equal. Case in point: Danya and Dania operate Saudi Arabia’s first female-owned production company granted permission to work without a male present. The first. And it took them over five years of fighting the system to get that paperwork in place. So they’re not the norm, they’re trailblazers.
And of course, Danya is no ordinary woman. She’s pretty much the definition of extraordinary, and absolutely one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. Having grown up between Jeddah and North Dakota, she’s got a pretty unique perspective on the similarities and differences between our cultures. There are an incredible number of things that I learned from her on this journey, including some unexpected perspective on the practice of wearing abbaya.
I should probably mention that I hate the idea of anyone telling me what to wear. I shun uniforms and conformity, they completely freak me out. So you can imagine how surprised I was to find that I didn’t really mind wearing an abbaya. Ok, forget all the symbolic meaning for a second. For starters, it’s practical. You never have to think about what you’re wearing. You can toss it over a bikini or your jammies, and head out the door. And yes, I did both.
It’s also the best way to blend in that you can imagine. Working on the show, the last thing that you want to do is call attention to yourself, since all eyes belong on Tony and Danya. Producers are there to get the show made, and need to find a way of making that happen, while blending into the woodwork. I can’t imagine a better way of doing that than wearing an abbaya. Accidentally stumble into a shot? No problem. Instead of out-of-place Western eyesore, I look like a local.
Of course it goes without saying that you also want to respect all the local laws, customs, and tradition and in that sense, no problem. Abbaya-me.
But besides all that, I began to realize how the abbaya affects the way you communicate with women, how it shifts your focus. Without all the visual cues that wardrobe, hair, or even subtleties of gesture provide to help you “see” someone, you begin to read them in a different way. The art of conversation and eye contact gain more weight, because that’s all you’ve got. The face, where attention really belongs in the first place, is where it stays. It forces you to work harder to see someone, and to pay deeper attention to the words coming out of their mouth. Certainly the most important abbaya-related thought I had had during the trip. Ironic that I didn’t even notice all this was happening, till the first time I saw Danya take off her abbaya.
Although everyone wears an abbaya in public, it comes off at home. When you are hanging out with friends or family, no abbaya necessary. Underneath, many women dress just like they do in New York: skirts, heels, low cut tops, you name it. One particularly scorching day, after Danya, Nari and I had spent hours scouting locations in the desert sun, we had a meeting in my hotel room. The second the door shut behind us, we tossed our sweat-drenched abbayas and head-scarves to the floor. Danya was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. For the first time, I could see her hair, her arms, her legs. I noticed immediately how different this felt. In some ways, it was like I was seeing her for the first time. Like a layer that was new and more intimate had been revealed. I realized in that moment that that was likely the point of the abbaya, or at least part of it. It’s saving that kind of intimacy for those that are close to you, your friends and family, who have earned the privilege. For the first time, I saw that the abbaya may have a role in protecting women, and not as something simply designed to control them.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for the abbaya. I don’t want to see them parading down the runways, in a window on 5th Avenue, or on the sale rack over at Old Navy. I don’t want to see rules about women’s or men’s clothing anywhere of any sort. I can’t even get behind the idea of Black Tie. And honestly, in terms of focusing communication, none of us should require an abbaya to make that happen. Still, having that simple “abbaya insight” felt like an incredibly important step toward understanding Danya’s culture. And isn’t that exactly what travel is all about? Taking a walk in someone else’s shoes, or under their abbaya, and trying to find a way of seeing things from their perspective.
I’ve been back in New York for about a week now. Last night as I walked home, I was thinking about how much I missed Danya, her incredible laugh, and the warmth and hospitality of her friends and family. The spell was broken when a stranger approached me, offering a graphic description of something he’d like to do involving his face and my backside. For a second, I couldn’t help but miss my abbaya.
July 15, 2008 4:47 PM
By Amy Teuteberg, Producer
http://no-reservations-crew-blog.travelchannel.com/2008/07/under-the-abbaya-female-produc.html
“Did you have to wear the black thing?”
Just got back from my first “No Reservations” road trip, and the number one question from friends, family and co-workers isn’t about the food, the shoot, or how it was to work with Tony. It’s about what I had to wear.
Of course, the question is less about the garment, than how far I had to go to conform. It’s about what the garment represents, or at least what everyone thinks it represents. It’s about what it was like to be a woman working in Saudi Arabia.
I’m a producer. That means I’m ultimately responsible for everything that happens on a shoot: directing, story, logistics, details, feeding, transporting, lodging, gear, crew happiness, you name it. Big job, but I don’t do it alone. My right arm is known as a Segment Producer, and is an unbelievably crucial member of the team. This position was also held by a woman, Nari Kye. Of course the winner of the contest, ultimately responsible for making it all happen, was Danya Alhamrani, yet another woman.
And yes, we all wore the black thing. It’s called an abbaya, and it’s basically a long-sleeved, floor-length dress that you pull over your head, and wear over your clothes. We also covered our hair with matching black scarves, so three women in abbayas produced an episode of “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” in Saudi Arabia. Oh, but I’m leaving out someone else who moved mountains making this episode: Dania Nassief, yep, another woman.
How did a group of women pull off a TV show in a country where women can’t drive, can’t vote, and really aren’t supposed to hang out with non-related males? Well, they have a saying in Danya’s hometown, “Jeddah is different.” And for the record, so is she.
When we stepped off the plane after a brutally long flight from New York, I had no idea what to expect. Would Nari and I be shunned, ignored, treated like a lesser by the men we’d come in contact with? Having spent the last 15 years working as a woman in a male-dominated industry, I didn’t really worry about it, since I’ve been dealing with that crap for years. That said, I’ve never had to do it in a country where the separation of the sexes was so strictly enforced by both law and culture.
One of the first and most obvious signs of that division was the abbaya. You can’t help but notice, since literally every woman is wearing one. Most men wear a thobe, which is a long white cotton tunic, worn over white pants. So it’s women in black, men in white. Needless to say, the contrast is striking. After all, what could be more “black and white” than black and white?
But that wasn’t the only sign. In fact, there were literally signs, signs denoting separate male and female entrances for mosques, the “single” section (for men only) and a “family” section (for men and women) at many restaurants. No women allowed in the hotel pool. At the hotel restaurant, Nari and I were seated behind a screen, which Nari called it our “pen”, separating us from male diners. I found myself wondering, “If even the breakfast buffet is segregated, how are we going to make this work?”
Nari and I had arrived ahead of the crew, to scout, bring over the equipment, and take care of last minute details. For about a week, we worked with Danya and Dania (names pronounced the same) taking care of the gazillion details that go into making a TV show. It took about 15 minutes in their company to realize that the separation of the sexes may dictate seating arrangements in certain restaurants, but it was not going to get in the way of making this show. Although the law may prevent the Danyas from literally taking the driver’s seat, it did not prevent them from taking charge. Together they were an abbaya-clad dynamic duo of problem-solving, refusing to take no as an answer from anyone, male or female, that got in the way - my kind of ladies.
We also worked with a lot of local men: drivers, government officials and a “fixer” helping us out. Nearly every place we shot was male-owned, operated and staffed, and a whole host of male characters lent a hand along the way. And you know how all of them responded to women in charge? Great. Actually, they were a lot more than great. They were about the most warm, wonderful, welcoming group of people that you could possibly imagine. That bunch, with Danya at its center, was an extraordinary collection of people.
Now, before you think I drank the Kool-Aid, there was also plenty of evidence that things aren’t exactly free and equal. Case in point: Danya and Dania operate Saudi Arabia’s first female-owned production company granted permission to work without a male present. The first. And it took them over five years of fighting the system to get that paperwork in place. So they’re not the norm, they’re trailblazers.
And of course, Danya is no ordinary woman. She’s pretty much the definition of extraordinary, and absolutely one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. Having grown up between Jeddah and North Dakota, she’s got a pretty unique perspective on the similarities and differences between our cultures. There are an incredible number of things that I learned from her on this journey, including some unexpected perspective on the practice of wearing abbaya.
I should probably mention that I hate the idea of anyone telling me what to wear. I shun uniforms and conformity, they completely freak me out. So you can imagine how surprised I was to find that I didn’t really mind wearing an abbaya. Ok, forget all the symbolic meaning for a second. For starters, it’s practical. You never have to think about what you’re wearing. You can toss it over a bikini or your jammies, and head out the door. And yes, I did both.
It’s also the best way to blend in that you can imagine. Working on the show, the last thing that you want to do is call attention to yourself, since all eyes belong on Tony and Danya. Producers are there to get the show made, and need to find a way of making that happen, while blending into the woodwork. I can’t imagine a better way of doing that than wearing an abbaya. Accidentally stumble into a shot? No problem. Instead of out-of-place Western eyesore, I look like a local.
Of course it goes without saying that you also want to respect all the local laws, customs, and tradition and in that sense, no problem. Abbaya-me.
But besides all that, I began to realize how the abbaya affects the way you communicate with women, how it shifts your focus. Without all the visual cues that wardrobe, hair, or even subtleties of gesture provide to help you “see” someone, you begin to read them in a different way. The art of conversation and eye contact gain more weight, because that’s all you’ve got. The face, where attention really belongs in the first place, is where it stays. It forces you to work harder to see someone, and to pay deeper attention to the words coming out of their mouth. Certainly the most important abbaya-related thought I had had during the trip. Ironic that I didn’t even notice all this was happening, till the first time I saw Danya take off her abbaya.
Although everyone wears an abbaya in public, it comes off at home. When you are hanging out with friends or family, no abbaya necessary. Underneath, many women dress just like they do in New York: skirts, heels, low cut tops, you name it. One particularly scorching day, after Danya, Nari and I had spent hours scouting locations in the desert sun, we had a meeting in my hotel room. The second the door shut behind us, we tossed our sweat-drenched abbayas and head-scarves to the floor. Danya was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. For the first time, I could see her hair, her arms, her legs. I noticed immediately how different this felt. In some ways, it was like I was seeing her for the first time. Like a layer that was new and more intimate had been revealed. I realized in that moment that that was likely the point of the abbaya, or at least part of it. It’s saving that kind of intimacy for those that are close to you, your friends and family, who have earned the privilege. For the first time, I saw that the abbaya may have a role in protecting women, and not as something simply designed to control them.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for the abbaya. I don’t want to see them parading down the runways, in a window on 5th Avenue, or on the sale rack over at Old Navy. I don’t want to see rules about women’s or men’s clothing anywhere of any sort. I can’t even get behind the idea of Black Tie. And honestly, in terms of focusing communication, none of us should require an abbaya to make that happen. Still, having that simple “abbaya insight” felt like an incredibly important step toward understanding Danya’s culture. And isn’t that exactly what travel is all about? Taking a walk in someone else’s shoes, or under their abbaya, and trying to find a way of seeing things from their perspective.
I’ve been back in New York for about a week now. Last night as I walked home, I was thinking about how much I missed Danya, her incredible laugh, and the warmth and hospitality of her friends and family. The spell was broken when a stranger approached me, offering a graphic description of something he’d like to do involving his face and my backside. For a second, I couldn’t help but miss my abbaya.
10 August 2008
Could Globalization Be Going In Reverse?
Alex Steffen
August 4, 2008 11:19 AM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008313.html
For the last three decades, it's been more or less assumed that globalization was a force that moved in only one direction -- towards ever-greater integration.
And due to the logic of global trade, the assumption of ever greater integration led to the prediction that manufacturing would continue to move from countries with low labor costs to those with even lower labor costs and even looser laws, while supply chains would tend to grow ever-longer and more complex. The world would grow flatter.
So far, these predictions have held true, but will they always? For the first time in recent decades, it seems there are now real reasons to question the logic underlying the official future of ever-increasing global trade.
The biggest, of course, is the rapidly mounting cost of transportation. As oil prices rise, reports the New York Times, shipping costs are driving decisions to shorten supply chains:
When Tesla Motors, a pioneer in electric-powered cars, set out to make a luxury roadster for the American market, it had the global supply chain in mind. Tesla planned to manufacture 1,000-pound battery packs in Thailand, ship them to Britain for installation, then bring the mostly assembled cars back to the United States.
But when it began production this spring, the company decided to make the batteries and assemble the cars near its home base in California, cutting more than 5,000 miles from the shipping bill for each vehicle.
“It was kind of a no-brain decision for us,” said Darryl Siry, the company’s senior vice president of global sales, marketing and service. “A major reason was to avoid the transportation costs, which are terrible.”
But transportation costs are not the only reasons why globalization as we know it might be in for some rapid evolution. Consider:
*Far-flung supply chains may drop costs (even with higher oil prices), but the multiply climate change emissions. That already presents a marketing challenge as consumers grow more aware of their carbon footprints. And if political consensus emerges on pricing carbon (as seems likely), some of the price advantages of global complexity could vanish overnight.
*Manufacturers and others are already increasingly aware of, and worried about, supply chain diversity. When the entire supply of a critical part or material comes from a distant factory or mine, every company that depends on that part or material is at risk. Increasingly, companies are trying to find multiple sources (and alternative sources), preferably close to home.
*Some of the economic advantages of globalization have come from companies gaining the ability to skirt labor and environmental laws by doing business in countries with high levels of political corruption (corruption they have often helped create). But now, transparency activism has blown the cover of secrecy off these practices; now it is easier than ever to cause enormous brand damage simply by revealing an unsavory backstory.
*Much of the logic of globalization assumes a one-way flow of materials, mined and grown in the poorest countries, manufactured into consumer goods in China, Brazil or Mexico, sold on the shelves of megastores in Europe or North America, then shipped away to the landfill. But as we move into zero waste and closed-loop systems (where there is no "away"), reverse logistics start to become a real concern. Producers become responsible for their products, meaning that running their current supply chains in reverse doubles (at least) their already mounting transportation costs. This alone could drive more local manufacturing.
*Globalization suffers from some big disruptive vulnerabilities. An extreme act of terror, say a dirty bomb in a shipping container, could easily bring the whole system screeching to a halt. Ditto bird flu. Same with mass migrations triggered by environmental degradation and climate change in already desperately poor countries. Heck, even the right kind of invasive species scare could put a hiccup in the system, but some of these could stop trade altogether for quite some time.
Now, none of these mean that industrialization itself is likely to stop or even slow down (though the disruption of trade could mean that prices on some things we're used to thinking of as cheap, like clothes and minor electronics, grow suddenly more expensive). Especially in the developed world -- where we can draw on a huge basin of wealth and a huge capacity for innovation -- even a dramatic reversal in globalization would not fundamentally undermine our civilization (though it would certainly contribute to a number of real changes already underway, like greater urbanization, local food movements, cradle-to-cradle design and so on). We won't be headed back to de-industrialized farming any time soon.
But if the scenario of a reversal in globalization in fact comes to pass, there will be some economic upheaval, and that upheaval will create winners and losers -- an effect that will be magnified if economic chaos occurs at the same time that the impacts of climate change begin to be felt in earnest. Some regions will plan ahead and do well. Others will suffer.
What might regional or local economic policy in a time of de-globalization and climate impacts look like? What key industries or capacities should regions be looking to foster? What sorts of infrastructure development should they subsidize? What sort of agricultural capacities and ecosystem services should they aim most to preserve? If you were planning your region's economic future, what would you be looking to do?
One point is probably worth making in conclusion: because communications technologies are (comparatively speaking) dematerialized, a reversal in material trade patterns almost certainly would not also mean a reversal in intellectual trade patterns -- rising oil prices or climate change won't shut down the web or stop Bollywood from making movies or prevent innovators from licensing their ideas in other countries. In fact, it might be that expertise, innovation and culture will flow more freely in a world where goods flow more slowly. We might actually grow more interconnected in a world where supply chains shrank
August 4, 2008 11:19 AM
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008313.html
For the last three decades, it's been more or less assumed that globalization was a force that moved in only one direction -- towards ever-greater integration.
And due to the logic of global trade, the assumption of ever greater integration led to the prediction that manufacturing would continue to move from countries with low labor costs to those with even lower labor costs and even looser laws, while supply chains would tend to grow ever-longer and more complex. The world would grow flatter.
So far, these predictions have held true, but will they always? For the first time in recent decades, it seems there are now real reasons to question the logic underlying the official future of ever-increasing global trade.
The biggest, of course, is the rapidly mounting cost of transportation. As oil prices rise, reports the New York Times, shipping costs are driving decisions to shorten supply chains:
When Tesla Motors, a pioneer in electric-powered cars, set out to make a luxury roadster for the American market, it had the global supply chain in mind. Tesla planned to manufacture 1,000-pound battery packs in Thailand, ship them to Britain for installation, then bring the mostly assembled cars back to the United States.
But when it began production this spring, the company decided to make the batteries and assemble the cars near its home base in California, cutting more than 5,000 miles from the shipping bill for each vehicle.
“It was kind of a no-brain decision for us,” said Darryl Siry, the company’s senior vice president of global sales, marketing and service. “A major reason was to avoid the transportation costs, which are terrible.”
But transportation costs are not the only reasons why globalization as we know it might be in for some rapid evolution. Consider:
*Far-flung supply chains may drop costs (even with higher oil prices), but the multiply climate change emissions. That already presents a marketing challenge as consumers grow more aware of their carbon footprints. And if political consensus emerges on pricing carbon (as seems likely), some of the price advantages of global complexity could vanish overnight.
*Manufacturers and others are already increasingly aware of, and worried about, supply chain diversity. When the entire supply of a critical part or material comes from a distant factory or mine, every company that depends on that part or material is at risk. Increasingly, companies are trying to find multiple sources (and alternative sources), preferably close to home.
*Some of the economic advantages of globalization have come from companies gaining the ability to skirt labor and environmental laws by doing business in countries with high levels of political corruption (corruption they have often helped create). But now, transparency activism has blown the cover of secrecy off these practices; now it is easier than ever to cause enormous brand damage simply by revealing an unsavory backstory.
*Much of the logic of globalization assumes a one-way flow of materials, mined and grown in the poorest countries, manufactured into consumer goods in China, Brazil or Mexico, sold on the shelves of megastores in Europe or North America, then shipped away to the landfill. But as we move into zero waste and closed-loop systems (where there is no "away"), reverse logistics start to become a real concern. Producers become responsible for their products, meaning that running their current supply chains in reverse doubles (at least) their already mounting transportation costs. This alone could drive more local manufacturing.
*Globalization suffers from some big disruptive vulnerabilities. An extreme act of terror, say a dirty bomb in a shipping container, could easily bring the whole system screeching to a halt. Ditto bird flu. Same with mass migrations triggered by environmental degradation and climate change in already desperately poor countries. Heck, even the right kind of invasive species scare could put a hiccup in the system, but some of these could stop trade altogether for quite some time.
Now, none of these mean that industrialization itself is likely to stop or even slow down (though the disruption of trade could mean that prices on some things we're used to thinking of as cheap, like clothes and minor electronics, grow suddenly more expensive). Especially in the developed world -- where we can draw on a huge basin of wealth and a huge capacity for innovation -- even a dramatic reversal in globalization would not fundamentally undermine our civilization (though it would certainly contribute to a number of real changes already underway, like greater urbanization, local food movements, cradle-to-cradle design and so on). We won't be headed back to de-industrialized farming any time soon.
But if the scenario of a reversal in globalization in fact comes to pass, there will be some economic upheaval, and that upheaval will create winners and losers -- an effect that will be magnified if economic chaos occurs at the same time that the impacts of climate change begin to be felt in earnest. Some regions will plan ahead and do well. Others will suffer.
What might regional or local economic policy in a time of de-globalization and climate impacts look like? What key industries or capacities should regions be looking to foster? What sorts of infrastructure development should they subsidize? What sort of agricultural capacities and ecosystem services should they aim most to preserve? If you were planning your region's economic future, what would you be looking to do?
One point is probably worth making in conclusion: because communications technologies are (comparatively speaking) dematerialized, a reversal in material trade patterns almost certainly would not also mean a reversal in intellectual trade patterns -- rising oil prices or climate change won't shut down the web or stop Bollywood from making movies or prevent innovators from licensing their ideas in other countries. In fact, it might be that expertise, innovation and culture will flow more freely in a world where goods flow more slowly. We might actually grow more interconnected in a world where supply chains shrank
09 August 2008
The Guantanamo Cell Tour
Amnesty International brought a bright-orange, 1-ton chunk of activism to American shores.
It’s the Guantanamo Cell Tour – the centerpiece of our campaign to end the U.S. government's immoral, illegal and ineffective detention and interrogation program.
The Cell is proof that we’re not afraid to throw our weight around for justice and so far, we’re making a big impact.
Overwhelming momentum—across the political spectrum—is building to shut down Guantanamo:
Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, ''I'd like to see it shut down…I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it's been pretty damaging."
Five former U.S. secretaries of state, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, James Baker III, Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher—Republicans and Democrats—publicly called for Guantanamo to be closed. Kissinger called it a “blot on us.” (And you know if he said it, it must be really bad.)
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees have a Constitutional right to habeas corpus (the right to have the legality of their detention reviewed)--a ruling that has sent the Administration scurrying to shore up its illegal detention program.
And thousands of people have signed our global petition to end illegal U.S. detentions, www.TearItDown.org.
Now, we’re bringing the Cell Tour to Denver and then Minneapolis – Saint Paul to coincide with the Democratic National Convention (August 25 – 28) and the Republican National Convention (September 1 – 4).
National and local media have covered the tour, including Reuters, FOX, NPR, Miami Herald, Philadelphia Examiner, and even the Daily Show with John Stewart; here are just a few examples:
Activists Offer a Taste of Guantanamo Prison
By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 26, 2008; Page B02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062502061.html?tr=y&auid=3877007
To the long list of tourist attractions on the Mall -- the museums, monuments and vistas -- human rights advocates added their own Kodak moment yesterday: a replica of a Guantanamo prison cell.
Metal toilet included.
Up stepped Colby Cashion, 14, of Orlando, intent on absorbing the infamous Guantanamo experience, albeit one with the Washington Monument in the background.
The teenager lasted less than a minute in the 10-by-6-foot cell, with its eight-foot-high ceiling, sliver of a window, fluorescent light and thin pad for a mattress.
"It would stink to be in there all day," Colby said, while his grandmother, Faye Cashion, stood at the entrance, ignoring a stranger's chant of "Go in! Go in!"
She said she is not all that opposed to Guantanamo. "I'm kind of hardheaded. I think they ought to be there, some of them," she said before leading her grandson to their next stop, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Amnesty International USA, the human rights group, set up the cell to dramatize its opposition to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where since 2002 the United States has kept hundreds of prisoners, many of them terror suspects. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this month that Guantanamo prisoners have the right to go to federal court to challenge their detention.
Amnesty International has taken the cell on the road, displaying it in Miami, Philadelphia and Portland, Maine, to educate Americans about what it contends are human rights violations that the United States is committing at Guantanamo.
"How do you get through to jaded and cynical journalists and the public?" asked Larry Cox, the organization's executive director. "We can't take them to Guantanamo. So we're bringing Guantanamo to them."
The Mall might not be the ideal place for the cell, which will be on display through Sunday. When Cox convened a noontime rally, the number of Amnesty volunteers, reporters and photographers far outnumbered members of the public.
Not even the bright orange sign -- "Welcome to Guantanamo, your cell is waiting" -- created a buzz.
Dressed in orange prison jumpsuits, Amnesty International staff members such as Jason Disterhoft, 32, posed for photographs inside the cell, apparently not minding the temperature, which approached 90 degrees.
"This is all meant to illustrate conditions," he said.
Not everyone was impressed.
"It's a lot bigger than I thought it would be," said Scott Henry, 22, of Toledo. "That's as big as some dorm rooms at colleges."
His pal Zach Howard, 20, a California native who is spending the summer in Washington as an intern, nodded in agreement.
"Kind of what I expected," he said. "I shrug my shoulders."
Mark Sedlander, 27, a Georgetown University law student, said he wanted to see the cell to help educate himself about the issues surrounding Guantanamo.
He stepped inside, sat on the mattress, eyed the toilet seat and pronounced himself done.
"It's nice to go in, but it's nothing like what the guys are going through down there," Sedlander said. "What's really pressing are the legal reasons they're there. The lack of an appeals process. This is what we're putting people in."
Guantanamo, stateside
By Carol J. Williams
May 09, 2008
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/09/nation/na-gitmocell9?tr=y&auid=3877017
Life-size human silhouettes cut from orange cardboard direct passersby at busy Bayfront Park to the latest effort by human rights groups to get the Guantanamo prison for terrorism suspects shut down.
A replica of a maximum-security Camp 5 cell from the detention site at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay is at the center of an exhibit that opened Thursday in Miami and will tour major U.S. cities through summer.
Rights advocates from Amnesty International USA, the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Bar Assn. appealed to Washington to end what they see as an international embarrassment and breach of law.
“The U.S. government has made it impossible for people to get to Guantanamo to see this, so we wanted to bring a bit of the reality to the public,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. “To stand inside this cell gives them some sense of the psychological hell of being held in a box for years and not knowing if you’ll ever get out.”
Organizers of the tour say that more than six years into the controversial detention and trial operations, Guantanamo has become a remote concept for most U.S. citizens.
“I’ve seen Guantanamo close up and personal … and that’s convinced me that there has never been a greater threat to the rule of law than what we have at Guantanamo now,” said Neal R. Sonnett, head of the American Bar Assn. task force on the treatment of enemy combatants and its observer at the Guantanamo war court.
The 7-by-10-foot cell painted orange and emblazoned with the words “Counter Terror With Justice” was built by Amnesty International of Australia for a campaign there two years ago to get Australian detainee David Hicks released from Guantanamo, said Amnesty’s Jumana Musa, also a tribunal observer.
The specifications for the cell – white-walled and containing only a benchlike bunk, steel sink and toilet – were once posted on the Defense Department’s website but have since been removed, she noted.
Hicks, one of the first terrorism suspects captured in Afghanistan and brought to Guantanamo, was released to the Australian government in spring 2007 after a plea bargain reduced the charges against him. He served a nine-month sentence in Adelaide, Australia, and was freed in December.
The touring exhibit is intended to draw attention to Guantanamo as the Pentagon prepares for the first U.S. war-crimes trial in 60 years at the end of this month. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as Osama bin Laden’s $200-a-month driver in Afghanistan, faces charges of conspiracy and material support to terrorism. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison. Pentagon officials have said they plan to prosecute about 80 of the 270 men still at Guantanamo.
The first cells, chain-link pens topped with razor wire, were erected and filled in January 2002. Subsequent camps built at the base in southern Cuba have been concrete-and-steel facilities modeled on prisons in Michigan and Indiana.
As the cell exhibit was unveiled Thursday, people strolling the waterfront recreation area flanking the high-rises of downtown Miami wandered over for a peek. David Galarca, an 18-year-old from North Miami, said he didn’t know much about Guantanamo. The cell exhibit stirred his interest, he said. Then he wandered back to the waterfront with his friends.
“We are from Italy, and we – many Europeans – don’t understand why the United States is doing this,” said Cesare Longo, a Roman in Miami for his honeymoon. “The problem we have with Guantanamo is that the justice there isn’t the same as in the United States. They should make the same guarantees for the people they accuse of terrorist acts as they do for people in the United States.”
Some passersby shouted derisive comments and expletives at the exhibit and at the dozen or so demonstrators who showed up in orange jumpsuits similar to those worn by Guantanamo detainees in the first years the prison was in operation.
“What kind of due process did they get in 9/11, buddy?” a middle-aged man shouted at Sonnett as he cut across the grassy field behind the pavilion where the lawyer was speaking.
The human rights groups have planned a seven-hour concert at the Miami cell site Saturday, before the exhibit moves on to Philadelphia.
carol.williams@latimes.com
A night in Guantánamo
Staying in a replica cell, with no waterboarding included
By JEFF INGLIS | June 18, 2008 |
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/63123-A-night-in-Guant%E1namo/?page=1&tr=y&auid=3877020#TOPCONTENT
First thing in the morning, a man stopped at my door, leaned in, looked me square in the eye, called me “a piece of shit,” and spat on my floor. I tried not to take it personally.
I was in a prison cell and wearing a day-glo-orange inmate’s jumpsuit, sitting on a thin mat, where I had sat and slept intermittently — and uncomfortably — through the preceding seven hours.
Amnesty International brought the cell to Portland’s Monument Square and arranged several days of events about the offshore prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, last week to draw attention to the 270 or so inmates still held there, and to highlight the support of some of Maine’s congressional delegation for suspending the legal rights of inmates there, most of whom have never been charged with any crime.
I’d volunteered to spend the night in the replica cell (which is modeled on the ones at Gitmo, which are very like the standard isolation units used in US “supermax” prisons) because we’ve all heard stories about unlivable conditions at Gitmo but can’t come close to imagining what it must be like to live for as long as seven years in a small box with little contact with the outside world, and even less hope of release. I hoped my few hours of simulated incarceration — even without the alleged abuse visited on Gitmo “detainees” by US service personnel — would help me appreciate the nightmare those prisoners endure.
When I first entered the cell, I sized things up. I could take three normal-size steps from side to side, four from the door to the bed; a “lap” around it involved 12 reasonably normal-sized steps. With my arms outstretched to the sides, I could touch the walls; reaching up, I could touch the ceiling with my stocking feet flat on the floor. Lying on the raised platform that served as my bed, my head touched one wall and my feet pressed against the other. The walls and ceiling were white; the toilet/sink fixture by the door was stainless steel; the floor was gray. There was one small window — easily covered by my forearm — by the bed and another in the door.
I was already in the jumpsuit, so I sat on the thin sleeping mat, got out my iPod, put in the earbuds, selected the “Gitmo” playlist, and turned the volume up. (The guards play a wide selection of American music — though mostly dark heavy stuff like Drowning Pool and Marilyn Manson — at high volume, at all hours, as a form of psychological torture for the prisoners.)
I read from the Koran, opening it at random and finding the 36th sûrah (chapter), entitled “Yâ Sîn,” or “O Man.” According to the annotation in my copy, that chapter is often recited by Muslims at times of adversity, to sustain their faith. At one point in the text, a group of believers approaches a city of non-believers to try to convert them: “(The people of the city) said: we augur ill of you. If ye desist not, we shall surely stone you, and grievous torture will befall you at our hands.” But, Allah explains through the prophet Mohammed, whatever suffering his followers must endure will be relieved if they stick to their faith, while those who did the torturing will be condemned to burn in hell. After a few readings, I found my hope rising and my discomfort decreasing, even though I am not a Muslim.
I also read — for the first of three times that night — a book of poems written by Guantánamo inmates, seeking a sense of what they feel and think. Despite great discomfort, hardship, and fear, some inmates are able to transcend themselves and their situation and find hope, and dreams, and a sort of freedom.
It’s really far worse
My night was only a tiny taste of what the detainees held at Guantánamo experience. The most obvious difference, of course, was that I spent just over seven hours in a replica of a cell sitting in downtown Portland. Many of the inmates have spent more like seven years in real cells in a remote base in Cuba. By comparison, my imprisonment was soft time.
A Portland police officer sat in his patrol car outside, mostly to protect the cell itself and its accompanying gear (a generator, electronic equipment, parts of a disassembled information booth), but I took comfort in his presence, knowing that if any harm befell me, aid would be nearby. The Gitmo detainees have their own uniformed, armed guards, but they are as likely to be their tormentors as their rescuers.
It was mostly dark in my cell, though a few streetlights shined in. Some detainees’ lawyers claim their clients are suffering permanent psychological damage because the lights in their cells have been kept on 24 hours a day for years.
I was warm and not hungry, equipped with a sleeping bag and fortified with a good meal at home before going into the cell; the inmates get blankets if they’re lucky and regularly complain about both the quantity and the quality of food served at Gitmo.
I could control the volume on my iPod (and I confess to skipping a couple songs); the detainees can neither control the volume nor prevent a guard from playing one song over and over for hours on end, as happened on at least one occasion with Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” from their 1991 eponymous album.
But the biggest difference, the one that really made it possible for me (a somewhat sane person who functions fairly well in this weird world) to handle my time inside, was this: I knew when I would eventually leave. The men held in Guantánamo don’t. Even those who have been declared not dangerous, not worth holding, whose arrests and incarceration are acknowledged mistakes, are held for months before being finally released. One man, Maher Rafat al-Quwari, has been cleared for release since February 2007, but as a Palestinian with no passport or other national paperwork, he has nowhere to go, so he stays in 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement.
Without a future
I thought about what it would take to close the prison. Calls for just that have come from such high Bush administration officials as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and even the president himself, as well as both major-party presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama. And yet it remains open, stalled at best by the practical difficulties of moving terrorism suspects into other prisons, or, at worst, held up by people who may not mean what they say.
Maine’s DC delegation is split on the issue: Republican Senator Susan Collins and Democratic representative Mike Michaud voted for the Military Commissions Act of 2006. [Please see clarification, below.] It recreated a kangaroo-court show-trial system for “trying” detainees in front of military judges (after a nearly identical arrangement created by the Pentagon was struck down by the US Supreme Court in 2006), and granted the US government the power to indefinitely imprison anyone — even US citizens — without charging them with a crime, and without ever bringing them before an independent civilian judge. Democratic representative Tom Allen opposed it; Republican senator Olympia Snowe didn’t vote, but later voted to overturn some of its harsher provisions.
And then there was that passerby who spit into my cell. I wondered if his attitude, amplified by the isolation of being stationed at a remote military base, and inflated by being allowed to carry large automatic weapons, might turn him into a rage-filled guard who just might do some of the things prisoners have described.
I wanted to judge him, to accuse him of insensitivity, of sympathizing with those who abuse and torture inmates. But I know as little about that man as we Americans do about the people held at Guantánamo Bay. I don’t know his name, and can tell you only the very basic outline of what he did. Without talking to him, without finding out why he did it, or where inside him that feeling came from, I cannot honestly “convict” him of anything more serious than common rudeness.
He walks free, though, so I’m less worried about him. The men in Guantánamo do not. Whatever they may be suspected of, why they were arrested, has never been made public, nor have the results of any subsequent investigations. Little wonder, then, that they have not been convicted of anything either. Justice has been slow in coming, and for some, may never arrive — at least four of them have committed suicide since the camp opened, and at least 40 of them have attempted it, often repeatedly.
Five others, among the most high-profile ones, appear to be seeking death another way. The morning I left the cell, they went in front of a military judge, in a proceeding that was widely criticized by lawyers and other observers for its departure from common legal standards (such as preventing co-defendants from talking to each other). After they were told what charges were being laid against them for their alleged involvement in the attacks of September 11, 2001, some of them said they wanted to be “martyred,” apparently asking for the death penalty. But like their fellow inmates, they wait.
I did, too. As people walked by throughout the night, some looked in, a few asked me what I was doing; others didn’t seem to notice the cell was even there, much less occupied. It was impossible to know what they thought.
I thought of the young men, some as young as 14, kidnapped from the streets of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, and sold to US troops as alleged terrorists for thousands of dollars in reward money, who now sit, as I did, in small cells awaiting the next dawn. And when I became cold, tired, and cramped, I reminded myself that they are enduring worse and suffering more. Their fortitude was a thin, cold comfort, but it gave me strength.
Visions from inside
Inmates’ smuggled words show pain, frustration
I discovered during my time in the cell that it is possible to look for so long at one spot — on the floor, the wall, the ceiling — that the spot actually disappears from view. With enough uninterrupted time — or enough detachment from the brutality of the “real world” — it must be possible to make everything you can see just disappear.
What appears in its place? We know some answers, courtesy of the men held at Guantánamo. They have, with the help of their lawyers, published fragments of poetry shedding light on their thoughts, dreams, and visions.
Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak, published last year by the University of Iowa Press, includes 22 poems that made it past the US military’s censors. The one that struck me most deeply, in the middle of the night as I read the poems aloud to myself, was “O Prison Darkness,” by an author identified only by his first name, Abdulaziz. It ends with these lines.
Even though the bands tighten and seem unbreakable,
They will shatter.
Those who persist will attain their goal;
Those who keep knocking shall gain entry.
O crisis, intensify!
The morning is about to break forth.
Playlist
These were some of the songs I listened to while in the cell. My selections were based on reporting by Spin, Mother Jones, the BBC, the New York Times, Time, Transcultural Music Review, and FBI documents, all of which listed songs or bands played by soldiers at Guantánamo, usually at very high volumes, as a way to break down detainees’ psychological defenses.
“Soldier Like Me (Return of the Soulja),” 2Pac & Eminem, Loyal to the Game, 2004
“Don’t Get Mad, Get Even,” Aerosmith, Pump, 1989
“Dirrty,” Christina Aguilera featuring Redman, Stripped, 2002
“One Eight Seven,” Dr. Dre, Chronicles — Death Row Classics, 2006
“Step Up,” Drowning Pool, Desensitized, 2004
“Bodies,” Drowning Pool, Sinner, 2001
“If I Had,” Eminem, The Slim Shady LP, 1999
“Take a Look Around,” Limp Bizkit, Greatest Hits, 2005
“This Is the New S**t,” Marilyn Manson, Lest We Forget — The Best of Marilyn Manson, 2004
“The Burn,” Matchbox Twenty, Mad Season, 2000
“For Crying Out Loud,” Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell, 1977
“Whiplash (Live),” Metallica, Kill ‘Em All, 2008
“Meow Mix” radio commercial
“Killing in the Name,” Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine, 1992
“Naked in the Rain,” Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, 2006
“Sometimes,” Britney Spears, . . . Baby One More Time, 1999
“How Mountain Girls Can Love,” Stanley Brothers, 16 Greatest Hits, 2004
“Walking Man,” James Taylor, Greatest Hits, 1974
“The Star Spangled Banner,” United We Stand, Songs for America, 2001
Jeff Inglis can be reached atjinglis@phx.com.
Clarification: The original version of this story did not fully explain the positions Maine Democratic US Representative Mike Michaud took on the Military Commissions Act of 2006. He voted in favor of the bill as it was introduced in the US House of Representatives, but in a subsequent vote changed his mind and opposed it.
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