From The Economist print edition

Malnutrition makes the poor less productive. To beat poverty, hunger must first be defeated

WFP

PEOPLE in very poor countries are, on average, less intelligent than those in rich ones. Some readers may be shocked by this statement, so let’s rephrase it. Some 800m people do not have enough to eat. Without proper nutrition, the human body cannot develop properly. That includes the brain. Those who are ill-fed tend to end up both physically shorter and less mentally agile than they otherwise would have been. Hunger also spurs millions of children to drop out of school in order to scavenge for food, and those who manage to attend school despite empty bellies find it excruciatingly hard to concentrate. Malnourishment is thus both a cause and a consequence of poverty (see article). The weak make unproductive manual labourers, and the global labour market is not exactly clamouring for dim or feeble workers. (more…)

Gustavo González

QUITO, Jul 30 (IPS) - The World Social Forum (WSF), which will return to Brazil for its fifth session Jan. 24-29, 2005, will introduce profound changes to prevent the â€?wasting of experienceâ€? – and to make the most of what participating critics of neo-liberal globalisation have to offer in the quest for ‘’another world'’.

Brazilian journalist Antonio Martins – a member of the WSF organisational committee and activist with the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC) – explained the plans to IPS at the first Social Forum of the Americas, which ends Friday in Quito. (more…)

Popular disaffection for the European Parliament is real and deep. The reasons however are not to be found far away and particularly not in a possible hostility of the citizens of the different member states towards European integration. And this despite the constant tendency of the national governments to bestow on Brussels the responsibility, each time that it is necessary to decide unpopular measures.

The Europe that we have now (even if incomplete or insufficient, according to individual taste) is real and produces policies which affect people’s everyday life, be it for good or for bad. I will deal with that subject later. (more…)

Analysis - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jul (IPS) - If one were to reduce U.S. foreign policy under John Kerry – should he defeat President George W Bush in the November elections – to a four-word motto, it would probably be, ‘’Hegemony Yes, Empire No'’.

A review of Kerry’s positions over his career and presidential campaign strongly suggests the senator would try to take U.S. policy back to the basic ‘’realism'’ of both former president Bill Clinton and his predecessor George HW Bush (the current president’s father), who believed that in order to retain its international dominance Washington must take the interests of other nations, especially its allies, into account to the greatest extent possible before shaking up the global order. (more…)

Commentary - By Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI, Jul (IPS) - The atmospherics still exude cordiality as India’s Foreign Minister Natwar Singh rounded off his numerous meetings in Islamabad with Pakistani policymakers and - shapers with a one-to-one conversation with Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

But the initial euphoria, optimism and effusiveness last week are yielding to caution, worry, and fear that the two nations’ latest effort at dialogue and peace may not yield results soon. (more…)

Campaign finance loophole allows large donations, parties

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Thomas B. Edsall

Updated: 4:17 a.m. ET July 28, 2004

BOSTON, July 27 - Lobbyists Tony and Heather Podesta are working the crowd at a reception in an art museum for big donors to House Democrats. He schmoozes with Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (Calif.) and huddles with Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.). She makes plans to go shopping with Christine Pelosi, the daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), and the chief of staff to a Democratic member of the House.

And then they’re off. Jumping into a chauffeured Cadillac, the husband-and-wife team dashes to another reception, this one in an elegant restaurant for big donors to Senate Democrats. Before the night is over, they will attend two dinners and three more receptions, carrying the flag for cable giant Comcast Corp., defense industry leader Lockheed Martin Corp. and other clients. And this was just Monday, Day One of the four-day Democratic National Convention. (more…)

Cuban President Fidel Castro delivers a speech on Monday marking the 51st anniversary of the attack on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba that launched the start of the Cuban revolution.

By Mary Murray
Producer
NBC News

Updated: 11:02 a.m. ET July 27, 2004 HAVANA - An indignant Fidel Castro used a live television appearance Monday night to respond to White House charges that his government encourages child prostitution.

Speaking in the central province of Villa Clara on a national holiday marking 51 years since he launched his revolution, Castro depicted President Bush as “sinisterâ€? and his charges as “irresponsible statements by the president of the most powerful nation on the planet.â€? (more…)

By Gustavo González

QUITO, Jul 27 (IPS) - Emigrant remittances sent to Latin America and the Caribbean totalled a whopping 25 billion dollars in 2002. But the money wired to families back home ‘’helps build houses, but breaks up families,'’ said an Italian nun who has been working in Machala, a city on Ecuador’s southern coast, for over a decade.

Speaking at a panel in the first Social Forum of the Americas in the Ecuadorian capital, Adriana Palli said the negative impact of emigration overshadows the positive effects, despite the large flows of remittances that it generates. (more…)

Gustavo González

QUITO, Jul 25 (IPS) - ‘’Cultural resistance'’ marked the huge fiesta that opened the first Social Forum of the Americas Sunday in the Ecuadorian capital, which has drawn at least 8,000 activists, united once again under the slogan ‘’another world is possible'’.

The Sunday through Friday gathering, the first regional edition of the World Social Forum held every year since 2001, is an assembly ‘’of all the poor,'’ Ecuadorian indigenous leader Blanca Chancoso, speaking in the name of the organising committee, told the immense crowd that packed the San Francisco plaza in colonial Quito. (more…)

Officials Say They Can’t Stop Flow of Illegal Drugs From Overseas

By Todd Zwillich

Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD
on Thursday, July 22, 2004
WebMD Medical News

July 2004 - Americans are purchasing billions of dollars worth of prescription drugs over the Internet with no guarantee that they are safe, effective, or even real, federal investigators tell lawmakers.

Law enforcement officials also say they are now basically powerless to stop the flood of prescriptions – many of them illegal – arriving in the U.S. from foreign countries in millions of mail shipments. (more…)

By Christina B. Gillham

Newsweek

Democratic Rep. Barney Frank is known for his witty candor and his dedication to liberal causes, particularly gay rights. One of the few openly gay members of Congress, Frank had been in Washington six years before he came to out to his colleagues, and the nation, in 1987. Two years later he found himself embroiled in a sex scandal with a male prostitute named Stephen Gobie that thrust him into the spotlight—and before the House Ethics Committee. But Frank’s constituency, Massachusetts’s Fourth Congressional District, voted him back into office despite the scandal and the House of Representatives’ reprimand. He has handily won every election since. In 1998, Frank fervently defended President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment trial that followed. A film chronicling Frank’s role during that time, “Let’s Get Frank,” directed by Bart Everly, played at a number of film festivals over the past year. It was released in New York City last Wednesday. Frank remains one of the Democrats’ most respected members and continues to fight for gay rights, including same-sex marriage, an issue that has recently been in the news again. He spoke by phone from Washington with NEWSWEEK’s Christina B. Gillham. Excerpts: (more…)

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jul 23 (IPS) - Two-thirds of U.S. citizens believe their government should “never use physical torture” against detainees, and 90 percent reject sexually humiliating prisoners, as was done by U.S. soldiers at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib jail, according to a major survey of attitudes here.

The poll, conducted by the University of Maryland’s Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), was released Thursday amid new reports of abuses by U.S. soldiers of Iraqi and other detainees. It also found that 60 percent of the U.S. public believe that all captured individuals should have the right to appeal their status to a neutral judge, even if they are not conventional soldiers as defined by the Geneva Conventions. (more…)

By Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Jul 21 (IPS) - Strong leadership, access to life-prolonging drugs and reducing infections will be the main challenges facing southern Africa in the next decade, AIDS campaigners say.

Southern Africa is currently at the epicentre of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. (more…)

Francis Fukuyama shocked the world with his ‘End of History’ thesis that the market would take over the role of mighty nations. But 9/11 changed all that. Now, in this exclusive article, the world’s foremost economic philosopher argues that our very survival depends on stronger government

The Observer

The death of Ronald Reagan last month and the moving tribute paid to him by Margaret Thatcher remind us that we still live in their shadow, in an era in which the chiefimpulse of politics has been to reduce the size of the state. That agenda was critical in its time, for it was clear that the enormous growth of state sectors in the developed world in the 20th century had become economically harmful and socially stultifying. China and India have begun to free themselves from excessive state control, which reached monstrous dimensions under communism. (more…)

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jul 20 (IPS) - A new round in the ongoing battle between realists and neo-conservative and other hawks over Iran policy got underway here Monday as a task force of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) published a new report urging Washington to engage Tehran on a selected range of issues of mutual concern.

The task force, co-chaired by Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser under former President Jimmy Carter (1977-81) and including the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under past President George H W Bush (1989-93) argues that neo-conservative and other analysts who are urging that Washington pursue ‘’regime change'’ in Iran underestimate the staying power of the current government there. (more…)

Democratic ticket’s ideological profile remains uncertain

ANALYSIS

By John F. Harris

Updated: 7:49 a.m. ET July 19, 2004

In 1988, George H.W. Bush warned voters his Democratic opponent represented the “failed liberal policies of the past.” Liberal-bashing worked wonders, carrying the elder Bush from a 12-point deficit in polls in early July to a 10-point victory over Michael S. Dukakis on Election Day.

In 1996, the same strategy fell flat. “Liberal, liberal, liberal Bill Clinton,” brayed Republican nominee Robert J. Dole about the incumbent, a line that hardly hindered Clinton’s leisurely stroll to reelection. (more…)

The “Ethos” of Solidarity

Leonardo Boff

We are living times of great barbarism because solidarity among humans is extremely scarce. 1, 400 million persons live with less than one dollar a day, two thirds of which make up humanity of the future: children and youth under 15 years of age, condemned to survive with 200 times less energy and raw materials than their Northamerican brothers and sisters. But, who thinks of them? The opulent countries do not have the minimum sense of solidarity, because they set aside less than 1% of their gross internal wealth to meet this calamity. More than a political revolution is needed to solve this scourge. What is urgently needed is an ethical revolution to awaken the deep feelings of fraternity and familiarity to make intolerable such dehumanization and that precludes the voracious dinosaurs of consumerism to continue with their self centered vandalism. We urgently need, then, an ethos that is in solidarity with all those who have fallen by the side of the path. (more…)

By Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Jul (IPS) - In a bid to promote peace in Africa’s conflict-ridden Great Lakes region, women parliamentarians from the area say they intend taking a more prominent role in talks to end fighting.

This came during a two-day meeting, ‘Peace, Security, Democracy and Development in the Great Lakes Region’, which ended in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Jul. 16. (more…)

by Susanne Link

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 16 (IPS) - Nations should develop action plans to show the upcoming Nairobi Summit on a Mine Free World how to achieve the goal of a mine-free world by 2009, said U.N. officials, representatives of states and non-governmental organisations at a briefing here Thursday.

“The sense of a real national direction will keep states and the international community focused on the (Mine Ban Treaty’s) goals,” said Jean-Marie Guéhenno, U.N. under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations. (more…)

In a post-Enron world, “I didn’t know” won’t cut it. But can CEOs meld caution with vision?

By Mike France

With Louis Lavelle in New York, Joseph Weber in Chicago, and Stephanie Anderson Forest in Dallas

Updated: 4:00 a.m. ET July 16, 2004

When companies break the law, the first thing chief executives typically do is plead ignorance and blame everything on rogue underlings. In recent months investors have been treated to a parade of indicted former CEOs – from WorldCom’s Bernard Ebbers to HealthSouth’s Richard Scrushy – claiming such a defense. But few have been quite as aggressive at it as ex-Enron CEO Kenneth L. Lay. A few days after his criminal indictment on July 7, Lay offered up the perfect illustration of the deaf, dumb, and blind defense: “I cannot take responsibility for criminal conduct that I was not aware of,” he told CNN’s Larry King. “Enron was a company with about 30,000 employees in about 30 different countries.” (more…)

by Albor Ruiz

New York Daily News

Finally, there seems to be some concrete hope that the Navy will
fulfill its commitment to the people of Vieques and clean up the
environmental mess that it left behind after 60 years of using the
island for target practice.

It is the least Washington can do for the long-suffering Viequenses.

After years of protests, the Navy finally pulled out of Vieques on
May 1, 2003, but a lot of problems built up over six decades. (more…)

By Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Jul 15 (IPS) Inclusive, culturally diverse societies are key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, according to the new Human Development Report released Thursday.

The report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN’s global development network, says “cultural diversity must be embraced as a basic human right” to achieve the set of eight development goals. (more…)

By Alexandra Barsk

NEW YORK, Jul 14 (IPS) - Flora Carolina Rodriguez Santillan was dismissed from her job at a retail chain after five years because the papers that prove she has been approved as a Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR) of the United States are caught up in a government document logjam.

“I was about to be promoted at work, but I lost my job and health benefits because I had no proof that I was authorised to work,” she said. (more…)

Fund-raising nadir? Five percent of Nader’s funds come from the GOP

By Holly Bailey

NewsweekJuly 19 issue - In his run for the White House, Ralph Nader is getting help from an unexpected source: Republicans. Of the $1 million that Nader has raised for his campaign so far, about $50,000 is from donors who have also given to President George W. Bush’s campaign. One in 10 of Nader’s biggest contributors—individuals who’ve written checks of $1,000 or more—are longtime GOP donors. (more…)

By Jade Sanchez-Ventura

NEW YORK, Jul 13 (IPS) - The world of journalism is much whiter than the world it represents, according to two media industry studies.

While minorities make up 30 percent of the U.S. population, they constitute only 12.9 percent of newsroom staffs. The percentage of journalists of colour working in TV and radio news has dropped by four percent over the last two years. (more…)

From The Economist Global Agenda

Morgan Stanley has settled a sex-discrimination lawsuit for $54m, just as it was about to go to trial. The financial-services industry remains the most fertile ground for such legal assaults, but they are spreading to other industries, and across the Atlantic, prompting a debate about whether the law is the best way of making the workplace fair (more…)

What’s more American than asking questions?

By Michael Moore

NEW YORK - As a young boy, I loved the American flag. I’d lead my younger sisters in patriotic parades up and down the sidewalk, waving the flag, blowing a whistle and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance over and over until my sisters begged me to let them go back to their Easy-Bake Oven. (more…)

By Naw Seng *

BANGKOK, Jul 11 (IPS) - The overarching theme for the 15th International AIDS Conference – ‘’Access for All'’ – came under fire just before the opening ceremony in Thailand’s capital today as activists rallied for the poor in developing countries who are denied the availability of treatments for HIV.

‘’We would like the conference to focus on treatment for people with HIV/AIDS from poor countries, rather than on business issues,'’ Kamol Upakeaw, Chairman of Thai Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS, told IPS. (more…)

By Katherine Stapp

NEW YORK, Jul 9 (IPS) - When the world’s top experts on HIV/AIDS gather to swap strategies and experiences in Bangkok, Thailand this weekend, only a tiny handful of the estimated 15,000 attendees will be representing the United States.

Two years ago, Washington sent 236 employees from Health and Human Services (HHS) and other federal agencies to the International AIDS Conference, considered the leading scientific gathering on HIV research and treatment. (more…)

The Genetic Contamination of Mexican Maize

By Carmelo Ruiz Marrero

Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) www.americaspolicy.org

Scientists from Mexico, Canada and the United States met on March 11, at the Victoria Hotel in the Mexican city of Oaxaca for a symposium on the effects and possible risks of the presence of genetically modified maize in Mexico. The furtive presence of this maize growing in peasants’ fields has been documented since 2001, first in rural Oaxaca and more recently all over the country. This finding could have serious implications for agricultural biodiversity because Mexico is the center of origin and variety of maize, which is the world’s third most important agricultural crop (after wheat and rice). (more…)

Laura Carlsen

Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) www.americaspolicy.org

On the night of March 19, former Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Aleman (1996-2001) was taken from his luxurious house arrest to a real prison. Charged and convicted in 2003 on numerous counts including money laundering, fraud, and diversion of state funds, Alemán’s imprisonment is a victory in the fight against impunity and corruption in a nation where malnutrition and poverty still claim hundreds of lives each year. (more…)

By Sonny Inbaraj

DARWIN, Australia, Jul 8 (IPS) - Documentary filmmaker and cameraman Max Stahl – whose images of the 1991 Dili massacre in East Timor moved the world into taking action against Indonesia – is back in the fledgling nation to help the East Timorese deal with their past violent history and pave the way for healing and reconciliation.

‘’How do we keep the past alive without becoming its prisoner? How do we forget it without risking its repetition in the future?'’ asks Stahl, quoting from renowned Chilean novelist and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman. (more…)

Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) www.americaspolicy.org

By Oscar Chacón, Aidé Rodríguez, Amy Shannon

On February 10, a group of Latino immigrant community leaders described a new vision for comprehensive immigration policy reform to a large National Press Club audience. In a historic gathering, more than 30 community leaders stood together to emphasize the consensus nature of the proposal. By nightfall, the image of Latino immigrants from Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic speaking out on immigration reform was broadcast into the homes of Spanish-speaking TV watchers throughout the hemisphere. As one of the participants commented: “Seeing that footage made me want to shout for joy. For the first time, we were the ones at the front of the room, not sitting in the shadows while others talked, but out in front, with our own ideas.” (more…)

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jul 7 (IPS) - As some 15,000 official delegates and representatives of civil society gather in Bangkok this week for an international AIDS meeting, one of the big questions is whether U.S. President George W Bush is prepared to modify his more ideological positions on fighting the disease.

While Bush’s administration has contributed substantially more money than any other donor government to the global anti-AIDS fight, the funds have been laden with conditions that AIDS activists say make it more difficult to defeat the disease which, according to the latest United Nations report released Tuesday, killed nearly three million people last year, about two-thirds of them in Africa. (more…)

Emir Sader

Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) www.americaspolicy.org

Sending Brazilian troops to Haiti initiates a risky phase of Brazil’s new foreign policy and reflects heavy pressures from abroad.

Since the beginning of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s administration, Brazil’s foreign policy has been assuming a fresh countenance thanks to a broad, more political effort at regional integration through Mercosur; the creation of the Group of 20 at the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun; and a new policy of direct alliances with South Africa, India and China. (more…)

By Moyiga Nduru

PRETORIA, Jul (IPS) - â€?We must congratulate Rwanda for achieving 48.8 percent of women representation in parliament. This is the highest in the world. It means gender parity is no longer a dream but a reality in Africa,â€? said Lulu Xingwana, South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Minerals and Energy, to thunderous applause from over a thousand women who gathered in the capital, Pretoria, this week. (more…)

The drive to recall Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is advancing but faces many problems.

BY FRANCES ROBLES

frobles@herald.com

CARACAS - It’s 5 p.m. and Enrique Mendoza, the governor of Venezuela’s state of Miranda, has been up since 3 a.m.

Mendoza has had back-to-back meetings since he rose, is running hours behind and looks disheveled and about to collapse. But he’s got a campaign to fight: recall President Hugo Chávez. (more…)

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jul (IPS) - The meeting was billed as a major gathering of political and economic leaders – mostly trade and foreign ministers – from the world’s 50 poorest nations.

â€?Among unprecedented global prosperity,â€? they concluded at the end of a weeklong high-level meeting of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on Friday, â€?the world’s poorest nations were more vulnerable now than ever before.â€? (more…)

By Wilson Johwa

BULAWAYO, Jul 2 (IPS) - As the third annual summit of the African Union (AU) draws closer, the spotlight is falling on the organisation’s newest branch: the Peace and Security Council, and its proposed standby force.

Inaugurated in May at the AU headquarters in Ethiopia, the 15-member council will be advised by a panel comprising five Africans of repute.
Analysts hope the council - which still has to be ratified by a majority of AU members - will prove a more powerful and efficient agency than other bodies set up to resolve the continent’s woes. (more…)

Frustration and tragedy in literature

By Lisandro Otero
gotli2002@yahoo.com

Of all the American writers who appeared in the post-war period, as of 1945, Arthur Miller is the one who made the boldest attacks against the Cold War’s intolerance and the fear that socialism would spread in the world. The Crucible was written in 1953, and it was an allegation against the anti-communist rage and the exaltation of hate against the Soviet Union. (more…)