By Mario Osava

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan 28 , 2010 (IPS) - Democratising economics as well as politics is essential for ending irrationality and discrimination as part of the struggle for social and environmental justice, said participants at one of the panels of the seminar assessing the World Social Forum’s (WSF) first 10 years.
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From The Economist print edition

If not this year, if not next year…

Jan 28th 2010 . THE experts have now combed through all the case files of those still held at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp in Cuba and decided who should be released, who tried and who kept behind bars no matter what. Yet Barack Obama is no closer to being able to shut the place that has caused America such soul-searching at home and brought it such shame abroad.
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By Mario Soares (*)

LISBON, Jan (IPS) I have been a sincere admirer of yours since I started following your writing and speaking about your plans during the presidential campaign. I admire your humanism, your culture, your valour, and your style. Unlike you, I am not a believer. I am agnostic and have a certain amount of experience in public life.
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BY BADRIYA KHAN*

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

(IDN) - The UN has called on U.S. and other countries to put an end to their secret detention policies and human rights abuses in their so-called global war on terrorism. It has failed, however, to demand the immediate closure of two major U.S. “public” detention centres – Guantanamo and Bagram, where human rights have been systematically violated, reaching the threshold of ‘crimes against humanity’.
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BY IDN GLOBAL CORRESPONDENT

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

(IDN) - About 500 million smallholder farms provide for 20 percent of world food production and almost 2 billion people comprising one third of humanity depend on what these smallholder farms produce. The farm households are living on less than two dollars a day.
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By Leonardo Padura (*)

HAVANA, JAN (IPS) Haiti was the first independent country of Latin America. In the last years of the 18th century the French colony of Santo Domingo, which occupied the western half of the island of Hispaniola saw the coffee and sugar cane plantations that had produced such immense wealth for Europe set ablaze. The fires were started by black slaves, whether brought over from Africa or born in the colony, who had the audacity to think that the enlightenment dream that liberty, equality, and fraternity were possible for all men applied to them as well, the most exploited and unequal, though men nonetheless.
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By Mario Osava

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan 25, 2010 (IPS) - A call issued by social movements to evolve towards a more active role in generating concrete action marked the opening session of a seminar assessing the 10 years of the World Social Forum (WSF) Monday in this southern Brazilian city, the birthplace of the annual global civil society gathering.
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By Lisa Miller | NEWSWEEK (*)

The frustrating theology of suffering

From the magazine issue dated Jan 25, 2010

Haiti is surely a Job among nations. It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere: half its population lives on less than a dollar a day. With 98 percent of its forests felled and burned for firewood, Haiti is uniquely vulnerable to flooding from hurricanes. In 2008 four storms in as many weeks left a million homeless. Haiti has an infant-mortality rate worse than that of many African nations, and its people are plagued by disease: diarrhea, hepatitis, typhoid fever, dengue fever, malaria, and leptospirosis are rampant there. This litany doesn’t even touch on Haiti’s disastrous political history, most notably the reign of François (Papa Doc) Duvalier, who assassinated and tortured more than 30,000 in the 1960s.
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By Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 24, 2010 (IPS) - The World Social Forum (WSF) is only “a tool” and must not be confused with the global movement for another world, says Chico Whitaker, one of the founders of this meeting which is celebrating its tenth year with a seminar to assess its track record Jan. 25-29, in its southern Brazilian place of origin, Porto Alegre.
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Umberto Mazzei *

The essential element of indulgences is assigning a person the merits made by others. The basic doctrine was that prayer and good works had a value in divine mercy that accumulated and became the “Treasury of the Church", a mercy account in the other world. The initial deposit would have been the merits of Jesus, then the merits of the saints and of thousands of convents and millions of devotees raising their prayers to heaven. These holy emissions built the church an account of several trillions in heavenly mercy[i]. The church sold shares of its treasure to sinners who did the good work of giving the church sound money, of this world.
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By Ron Howell*

NEW YORK, Jan 22, 2010 (IPS) - Throughout the New York region, but especially in Brooklyn and Queens, there is measured relief that the U.S. is finally addressing a longstanding issue: that of thousands of Haitians who have been living and – in so many cases – working and paying taxes, but are undocumented.
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Reprieve*

President Obama needs the EU now more than ever to help him close Guantánamo Bay. His promise to renounce the prison has aroused damaging hostility within the United States. By contrast, European countries applauded his promise. Now these countries must lend a helping hand to eradicate the starkest symbol of injustice of our time.
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By Daisaku Ikeda (*)

TOKYO, Jan (IPS) - The smiling faces and laughing voices of children are the true measure of a peaceful and healthy society, much more so than any statistical indices.

In 1996, I visited Costa Rica to attend the opening ceremony for the SGI’s ‘Nuclear Arms: Threat to Humanity’ exhibition, which was being held in the capital, San Jose. With both President Figueres Olsen and former President Arias Sanchez in attendance, a solemn performance of Costa Rica’s national anthem began.
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BY BABUKAR KASHKA

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

NAIROBI (IDN) – You may righty complain of having to go through bureaucratic paperwork and wait in long queues before getting a permission to – say – paint a wall with your favourite colour. Well, multiply your situation by 100,000 and you will get the number of human beings lining up to have some food, medicines and a shelter.
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By Marwaan Macan-Markar

IPS interviews KISHALI PINTO-JAYAWARDENA, Sri Lankan human rights advocate

BANGKOK, Jan 20, 2010 (IPS) - Sri Lanka’s nearly three decades of civil war may be over, but questions about war crimes and gross human rights violations committed during the final stages of that battle in 2009 continue to haunt the South Asian nation.
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By Matthias Gebauer and Carsten Volkery - Der Spiegel

UN Report Claims Bribes Equal to Quarter of GDP

Need a driver’s license in Kabul? $180 will get you one within hours. $60,000 will get you out of jail in Afghanistan. A new UN study shows just how rampant corruption has become in the war-torn country. Indeed, bribery is equal to a quarter of the Afghan GDP.
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BY IDN GLOBAL DESK

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

(IDN) - As the UN climate change secretariat prepares for the first global round of post-Copenhagen meetings at its headquarters in June in Bonn, an international coalition of investor groups is calling for concluding a legally-binding agreement this year.
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Reprieve *

Reprieve report evaluates President Obama’s first year

In his first days in office President Obama issued executive orders that appeared to draw back from the worst excesses of the Bush era, stopping the CIA from running prisons, banning torture, and announcing that the notorious prison at Guantánamo Bay would be closed.
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Analysis by A.D. McKenzie

PARIS, Jan 17, 2010 (IPS) - As thousands of people filled Notre Dame Cathedral here Saturday evening in a special mass for victims of the earthquake in Haiti, the solidarity and sadness reflected the historical ties that bind France to the Caribbean nation.
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BY RAMESH JAURA

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

BERLIN (IDN) - Global development cooperation backed by financial grants or extremely low-interest and long-term loans, has for long been considered vital to overcoming the woes of middle-income and poor countries. But this can only be a drop in the ocean.
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By Julio Godoy

BERLIN, Jan 15, 2010 (IPS) - The global financial crisis led many European economists and civil society activists to believe that the neo-liberal paradigm in social and economic policies across the industrialised world and many developing countries had passed away, victim of its own flaws.
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By Pooja Bhatia * - Opinion, The New York Times

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti. FOR most of the past 20 hours I’ve been hiking the earthquake-rubbled streets of Port-au-Prince. Tuesday night, when we had less idea of the scope of the devastation, there was singing all over town: songs with lyrics like “O Lord, keep me close to you” and “Forgive me, Jesus.” Preachers stood atop boxes and gave impromptu sermons, reassuring their listeners in the dark: “It seems like the Good Lord is hiding, but he’s here. He’s always here.”
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By Helda Martínez

SOACHA, Colombia, Jan 2010 (IPS) - Over the last two weeks, 31 Colombian soldiers accused of the forced disappearance and murder of 11 young men from the poor Bogotá suburb of Soacha have been released from prison on the grounds that they were not formally indicted within 90 days of their arrest, as established by Colombian law.
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BY JULIO GODOY

Bush’s advisors obviously believed the U.S. military was invincible and accordingly were not concerned about exit strategies or body count.

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

BERLIN (IDN) - The one thing the U.S. military claimed to have learnt from its debacle in Vietnam was that it was imperative to draft an “exit strategy” before starting a war. Though exit strategy was but a euphemism: When the body count swells, and the prospect of winning the war shrinks, it is time to get out of it without losing one’s face.
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BETTINA GUTIÉRREZ TALKS TO PROF. PAUL COLLIER

(IDN) – “It is better to have more inclusive governance” than a “winner-take-all democracy,” says Paul Collier, a Professor of Economics, and Director for the Centre for the Study of African Economies at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St Antony’s College.
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By David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Jan 13, 2010 (IPS) - Aid traditionally reserved for keeping victims of war and disasters alive may now be used for security-related projects such as the fingerprinting of refugees, European Union officials have decided.
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By Ignacio Ramonet (*)

PARIS, Jan (IPS) Hugo Chavez’ assumption of power in Venezuela on February 2, 1999, coincided with a military development that was traumatic for the United States: the closure in November of that year of its primary military base in the region, Howard Air Force Base in Panama, as required by the Torrijos-Carter Treaty of 1977.
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Roberto Savio*

“The Holocaust Is Over, We Must Rise From Its Ashes” is the title of Avraham’s Burg controversial book, which has been published in Israel in Hebrew and is about to come out in the United States. The book is a brave and groundbreaking rethinking of the most basic tenets of Zionism and Israeli identity by a pillar of Israel`s political establishment.
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IRIN *

BAGHDAD, 10 January 2010 (IRIN) - Nearly two thirds of homes belonging to Iraqi internally displaced persons (IDPs) or refugees that were occupied by squatters have been evacuated since mid-2008, a government official said on 9 January.
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By Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH, Jan 11, 2010 (IPS) - Two separate bomb attacks on Internet cafes in Gaza last week have served as an uncomfortable reminder that extremist groups within the coastal territory may be stronger than the moderate Hamas organisation which rules the strip.
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By Fabiana Frayssinet

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 8 (IPS) - Climate change, associated with a four-fold increase in natural disasters in the last decade, and the growth of world population, which is expected to reach nine billion by 2050, pose new challenges for aid initiatives like those of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

This warning comes from Gemmo Lodesani, head of the WFP office in Brussels, who is in charge of relations with the European Union and of fund-raising to fulfil the organisation’s primary commitment: fighting hunger worldwide.

Interviewed by IPS while on an unofficial visit to Brazil, Lodesani said three-quarters of the more than one billion hungry people in the world are poor farmers.

This vulnerable rural population will bear the brunt of the consequences of global warming through catastrophes like drought and flooding, he said.

“We are already seeing the impact of climate change on food production patterns. We know there are poor areas of the world that will become poorer through lack of rainfall. Desertification is already happening,” Lodesani warned.

“We have to address this now, through specific measures,” said the expert, who previously coordinated emergency food aid plans in countries like Sudan and Ivory Coast.

The WFP report titled Climate Change and Hunger: Responding to the Challenge says that “By 2050, the number of people at risk of hunger as a result of climate change is expected to increase by 10 to 20 percent more than would be expected without climate change.”

Lodesani emphasised the need for specific programmes to encourage sustainable development, through “the use of land resources to produce food” without further harming the environment.

With respect to biofuels, produced by Brazil and other countries, the WFP official’s view is that they reduce environmental pollution, but that further research on their disadvantages is needed.

Biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are derived from crops like sugarcane and vegetable oils and therefore take up agricultural land. Lodesani stressed that growing plants for biofuels must not displace food crops, “especially since world population will be over nine billion in 40 years’ time.”

Population growth is another challenge to be faced “when over one billion people already lack access to enough food to meet the nutritional recommendations of international bodies like the World Health Organisation,” Lodesani said.

When global population reaches over nine billion in 2050 it will be even more difficult to meet nutritional needs, creating a new vicious circle of poverty to be solved, he said.

“Three-quarters of the more than one billion people who are hungry today are poor farmers. This means they don’t have enough food to live a normal life, and above all a productive life, while they are the very people who are relied on to produce food,” he said.

In recent years the WFP has made it a top priority to buy food from developing countries for its aid programmes.

Lodesani said that in the last three years, WFP food purchases from developing countries amounted to 80 percent of the total outlay of close to 2.9 billion dollars. In 2008 alone, 427 million dollars were spent in African countries, out of a total of 1.4 billion dollars.

“WFP’s policy is to buy food as close to where it is needed as possible. We used to buy it through the regular markets, which is a good thing, but they don’t always benefit poor small-scale producers,” he said, referring to a new WFP programme called Purchase for Progress.

This programme aims to give poor farmers access to a market for their surplus produce, providing them with more income while guaranteeing the subsistence needs of their families.

Purchase for Progress, which is being implemented in countries like Haiti and Mozambique with the help of the European Union, seeks to open farmers’ access to markets by improving the quality and presentation of their products.

Initially the WFP guarantees to purchase the food produced, at competitive prices.

Lodesani mentioned other challenges that “need to be closely watched,” such as the cost of food, which is still expensive according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) food commodity price index.

People in developing countries are affected by high food prices, which create a situation where “food is available, but significant segments of the population do not have access to it,” he said.

The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2009, a report by FAO and the WFP, says that of the 1.02 billion hungry people in the world today, 642 million are in the Asia-Pacific region, 265 million in sub-Saharan Africa, 53 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, 42 million in the Middle East and North Africa, and 15 million in industrialised countries.

The first of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed by U.N. member states in 2000 is to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015, compared to 1990 indicators.

To meet the immediate target of reducing the number of undernourished people in the world by between 90 and 100 million in 2010, Lodesani says the WFP needs nearly 4.5 billion dollars.

Help is needed not only from rich countries but also from developing nations, both in operational and financial terms.

“In Latin America we will continue to work increasingly with the resources of the countries themselves, because it is a developing region that can contribute to this type of programme out of its own resources,” he said.

“The trend is increasingly for countries to finance programmes with the help of WFP, based on their own resources,” he said, adding that Brazil has already contributed 80 million dollars to WFP projects.

According to Lodesani, the WFP may also participate in new technical aid programmes in Brazil, for example projects to “map and detect the most vulnerable populations,” which could identify target beneficiaries of the government assistance programme known as Bolsa Familia (Family Grant).

“We know Brazil is interested in this type of joint venture,” Lodesani added.

He said Bolsa Familia was “a very important social protection programme in terms of food security.”

Bolsa Familia, one of the most popular programmes undertaken by the government of leftwing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, provides a small monthly cash grant to 11 million poor families on condition that their children attend school and are vaccinated. Most of the stipend money is spent on food.

Analysts say the programme drives the growth of local economies. (END/2010)

BY FAREED MAHDY*

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

ISTANBUL (IDN) – Had Charles Darwin been alive today, he would have probably added the Lisbon Treaty as an evidence confirming his natural selection theory, which he described in his ‘The Origin Of Species’, 150 years ago. But he might have been also perplexed to see that Turkey, in spite of its evolution, cannot join the European Union.
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By Pascal Lamy (*)

GENEVA, Dec (IPS) In February of this year, the global economic downturn was peaking. The collapse of industrial output and exports was approaching a 40 percent year-on-year on average. Trade was shrinking dramatically. The outlook was indeed gloomy. Progress has been made, but we are not yet out of the woods.
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BY ERNEST COREA *

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) - Speaking to a university audience here in the shadow of the 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and of the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined a human rights agenda for the 21st century which was more encapsulation than exhortation.
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By Kader Arif (*)

BRUSSELS, Dec (IPS) At a time when many are already thinking about the end of the economic crisis, few pay attention to the dilemma facing the countries of Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific (ACP). Today, harbouring the illusion that their lack of financial development might insulate ACP countries from the global depression, western politicians have not budged an inch with regard to their policy on these areas.
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BY JULIO GODOY

President Truman called for “making the benefits of … scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas” of the world.

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

BERLIN (IDN) - In his unclassifiable book ‘Invisible Cities’, Italian writer Italo Calvino tells the story of Leonia, a fictive city inhabited by insatiable people, who readily confess that their main passion is “the enjoyment of new, different things".
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By José Graziano da Silva (*)

SANTIAGO, Dec (IPS) When we place an undernourished child on the scale, we are weighing not only a weakened organism, but also the synthesis of a system of reasoning as cruel as the one that cuts down trees, blows destruction and excludes the possibility of a decent life to over one billion people worldwide. The conscience of the XXI Century can no longer neglect that, as long as there is hunger, there will be no sustainable future.
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BY BABUKAR KASHKA

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

NAIROBI (IDN) - Don’t call it biological diversity or biodiversity if you don’t wish – just call it variety of life, which is the same thing. So, please don’t run away from understanding it – it is not horribly technical or toughly scientific. And it is fascinating.
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By Manuel Manonelles (*)

BARCELONA, Dec (IPS) Little by little, it is being confirmed that the melting of the polar ice caps, whether in Antarctica or the Arctic, is happening significantly faster than initially predicted. The consequences of this for peace, one of the main victims of climate change, are enormous.
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BY IDN GLOBAL DESK *

(IDN) - This first World March for Peace and Nonviolence concluded Jan. 2 in the mountains on the border between Chile and Argentina traversing 400 cities in 90 countries, covering about two thousand kilometres during 93 days.
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