polly7
polly7's JournalDiamonds and gold —vast natural resources that could enrich a nation - are a curse in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, where the Congolese people have suffered the largest death toll since the second world war.
http://mediastorm.com/publication/rape-of-a-nation
"Diamonds and gold vast natural resources that could enrich a nation are a curse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Congolese people have suffered the largest death toll since the second world war.
The conflict between warlords and armed rebels for control of these resources have plunged the citizens into a life of poverty, sexual violence, and war. Some 45,000 people die each month as a result.
The actual miners who extract the sought-out treasures have no access to a living wage, societal safety, or simple medical care, while their leaders enrich themselves and allow the misery to continue.
Marcus Bleasdale traces how the west's consumer appetite for these resources have led to such sub-human conditions for the Congolese, and poses that we might make a difference at the jewelry counter simply by asking: where does that ring come from?
Published: January 22, 2008"
I posted a reference to this earlier in Good Reads, but the documentary itself is very important.
The Congo's Midas Curse - Meet the men and women who bring you the bling
The Congo's Midas Curse
Meet the men and women who bring you the bling. Marcus Bleasdale/VII
http://motherjones.com/photoessays/2010/02/congo-photo-essay/child-labor-congo-gold-mining-pit
In the foreword to Rape of a Nation, bestselling novelist John le Carré sums up the country's human hell as:
...fourteen hundred and fifty tragedies every day. It is countless more than that if you include the orphaned, the bereaved, the widowed, and all the ripples of truncated lives that spread from a single death. It is you and me and our children and our parents, if we had had the bad luck to be born into the world this book portrays. But Congo has one secret that is hard to pass on if you havent learned it at first hand. Look carefully and you will find a gaiety of spirit and a love of life that, even in the worst of times, leave the pampered Westerner moved and humbled beyond words.
Blood and Treasure
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/02/congo-gold-adam-hochschild
As far back as Congo's history is recorded, the wealth from this vast natural treasure house has flowed almost entirely overseas, leaving some of the planet's best-endowed land with some of its poorest people. I have often heard Congolese friends say, "We wouldn't have so much trouble if we weren't so rich."
Dealers in mining towns buy diamonds, gold, and whatever else locals can wrest from the ground by hand.
Of all the minerals to be found here, none has for so long lit up the eyes of foreigners as the yellow metal that has shaped the course of conquest on almost every continent. And today, with worldwide economic troubles and ever-rising demand from electronics manufacturing (see "The Scary Truth About Your iPhone" sending its price to unimagined heights, a new gold rush is in the making in Congo. Some of the richest goldfields in all of Africa lie up this dirt road, which begins some 350 miles east of the turnaround point of Conrad's nightmare steamboat trip up the Congo River. The journey there, I hope, will be a way of seeing some of this country's tragicfor there is no other word for itwealth at its point of origin, before it vanishes into jewelry stores and bank vaults and electronics plants in Europe and China, New York and California. .................
http://mediastorm.com/publication/rape-of-a-nation
Diamonds and gold vast natural resources that could enrich a nation are a curse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Congolese people have suffered the largest death toll since the second world war.
The conflict between warlords and armed rebels for control of these resources have plunged the citizens into a life of poverty, sexual violence, and war. Some 45,000 people die each month as a result.
The actual miners who extract the sought-out treasures have no access to a living wage, societal safety, or simple medical care, while their leaders enrich themselves and allow the misery to continue.
Marcus Bleasdale traces how the west's consumer appetite for these resources have led to such sub-human conditions for the Congolese, and poses that we might make a difference at the jewelry counter simply by asking: where does that ring come from?
Published: January 22, 2008
Glorifying the Fetus While Ignoring the Fetal Environment
Published on Wednesday, April 4, 2012 by On The Issues Magazine
Glorifying the Fetus While Ignoring the Fetal Environment
by Margie Kelly
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/04-2
(Image via RH Reality Check)
By separating fetuses from the fetal environment, they make women into enemies of the fetus. But with evidence that the fetal environment is being involuntarily polluted by toxins spewed into the air, water, food and products, something is askew.
Currently, there is sharp contrast in how the government wields a big stick to protect fetal life when restricting abortion, but fails to limit toxic chemical exposure to protect fetal life -- let alone the health of pregnant women.
"You cannot separate the woman from the fetus. If you want good outcomes for the fetus, you need to focus on the woman," said Luisa Cabal, Director of the International Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York City. "The government should take steps that don't harm women to protect prenatal life."
Peak oil denial: How does this help?
Published Apr 3 2012 by Transition Voice, Archived Apr 3 2012
Peak oil denial: How does this help?
by Rich Turcotte
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-04-03/peak-oil-denial-how-does-help
Whether or not peak oil is true cannot possibly be in doubt. Within anything other than a geological frame of time, oil is a finite substance. When it is burned, it is gone. Without stretching our brains very far, it is easy to conclude that anything that is finite and consumed will someday be gone.
Peak Oil, then, is really an observation, not a theory.
If only! What most four-year olds would agree is not much more than minimal common sense continues to confound some, who just cannot bring themselves to accept facts and a reality contrary to a carefully-crafted storyline where facts are inconvenient at best.
The latest foray into the fact- and stats- and context-free world of denying the obvious comes courtesy of Canadian economist Sherry Cooper, whose basic premise about the invalidity of Peak Oil seems tempered by the many troublesome production facts contained in her essay. What follows are assessments and observations she offered in leading to her conclusion:
(Conclusions - "Big Claims ... lots and lots of Happy Talk unquantifiable, context-free buzzwords from the official Deniers Playbook, yet not one single statistic, fact, or context to substantiate any of this."
Drug and Medical Device Companies Have Outsized Influence on FDA
Drug and Medical Device Companies Have Outsized Influence on FDA
By Union of concerned scientists - Ucs
Source: Union of Concerned ScientistsWednesday, April 04, 2012
http://www.zcommunications.org/drug-and-medical-device-companies-have-outsized-influence-on-fda-by-union-of-concerned-scientists-ucs
Thats a lot of money. By comparison, the insurance industry spent $480 million in the same period. Drug companies alone spent more than $487 million on lobbying during the three-year period; biotechnology and medical device companies spent $126 million and $86 million, respectively.
Over the same period, elected officials on a House subcommittee and a Senate committee with oversight over FDA received nearly $6.3 million in campaign contributions from these industries. Donations went to both Republicans and Democrats.
Explore the major findings from our investigation and see all of the data we relied upon using the links to the right. ..............
The Race To Beat The West Africa Food Crisis
The Race To Beat The West Africa Food Crisis
By Jack Craze
Source: New InternationalistWednesday, April 04, 2012
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-race-to-beat-the-west-africa-food-crisis-by-jack-craze
This was the case in 2010, when drought triggered an acute wave of hunger that affected 10 million people in the region. The global food price spikes of 2008 were another shock that pushed the vulnerable into crisis once more. Meanwhile, Oxfam has warned that the world is entering an era of permanent food crisis, predicting that global warming and resource pressures may cause staple crop yields in developing countries to plummet dramatically over the next 20 years.
Oxfam has warned that the world is entering an era of permanent food crisis
Governments and NGOs are scrambling to prevent a repeat of the Horn of Africa famine, which is thought to have killed up to 100,000 people last year. Early warning alerts late last year prompted several Sahelian governments to set up food distribution programmes and issue calls for international assistance. In February, the European Union pledged 125 million ($166 million) in aid to the Sahel, while Britain has donated £3 million ($4.7 million) to the region. .....
The Phases of War: Public Rejects Afghanistan War, Iraq's Almost Ending -- and Who Doesn't Want War
With Iran?
By Phyllis Bennis
Source: Institute for Policy StudiesSunday, April 01, 2012
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-phases-of-war-public-rejects-afghanistan-war-iraqs-almost-ending-and-who-doesnt-want-war-with-iran-by-phyllis-bennis/
Excerpts:
One of the most useful tools in mobilizing opposition to war in Iran comes from the statements of top U.S. and Israeli officials themselves:
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta asked and answered his own Iran question: Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.
Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, Jr. admitted the U.S. does not even know "if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons."
The latest 2011 National Intelligence Estimate makes clear there is no new evidence to challenge the 2007 conclusions; Iran still does not have a nuclear weapons program in operation.
Galloway's Stunning Win Shakes Up English Political Scene
Galloway's Stunning Win Shakes Up English Political Scene
By Tariq Ali
Source: The GuardianSunday, April 01, 2012
http://www.zcommunications.org/galloways-stunning-win-shakes-up-english-political-scene-by-tariq-ali
George Galloway's stunning electoral triumph in the Bradford by-election has shaken the petrified world of English politics. It was unexpected, and for that reason the Respect campaign was treated by much of the media (Helen Pidd of the Guardian being an honorable exception) as a loony fringe show. A BBC toady, an obviously partisan compere on a local TV election show, who tried to mock and insult Galloway, should be made to eat his excremental words. The Bradford seat, a Labor fiefdom since 1973, was considered safe and the Labor leader, Ed Miliband, had been planning a celebratory visit to the city till the news seeped through at 2 am. He is now once again focused on his own future. Labor has paid the price for its failure to act as an opposition, having imagined that all it had to do was wait and the prize would come its way. Scottish politics should have forced a rethink. Perhaps the latest development in English politics now will, though I doubt it. Galloway has effectively urinated on all three parties. The Lib Dems and Tories explain their decline by the fact that too many people voted!
Thousands of young people infected with apathy, contempt, despair and a disgust with mainstream politics were dynamized by the Respect campaign. Galloway is tireless on these occasions. Nobody else in the political field comes even close to competing with him not simply because he is an effective orator, though this skill should not be underestimated. It comes almost as a shock these days to a generation used to the bland untruths that are mouthed every day by government and opposition politicians. It was the political content of the campaign that galvanized the youth: Respect campaigners and their candidate stressed the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan. Galloway demanded that Blair be tried as a war criminal, and that British troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan without further delay. He lambasted the Government and the Labor party for the austerity measures targeting the less well off, the poor and the infirm, and the new privatizations of education, health and the Post Office. It was all this that gave him a majority of 10,000. .........
Cholera Grips Haiti
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/03/31/world/americas/100000001463594/cholera-grips-haiti.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120401Cholera Grips Haiti
A devastating cholera epidemic struck Haiti ten months after the earthquake of 2010. The New York Times traces the origins of the outbreak.
(I can't seem to embed the video, but it's worth watching for anyone interested.)
Global Failures on a Haitian Epidemic
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/world/americas/haitis-cholera-outraced-the-experts-and-tainted-the-un.html?_r=1
A child played and a woman washed clothes at the river tributary in Meille that is believed to be the source of the cholera epidemic.
By DEBORAH SONTAG
Published: March 31, 2012
MIREBALAIS, Haiti Jean Salgadeau Pelette, handsome when medicated and groomed, often roamed this central Haitian town in a disheveled state, wild-eyed and naked. He was a familiar figure here, the lanky scion of a prominent family who suffered from a mental illness.
Multimedia
Cholera Grips Haiti
Damon Winter/The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/world/americas/haitis-cholera-outraced-the-experts-and-tainted-the-un.html?_r=1
On Oct. 16, 2010, Mr. Pelette, 38, woke at dawn in his solitary room behind a bric-a-brac shop off the town square. As was his habit, he loped down the hill to the Latem River for his bath, passing the beauty shop, the pharmacy and the funeral home where his body would soon be prepared for burial.
The river would have been busy that morning, with bathers, laundresses and schoolchildren brushing their teeth. Nobody thought of its flowing waters, downstream from a United Nations peacekeeping base, as toxic.
When Mr. Pelette was found lying by the bank a few hours later, he was so weak from a sudden, violent stomach illness that he had to be carried back to his room. It did not immediately occur to his relatives to rush him to the hospital.
FDA Deletes 1 Million Signatures for GMO Labeling Campaign - FDA slave to Monsanto?
In the agencys latest decision, undoubtedly amazing thousands of individuals yet again, the FDA virtually erased 1 million signatures and comments on the Just Label It campaign calling for the labeling of genetically modified foods.
The Just Label It campaign has gotten more signatures than any campaign in history for the labeling of genetically modified foods. Since October of 2011, the campaign has received over 900,000 signatures, with 55 politicians joining in on the movement. So whats the problem here?
Evidently, the FDA counts the amount of signatures not by how many people signed, but how many different individual letters are brought to it. To the FDA, even tens of thousands of signatures presented on a single petition are counted as you guessed it a single comment.
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_64409.shtml
FDA Deletes 1 Million Signatures for GMO Labeling Campaign
By Mike Barrett
Natural Society
Friday, Mar 30, 2012
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