Researchers Look to Pill, Taken Daily, to Avert H.I.V.

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
Published: August 4, 2008
New York Times

MEXICO CITY — Can a pill a day help prevent infection from H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS?

No one knows. But researchers in a number of countries are conducting trials and planning others to test the unproven strategy that a daily pill, or a combination of drugs, can prevent H.I.V.

By mid-2009, more people will be enrolled in such trials than in all of those for H.I.V. vaccines and microbicides, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition said in a report issued here on Sunday at the start of the 17th International AIDS Conference.

Initial findings of the safety and effectiveness might come early next year, although researchers do not know how they will compare to the disappointing results of recent tests of H.I.V. vaccines and microbicides, chemicals that women can put in their vagina to prevent H.I.V. infection.

In the face of those bleak findings, some AIDS experts say testing the prophylactic use of antiretroviral drugs, called PrEP, for pre-exposure prophylaxis, is now the most promising research in H.I.V. prevention efforts as scientific investigation of vaccines and microbicides continues.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released a report on Saturday showing that the number of people newly infected with H.I.V. in the United States in recent years was 40 percent higher than has long been reported, said that PrEP was among the strategies that needed to be developed to substantially reduce the incidence of H.I.V. An estimated 2.7 million people become infected each year worldwide.

“We cannot wait for the study results to begin to prepare for the optimal use and delivery of PrEP,” said Pedro Goicochea, an investigator in a PrEP study under way in Peru and Ecuador. “Instead, we should look ahead to consider all of the possible outcomes of these trials and make real plans for making PrEP available to those who can benefit from it, as quickly and safely as possible if it is proven effective.”

The United States Agency for International Development, the C.D.C. and the National Institutes of Health are paying in part for all of the trials. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is paying for part of two. The organizations have undertaken the trials because of the success in giving antiretroviral drugs to pregnant women to prevent H.I.V. infection in their infants and drugs to prevent malaria.

In 2007, Family Health International completed a similar study of the antiretroviral drug tenofovir for H.I.V. prevention among young women in Ghana, providing the first data showing such use was both safe and acceptable among uninfected users. But the study did not indicate if PrEP was effective in preventing new infections.

Studies in a small number of nonhuman primates hint that PrEP can reduce the risk of infection of a simian form of H.I.V. in nonhuman primates.

Initial PrEP studies are testing tenofovir, either alone or combined with another drug, emtricitabine.

Infected people taking these licensed drugs have shown limited side effects like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and intestinal gas. But the safety of the drugs must be established among noninfected people as well as among participants who become infected in the study.

Trial participants include gay and bisexual men, heterosexual men and women, couples in which one partner is H.I.V. infected, and sex workers.

Up to 15,000 people are expected to be participating in trials by mid-2009. Sites of the trials include Botswana, Brazil, Ecuador, Kenya, Malawi, Peru, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda and the United States.

Male circumcision has proved effective in a significant percentage of H.I.V.-negative people in trials in Africa.

Because PrEP might also work in a significant percentage of uninfected users, the advocacy coalition and other researchers say now is the time for governments, health officials, donors, researchers and advocates for AIDS research to prepare for the maximum public health benefit if the pill-a-day strategy works.

One reason for the immediacy, they say, is that even if a PrEP strategy proved successful, it would not be a silver bullet. PrEP would need to be combined with standard prevention measures like safer sex practices, use of condoms and clean needles, and counseling.

Governments would need to prepare for global procurement of PrEP, arrange adequate staffing to deliver the drugs and provide counseling and determine who will pay for the costs, said the coalition, which describes itself as an international nonprofit, community- and consumer-based organization.

Provisions would also need to be made for participants who do become infected, and findings from a number of trials would be needed before PrEP could be widely recommended.

Results may be hard to interpret because the tests are being conducted in different ways and so may produce varying findings, the advocacy coalition’s report said. Statisticians could face challenges in pooling the data from the trials.

The report also said that the initial findings were likely to raise questions needing further study, like whether taking pills intermittently — like just before a sexual act — can be effective. The report is available online at www.avac.org/prep08.pdf.

Researchers conducting the studies said they were taking longer than initially expected. Among the problems are recruiting volunteers and addressing the real or perceived stigmatization of those who participate.

Bermuda Should Become an Example for Other Island Nations...

SAVING THE PLANET Bermuda should be a role model for other island nations

Dr. Anthony Knap pictured outside BIOS at Ferry Reach, St. George's.
Photo: Akil Simmons
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By Amanda Dale

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Bermuda should become a role model for other island nations by harnessing the power of the sun and oceans, according to a leading scientist.

Dr. Anthony Knap, President and Director of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), says even the algae in our waters could be transformed into biofuel (fuel derived from dead biological material). The Island should also explore the feasibility of nuclear power such as a Generation IV pebble bed reactor, in its quest to find alternatives to fossil fuels.

BIOS is at the forefront of global research into climate change, with the longest running time series into ocean acidification (Hydrostation S and the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series). It is now to take part in a joint project with the Bermuda National Trust, mapping sea level rise to determine the repercussions on Bermuda. Dr. Knap explains...

The ice caps are melting, animal and plant species are dying out, and disease epidemics could threaten our very survival.

The Earth's over-population and over-consumption is resulting in pollution, habitat loss, and the destruction of marine and terrestrial eco-systems. The impact of global warming meanwhile, is expected to bring rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes and coastal flooding, with droughts, forest fires and heatwaves in more arid parts of the world.

Even if humans stopped burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal tomorrow, scientists say there are already enough heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere to cause temperatures to increase and sea levels to rise for another 100 years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts global temperature rises of between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius by 2100. Its 'Low Emissions Scenarios' for sea level rise meanwhile, are between 9 - 48 cm by the 2080's, with 'High Emissions Scenarios' predicting 16 - 69 cm.

Distinguished conservationist Dr. Richard Leakey has also warned that the world is heading for its sixth period of mass extinction. Dr. Leakey says Earth is losing 50,000 - 100,000 species every year – a rate of extinction which could tip our fragile eco-balance. He warns that unless the trend is reversed, the world could lose about 55 percent of its species in the next 50-100 years.



Here in Bermuda our over-reliance on fossil fuels is also a costly business. It is therefore vital that the community gets involved in Government's search for alternatives in the National Energy Policy initiative. By reducing our carbon dioxide emissions, adopting new technology and alternative fuels, and by becoming more environmentally-conscious consumers, we can all make a difference.

Dr. Anthony Knap, BIOS President and Director, says in 1954 the Island imported 90,000 barrels of oil at $2.89 a barrel. Now Bermuda imports a million barrels at $135 each.

"That's almost $140 million of fuel being burnt, so it's the issue for Bermuda," he says.

"I applaud the Ministry (of Energy) for trying to get a public debate going. It is important, because if we buy into these new technologies such as wind power it is going to affect the landscape, so it is within all of our interests. A big wind farm four miles off Bermuda however, could provide a huge amount of peak power.

"One of the big issues is can we conserve more? Can we be more efficient? Because every barrel we have to bring in is not good for us."

Dr. Knap says: "We've got an abundance of sunlight in Bermuda and ocean energy from waves. Just off the Island we also have ice cold water which we could bring up from the deep for use in air conditioning and so on.

"There is no reason why this Island couldn't be a blueprint for energy efficiency, and I believe the Ministry and Minster (Terry Lister) are taking this very seriously - as they should.

"Small islands around the world, nearly all of them rely on oil and have the same problem of one provider of electricity who has grown over time. They are all net exporters of carbon.

"I think it is very healthy now to have this debate in Bermuda, to address the issues."

Dr. Knap says the Island should explore the possibility of nuclear energy, such as a Generation IV pebble bed reactor, as has been adopted in South Africa and China.

"Whether a pebble bed reactor is right for Bermuda or not, who knows, but the Department of Energy and the Minister are trying to get an open debate on energy needs for the Island and plan for the future. Belco want more generators to meet demand but a lot of people don't want generators in their backyard. There are issues of conservation, because we are very energy intensive," he says.

"I'd like to see Bermuda become the model for island nations. We have a good economy here and so have the money to do things which other places don't.

"I think certainly we could develop new technologies and could lead the way in energy efficiency and in re-applying some of the things which are presently available."

Dr. Knap is also keen to see global taxes levied on CO2 consumption.

"Most businesses now have accepted the fact the climate is changing," says Dr. Knap. "Policy is being driven this way and now if you're in business and are not green, you're not going to get many customers.

"But I think a proper price has to be put on CO2. People can recycle but when you consider the massive energy needs of the planet, and the contamination that comes with that, if there is a tax on carbon then entrepreneurs, scientists and technical solutions will appear.

"My hope is that on a global basis there will be a price put on carbon that reflects the cost of either not putting it into the atmosphere or removing it, because right now it's a 700 billion ton a year problem. Right now, carbon is trading at about $25 a ton which is too cheap. It should be trading at about $100.

"James Lovelock (environmentalist/scientist/futurist and author of 'The Revenge of Gaia') is suggesting the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is 500ppm, and if he's right we are toast, because we will be there pretty quickly. He is calling for an immediate move to nuclear fuel. Of course, there's been this outcry that the father of the environmental movement has lost it, but frankly it's very practical."

Dr. Knap says: "The ocean is the largest repository of carbon. We need the oceans to mix more and the carbon to go into an ocean without acidifying it.

"The effect of climate change, with the increase of CO2 in the oceans, has a profound effect on carbonate ion which is what the corals use to grow. The average brain coral grows about 0.25 cm a year. Tidal rise at present is 3.2 cm a year so it is outstripping total growth of marine calcifying organisms like coral."

At BIOS, scientists Nick Bates, Ross Jones, Sam de Putron and Andreas Andersson have been working on the effects of calcification due to CO2 increase.

Dr. Knap says: "There are huge concerns, particularly in the Arctic right now, that this is changing the saturation state of carbonate, so there will be less available for organisms. There are concerns about food chain issues, such as mammals who eat clams. So it's a big problem.

"I give a talk that shows people how I became convinced global climate change was really happening, and it is the record going up in the oceans and in the atmosphere, and the increase of carbonate ion changing the alkalinity of the oceans.

"It's just like everything – a small amount makes a big difference. The pH of the oceans is about 8.1⅝.2 and if you go down to a little above 8 the whole calcification will shut off."

Coral growth and the ability of corals and other organisms such as mussels and clams to absorb carbonate, is one of the topics of BIOS's joint project with the Bermuda National Trust. Intern Amanda Baltimore, a Masters student with experience of Geographical Information Systems at the University of Toronto, will examine the prognosis of increasing CO2 in the oceans. She will also research storms and precipitation as well as mapping sea level rise and how that will impact the Island.

Dr. Knap says: "We are interested in framing global climate change and its effects on Bermuda.

"The idea is to determine at 10 cm intervals what the tidal rise would do to the Island, and how much land would disappear. The project is framing what the big issues are, such as more intense yet fewer tropical cyclones and how that will affect us.

"We know the climate is changing. If you look at scientific literature, no one has been able to suggest that something is not happening.

"With all this ice melting in the Arctic and massive changes in precipitation, the water vapour in the northern hemisphere has increased by four percent in the past 30 years, which means there is 20 percent more rainfall in major storms.

"And as the Earth has to balance its heat, as the tropics warm up there has to be a thermodynamic shift. The globe has two ways to do this. One is by the oceans, another is through the atmosphere.

"There are suggestions that the Arctic and Atlantic Ocean are fresher than they have ever been. There is therefore concern that this could cut off the heat conveyor belt and slow down ocean circulation. And if the ocean isn't going to move that heat then the atmosphere has to take it up.

"There are two ways to do that - one is with winter storms, the other is with hurricanes."

Dr. Knap adds: "The whole theory of increasing tropical cyclone intensity is due to the thickness of the thermocline. Isaac Ginnis of the University of Rhode Island has suggested that there is enough heat in a section of ocean 30km by 30km by 100m deep, with 30 degree Celsius water, to take any storm in the Gulf of Mexico to a Category Five.

"Our understanding of that heat flux is one of the things we're trying to do here at BIOS.

"We know more about the ocean by Bermuda than any other piece of ocean anywhere in the world. So whether it's the composition of the chemistry of the water or the biology, the microbiology or molecular biology, in all of our time series programmes there is a global interest in the data set that is generated by BIOS."

Dr. Knap joined BIOS as an Assistant Research Scientist in 1977 and became Director in 1986. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Plymouth and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Delaware and NOVA University.

The oceanographer and Senior Scientist serves with many international organisations and is co-chair of the Coastal Ocean Observing Panel for GOOS (the Global Ocean Observing System). He has written more than 80 journal articles.

It is in the waters off Bermuda that a solution could be found to fossil fuels. Dr. Knap says that marine algae could become a "second generation" biofuel. He says the production of some biofuels such as ethanol has actually increased greenhouse gases.

"One of the problems with biodiesel at the present time is that it requires a huge amount of nitrogen," he says.

"With normal crops, you have to fertilise the fields using nitrogen as phosphorus fertiliser, and of course that oxidises the nitrous oxide and creates a greenhouse gas, so of course you've done nothing.

"Producers using food such as corn are also starving the Third World. Corn and wheat prices have gone through the roof, so we have to move very quickly from this first generation to the second in biofuel, and marine algae are certainly one way to go.

"We have organisms in the Sargasso Sea which require very little nitrogen and phosphorus. Algae have lipids in them, which is basically fat. There are extractors being built now which can release the cells and they are then hydrogenated to turn this into fuel."

It seems the solutions to Bermuda's energy crisis could be closer than we think.

Ageing Populations

Intergenerational coresidence in developing countries
Living with the in-laws still commonplace in developing countries Authors: S. Ruggles; M. Heggeness Publisher: Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, 2008

Is coresidence of elderly people with their children really on the decline in most developing countries, as much research suggests? This analysis uses new data and measures to assess changes in intergenerational coresidence in 15 developing countries.
Contrary to expectations, the authors find no general decline in intergenerational coresidence over the past several decades. There have been, however, significant changes in the configuration of intergenerational coresidence:
families in which the older generation is household head - a configuration consistent with traditional patriarchal forms in which the older generation retains authority - are becoming more common in most of the countries
intergenerational families headed by the younger generation - the configuration one would expect if intergenerational coresidence were motivated by a need for old-age support - are on the decline in most of the countries Why is elder-head intergenerational coresidence increasing in developing countries, and why is it strongly associated with economic growth? The authors highlight the following factors:
a housing shortage -even when elders can no longer provide the prospect of agricultural inheritance, they often can offer a place to live. In many developing countries, there appears to be a significant positive relationship between intergenerational coresidence and the proportion of the population living in an urban area
with rising female labour-force participation in many countries, the demand for services that can be provided by elders - such as grandchild care and housework - may be on the rise in some areas. Some developing countries have seen unstable or declining employment prospects for youth despite significant economic growth, and some have introduced pension programs for the aged; both of these factors may encourage the younger generation to remain in their parental homes after reaching adulthood
rising incomes - especially among the older generation - have allowed more people to achieve their preferred family structure. If the older generation lacks sufficient land to support the next generation, it may be impossible for the younger generation to stay in the household. The strong positive association between economic development and intergenerational coresidence therefore makes some sense: with rising incomes, more people may be able to achieve their preferred family formThis report's interpretation suggests that the ideal family form may not have changed greatly but that economic growth has increased the opportunities for intergenerational coresidence. This does not mean, however, that family values are indelible; there have been dramatic declines in coresidence in every Western country, and there is strong evidence of a similar change in the most developed countries of East Asia. The positive relationship found between coresidence and development may eventually reverse, as yet, however, there is little sign that this is happening.
http://www.pop.umn.edu/research/mpc-working-papers-series/2008-working-papers-pdfs/Working%20Paper%202008-01.pdf

Another Air Force Vet Steps Forward

By Tim Smith

A war veteran has flown to Bermuda from Texas as he builds his case for compensation amid allegations toxic waste was dumped at Kindley Air Force Base.
Andrew Moore, 64, believes his ill health has been brought on from his time as an air passenger specialist — whose job was to dump tons of human waste in a deep pit — at the US baselands in 1963-64.
Cancer victim Mr. Moore's concerns have grown since The Royal Gazette reported former serviceman Ronald Slater's claims that he knew of numerous barrels of lethal defoliant Agent Orange being dumped and burned in a Kindley pit from 1965 to 1967.
Other veterans have claimed substances such as mercury and hydrochloric acid were disposed of in the same manner.
Mr. Moore was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer five years ago; he has had surgery to remove a third of his stomach; and he has a history of lung problems including pneumonia. Like fellow cancer victim Mr. Slater, he is locked in a compensation battle with the US government.
During his trip to Bermuda, Mr. Moore has visited the former baselands, where he pointed to the spot he remembers dumping waste, which is now fenced off, and met Works and Engineering Permanent Secretary Robert Horton to discuss dealings between the States and Bermuda.
Recalling his days at Kindley, Mr. Moore told this newspaper he had to empty the "honey bucket" or toilet into a deep pit, and sometimes the waste would go over himself.
He said it was one of the worst jobs imaginable. He was aware the pit was used by other people dumping waste, and believes toxins were brought to the Island, but was not aware of any Agent Orange.
"I don't have the knowledge of what the results were after it was dumped, but I know that I did dump waste," said Mr. Moore.
"Some of the people I worked with dumped the same stuff as me, and it's possible other people dumped stuff in the pit as well."
Regarding Mr. Slater's claims, Mr. Moore said: "I think it's true. I'm in agreement as far as toxins being on the Island.
"One exception is that Slater said it was being burned. I remember stuff being thrown into the pit; as to what happened after that, I don't know.
"But I know this: I know we never filled it. If you keep dumping in it and it didn't fill it up, it's got to be going somewhere."
Mr. Moore also served in Texas during his four year military career. He says the only time he handled waste was when he was in Bermuda.
Following Mr. Slater's allegations last summer, then Works Minister Dennis Lister commissioned a report into the safety of the land at Kindley. Mr. Lister said on the report's completion: "Results do not suggest the presence of dioxin or Agent Orange to be a health risk."
However, months later, when Government finally released the report, the methods described to test the land raised questions from Mr. Slater. Mr. Moore has echoed his concern.
Although veterans say they poured waste into deep pits, the method used by A.L.S. Laboratory was to collect a sample from the top ten centimetres of the surface with a garden spade.
Mr. Slater and Mr. Moore say they would have needed to dig much deeper to carry out a proper test.

Unequal America

http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/07-pdfs/0708-22.pdf

A Distant Shore

Television Review 'A Distant Shore'
The D-Day Heroes Who Weren’t White ret
new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/24/arts/television/24heff.html

By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
Published: February 24, 2007
With his garrison cap, steady gaze and square jaw, Allen Price of the 3275th Quartermaster Service Company, Omaha Beach, looks like another avatar of the Greatest Generation. He even complains as those superhumans do: levelly, economically, without anger or sadness.

National Archives
An African-American color guard, from “A Distant Shore.”
“You see these movies,” he says. “Like ‘The Longest Day’ — you don’t see no African-Americans. ‘Private Ryan’ — no African-Americans.”
“Where was the balloon barrage outfit?” he continues. “Service company? Fort battalion? They didn’t show you any of that.”
Sixty-three years after he and nearly 2,000 other African-Americans participated in the American invasion of Normandy, he allows himself a trace only of irony. The significant contributions of African-American soldiers to D-Day — little known, even to the buffs to end all buffs who manage the minutiae of Second World War history — are the starting point for “A Distant Shore: African Americans of D-Day,” which has its premiere tonight on the History Channel.
With this enlightening program, the History Channel continues to home-school viewers on a complex national history of its own devising, complete with a thoroughgoing aesthetic and ideology. This time, the channel’s idiosyncrasies mean that black octogenarian servicemen appear on screen: a rare sight indeed during Black History Month, which is known more frequently for featuring civil rights advocates, artists, musicians and academics — men and women with leftist or pacifist aspects who, let’s just say, leave their garrison caps at home.
What we hear tonight are not Toni Morrison-style home-front lamentations, but war stories from a foreign land: slain buddies and precision equipment that was blown to smithereens its first time out. The armed forces were entirely segregated until 1948, and the black companies at D-Day were typically kept from combat. But, as another veteran, Carl Watson, says: “We did anything that the combat soldiers needed. Set up gas dumps. Set up ammunition dumps. Processed some of the soldiers that were killed.”
That “processing,” as we all know, was some of the grimmest and most necessary work on and after D-Day, and the African-American soldiers who were there, like all soldiers at the beachhead, remember the trauma of the gore above all else. But some also recall the bruising prejudice of basic training in Texas, where they were forced to ride in the back of the bus when they went to town, as well as the way white officers interfered with the heroes’ welcome they received in England while they waited to ship out across the channel.
Having served valiantly, the seven who are interviewed here — and who returned from the war to face contemptuous discrimination in the very country they had defended — appear to be living well, in bright and well-loved houses that the documentary permits viewers to examine discreetly. That’s where the channel’s aesthetic comes in: in a style that matches the reserve of its subjects, the film refrains from spending time — any time at all — on their wounded bodies.
Instead, they’re all shot in dignified light, many in uniform. One man, whose leg was lost in the war, describes the injury; while he’s talking, the camera leaves him to his privacy, showing instead a ship from the period, its hull torn open by enemy fire.
For anyone who believes that the documentary form is exhausted — and certainly that there are no more documentaries to be made about World War II — this is a stunning counterexample. For American schoolchildren, it ought to be required viewing, during Black History Month or any month.

Shame...

Copyright © Martin Rowson 2008

Secret of the 'Lost' Tribe that wasn't

PETER BEAUMONT Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008 LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - Jun 22 2008

They are the amazing pictures that were beamed around the globe: a handful of warriors from an "undiscovered tribe" in the rainforest on the Brazilian-Peruvian border brandishing bows and arrows at the aircraft that photographed them.

Or so the story was told and sold. But it has now emerged that, far from being unknown, the tribe's existence has been noted since 1910 and the mission to photograph them was undertaken in order to prove that "uncontacted" tribes still existed in an area endangered by the menace of the logging industry.

The disclosures have been made by the man behind the pictures, José Carlos Meirelles (61), one of the handful of sertanistas -- experts on indigenous tribes -- working for the Brazilian Indian Protection Agency, Funai, which is dedicated to searching out remote tribes and protecting them.

In his first interviews since the disclosure of the tribe's existence, Meirelles described how he found the group, detailed how they lived and how he planned the publicity to protect them and other tribes in similar danger of losing the habitat in which they have flourished for hundreds of years.

Meirelles admitted that the tribe was first known about almost a century ago and that the apparently chance encounter that produced the now famous images was no accident.

"When we think we might have found an isolated tribe," he told al-Jazeera, "a sertanista like me walks in the forest for two or three years to gather evidence and we mark it in our [global positioning system]. We then map the territory the Indians occupy and we draw that protected territory without making contact with them. And finally we set up a small outpost where we can monitor their protection."

But in this case Meirelles appears, controversially, to have gone out to seek and find the uncontacted tribe in an area where it was known to be living.

According to his account, the Brazilian state of Acre offered him the use of an aircraft for three days. "I had years of GPS coordinates," he said.

Meirelles had another clue to the tribe's precise location. "A friend of mine sent me some Google Earth coordinates and maps that showed a strange clearing in the middle of the forest and asked me what that was," he said. "I saw the coordinates and realised that it was close to the area I had been exploring with my son -- so I needed to fly over it."

For two days, Meirelles says, he flew a 150km-radius route over the border region with Peru and saw huts that belonged to isolated tribes. But he did not see people. "When the women hear the plane above, they run into the forest, thinking it's a big bird," he said. "This is such a remote area, planes don't fly over it."

What he was looking for was not only proof of life, but firm evidence that the tribes in this area were flourishing -- proof in his view that the policy of no contact and protection was working. On the last day, with only a couple hours of flight time remaining, Meirelles spotted a large community.

"When I saw them painted red, I was satisfied, I was happy," he said. "Because painted red means they are ready for war, which to me says they are happy and healthy defending their territory."

Survival International, the organisation that released the pictures along with Funai, conceded on Saturday that Funai had known about this nomadic tribe for about two decades. It defended the disturbance of the tribe, saying that, since the images had been released, it had forced neighbouring Peru to re-examine its logging policy in the border area where the tribe lives, as a result of the international media attention.

Activist and former Funai president Sydney Possuelo agreed that -- amid threats to their environment and doubt over the existence of such tribes -- it was necessary to publish the pictures.

But the revelation that the existence of the tribe was already established will provoke awkward questions over why a decision was made to try to photograph them -- a form of contact in itself -- in order to make a political point.

Meirelles, one of only five or so genuine sertanistas, has no regrets, arguing that the pictures and video released to the world were powerful and indisputable evidence to those who say isolated tribes no longer exist.

"Alan García [the President of Peru] declared recently that the isolated Indians were a creation in the imagination of environmentalists and anthropologists -- now we have the pictures."

But he is determined to keep the tribe's location secret -- even under torture, he says. "They can decide when they want contact, not me or anyone else." -- guardian.co.uk

$105million Undersea Resort for Fiji

An artist’s impression of an undersea suite for the new Poseidon Underwater Resort being built on a ‘mystery island’ in Fiji.
Mystery surrounds a multi million dollar undersea resort, being constructed in Fiji, in more ways than one.

Called the Poseidon Mystery Island, the project on an unnamed island in Fiji is being built at an estimated cost of $US105 million.

The Poseidon website says: "The exact location of Poseidon Resort's Mystery Island is still, well, a mystery."

Fiji's trade and investment promotion body, the Fiji Islands Trade and Investment Bureau, does not appear to know anything about this project
at all. A questionnaire sent by fijilive.com last year to FTIB said the bureau was unaware of this project.

But it appears the resort is on the verge of finishing with September this year given as the completion date.

The project is being developed by Poseidon Resorts, whose president, Bruce Jones has a background that includes 20 years of work in
submarine sea technology. Jones and his team of engineers have been designing the hotel since 2001, with the help of a hotel management
team.

"Accessible by elevator and nestled in the crystal clear waters of a 5000 acre Fiji lagoon, the Poseidon Undersea Resort is the world's
first seafloor resort and the only place that visitors can spend the night 40 feet underwater in incomparable luxury," the website proclaims.

According to the website, the Poseidon Mystery Island comprises about 225 acres and is about a mile long. It boasts pristine waters that
range to 90 feet (27.4 metres) in depth replete with abundant sea life. Just outside the lagoon, the reef plunges into an abyss,
providing virgin territory to explore with the resort's submersibles.

The website says the island and its lagoon are within a coral atoll, the remnants of a long inactive volcano. At one time, the island
housed a thriving copra plantation.

Beginning in early 2009, a select group of the world's adventure travelers and undersea enthusiasts will have the opportunity to stay
on the island for weeklong visits, enjoying two nights underwater and four nights in beachfront and over-water bungalows.

The website also encourages corporate companies to say here, saying it is an unforgettable way to celebrate their successful managers and
staff or great customers.

An elevator will transport guests 40 feet (12 metres) under the sea where they will find 24 suites and one luxury apartment with all the
comforts expected from a top rated hotel.

Measuring 33 feet by 17 feet (10 mts by 5.1 mts) the 24 standard undersea hotel suites comprise 550sq ft (51 mts) of floor space. The suites are built as detachable stand-alone modules that can be placed underwater when neutrally buoyant and mated to the main corridor assembly.

About 70 per cent of the room is enveloped in 4 inch (100 millimeter) thick clear acrylic allowing spectacular sights of individual coral
gardens and the ocean beyond.

There are also 48 bungalows (locally known as bures) on the island, 24 beachfront (boasting their own enclosed courtyards) and 24 additional
bungalows are suspended above the waters of the tropical lagoon.

The website says that today only two sea floor underwater habitats are operating, both in the Florida Keys: The US Aquarius, a private
NOAA-sponsored scientific research habitat in 50 feet (15 mts) of water and Jules Undersea Lodge, a successful three-room underwater
motel accessible only to trained divers.

However, other projects are also underway and include Hydropolis, a 220-suite hotel in Dubai, and the Shanghai Shimao Wonderland in
Shanghai. Both also plan to open in 2009.

Anyone wanting to stay at Poseidon (which will also have a couple of submarines for guests) will have to sink $US15,000 into the underwater
experience ($US30,000 for a couple sharing a room).

The package includes private plane transport from a Fiji airport to the resort. The cost for exclusive use of Poseidon Mystery Island is
US$3,000,000 for seven days and six nights.

For reservations, interested people have been asked to contact Poseidon's specially trained reservations staff after March 17, 2008.

Jones is quoted in the New York Times as saying that they have already had tens of thousands of inquiries from people saving up. He is hoping
to open other underwater resorts in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean.

Lessons to Be Learnt

22/06/2008 | 11:00

Lessons to Be Learnt
I resisted writing about the fate of the polar bear that came ashore and was subsequently shot dead earlier in the month. But, now that the event has repeated itself, I feel that I have to express my disappointment about the issue.

As the reports go, when the first polar bear reached the shore on June 3, a crowd of spectators quickly gathered on the road near the animal. When the police finally arrived they decided to euthanize the bear because there was no equipment available on hand to catch it live, nor to put it to sleep. With heavy fog in the mountains and the bear approaching the crowd the police neither wanted to risk losing sight of it nor allow it to get too close to the bystanders.

The fact that according to Egill Steingrímsson, chief veterinarian in Blönduós, there were narcotics available is infuriating: “I even had narcotics in my trunk and if the narcotics gun would have been sent by flight it would have arrived within an hour,” Steingrímsson said.

He also criticized the police for not having closed the road so that the bear would not have posed a threat to the public. And this relates to my first question. Why on earth didn’t the police close the road? Surely it would have bought them some time to consider other options.

Anyway, with the first bear down, shouldn’t some lessons have been learnt from the experience? Sure, only a couple of weeks passed before the second bear was spotted, but Minister for Environment Thórunn Sveinbjarnardóttir announced that everything would be done to catch the bear alive.

Experts were even flown in from Denmark with a cage and the necessary equipment. Yet, somehow the bear was also killed this time around. When the bear headed towards the sea, the experts on hand claim it moved too quickly and instead of shooting it with a tranquilizer, they euthanized it once it began swimming away.

This was the first attempt at catching a polar bear live in Iceland and the Ministry of Environment has announced that it is working on an operation plan for future incidents. But, it’s not like these were the first two bears to have visited Iceland.

Polar bears have been visiting Iceland for almost 1200 years, the last being in 1993, and while the situation may have been different in the early days, we’ve all known for some time now that these animals are in trouble – they were recently listed as being threatened on the US Endangered Species List – and it’s simply not acceptable to kill them.

Although, Icelandic law does state that a bear can be killed if it threatens humans or cattle, personally I think the interpretation of this law needs to be reviewed. But, don’t give me the argument that has recently been circulating that although polar bears may be endangered elsewhere in the world killing them in Iceland is justified since they swim from neighboring Greenland, where some claim their numbers are plenty.

Did the bear really need to be killed? If there was time to kill it, wasn’t there also time to shoot it with a tranquilizer gun? I wasn’t there at the time and I’ve never lived on a farm in remote north Iceland, so perhaps I appear arrogant for assuming that there really were other options, but it is difficult to accept that things couldn’t have turned out in favor of the bear.

As even Environment Minister Sveinbjarnardóttir stated: “We have an obligation towards that animal,” though she is also satisfied that no other option existed at the time and that the best course of action was taken.

I find what the farmer, who spotted the first bear, said pathetic: “I did not fancy the idea of it roaming in my grasslands.” But, what perhaps shocks me the most, is not the fact that not one, but two, polar bears were killed, but the photos and videos posted in the Icelandic media afterwards.

One image, which appeared on the front pages of the newspapers after the first bear was shot, shows the armed men who killed it observing the bloodied animal. After the incident repeated itself, pictures of onlookers taking photos of the second slain bear as well as the video of the killing of the first were posted on news website mbl.is.

Were these images supposed to shock audiences and increase debate about the topic? From an outsider’s point of view, they look shamefully barbaric.

Now with the prospect of more polar bears on the horizon, something urgently needs to be done to decrease the risk of this ever happening again.

ZR – zoe_robert3@hotmail.com

Rape, Weapon of War

BBC News - June 20, 2008

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously in favour of a resolution classifying rape as a weapon of war.
The document describes the deliberate use of rape as a tactic in war and a threat to international security.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said violence against women had reached "unspeakable proportions" in some societies recovering from conflict.
The UN is also setting up an inquiry to report next June on how widespread the practice is and how to tackle it.
Human rights groups hailed the resolution as historic.
'Silent war'
The BBC's Laura Trevelyan said China, Russia, Indonesia and Vietnam had all expressed reservations during the negotiations, asking whether rape was really a matter for the security council.
But the US-sponsored resolution was adopted unanimously by the 15-member council.
It's a very effective weapon, because the communities are totally destroyed
Maj Gen Patrick CammaertFormer UN peacekeeper
Raped for opposing Mugabe
It described sexual violence as "a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instil fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group".
The document said that the violence "can significantly exacerbate situations of armed conflict and may impede the restoration of international peace and security".
During the debate in the council, Mr Ban said: "Responding to this silent war against women and girls requires leadership at the national level."
"National authorities need to take the initiative to build comprehensive strategies while the UN needs to help build capacity and support national authorities and civil societies," he added.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the world now recognised that sexual violence profoundly affected not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations.
Other speakers identified the former Yugoslavia, Sudan's Darfur region, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Liberia as regions where deliberate sexual violence had occurred on a mass scale.
Deterrent?
The former commander of the UN peacekeeping force in eastern Congo, Maj Gen Patrick Cammaert, told the BBC he had personally witnessed its impact.
"It's a very effective weapon, because the communities are totally destroyed," he said.
"You destroy communities. You punish the men, and you punish the women, doing it in front of the men."
In the Democratic Republic of Congo alone, some 40 women are raped every day, our correspondent says.
Sometimes women are even raped by peacekeepers who are supposed to be protecting them, she adds.
The question is whether those in conflict zones who use rape in war will be at all deterred by the new measures, she says.

Bid to Halt Tuna Decline

Tuna Populations at Risk International Agency Challenged to Stop Over-fishing WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 19, 2008) -- A historic meeting next week may decide the fate of tuna in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, one of the world’s most important marine resources. The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) has an opportunity at its annual meeting June 23 – 27 in Panama City, Panama, to reverse a trend of inaction, and take concrete steps to stop the decline of tuna stocks. Failure of the IATTC to compromise effectively in the past has blocked the consensus required for the adopt ion of binding resolutions. A coalition of organizations representing the international conservation community and the tuna industry agrees that urgent action is needed. The coalition is calling upon the Commission to follow the advice of its scientific staff to adopt time and area closures to protect tuna, and implement a research program to investigate how to manage fish aggregating devices (FADs) to reduce the capture of non-target species. Bigeye and yellowfin tuna populations are falling and the average size of captured fish is shrinking, a clear sign that those tuna are in dire need of conservation measures. At the same time, the size and efficiency of fishing fleets continue to increase. As fish become less abundant, their market value rises, and operators invest more in technology resulting in more pressure on the stocks. In the face of declining populations, some nations are demanding the right to increase the size of their fishing fleets. “Despite a clear legal mandate and declining tuna stocks, three international meetings of the IATTC held over the past year have failed to produce measures to protect the very resource upon which not only the tuna industry, but the health of the Pacific marine ecosystem depends,” said Scott Henderson, director of marine conservation at Conservation International. “This is truly the ‘tragedy of the commons’ in action,” observed Meghan Jeans, Pacific fish conservation manager for U.S.-based Ocean Conservancy. “The health of the ocean environment, the long term sustainability of tuna stocks and the interests of many are being put at risk by the short-sighted self interest of a few,” she added. The IATTC is responsible for the conservation and management of fisheries for tunas and other species taken by tuna-fishing vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is comprised of 16 member countries. A fundamental problem underlying IATTC’s failure to adopt effective science-based conservation measures is the inability of member states to negotiate measures agreed to by all. Humane Society International’s vice president Kitty Block remarked, “As it currently stands, there is every incentive to block consensus and none to reach it. If, instead, the fishery were shut down until consensus is reached, member countries would undoubtedly work harder to agree on effective management measures.” In 2007, representatives of the IATTC agreed to be more proactive in mitigating and preventing tuna stock declines and to undertake a comprehensive review of its performance. This review has yet to begin despite continuing stock declines. “The IATTC once had an enviable track record of following scientific advice, conserving tuna populations and tackling major conservation issues like dolphin mortality,” said Dr. Bill Fox, World Wildlife Fund vice president of fisheries. “It needs to recapture that spirit and dedication, perhaps using the new management ideas and methods it is exploring like property rights for fishermen.” “For conditions to improve, conservation groups, the tuna industry and seafood consumers need to cooperate and play a more effective role in promoting the adoption of responsible management measures,” said Randi Thomas, vice president of sustainability at the National Fisheries Institute. Humane Society International is the international arm of The Humane Society of the United States, the nation's largest animal protection organization — backed by 10.5 million Americans, or one of every 30. For more than a half-century, The HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty — On the web at www.hsi.org. Ocean Conservancy promotes healthy and diverse ocean ecosystems and opposes practices that threaten ocean life and human life. Through research, education, and science-based advocacy, Ocean Conservancy informs, inspires, and empowers people to speak and act on behalf of the oceans. In all its work, Ocean Conservancy strives to be the world's foremost advocate for the oceans. For more information, please visit: www.oceanconservancy.org Conservation International (CI) applies innovations in science, economics, policy and community participation to protect the Earth’s richest regions of plant and animal diversity and demonstrate that human societies can live harmoniously with nature. Founded in 1987, CI works in more than 40 countries on four continents to help people find economic alternatives without harming their natural environments. For more information about CI, visit www.conservation.org. For more than 45 years, WWF has been protecting the future of nature. The largest multinational conservation organization in the world, WWF works in 100 countries and is supported by 1.2 million members in the United States and close to 5 million globally. WWF’s unique way of working combines global reach with a foundation in science, involves action at every level, from local to global, and ensures the delivery of innovative solutions that meet the needs of both people and nature. Go to worldwildlife.org to learn more. The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) is the leading seafood industry advocate representing all aspects of the seafood community from water to table for over 60 years. For more information, please visit:www.aboutseafood.com.
http://uk.oneworld.net/article/view/160717/1/

Mary Poppins and magna Carta

Jun 19th 2008From The Economist print edition British liberties have been eroded under Labour. Few seem to mind much...

Illustration by David Simonds






LIBERALS have long lamented that, despite much stirring rhetoric about the mother of parliaments and Magna Carta, modern Britons have little real interest in their hard-won liberties. On June 17th, as Gordon Brown gave a speech on the subject, that pessimism seemed confirmed when one rapt listener fell asleep in the middle of the prime minister's oration.
Yet civil liberties are much in the news these days. Mr Brown's speech came in the wake of the surprise resignation on June 12th of David Davis, the Conservative shadow home secretary. Mr Davis quit the House of Commons after it voted to allow terrorist suspects to be detained without charge for up to 42 days (the bill now looks set for a rocky ride in the House of Lords). From the steps of the Palace of Westminster, Mr Davis accused the government of presiding over the “slow strangulation” of freedoms and the “ceaseless encroachment of the state” into daily life. He hopes to use the resulting by-election in his Yorkshire constituency as a referendum on Labour's liberal credentials, and on the growth of the nanny state in general.
The charge sheet against the government is long and damning. Besides its 42-day detention proposals (and earlier, failed plans to imprison suspects for 90 days), it is accused of colluding with America to transport terrorist suspects to secret prisons abroad. It has created new crimes, such as glorifying terrorism or inciting religious hatred, that, say critics, dampen freedom of speech. Those who breach one of its Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, introduced in 1998, can be jailed for things that are not illegal in themselves (such as visiting a forbidden part of town or talking to certain people). In 2005 the prohibition on double jeopardy—trying a person twice for the same offence—was removed for serious offences. The government has tried to cut back the scope of trial by jury.
Along with the new crimes have come new ways of detecting them. Millions of publicly and privately owned closed-circuit television cameras (no one is sure precisely how many) monitor town centres. The latest innovation is unmanned, miniature aircraft (adapted from army models) that can loiter over trouble spots, feeding images to police on the ground.
Vast computerised collections of information have become popular too. Britain possesses one of the largest police DNA databases in the world, containing the records of over 4m of 60m citizens (including a third of the black men in the country). Records are kept for everyone who is arrested, meaning that many on the system have never actually been charged with any crime. The government's identity-card scheme, the first phase of which is due to start later this year, aims to record the fingerprints and biographical details of everyone in the land.
Other big databases are justified on grounds of administrative convenience rather than crime-fighting and security. One such is a plan to centralise the records of all patients of the National Health Service. Another would allow social services to monitor every child in the country, including how parents spend their money and how many portions of fruit and vegetables they feed their offspring each day.
Mr Brown argues that frightening new threats—terrorism, drug trafficking and (rather incongruously) benefit fraud—require new powers. In his speech he turned criticisms about authoritarianism on their head, saying that new state powers were guarantors of liberty, not threats to it. He expanded on the risks—the 2,000 terrorist suspects whom the security services are apparently tracking—and the benefits—the 8,000 suspects who have been matched with crime scenes since 2001 thanks to DNA evidence retained when they were released, uncharged, after a previous arrest. He repeated his promise that Parliament would prevent abuse of the 42-day detention law. Labour has passed a raft of other measures too: the Human Rights Act in 1998, freedom of information legislation in 2000 and changes to ensure the rights of gays and other groups.
An unhappy few
Government reassurances do not impress civil libertarians, who argue that, once restrictive new laws are in place, uses for them tend to multiply. In March it emerged that local councils had been using surveillance powers intended for deployment against serious criminals to check up on footling infringements: people who flouted smoking bans, for instance, or tried to game the school-admissions system.
And promises that sensitive personal data will be carefully stewarded look rather limp next to an official proclivity for leaving confidential material in public places. Mr Brown was badly embarrassed in November, when CDs containing 25m child-benefit records were reported lost by the Inland Revenue. More recently, on June 12th a civil servant was suspended after top-secret papers about terrorism were found on a train; on the same day another set of documents—this time on financial fraud—turned up on a different train. Five days later it emerged that a laptop stolen from the office of a cabinet minister may have contained confidential documents, violating data-protection rules.
But Britain's small band of civil libertarians has bigger problems than a recalcitrant prime minister and careless civil servants. Despite Benjamin Franklin's famous advice, the public seems happy to trade a little liberty for a little security. Surveys before the 42-days vote consistently showed public opinion in favour. More recent polling for The Economist shows broad public support for many liberal bugbears (see chart). Women tend to be more authoritarian than men, Labour supporters more relaxed about infringing civil liberties than Tories and Liberal Democrats, and richer folk more worried than the poor (full details can be found here). Half of the respondents were consistent in their answers to most questions; this, says YouGov's boss, Peter Kellner, is rather high.
The poll suggests that people are vehement in defence of civil liberty and privacy when considered in the abstract. Confronted with specific situations, their resolve wilts, especially when specific security gains are promised (although administrative benefits can overcome libertarian instincts too). Trust in private firms is much less than in the government—odd, since more than half of all consumers are voluntarily enrolled in data-tracking supermarket loyalty schemes.
Mr Davis's supporters point to a poll in the Daily Mail in which 57% of respondents said they supported his crusade. That is hard to reconcile with the findings of our survey. The alternative explanation—that any politician seen to thumb his nose at the establishment delights disenchanted voters—seems rather plausible.

E-waste

Lagos, a city whose population is rapidly approaching 20 million, has a huge waste disposal problem. And, thanks to the monthly arrival of up to 500 shipping containers of waste from the US and Europe, the problem is getting worse. According to US environment group Basel Action Network, up to 75 per cent of the loads contain so-called e-waste – obsolete electronic items such as computers and TVs, often in the guise of ‘charitable donations’.
Although there is great demand for second-hand imported electronic goods in the city, the vast majority is discarded on arrival and ends up in dumpsites, where it is burnt. With some of the components containing hazardous substances, environmentalists are extremely concerned.
‘It is a very worrisome situation,’ says Leslie Adogame of the Nigerian Environmental Society. ‘People around the areas where the waste is burnt are suffering from chest-related diseases because they inhale a lot of noxious substances.’
Laws on safe disposal of electronic goods have been introduced in the US and Europe but continue to be flouted, despite campaigners’ efforts to ensure companies comply. The US Government recently proposed a new e-waste law which would allow US shippers legally to send waste anywhere in the world as long as it is labelled ‘recycling’.

New Internationalist
April 2008 Issue 410

Teen Finds Way to Decompose Plastic Bags

If ordinary plastic bags would rot away like banana peels there’s no doubt a host of environmental problems would be solved, the fate of the turtle above included. And one 11th grader from Canada set out to make that dream come true as part of his school science project. A wildly successful endeavor he figures will make them decompose in just 3 months.
But how did this extraordinary young scientist named Daniel Burd pull it off?
Well, he decided the fact that they do, eventually, decompose after 1,000 years on their own meant there must be something out there causing it, and postulated that it might well be naturally occurring microorganisms behind it.
So he set about with the good old-fashioned scientific method as his guide, searching for the microorganisms, rarely found in nature, that actually do make plastic decompose.
Ultimately, he identified two strains of bacteria that work together to pull it off, with Sphingomonas serving as the primary decomposer with help from Pseudomonas.
And according to Burd, industrial application should be easy, "All you need is a fermenter . . . your growth medium, your microbes and your plastic bags."
As many folks know, the simplest solutions are usually the ones that work best. And this kid has clearly come up with a potentially world changing idea.
So congrats from all of us here at TreeHugger, where we are inspired by your creativity!
By Kenny Luna,

The Myth of Western Aid

The story of Western aid to the Third World needs to be demystified. Western populations almost universally believe that the story of Western aid is of massive transfers of aid to poor Third World countries for purely altruistic reasons. They know that much of this aid has not resulted in successful development. But many believe that this is not the fault of the West. It is true that there is a huge scandal of corruption on Western aid that is waiting to be exposed. However, if and when this story is fully exposed, it is the West that will be deeply embarrassed. The full story will show that the wide-held belief of altruistic Western aid is nothing but a myth. [ By Kishore Mahbubani ]It should be stressed upfront that there have been some beneficial effects of Western aid. Considering the huge sums involved, even if only a trickle did good, the results would still be significant. Hence, the West can legitimately point to a university in Lahore (LUMS), a bridge in Bhutan, a road in Laos or Colombo Plan Scholars in Singapore. But these are the exceptions. The vast majority of Western aid is as good as wasted. Or perhaps, wasted is not the correct word. It has been used – but it has been used to help the donor countries, not the poor developing countries. My rough guess is that out of every $ 10 of Western aid that is allegedly spent in the Third World, $ 8 returns to the donor country in the form of administration expenses, consultancy fees and contracts for donor country corporations. In short, there is very little actual transfer of aid to the developing countries. Sunset OECD The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was set up in 1961 to assist countries in economic development and sustainable economic growth. By any objective standards, the OECD has failed in its mission. Still, the West continues to spend € 342.9 million a year maintaining an expensive secretariat in Paris, which produces excellent research papers but achieves little in delivering results on its core mission. More critically, the OECD happily provides estimates of the total amount of Official Development Assistance (ODA) provided by the West. Recent estimates show that the OECD members gave approximately $ 104.4 billion to the developing world. However, what is missing from this massive OECD estimate is how much of it actually reaches the developing countries and how much of it is effectively recycled back into the donor countries. The OECD has more than enough bureaucratic and academic resources to carry out such an audit. But it would not even dream of doing so for it will be killed by its own Western paymasters for attempting such an audit. Nor will anyone in the West have the courage to state another obvious truth: after having failed in its core mission, the OECD has clearly become a “sunset” organisation. Its disappearance will have no impact on the developing world. There are many other distortions in the provision of Western aid; indeed too many to be documented in a brief article like this. A few deserve mention: - Western aid does not go to the poorest or neediest countries. It goes to those countries which support the foreign-policy agendas of the donor countries. Take American aid, for example. OECD estimates show that on a per capita basis, American aid is the lowest among the OECD countries. But even the relatively little amount that America gives goes only to select countries, like Israel or Egypt even though Israel is a developed country. In recent years, Israel has received between $ 2.5 to 3 billion annually in US aid (Sharp, 2007) – and that is more than what all of sub-Saharan Africa gets. - Western countries do not hesitate to pull the plug if any recipient country fails to support their foreign policy agenda. Many African countries signed on to the International Criminal Court (ICC) statute because Africa clearly needed the ICC process. But when some African countries took a principled stand and refused to sign the side agreement to exempt American nationals from ICC prosecution, America threatened to cut off, and in some cases actually withheld, foreign aid. Altruism never featured in these deliberations. - Much of the aid given could be nullified by other hugely damaging actions of the donor countries. Take the case of the EU. In 2003, Johan Norberg wrote: “According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, EU protectionism deprives developing countries of nearly $ 700 billion in export income a year. That’s almost 14 times more than poor countries receive in foreign aid”. 14 times! Much will have to be done to correct that distortion.- In 1969, the OECD countries pledged to raise ODA to 0.7 % of their gross national incomes (GNI). Yet very few OECD members have honoured this pledge. In 2006, the actual ODA flows amounted to 0.31 % of member countries’ GNI (OECD, 2007). The difference between 0.31 % and 0.7 % amounted to approximately $ 134.7 billion. Even if only 20 % of this would have actually reached the developing countries, this amounted to a real loss of $ 26.9 billion. Compare theses figures with the total GNI of Least Developed Countries, which, according to UN statistics, was approximately $ 148 billion in 2006. Does anyone really expect the people in the developing world to be impressed by the West’s repeated pledge that the 0.7 % threshold will finally be met in 2015?- Even aid channelled through multilateral organisations is not immune from these distortions. The donor countries are often able to control the agenda of the multilateral aid organisations and also ensure that the budgets of these organisations are used in favour of their countries. When Australia “donates” scholarships through the Asian Development Bank (ADB) most of them have to be used in Australian universities or on services provided by Australian academics. Undoubtedly, some good comes from these scholarships. But if someone from Papua New Guinea could find a degree or more relevant course in another developing country institution, the scholarship cannot be used. Donor sensitivities The multilateral aid organisations also know that they pay a price if they ignore the wishes of the donor countries. The Scandinavian countries enjoy the reputation of being most generous in the provision of aid (in 2006, three out of four Scandinavian countries met the pledge of giving ODA up to 0.7 % of GNI). But they too are not immune from applying pressures. In 1999, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan decided to choose the new Administrator of UNDP on merit and not select the candidates traditionally imposed on the UN by the EU. The EU had nominated Poul Nielsen, the Danish Development Minister at the time. On the basis of merit, Kofi Annan chose Mark Malloch Brown, a British national, instead. The Danish government retaliated by slashing Danish aid to UNDP by 23 %. No one knows how many poor Africans or Asians suffered because Danish national pride had been wounded. The real tragedy of this whole story is that the West could have actually accomplished its ostensibly altruistic goals in the developing world if it focused its efforts on helping the recipient countries, instead of ensuring that most of the ODA was used to secure their own interests. And it could have accomplished this with a fraction of the money that has been ostensibly transferred to the Third World. This is what the real story of the Asian economic miracle is all about. The Asian countries that have succeeded are those who took charge of their development agenda and used the ODA given to them to develop the capabilities that they really needed, not those that the donor countries were pushing on them. The biggest success story for UNDP is probably Singapore. Two UNDP consultants, in particular who were sent to Singapore, made a huge difference: They were Albert Winsemius, a Dutch national, and I.F. Tang, a Chinese national. They developed good relationships with the architect of Singapore’s economic miracle, Dr. Goh Keng Swee. They worked together as a team and Singapore took off. Depressing realities Contrast the Singapore experience with two real-life stories of how aid was distorted. In 1973/74, I served as the Charge d’Affaires of the Singapore Embassy in Phnom Penh, a war-torn capital, which was being shelled everyday by the Khmer Rouge. I was 25 years old then. I met another 25-year-old female diplomat from the American Embassy. The Lon Nol regime then in power was being kept afloat by American aid. Each day, this young American diplomat would call on the Cambodian Minister of Economic Affairs and instruct him on what measures to implement. She was a good person and well intentioned. But she, not the minister, was running the Cambodian economy. It is no wonder that the Lon Nol regime collapsed. No foreign aid succeeds if there is no sense of ownership of the development process by the recipient country. While OECD rhetoric has become aware of this fact for some time, it is doubtful, to say the least, that Western donors really accept the principle of national ownership. There is another similar horror story, a story which is worse in some ways because it was carried out not by the “hegemonic” American power but by a respected multilateral institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Joseph Stiglitz (2002) recounts this story well, it concerns Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world. Ethiopia’s leaders tried to take charge of their own development agenda, and yet, received no support from the IMF in doing so. In 1997, the lending programme to Ethiopia was suspended ostensibly on the grounds that the Fund was concerned about the country’s budgetary position. Ethiopia was pressured to limit expenditure on development to only money from tax revenues, instead of relying on international assistance, which was deemed less stable. Actual statistics showed the IMF assumption to be untrue. When Ethiopia repaid an American bank loan early using its reserves so as to be free from the high interest rates, the country faced strong objections from the IMF and the United States, despite the sound economic move, as prior approval had not been obtained from the IMF. It is evident that neither the sovereignty of the country nor its right to formulate its own development strategy was respected in both cases. I end this article with these stories to illustrate how sadly distorted the Western aid project has become. The real tragedy is that given the overwhelming amount of goodwill among Western populations towards the poor developing countries, so much could have been done with the money approved by Western taxpayers for the aid budgets. Unknown to these Western populations, very little of the money reached the Third World or was actually used to help the poor developing countries. The Western populations deserve to be told what really happened to their money. The time to tell the truth has come.

Sources:
OECD, 2007: Final ODA flows in 2006,
Norberg, Johan, 2003: American and European protectionism is killing poor countries and their people, CATO Journal, 4 September.
Sharp, Jeremy M., 2007: CRS report for Congress: U.S. foreign aid to Israel, 25 April 2007.
Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2002: Globalisation and its discontents, New York: Norton & Company.
United Nations, 2007: “The list of least developed countries (2006 Review): Key indicators”, retrieved from http://www.un.org/esa/policy/devplan/ldc06list.pdf on 2 January 2008. »» http://www.un.org/esa/policy/devplan/ldc06list.pdf
Kishore Mahbubani is the Dean of National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and a former Ambassador to the United Nations. His forthcoming book is “The new Asian hemisphere: The irresistible shift of global power to the East”. He would like to thank Loh Su Hsing for her research assistance in preparing this article. »» http://www.mahbubani.net

Safe Sex Subsidy

In an interesting experiment, the World Bank plans to use conditional cash transfers to keep HIV/AIDS in check. A pilot project is to be launched in southern Tanzania this year.[ By Eleonore von Bothmer ]Over the next three years, the World Bank plans to pay 3000 young Tanzanians between the age of 15 and 30 for having safe sex, so they don’t catch AIDS. According to The Financial Times, each participant will receive $ 45 if no sexually transmitted diseases are found in regularly conducted laboratory tests. For most of the people concerned, this amount is equivalent to a fourth of their annual income. The researchers who are designing the pilot study hope that the financial incentive will make people consider long-term consequences of their behavior. It is believed that the payment, along with counseling, can reduce infection rates, especially in the target group most in danger: young women. Many of them depend upon the generosity of their lovers. Once these women have more money of their own, they will be in a stronger position when negotiating the use of condoms. In the pilot project, there will also be a control group that is not paid any money. Conditional cash transfers have proven successful in Mexico and Brazil. In either country, however, they are not used in relation to sexual behavior. Rather, poor families there are paid for sending their children to school and having them vaccinated. For good reason, the World Bank wants to launch the new health programme this year to slow down the spread of HIV/AIDS. In spite of large sums spent on prevention and care all over the world, 2.5 million people become infected every year, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The finishing touches are still being put on the scientific concept, which also has yet to undergo an ethical review. The approach makes sense. Should the experiment not be undertaken, it would be a pity if, in the neighbourhood of the White House in Washington, the only reason was conservatives’ obsession with other people’s sexual morals.

Eleonore von Bothmer is current-affairs editor at D+C/E+Z. »» euz.editor@fsd.de

The Fall of Tonderai Ndira

Death of a Zimbabwean activist
The body of Tonderai Ndira was found this week, the 43rd Zimbabwean opposition activist to die in violence since elections in March. Journalist Farai Sevenzo looks back at his life and the circumstances leading up to his murder.
It is clear that the change we were waiting for is here. If we do not get it, the people must rise up and fight for their victory Tonderai Ndira
Tonderai Ndira lived in the desperately poor township of Mabvuku and Tafara, east of Harare.
He was no stranger to the Zimbabwean police and at one stage had 38 charges levelled against him, ranging from "political nuisance" to attempted murder.
He was one of a group of young men and women, barely in their thirties, who formed the backbone of the opposition's ranks.
Theirs was the thankless and arduous task of mobilising moribund, disillusioned and tired folk to believe in this new concept called change and to sign up to the messages of the eight-year-old opposition - the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
On election day, 29 March, the tall and charismatic Ndira was hanging around by what passes for shops in his sewage-ridden constituency, where electricity is erratic and where cholera has already claimed lives in the last 12 months.
I asked him what he felt that day would bring, and if, given the history of elections in this country, the day would make any difference.
"It is clear that the change we were waiting for is here. If we do not get it, the people must rise up and fight for their victory," he said.
Rising up and fighting for victory pits one against the awesome strength of the security machinery the state has at its disposal.
That is an undisputed fact in the history of this country's opposition.
It is an impossible task.
Beyond politics
In the weeks following polling day, a campaign of intimidation was unfurled which largely affected opposition people rather than ruling party folk.
He was campaigning for things like better streets, more rubbish collections, healthy water supplies ZimRights official
Huts and houses were torched on both sides of the political divide; images of the beaten and tortured were wired around the world, and diplomats based in Harare collected eyewitness accounts of the horrors being unleashed in the countryside by people variously described as war veterans, militias or soldiers.
It was with this background that Tonderai Ndira continued to lend his leadership to the idea of democratic change, and his activism went beyond the politics of the MDC.
An official from human rights organisation ZimRights, who declined to be named, outlined what Ndira meant to civic society in and around Harare.
"I knew him personally, he was a youth activist who went around the country holding workshops and teaching people their rights.
"He was very active in the Combined Harare Residents Association - campaigning for things like better streets, more rubbish collections, healthy water supplies.
"And so he became a target for the Zanu-PF, because they are targeting active members."
And why would such people become targets of the ruling party?
"They know that if people like Ndira are removed, there will be less likelihood of an uprising."
Disappearances
Ordinarily it was a mission to find Ndira.
He would venture into the centre of town for the odd demonstration and then disappear for days on end.
His wife and three young children became used to the idea of him coming home after weeks away because a healthy sense of paranoia was needed to avoid spurious charges and lengthy stays in remand prison.
But on Tuesday 13 May, according to his friends and eyewitnesses, Ndira came home and slept the sleep of the exhausted in Mabvuku township.
At around 0645, a pick-up truck packed with 10 men arrived on his narrow street and drove past his house, stopping at the neighbours.
The 10 men were armed with revolvers and AK-47s - some of them wore masks.
The neighbour's child duly told them the right address and they reversed, disembarked and told Ndira's wife they were looking for her husband.
The presence of so many armed men frightened her into calling out his name and announcing that there were people there to see him.
He answered with a voice drunk with sleep and asked her to tell them to come by later, as he needed his rest.
We are like chickens waiting for the knife to reach our throats Tonderai Ndira's brother Cosmas
He was abducted in his underwear, in front of his young children as they were heading to school and beaten into the truck until he was bleeding.
In the ensuing week, his family and friends desperately tried to locate him.
The omens were not good, several activists had been found dead and funerals were happening throughout the city and the rural areas - all connected to Zimbabwe's protracted political impasse.
On Wednesday, the MDC went to claim two more bodies from Harare's Parirenyatwa Hospital morgue.
Party officials were told by the mortician there was another body that had not been claimed.
Unrecognisable
This new body was badly decomposed; a pair of bloody shorts was plastered to a face clearly broken and shattered.
"We only knew it was my brother by his distinctive ring, his bangles, and his unmistakeable height," said Cosmas Ndira, as family and friends filled his small home to mourn his passing before his funeral, which is yet to be finalised.
"His jaw was shattered, his knuckles broken, a bullet hole below his heart, many many stab wounds and a large hole at the back of his head which seemed to have been caused by a hammer."
Jimmy Chidakwa, a colleague and fellow activist, struggled to contain his anger both at the assassins and his party's leadership.
"They are cowards, all of them. Ten men to take down one unarmed man.
"And where are our leaders? Out of the country."
I know so many people now too frightened to vote with their hearts come the run-off Activist Jimmy Chidakwa
Cosmas chipped in: "Yes, we are like chickens waiting for the knife to reach our throats.
"Given his position in the party, my brother should have had more protection.
"I know so many people now too frightened to vote with their hearts come the run-off."
Unlike the opposition leadership, who are not here and have been at pains to tell the world of diplomatic efforts under way as they travel - to Botswana, South Africa, Kenya, the UN headquarters in New York - the foot soldiers like Tonderai Ndira remained on the ground, visiting the injured, co-ordinating relief efforts to the displaced.
The opposition may yet feel the full force of the loss of such urban activists in the weeks to come as the country heads for the presidential run-off on 27 June.
Story from BBC NEWS Published: 2008/05/23 15:12:43 GMT© BBC MMVIII

Britain's Holocaust Shame

Britain's Holocaust shame: The voyage of the Exodus
The ship was filled with Jewish refugees, desperately seeking a new life in the Promised Land after the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. But, thanks to the Royal Navy, they were sent back to prison camps in Germany

By Robert VerkaikMonday, 5 May 2008
When British soldiers reached the concentration camps of Nazi Germany in the last days of the Second World War, the survivors of the Holocaust hailed them as saviours.
The troops' gruesome discoveries at Bergen-Belsen in 1945, where piles of skeletal corpses lay amid the camp's death ovens and gas chambers, prompted Britain's political leaders to promise that the world would never forget the suffering of the Jews.
Yet, just two years later, the British government was accused of mistreating thousands of Holocaust survivors, who, when prevented from fleeing to Palestine, had been forcibly sent back to barbed-wire detention camps in Germany, staffed by Germans.
Secret papers released at the National Archives for the first time today reveal the fate of Jewish immigrants aboard the 1947 refugee ship Exodus and the bitter propaganda battle that ensued when Britain used force to return them to Germany.
British soldiers, ordered to storm the transport vessels to which the Jewish immigrants on board Exodus had been transferred, were accused of behaving like "Hitler Commandos", "gentleman fascists" and sadists.
As the British soldiers clashed with the Jewish refugees at the port of Hamburg, dockside banners read: "You are bringing us back to Germany, to a concentration camp worse than Belsen."
The episode proved hugely embarrassing for the British. But the international condemnation which accompanied the spectacle of Jews being marched off ships and put on trains for internment camps helped create the political climate for the creation of Israel the following year.
At the end of the war, it was left to the British to try to stem the flow of illegal immigration to Palestine, where the British government, conscious of Arab sensitivities in the region, decided to maintain strict quotas upon Jewish entry. So it was that, in July 1947, the Exodus, under the close scrutiny of the Royal Navy, docked in Marseille and picked up 4,553 Jewish refugees, each determined to defy the British blockade of Palestine.
On its voyage, later made into a Hollywood film starring Paul Newman, the Exodus was escorted by the British cruiser Ajax and a convoy of destroyers. The ship's captain, Yossi Harel, who died at the age of 90 last month, had planned to slip away from the escorts as he neared the coast of Palestine but, in the end, he decided to ignore the British warnings to stop, and made a run for the port.
The British response to that was to fire a warning shot into the Exodus's bow, immediately followed by the dispatch of a boarding party.
The passengers and crew resisted, and fierce fighting broke out on the Exodus. Three passengers and a soldier died, and many were wounded. The British then towed the Exodus into Haifa harbour, from where it was planned that the passengers would be sent back to France on three separate transport vessels.
But when the ships reached Marseilles, the refugees refused to disembark and the British decided the only course of action left to them was to escort them back to Germany.
By the time they had docked at Hamburg, many of the refugees were in defiant mood. When they first set out on their historic quest, they had believed they were days away from arriving at a Jewish homeland. The prospect of being sent to prison camps in Germany represented a pitiful failure of their original mission and for many of the Holocaust survivors, it was almost impossible to bear.
But the British government had no intention of backing down or relaxing its policy.
Under Operation Oasis, plans were put in place to storm the ships.
The British had identified one of the ships, the Runnymede Park, as the vessel most likely to cause them trouble.
A confidential report of the time noted: "It was known that the Jews on the Runnymede Park were under the leadership of a young, capable and energetic fanatic, Morenci Miry Rosman, and throughout the operation it had been realised that this ship might give trouble."
One hundred military police and 200 Sherwood Foresters troops were ordered to board the ship and eject the Jewish immigrants.
The officer in charge of the operation, Lt-Col Gregson, later gave a very frank assessment of the success of the storming of the ship, which, according to a secret minute, left up to 33 Jews, including four women, injured in the fighting. Sixty-eight Jews were held in custody to be put on trial for unruly behaviour. Only three soldiers were hurt.
But it could have been a lot worse. Gregson later admitted that he had considered using tear gas against the immigrants.
He concluded: "The Jew is liable to panic and 800-900 Jews fighting to get up a stairway to escape tear smoke could have produced a deplorable business." He added: "It is a very frightening thing to go into the hold full of yelling maniacs when outnumbered six or eight to one."
Describing the assault, the officer wrote to his superiors: "After a very short pause, with a lot of yelling and female screams, every available weapon up to a biscuit and bulks of timber was hurled at the soldiers. They withstood it admirably and very stoically till the Jews assaulted and in the first rush several soldiers were downed with half a dozen Jews on top kicking and tearing ... No other troops could have done it as well and as humanely as these British ones did."
He concluded: "It should be borne in mind that the guiding factor in most of the actions of the Jews is to gain the sympathy of the world press."
One of the official observers who witnessed the violence was Dr Noah Barou, secretary of the British section of the World Jewish Congress, who had 35 years experience of reporting. He gave a very different account of the fighting.
He described young soldiers beating Holocaust survivors as a "terrible mental picture".
"They went into the operation as a football match ... and it seemed evident that they had not had it explained to them that they were dealing with people who had suffered a lot and who are resisting in accordance with their convictions."
He noted: "People were usually hit in the stomach and this in my opinion explains that many people who did not show any signs of injury were staggering and moving very slowly along the staircase giving the impression that they were half-starved and beaten up.
"When the people walked off the ship, many of them, especially younger people, were shouting to the troops 'Hitler commandos', 'gentleman fascists', 'sadists'."
Dr Barou was "especially impressed" by one young girl who "came to the top of the stairs and shouted to the soldiers, 'I am from Dachau'. And when they did not react she shouted 'Hitler commandos'".
While the British could find no evidence of excessive force, they conceded that in one case a Jew "was dragged down the gangway by the feet with his head bumping on the wooden slats".
After the soldiers had cleared the ships, the refugees were packed on to trains and taken to two camps in the British zone, Poppendorf and Am Stau.
At the camps, the treatment of the refugees caused an international outcry after it emerged that the conditions could be likened to the concentration camps where six million Jews had perished.
Dr Barou was once again on hand to witness events. He reported that conditions at Camp Poppendorf were poor and claimed that it was being run by a German camp commandant. That was denied by the British.
But the allegations of cruel and insensitive treatment would not go away and, on 6 October, 1947, the Foreign Office sent a telegram to the British commanders in the region demanding to know whether the camps really were surrounded with barbed wire and guarded by German staff.
It turned out that Barou's reports had been only partially accurate. There was no German commandant or guards but there were German staff carrying out duties inside the camp.
As winter set in, the British government made a further attempt to end the stalemate.
In return for leaving Germany and going to France, the refugees were offered increased rations.
It turned out to be yet another diplomatic blunder, leaving the British vulnerable to the accusation that they were adopting a policy of "starvation or return to France".
In an explanation of its policy a Foreign Office document states: "Those who refuse transport to France and choose to remain in Germany will be accommodated in camps provided by the British authorities.
"Those who volunteer to return to France will continue to receive the present generous ration of 2,800 calories per day up to and including the time of their departure. Those who choose to remain in Germany will receive the same basic scale ration as that received by the normal consumer."
Only two Jews chose to accept the offer of the transfer.
A telegram written by Jewish leaders of the camps on 20 October 1947 makes clear the determination of the refugees, mostly displaced from Germany and eastern Europe, to find a home in Palestine.
"Nothing will deter us from Palestine. Which jail we go to is up to you (the British). We did not ask you to reduce our rations, we did not ask you to put us in Poppendorf and Am Stau."
Britain's impossible position was later summed up by John Coulson, a diplomat at the Briitsh Embassy in Paris.
He pointed out: "The pros and cons of keeping the Exodus immigrants in camps ... there is one point that should be kept in mind. Our opponents in France, and I dare say in other countries, have made great play with the fact that these immigrants were being kept behind barbed wire, in concentration camps and guarded by Germans.
"If we decide it is convenient not to keep them in camps any longer, I suggest that we should make some play that we are releasing them from all restraint of this kind in accordance with their wishes and that they were only put in such accommodation for the preliminary necessities of screening and maintenance."
In the end, the Government decided to follow this advice and the Jewish migrants were set free. The vast majority did find their way to Palestine and help in the struggle to create and secure the state of Israel.

The Independent May 5th 2008

Farewell To Granma Captain

April 2, 2008

NORBERTO Abilio Collado Abreu, the outstanding revolutionary fighter and captain of the yacht Granma, died in the early hours of this morning.
During WWII, in April of 1941, Collado, still very young, joined the Cuban War Navy, having been trained as a sonar technician to detect submarines. From his sonar room aboard the CS-13 destroyer, on May 15, 1943 he participated in the sinking of the German U-boat 176, much feared at that time given the number of ships it had attacked in the Atlantic.
After the 1955 amnesty, he went into exile, joining the group of youth training in Mexico to bring to life Fidel's commitment, "In 1956, we will be free or be martyrs!"
His distinguished experience as a sailor led to his selection as captain of the yacht Granma. Navigating the boat through stormy seas, he landed the expedition on December 2, 1956. After the battle of Alegría de Pío he was captured and imprisoned until the triumph of the Revolution.
In January of 1959, he joined the Revolutionary War Navy, taking on different responsibilities within this branch of the military, until in 1981 he was assigned to the care and maintenance of the Granma.
Captain Collado was always characterized by his lack of pretension, his modesty and discipline in the completion of whatever tasks required of him.
As requested by his family, the body will be cremated and his ashes will be placed in the Revolutionary Armed Forces Pantheon in Colón Cemetery at 3:00 p.m. (AIN)
Translated by Granma International