About 500 heavily armed Maoists encircled Chonha village under Dumaria
\npolice station of Gaya district and blasted the primary health centre,
\nmiddle school building and community hall in the village using dynamite
\nsticks and other explosives. Earlier, the Naxalites had blown up a police
\nbuilding in the same village. Incidentally, it was the eighth Maoist attack
\nin the district this month.<\/p>\n
Influenza A\/H1N1 continued to spread on with more confirmed cases reported
\nworldwide. Chilean health authorities confirmed the nation’s second death
\nfrom the new A\/H1N1 flu in a man of 49. The man died and medical tests
\nconfirmed the diagnosis. Five more A\/H1N1 flu cases were confirmed in
\nNicaragua, raising the total number of infected cases in the country to 26.<\/p>\n
Gunmen killed 10 people and wounded 12 others when they opened fire with
\nautomatic weapons at a mosque during evening prayers in Thailand’s restive
\nMuslim south. A rubber tapper was also shot dead and nine soldiers were
\nwounded by a roadside bomb, on one of the worst days of violence in the
\nregion bordering Malaysia where a shadowy insurgency has rumbled since
\n2004. Police said at least five gunmen sprayed bullets into the mosque in
\nthe Cho Airong district of Narathiwat, one of three mainly Muslim provinces
\nwhere more than 3,000 people have died in years of near daily bomb and gun
\nattacks.<\/p>\n
The United States has created a new system for waging war. Where you no
\nlonger have to depend exclusively on your own citizens to sign up for the
\nmilitary and say, “I believe in this war, so I’m willing to sign up and
\nrisk my life for it.” You turn the entire world into your recruiting
\nground. You intricately link corporate profits to an escalation of warfare
\nand make it profitable for companies to participate in your wars. In the
\nprocess of doing that you undermine U.S. democratic processes. And you also
\nviolate the sovereignty of other nations, ’cause you’re making their
\ncitizens in combatants in a war to which their country is not a party. The
\nend game of all of this could well be the disintegration of the nation
\nstate apparatus in the world. And it could be replaced by a scenario where
\nyou have corporations with their own private armies.<\/p>\n
A Council of Elders of the Miskito indigenous people on Nicaragua’s
\nCaribbean coast, citing the central government’s opening of the region to
\ncorporate exploitation with little return to local residents, have
\nannounced their secession from the country and declaration of a
\n“Communitarian Nation of Mosquitia.” But the ruling Sandinista government
\nare charging that the US embassy has fomented the move. Upon declaring
\nindependence, Miskito Elders and their supporters seized the headquarters
\nof the ruling party of the autonomous region, Yatama, or “Sons of Mother
\nEarth,” in Puerto Cabezas. No move was taken to remove them, but National
\nPolice seized the locally caught green sea turtle meat they planned to
\nconsume at their celebratory feast, on the grounds that it is an endangered
\nspecies. The occupiers were finally ousted from the party headquarters by
\nYatama adherents.<\/p>\n
Across the globe, as mining and oil firms race for dwindling resources,
\nindigenous peoples are battling to defend their lands \u2013 often paying the
\nultimate price. It has been called the world’s second “oil war”, but the
\nonly similarity between Iraq and events in the jungles of northern Peru has
\nbeen the mismatch of force. On one side have been the police armed with
\nautomatic weapons, teargas, helicopter gunships and armoured cars. On the
\nother are several thousand Awajun and Wambis Indians, many of them in war
\npaint and armed with bows and arrows and spears. In some of the worst
\nviolence seen in Peru in 20 years, the Indians warned Latin America what
\ncould happen if companies are given free access to the Amazonian forests to
\nexploit an estimated 6bn barrels of oil and take as much timber they like.
\nAfter months of peaceful protests, the police were ordered to use force to
\nremove a road bock near Bagua Grande.<\/p>\n
A ‘time bomb’ for world wheat crop. The Ug99 fungus, called stem rust,
\ncould wipe out more than 80% of the world’s wheat as it spreads from
\nAfrica, scientists fear. The race is on to breed resistant plants before it
\nreaches the U.S. The sample spores arrived from Kenya on dried, infected
\nleaves ensconced in layers of envelopes. The suspended fungal spores in a
\nlight mineral oil were sprayed onto thousands of healthy wheat plants.
\nAfter two weeks, the stalks were covered with deadly reddish blisters
\ncharacteristic of the scourge known as Ug99.<\/p>\n
Venezuela’s Health Ministry said it has banned Coca-Cola Zero because it
\nfailed to declare the use of an artificial sweetener allegedly harmful to
\nthe health. Health officials said tests show the no-calorie soft drink
\ncontains a sweetener called sodium cyclamate — charges Coca-Cola Co.
\ndenies. The sweetener’s use is not prohibited in Venezuela. But the
\nministry said the company failed to declare sodium cyclamate as an
\ningredient in Coca-Cola Zero when it received its initial health permit to
\nbegin selling the product. Coca-Cola is “failing to comply with sanitary
\nnorms,” the ministry said.<\/p>\n
Scientists have devised a new system that can predict outbreaks of dengue
\nfever with 60 per cent accuracy. The system, predicts outbreaks based on
\nsea temperature and changes in vegetation making predictions up to 40 weeks
\nin advance. The model could act as an early warning system, allowing
\ncountries to be better prepared for the likelihood of an outbreak. About
\ntwo-thirds of the world’s population live in areas infested with mosquitoes
\nthat transmit dengue fever. The new system can be used in Africa, Asia,
\nLatin America and the Caribbean, which are prone to the fever.<\/p>\n
With a steady rise in violent crime including an alarming increase in
\nhomicides, Trinidad and Tobago has overtaken Jamaica as the \u201cmurder capital
\nof the Caribbean\u201d. While homicides increased two percent in Jamaica in
\n2008, murders were up a staggering 38 percent in Trinidad and Tobago.
\nAlthough much of the violence is gang-related, in recent years tourists
\nhave increasingly become targets for robbery, sexual assault and murder.<\/p>\n
After blasting the three centres, the Maoists raided the two-storey house
\nof Maqsood Khan, a big farmer and former mukhiya of Narainpur panchayat of
\nthe Naxal-infested Dumaria block. Using walkie-talkies, they directed the
\nfour female inmates of the house, including the farmer’s wife, daughter and
\ntwo maid servants, to move out of the house as they were going to blow it.
\nOnce the womenfolk came out, the Maoists conducted what they call “seizure
\nof the movable assets”. After emptying the house, they looted about 100
\nquintals of rice, an equal quantity of wheat, 10 quintals of gram, potatoes
\nand onions, clothes, about 100 grams of gold jewellery and one kg of silver
\nornaments besides utensils — the Maoists blew up the sprawling two-storey
\nhouse.<\/p>\n
Cuba reported its fifth confirmed case of A\/H1N1 flu in a 62-year-old
\nCanadian woman. Uruguayan health authorities reported four new A\/H1N1
\ninfluenza cases, bringing the total in the country to 22. Three of them are
\nstudents from private colleges in Montevideo and the other is a woman who
\nrecently returned from the United States and lives in the western Uruguayan
\nprovince of Rio Negro. The Dominican Republic’s Health Ministry reported 16
\nnew cases of A\/H1N1 flu, raising the total number of confirmed cases to 60.
\nThere are a total of about 400 samples awaiting testing in a special
\nlaboratory.<\/p>\n
“The gunmen sneaked into the mosque and opened fire as the victims kneeled
\non the floor praying.” The brazen attack was one of three in Narathiwat
\nprovince, which has seen a surge in violence. A Buddhist rubber tapper was
\nshot dead by unknown gunmen on a motorcycle in Rangae district and nine
\nsoldiers were wounded, one seriously, when a powerful roadside bomb
\nexploded under their vehicle in neighboring Rueso district.<\/p>\n
The President of Peru’s Amazon Indian organisation AIDESEP has been forced
\ninto exile. Alberto Pizango sought refuge in the Nicaraguan embassy in
\nPeru’s capital Lima after a warrant was issued for his arrest. Nicaragua
\nhas granted him asylum. Pizango was charged with `sedition, conspiracy and
\nrebellion’ following the violent confrontation between hundreds of
\nindigenous protesters blockading a road near the town of Bagua in northern
\nPeru, and riot police intent on breaking up the protest. The violent
\ntactics used by the police, firing automatic weapons at Indians who were
\npeacefully protesting, resulted in many deaths on both sides.<\/p>\n
Yatama said the eviction was peaceful. “We’re not going to fight between
\nMiskito and Miskito,” the regional governor, said. “It’s not that we’re
\nafraid of that movement.” But Miskito Elders said they were armed. The
\nNational Police apparently did not get involved. The separatists are still
\nmaintaining that they are no longer part of Nicaragua, and have appointed
\nH\u00e9ctor Williams as their wihta tara, or great judge. He cited lack of
\ncentral government response to devastating hurricanes, a rat plague, and a
\nmysterious hysteria-causing disease known as grisi siknis.<\/p>\n
In the fights that followed, at least 50 Indians and nine police officers
\nwere killed, with hundreds more wounded or arrested. The indigenous rights
\ngroup Survival International described it as “Peru’s Tiananmen Square”.
\n“For thousands of years, we’ve run the Amazon forests,” said Servando
\nPuerta, one of the protest leaders. “This is genocide. They’re killing us
\nfor defending our lives, our sovereignty, human dignity.” As riot police
\nbroke up more demonstrations in Lima and a curfew was imposed on many
\nPeruvian Amazonian towns, President Garcia backed down in the face of
\ncondemnation of the massacre. He suspended \u2013 but only for three months \u2013
\nthe laws that would allow the forest to be exploited. No one doubts the
\nclashes will continue.<\/p>\n
Nearly all the plants were goners. Crop scientists fear the Ug99 fungus
\ncould wipe out more than 80% of worldwide wheat crops as it spreads from
\neastern Africa. It has already jumped the Red Sea and traveled as far as
\nIran. Experts say it is poised to enter the breadbasket of northern India
\nand Pakistan, and the wind will inevitably carry it to Russia, China and
\neven North America — if it doesn’t hitch a ride with people first. “It’s a
\ntime bomb. It moves in the air, it can move in clothing on an airplane. We
\nknow it’s going to be here. It’s a matter of how long it’s going to take.”<\/p>\n
The ministry urged Venezuelans to refrain from sampling the drink, saying
\nit is “considered harmful to the health.” The U.S. prohibits the use of
\ncyclamates in human food because of health safety concerns. Sales of
\nCoca-Cola Zero elsewhere in Latin America have met with resistance over the
\nsweetener’s use. But Rosy Alvarez, a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola Servicios de
\nVenezuela, said that Coca-Cola Zero sold in Venezuela uses other artificial
\nsweeteners. “No ingredient of Coca-Cola Zero is harmful to peoples’
\nhealth,” she said. The local affiliate is nevertheless complying with
\nVenezuela’s order and has begun halting production, she said. The company
\nis in discussions with the Venezuelan government. Coca-Cola sells many
\nother soft drinks in Venezuela including Coca-Cola Classic, Chinoto,
\nFrescolita and Hit.<\/p>\n
An Australian man with multiple serious ailments, including swine flu,
\ndied, but authorities say they can’t be sure whether it was the virus that
\nkilled him. The 26-year-old Aboriginal man could be the first person in the
\nAsia-Pacific to die from swine flu, which has swept rapidly through the
\nregion but without the fatal impact it has had in the hardest hit countries
\nsuch as Mexico and the United States where dozens have died. Bangladesh,
\nLaos and Papua New Guinea all reported their first cases, while infections
\ncontinued to rise sharply in Thailand. Authorities in New Zealand said
\nwidespread transmission of the virus meant it likely had more than 1,000
\ncases. The World Health Organization declared swine flu a pandemic. More
\nthan 39,000 cases had been reported worldwide, with 167 deaths. The
\nAustralian fatality was from the impoverished Aborgine minority in a remote
\ndesert community. He died in a hospital in the southern city of Adelaide.
\nIt is not yet known what the patient died of or where he became infected.
\nAustralia has recorded the highest tally of swine flu cases in the
\nAsia-Pacific, reaching 2,330. Swine flu remained mild in Australia and most
\npeople infected made rapid and full recoveries. New Zealand reported 63 new
\ncases of swine flu _ taking the national total to 216, but the country
\nlikely had at least 1,000 cases. He said despite widespread transmission in
\nthe community, virtually all the New Zealand cases were mild, with only one
\npatient so far becoming critically ill. More serious cases were expected
\nonce the virus spreads. Officials were moving to ‘manage’ the spread of the
\nvirus after attempting to contain it for two months. Bangladesh confirmed
\nits first case: a 19-year-old man who had recently returned from the U.S,
\nthe Health Ministry said in a statement. It said he was being treated and
\nhis family members were also under observation. A 27-year-old Australian
\nvisitor has been confirmed as the first case of the virus in Laos, the
\nofficial Khaosan Pathet Lao agency reported. The unidentified Australian
\nhas been quarantined but does not need hospitalization.<\/p>\n
A Swedish couple was chopped to death in their hotel room in Tobago and two
\nBritish females were robbed and sexually assaulted by a bandit who forced
\nhis way into their holiday apartment. The US and the UK issued travel
\nadvisories warning travelers about increasing violence and the failure of
\npolice in Tobago to apprehend and prosecute criminals. \u201cYou should be aware
\nthat there are high levels of violent crime, especially shootings and
\nkidnappings,\u201d states a travel advisory issued by the UK Foreign and
\nCommonwealth Office. \u201cBritish nationals have been victims of violent
\nattacks, particularly in Tobago where law enforcement is weak.\u201d A US travel
\nadvisory issued about the same time warns travelers that armed robbers have
\nbeen trailing tourists as they depart international airports in Trinidad
\nand Tobago.<\/p>\n
According to Rizwan, he was in a neighbouring village when the Maoists
\nstarted encircling his village. He immediately informed all senior police
\nofficials about it. But the police arrived only after everything was over.
\nAdmitting that she got information about the movement of the Maoists,
\nMagadh Range DIG Anupama Nilekar claimed that immediate steps were taken
\nand police parties dispatched to the village. According to the villagers,
\nthe police reached the place a good 15 hours later. The police team was
\ngreeted by “go back” slogans as angry villagers protested against the
\napparent police failure. The villagers also raised slogans against senior
\npolice officials.<\/p>\n
In Hondura, 24 new cases of the A\/H1N1 flu, bringing the country’s total to
\n56 with 100 more cases to be confirmed. Colombia confirmed one new A\/H1N1
\nflu case, raising the total number of infected cases in the country to 25.
\nThe boy, from Yopal, capital city of the central Casanare province, has had
\nclose contact with a confirmed patient. The European Center for Disease
\nPrevention and Control (ECDC) said that 26 new A\/H1N1 flu cases were
\ndiscovered in European countries within the last 24 hours. The new cases
\nwere distributed in Germany, Netherlands, Austria, France and Denmark, it
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Nineteen people have been killed and 40 injured in the region’s latest
\nsurge in violence. No group has made a credible claim of responsibility for
\nany of the attacks in the region, which was an independent Muslim sultanate
\nuntil annexed by predominantly Buddhist Thailand a century ago.<\/p>\n
At least 30 Indians are thought to have been killed, but indigenous
\norganisations believe the real figure is significantly higher, and have
\naccused the police of throwing large numbers of bodies into the Mara\u00d2on
\nriver. More than 20 police officers are also believed to have died. Peru’s
\nPresident Alan Garcia has labelled the indigenous protesters `savages’,
\n`barbaric’, `ignorant’ and `second-class citizens’. The Indians’ protests
\nstarted in response to a series of government decrees promoting the opening
\nup of their lands to oil and gas companies. In recent years more than 70%
\nof Peru’s Amazon has been auctioned off to oil companies, with the Indians
\nrarely being consulted.<\/p>\n
“We have the right to autonomy and self-government,” Wycleff Diego, the
\nseparatist movement’s ambassador abroad said, holding up a copy of the UN
\nDeclaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Even the government’s
\nallies concede that the separatists have valid grievances. “We haven’t been
\nthe best administrators of public things, but that doesn\u2019t mean we should
\nspill blood,” said Steadman Fagoth, a former Miskito guerilla leader who
\nhas recently allied himself with Sandinista President Daniel Ortega. Two
\nmajor drilling concessions have been granted off Nicaragua’s Caribbean
\ncoast, but officials fear the separatist movement could scare off
\ninvestors. “It’s going to send the signal that you can\u2019t do business in
\nNicaragua,” said a chief executive at Infinity Energy, a Denver-based
\ncompany. (A maritime border dispute with Honduras and Colombia has also
\nbeen an obstacle to offshore oil development.)<\/p>\n
Peru is just one of many countries now in open conflict with its indigenous
\npeople over natural resources. Barely reported in the international press,
\nthere have been major protests around mines, oil, logging and mineral
\nexploitation in Africa, Latin America, Asia and North America. Hydro
\nelectric dams, biofuel plantations as well as coal, copper, gold and
\nbauxite mines are all at the centre of major land rights disputes. A
\nmassive military force continued this week to raid communities opposed to
\noil companies’ presence on the Niger delta. The delta, which provides 90%
\nof Nigeria’s foreign earnings, has always been volatile, but guns have
\nflooded in and security has deteriorated. In the last month a military
\ntaskforce has been sent in and helicopter gunships have shelled villages
\nsuspected of harbouring militia. Thousands of people have fled. Activists
\nfrom the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta have responded by
\nkilling 12 soldiers and this week set fire to a Chevron oil facility.
\nYesterday seven more civilians were shot by the military.<\/p>\n
Though most Americans have never heard of it, Ug99 — a type of fungus
\ncalled stem rust because it produces reddish-brown flakes on plant stalks
\n— is the No. 1 threat to the world’s most widely grown crop. The
\nInternational Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico estimates that
\n19% of the world’s wheat, which provides food for 1 billion people in Asia
\nand Africa, is in imminent danger. American plant breeders say $10 billion
\nworth of wheat would be destroyed if the fungus suddenly made its way to
\nU.S. fields. Fear that the fungus will cause widespread damage has caused
\nshort-term price spikes on world wheat markets. Famine has been averted
\nthus far, but experts say it’s only a matter of time.<\/p>\n
The Solomon Islands police commissioner has warned against the practice of
\ncutting up unexploded wartime bombs to get explosives for fishing.
\nCommissioner Peter Marshall warned it was a very dangerous practice. He was
\nannouncing that Hells Point, at the eastern end of the international
\nairport in the capital, Honiara, is out of bounds to the public. Solomon
\nIslands Broadcasting reports Mr Marshall said the area has been designated
\nby the Police Explosive Ordinance Division for destroying highly dangerous
\nproducts. The area is used to store explosives and ammunition left over
\nfrom World War II.<\/p>\n
Thailand’s Public Health Ministry, meanwhile, confirmed 71 new cases,
\nbringing the country’s total to 589, most of them in Bangkok. Elsewhere in
\nthe region, Papua New Guinea became the second South Pacific islands nation
\nto report a single confirmed case of the infection, after Samoa confirmed
\nits first case Tuesday. Singapore reported 11 new cases, bringing its total
\nto 77. Officials said all but two of the infections were contracted abroad.
\nIn Beijing, an American high school student from Massachusetts was admitted
\nto a hospital with swine flu symptoms, while 14 other students and two
\nchaperones were quarantined. Numerous travelers have been quarantined over
\nswine flu concerns in China, including other school groups from California
\nand Maryland. Hong Kong reported 16 more cases, including seven that were
\ndomestically transmitted. The new infections bring the city’s total to 237.
\nMalaysia confirmed four new cases of the virus, raising its tally to 27.<\/p>\n
\u201cViolent crimes, including assault, kidnapping for ransom, sexual assault
\nand murder, have involved foreign residents and tourists (and) incidents
\nhave been reported involving armed robbers trailing arriving passengers
\nfrom the airport and accosting them in remote areas\u2026 the perpetrators of
\nmany of these crimes have not been arrested.\u201d Highest crime rates in the
\nEnglish-speaking Caribbean, which extends from the Bahamas in the north to
\nTrinidad & Tobago in the south, averages 30 murders per 100,000 inhabitants
\nper year, one of the highest rates in the world. By comparison, the murder
\nrate in both Canada and the UK is about two per 100,000.<\/p>\n
$27bn flows out illegally every year from India. Global Financial Integrity
\n(GFI) \u2014 has ranked the country fifth in the list of 160 developing
\ncountries suffering from the outflow of huge amounts of money through
\nillicit channels.<\/p>\n
Many countries in Asia also reported more infections. South Korea’s health
\nauthorities on Monday confirmed one more case of Influenza A\/H1N1, raising
\nthe number of confirmed cases to 48 in the country. A 28-year-old man,
\nrecently back from his business trip to New York, showed flu-like symptoms,
\nand, accordingly, was quarantined at a state-designated hospital. With four
\nmore cases reported in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan’s tally of A\/H1N1 flu
\ninfections have amounted to 424. The four patients – three middle school
\nboys and one primary school boy – tested positive for the new flu after
\nhaving run fevers.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s recent takedown of an Internet service
\nprovider thought to be a safe haven for spammers has reduced spam volumes,
\nbut only by a little. Total spam volume dropped by about 15 percent as the
\nFTC got a court order to pull the plug on a notorious ISP named Pricewert.
\nwhich also did business under the name 3FN, was knocked off-line after the
\ncompanies that provided it access to the Internet stopped doing business
\nwith it. This happened after the FTC was granted a temporary restraining
\norder in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.<\/p>\n
Frustrated by the refusal of the authorities to negotiate with them,
\nAIDESEP called for a series of peaceful protests. Indian communities
\nthroughout central and northern Peru have been blockading rivers and roads
\nin a successful attempt to halt the oil industry traffic. Survival has
\ncalled for oil and gas companies in the Amazon to suspend their operations
\nuntil the government agrees to peaceful negotiations with the Indians’
\nrepresentatives; for an independent and impartial inquiry into the tragic
\nevents near Bagua; and for the lifting of all charges against Sr. Pizango.<\/p>\n
Puerto Cabezas has twice been rocked by violent protests in recent years:
\nin 2007, over the central government’s slow response after a devastating
\nhurricane, and in 2008, when Ortega’s government postponed municipal
\nelections. Separatist leader Williams, who has enlisted the support of
\nhundreds of Miskito lobster divers who are protesting a drop in pay as
\nlobster prices plunge, said he had to discourage the divers from attacking
\nthe party offices after they were re-taken. The separatists say they are
\nseeking financing to train and equip an army of 1,500. “We’ll defend our
\nnatural resources,” vowed Guillermo Espinoza, the movement’s defense
\nminister, who was known as Comandante Black Cat during the 1980s war. If no
\nguns can be procured, he said, the separatists will make weapons
\nthemselves.<\/p>\n
The escalation of violence came in the week that Shell agreed to pay \u00a39.7m
\nto ethnic Ogoni families \u2013 whose homeland is in the delta \u2013 who had led a
\npeaceful uprising against it and other oil companies in the 1990s, and who
\nhad taken the company to court in New York accusing it of complicity in
\nwriter Ken Saro-Wiwa’s execution in 1995. Meanwhile in West Papua,
\nIndonesian forces protecting some of the world’s largest mines have been
\naccused of human rights violations. Hundreds of tribesmen have been killed
\nin the last few years in clashes between the army and people with bows and
\narrows. “An aggressive drive is taking place to extract the last remaining
\nresources from indigenous territories,” says Victoria Tauli-Corpus, an
\nindigenous Filipino and chair of the UN permanent forum on indigenous
\nissues. “There is a crisis of human rights. There are more and more
\narrests, killings and abuses.<\/p>\n
A significant humanitarian crisis is inevitable. The solution is to develop
\nnew wheat varieties that are immune to Ug99. That’s much easier said than
\ndone. After several years of feverish work, scientists have identified a
\nmere half-dozen genes that are immediately useful for protecting wheat from
\nUg99. Incorporating them into crops using conventional breeding techniques
\nis a nine- to 12-year process that has only just begun. And that process
\nwill have to be repeated for each of the thousands of wheat varieties that
\nis specially adapted to a particular region and climate. “All the seed
\nneeds to change in the next few years. It’s really an enormous
\nundertaking.”<\/p>\n
A Spanish cruise ship hit by an outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus among its
\ncrew headed for its final stop at the Caribbean island of Aruba. The Ocean
\nDream, owned by Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL.N), was on a week-long cruise
\ndue to end but its itinerary was limited after several crew members came
\ndown with the swine flu. Venezuela confirmed three cases of H1N1 flu among
\nthe ship’s crew when the boat arrived at the island of Margarita and more
\nthan 300 Venezuelan passengers were allowed off. The ship’s remaining 900
\npassengers and crew are expected to disembark in Aruba, the cruise’s final
\nstop.<\/p>\n
Humanity will achieve the dubious distinction this year of having more than
\n1 billion members of its species living in hunger for the first time in
\nhistory. The number of undernourished is estimated to soar by about 100
\nmillion over last year, to 1.02 billion, according to the Food and
\nAgriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The 11 percent surge
\nin the world\u2019s hungry is primarily a product of the global economic crisis,
\ncombined with persistently high food prices. World economic output is
\nexpected to decline by more than 3 percent this year\u2014the first global
\ncontraction since the Second World War. The economic crisis, the FAO notes,
\n\u201chas reduced incomes and employment opportunities of the poor and
\nsignificantly lowered their access to food.\u201d<\/p>\n
With 550 homicides in 2008, Trinidad and Tobago has a rate of about 55
\nmurders per 100,000 making it the most dangerous country in the Caribbean
\nand one of the most dangerous in the world. The rate of assaults, robbery,
\nkidnapping and rape in Trinidad and Tobago is also among the highest in the
\nworld. According to a report issued by the United States State Department,
\ngang-related homicides and other crimes will continue to increase in
\nTrinidad and Tobago in 2009 and 2010.<\/p>\n
“In 2006, total outflows from developing countries outpaced incoming
\nofficial development assistance (ODA) by a ratio of 10 to 1. This means
\nthat for every $1 in ODA a developing country received, $10 was lost due to
\nillicit financial outflows. China topped the list of countries for illicit
\noutflows with $233bn-$289bn, followed by Saudi Arabia ($54bn-$55bn), Mexico
\n($41bn-$46bn) and Russia ($32bn-$38bn).<\/p>\n
Eight more A\/H1N1 flu cases were confirmed on the Chinese mainland,
\nbringing the total number to 80. Three new cases were reported in Beijing,
\nincluding a 12-year-old Chinese boy and two foreigners. The boy studied in
\nthe United States and returned to China from Orlando. Meanwhile, five
\npeople were tested positive for the A\/H1N1 influenza virus in Hong Kong
\ntaking the number of confirmed cases of the disease in the city to 38.
\nVietnamese authority updated the number of its A\/H1N1 flu patients to 13.
\nThe mother and younger sister of the 11th case has been confirmed to be
\ninfected with the virus. The family returned to Vietnam from the United
\nStates and were now isolated and treated at the Nhi Dong No. 1 Hospital.<\/p>\n
According to the FTC, Pricewert was home to a host of illegal activity
\nincluding the distribution of viruses, phishing, spyware and child
\npornography. Pricewert “actively shielded its criminal clientele by either
\nignoring take-down requests issued by the on-line security community, or
\nshifting its criminal elements to other Internet protocol addresses it
\ncontrolled to evade detection.” The ISP has said that the alleged criminal
\nactivity on its network was the result of bad customers and not its fault.
\nPricewert lists its principal place of business as Belize City, Belize, but
\nit operated out of a DataPipe data center in San Jose, California.<\/p>\n
A new kind of refugee is on the rise. And by 2050, there could be as many
\nas 200 million of them. CARE official says people in flood-prone Bangladesh
\nshould raise ducks instead of chickens. They are not fleeing despicable
\nacts of violence or persecution but the very land and water on which their
\nlivelihoods depend. They are some of the world’s poorest, forced from their
\nhomes by global climate change.<\/p>\n
A top Sandinista leader, Gustavo Porras, accused Robert Callahan, the US
\nambassador to Nicaragua, of conspiring with the separatist movement in Cold
\nWar-era fashion. Callahan\u2014who worked in the US embassy in Honduras when it
\nwas the command center for the Reagan administration’s Contra war in
\nNicaragua\u2014denies involvement. “The question regarding any contentious
\nissues that may exist between parts of the Miskito community and the
\ngovernment of Nicaragua is a matter for the Nicaraguans, and one that they
\nthemselves must resolve,” he said. Sandinista-aligned Miskito leader
\nSteadman Fagoth\u2014president of Nicaragua’s Fishing Institute\u2014said he
\nwitnessed Ambassador Callahan and US State Department officials meeting
\nwith separatist leaders in Puerto Cabezas.<\/p>\n
“This is happening in Russia, Canada, the Philippines, Cambodia, Mongolia,
\nNigeria, the Amazon, all over Latin America, Papua New Guinea and Africa.
\nIt is global. We are seeing a human rights emergency. A battle is taking
\nplace for natural resources everywhere. Much of the world’s natural capital
\n\u2013 oil, gas, timber, minerals \u2013 lies on or beneath lands occupied by
\nindigenous people.” What until quite recently were isolated incidents of
\nindigenous peoples in conflict with states and corporations are now
\nbecoming common as government-backed companies move deeper on to lands long
\nignored as unproductive or wild. As countries and the World Bank increase
\nspending on major infrastructural projects to counter the economic crisis,
\nthe conflicts are expected to grow.<\/p>\n
An ancient adversary, farmers have been battling stem rust for as long as
\nthey have grown wheat. The fungus’ ancestors infected wild grasses for
\nmillions of years before people began cultivating them for food. The
\npathogen keeps mutating and evolving. It’s one of our biblical pests. This
\nis not a small enemy. When a spore lands on a green wheat plant, it forms a
\npustule that invades the outer layers of the stalk. The pustule hijacks the
\nplant’s water and nutrients and diverts them to produce new rust spores
\ninstead of grain. Within two weeks of an initial attack, there can be
\nmillions of pustules in a 2.5-acre patch of land. Wheat plants that can
\nrecognize a specific chemical produced by stem rust can mount a defense
\nagainst the fungus. But the rust is able to mutate, evade the plant’s
\nimmune system and resume its spread.<\/p>\n
The ship made stops earlier in the week in Barbados and Grenada, but
\nauthorities there refused to let passengers leave the ship. Venezuelan
\nhealth authorities that the boat had been quarantined for a week along with
\nits passengers, who are mainly from Spain, Colombia and Venezuela but also
\ninclude Brazilian, British and French citizens. “The boat is continuing its
\nitinerary in the direction of Aruba, where the rest of the passengers and
\nthe affected crew will disembark,” the company said in a statement.
\nBarbados refused to let the ship dock because 43 crew members exhibited
\nflu-like symptoms.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s hungry are concentrated in Asia and the Pacific (642 million),
\nSub-Saharan Africa (265 million), Latin America and the Caribbean (53
\nmillion), and the Near East and North Africa (42 million). Sub-Saharan
\nAfrica has the highest concentration of hungry, while the Middle East and
\nNorth Africa saw the most rapid growth in the number of hungry people (13.5
\npercent). The agency\u2019s definition of hunger is based on the number of
\ncalories consumed. Depending on the relative age and gender ratios of a
\ngiven country, the cutoff varies between 1,600 and 2,000 calories a day. It
\nis likely the figures significantly underestimate the number of people
\nsuffering from hunger. A study published earlier this year found that 12
\nmillion children are at risk of inadequate food in the United States.
\nFigures estimate the total number of hungry people in the entire \u201cdeveloped
\nworld\u201d (including the US and Europe) at 15 million.<\/p>\n
The issue of money taken illegally abroad and stashed in tax havens has
\nrecently acquired prominence because of the feeling, encouraged by the
\nglobal slowdown, that days of secret banking are over. The consensus was
\nreflected in the recent meeting of G-20, and has been strengthened by the
\npromises of Swiss authorities to cooperate with demands, provided they are
\nbacked up by specific details, for investigation into accounts in banks
\nwithin their jurisdiction. In India, Supreme Court has taken up the matter
\nfollowing a PIL by a group of well-known citizens. The Centre has promised
\nto get back to the court this week with details of what it has done to deal
\nwith the issue, particularly with regard to details of 1,400 accounts with
\na bank in Liechtenstein which has been made available by German
\nauthorities.<\/p>\n
Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health on Sunday reported a ninth case of
\ninfluenza A\/H1N1 infection in the country. The latest patient was a
\n29-year-old businessman who returned from the United States. According to
\nthe latest update by the World Health Organization (WHO), 21,940 cases of
\nA\/H1N1 infection have been confirmed in 69 countries, including 125 deaths.<\/p>\n
Pricewert was thought to be home to several servers used to control
\ncomputers infected with the Cutwail Trojan program (also known as Pushdo).
\nCriminals had been using these infected machines to pump out spam messages,
\nand right before the takedown the ISP was responsible for about 30 percent
\nof the spam. Levels dropped close to 50 percent after notorious ISP McColo
\nwas taken off-line by its upstream providers, and it took months for spam
\nlevels to rebound to the same volume. However, the results from the
\nPricewert takedown were not as dramatic.<\/p>\n
Alarmed by the predictions on climate refugees, humanitarian agencies warn
\nthat recent gains in the fight against poverty could vanish unless issues
\nof forced migration become an integral part of the dialogue on global
\nwarming. Attended by delegates from 184 countries, the Bonn conference is
\nmeant to serve as a precursor to a crucial United Nations Framework
\nConvention on Climate Change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. That summit is
\nexpected to produce agreement on how to tackle global warming after the
\nKyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for industrialized nations for
\nreducing greenhouse gas emissions, expires in in 2012.<\/p>\n
The US canceled more than $60 million in assistance to Nicaragua, citing
\nconcerns about democracy, rule of law and a free market economy. The board
\nof the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US-funded operation set up by
\nformer President George W. Bush to fight poverty in developing nations,
\nsaid it had cut $62 million from a $175 million program for Nicaragua.
\n“This decision is made with deep disappointment, as our partnership with
\nNicaragua has yielded tremendous progress over the past years in reducing
\npoverty through innovative economic growth projects. The cut in aid follows
\na suspension in new US assistance announced after the contested municipal
\nelections. Ortega accused the US of punishing the poor with the suspension
\nand defended the local elections, in which his Sandinistas won a majority
\nof municipalities. “Given the lack of meaningful reforms or progress in
\nthese areas by the government of Nicaragua, the board has agreed to
\nterminate these projects. The canceled projects include a property
\nregularization project and improvement of a road in Le\u00f3n department.
\nSecretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, said US assistance must be “as
\neffective and transparent as it is generous.”<\/p>\n
Indigenous groups say that large-scale mining is the most damaging. When
\nnew laws opened the Philippines up to international mining 10 years ago,
\ncompanies flooded in and wreaked havoc in indigenous communities. “I have
\nnever seen anything so systematically destructive. The environmental
\neffects are catastrophic as are the effects on people’s livelihoods. They
\ntake the tops off mountains, which are holy, they destroy the water sources
\nand make it impossible to farm. Mining generates or exacerbates corruption,
\nfuels armed conflicts, increases militarisation and human rights abuses,
\nincluding extrajudicial killings.”<\/p>\n
Stem rust destroyed more than 20% of U.S. wheat crops several times between
\n1917 and 1935, and losses reached nearly 9% twice in the 1950s. The last
\nmajor outbreak, in 1962, destroyed 5.2% of the U.S. crop. The fungus was
\nkept at bay for years by breeders who slowly and methodically incorporated
\ndifferent combinations of six major stem rust resistance genes into various
\nvarieties of wheat. The breeders thought it unlikely that the rust could
\novercome clusters of those genes at the same time. After several
\noutbreak-free decades, it seemed that stem rust had been defeated for good.
\nScientists switched to other topics, and the hunt for new resistance genes
\npractically slowed to a crawl.<\/p>\n
Many of the small island states in the eastern Caribbean depend on cruise
\nship arrivals as an important source of foreign exchange for their
\nvulnerable economies. A number of Caribbean states have reported confirmed
\ncases of the H1N1 swine flu, which was declared a pandemic by the World
\nHealth Organization. Venezuela has confirmed at least 45 cases, with no
\ndeaths. One person died from the virus in nearby Colombia.<\/p>\n
According to the FAO, the growth of hunger is not the result of a decline
\nin food production. Cereal production, for example, will only slightly
\ndecrease this year from 2008. Instead, \u201cthe poor are less able to purchase
\nfood, especially where prices on domestic markets are still stubbornly
\nhigh…. At the end of 2008, domestic staple foods still cost on average 24
\npercent more in real terms than two years earlier; a finding that was true
\nacross a range of important foodstuffs.\u201d In other words, the sharp growth
\nin hunger is due not to a lack of capacity, although global food production
\ncould be significantly increased given a rational and scientific allocation
\nof agricultural resources. Instead, the rise in social misery results from
\nthe fact that millions more people are now unable to afford the most basic
\nnecessities.<\/p>\n
The GFI report estimated that total illicit capital flight from developing
\ncountries was as high as $1 trillion per year during 2002-06. The illegal
\noutflows involve activities such as corruption (bribery and embezzlement of
\nnational wealth) and proceeds of licit business that becomes illicit when
\ntransported across borders in violation of laws and regulatory frameworks.
\nThis massive loss of assets is the greatest impediment to economic
\ndevelopment and poverty alleviation and should be of concern to all
\nnations.<\/p>\n
Millions of people living in Kenya’s slums are denied vital services and
\nlive under threat of harassment and forced eviction, posing a major threat
\nto the country’s security. Kenya’s capital hosts Africa’s biggest slum,
\nKibera. An estimated two million people live in Kibera, a slum called
\nMathare and other sprawling settlements in and around Nairobi. The
\ndevelopment of slums in urban areas has become the iconic symbol of the
\nforgotten marginalised people — excluded not only from basic services like
\nsanitation but also from the decision-making that takes place even about
\ntheir own lives.<\/p>\n
According to data from Cisco Systems, spam levels dropped about 30 percent
\nbut rebounded to normal levels quickly. Security experts say that following
\nthe dramatic McColo incident, spammers may have put better backup systems
\nin place to maintain control of their botnets of hacked computers.
\n“Obviously, this was not a McColo. They were ready for the takedown. We’ve
\nseen the backups pop up and have to get taken down and so on.”<\/p>\n
“The consequences for almost all aspects of development and human security
\ncould be devastating. Global warming fears overblown? The breakdown of
\necosystem-dependent livelihoods is likely to remain the main driver of
\nforced migration during the next few decades. In the Mekong River Delta,
\nfor instance, the sea level rising by 2 meters (6.5 feet) could mean the
\nloss of millions of acres of agricultural land, reducing it by half.
\nClimate change will exacerbate stressful conditions unless vulnerable
\npopulations, especially the poorest, are assisted in building
\nclimate-resilient livelihoods. It’s morally imperative for developing
\nnations to adopt policy that addresses these global change.<\/p>\n
A man was seriously injured after he fell from the overcrowded
\nSaharanpur-Ambala-Nangal passenger train between Haldari and Dukheri
\nstations today. The train, which plys between Saharanpr and Nangal Dam via
\nAmbala, was reportedly overcrowded with migrant labourers coming to Punjab
\nto find work during the paddy transplantation season. However, after
\nrumours spread that one person had died while another was injured due to
\novercrowding, the agitated commuters stopped the train at Dukheri and
\nransacked the station before assaulting a few labourers. One person, who
\nwas injured in the accident, was admitted to PGI Chandigarh with head
\ninjuries. On the other hand, a number of labourers sustained minor injuries
\nand were administered first aid at the Ambala station. They said despite
\nhaving valid tickets, they were assaulted.<\/p>\n
The arrival of dams, mining or oil spells cultural death for communities.
\nThe Dongria Kondh in Orissa, eastern India, are certain that their way of
\nlife will be destroyed when British FTSE 100 company Vedanta shortly starts
\nto legally exploit their sacred Nyamgiri mountain for bauxite, the raw
\nmaterial for aluminium. The huge open cast mine will destroy a vast swath
\nof untouched forest, and will reduce the mountain to an industrial
\nwasteland. More than 60 villages will be affected. “If Vedanta mines our
\nmountain, the water will dry up. In the forest there are tigers, bears,
\nmonkeys. Where will they go? We have been living here for generations. Why
\nshould we leave?” asks Kumbradi, a tribesman. “We live here for Nyamgiri,
\nfor its trees and leaves and all that is here.” Davi Yanomami, a shaman of
\nthe Yanomami, one of the largest but most isolated Brazilian indigenous
\ngroups, came to London to warn MPs that the Amazonian forests were being
\ndestroyed, and to appeal for help to prevent his tribe being wiped out.
\n“History is repeating itself”, he told the MPs. “Twenty years ago many
\nthousand gold miners flooded into Yanomami land and one in five of us died
\nfrom the diseases and violence they brought. We were in danger of being
\nexterminated then, but people in Europe persuaded the Brazilian government
\nto act and they were removed.<\/p>\n
A new strain of stem rust was identified on a wheat farm in Uganda in 1999.
\n“It didn’t draw a lot of attention, frankly. There’s very little wheat
\ngrown in Uganda.” East Africa is a natural hot spot for stem rust. Weather
\nconditions allow farmers to grow wheat year-round, so rust spores can
\nalways find a susceptible host. Some of the wheat is grown as high as 7,000
\nfeet above sea level, where intense solar radiation helps the fungus
\nmutate. The highlands are also home to barberry bushes, the only plant on
\nwhich stem rust is known to reproduce through sexual recombination. That
\ngenetic shuffling provides a golden opportunity for the fungus to evolve
\ninto a deadly strain.<\/p>\n
A Royal Caribbean Chief Executive said last week the flu outbreak had “a
\nshort, but highly disruptive impact to our operations,” although he added
\nvessels were returning to their original itineraries. The launch of a
\nPullmantur cruise ship targeting Mexican nationals, the Pacific Dream, had
\nto be canceled because of the H1N1 outbreak in Mexico, the epicenter of the
\npandemic.<\/p>\n
Three aspects of the present crisis that make it particularly severe.
\nFirst, it follows the rapid growth in food prices in the years 2006-2008.
\nThis bubble was driven in part by speculative activities of investors
\npouring money into commodities as the financial crisis developed. This
\npreceding surge in prices eroded any buffer created by households to cope
\nwith economic shocks. Second, the crisis is global. When economic crises
\nare confined to individual countries, or several countries in a particular
\nregion, governments can make recourse to instruments such as currency
\ndevaluation, borrowing or increased use of official assistance to face the
\neffects of the crisis. Third, poorer countries are \u201cmore financially and
\ncommercially integrated into the world economy\u201d and are therefore \u201cfar more
\nexposed to changes in international markets.\u201d They are highly susceptible
\nto rapid changes in global demand or supply and credit restrictions.<\/p>\n
“Places like Kibera are ticking time bombs. We see young people unemployed
\nin desperate conditions and they have no stake in creating stable society,”
\nIn a part of Kibera known as Soweto, sewage runs though ditches while
\npathways are littered with animal waste, garbage and human waste.
\nOvercrowding in Kibera is a huge problem and more than 800,000 people live
\non 250 hectares. Kenya was convulsed by ethnic violence after President
\nMwai Kibaki’s disputed re-election in December 2007, largely pitting
\nsupporters of opposition candidate Raila Odinga against backers of Kibaki
\nand the police.<\/p>\n
Simple changes can help address potential catastrophe. In flood-prone
\nBangladesh, for instance, CARE is helping women who raise chickens switch
\nto ducks. In other regions, it could mean something as simple as changing
\nwater-craving crops to more resilient foods. “So if the rains don’t come
\nwhen needed, you don’t lose an entire crop. Climate migration could climb
\nto staggering levels, its consequences reaching far and wide.<\/p>\n
International disaster relief charity ShelterBox has distributed aid to up
\nto 2,000 people whose homes were destroyed by Cyclone Aila which hit
\nBangladesh. A ShelterBox response team (SRT) arrived in the country days
\nafter the cyclone struck. ShelterBox completed the distribution of 200
\nShelterBoxes around the towns of Shyanmagar and Munshigaon, close to the
\nborder with India. The area took the brunt of the storm damage, which also
\naffected eastern India.<\/p>\n
But now 3,000 more miners and ranchers have come back. More are coming.
\nThey are bringing in guns, rafts, machines, and destroying and polluting
\nrivers. People are being killed. They are opening up and expanding old
\nairstrips. They are flooding into Yanomami land. Governments must treat us
\nwith respect. This creates great suffering. We kill nothing, we live on the
\nland, we never rob nature. Yet governments always want more. A warning to
\nthe world that our people will die.” This is a paradigm war taking place
\nfrom the arctic to tropical forests. Wherever you find indigenous peoples
\nyou will find resource conflicts. It is a battle between the industrial and
\nindigenous world views. There is some hope in that Indigenous peoples are
\nnow much more aware of their rights. They are challenging the companies and
\ngovernments at every point.<\/p>\n
Within a few years, Ug99 — named for the country and year it was
\nidentified — had devastated farms in neighboring Kenya, where much of the
\nwheat is grown on large-scale farms that have so far been able to absorb
\nthe blow. Then it moved north to Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen, putting more
\nsmall farms at risk. Those that can afford it are trying to make do with
\nfungicides, but that’s too cumbersome and expensive to be a long-term
\nsolution. To make matters worse, the fungus is becoming more virulent as it
\nspreads. Scientists discovered a Ug99 variant in 2006 that can defeat Sr24,
\na resistance gene that protects Great Plains wheat. Last year, another
\nvariant was found with immunity to Sr36, a gene that safeguards Eastern
\nwheat. Should those variants make their way to U.S. fields any time soon,
\nscientists would be hard-pressed to protect American wheat crops.<\/p>\n
Another related factor has been the way in which the US government has
\nmonopolized credit markets to fund its multi-trillion-dollar bank bailouts,
\nexploiting the privileged position of the American dollar to do so. Poorer
\ncountries do not have this privilege and are facing higher borrowing costs
\nas a consequence. Take note of the growth in interest rates for debt to
\n\u201cdeveloping countries\u201d along with the complete absence of available credit
\nfor some nations. The economic crisis has led to other rapid shifts in
\ncapital markets, including the drying up of foreign direct investment. Many
\npoorer countries are seeing a sharp decline in remittances from migrants,
\nby 5 to 8 percent. What is more, remittances have usually been resistant to
\nshocks and often even increased during economic crises in recipient
\ncountries. The countercyclical effect of these transfers is unlikely to
\nhappen this time due to the global dimension of the current recession.<\/p>\n
Both Kibera and Mathare became battle grounds during the post election
\nviolence that killed at least 1,300 people in east Africa’s biggest
\neconomy. Millions of dollars have been spent on government projects to
\nupgrade the slums but there is little to show for it on the ground.
\nCorruption is a big issue because a lot of assistance money has been
\nploughed into these slums, but it seems to be siphoned off.<\/p>\n
Without money or resources, climate refugees will likely stay within their
\nown borders, accelerating movement from rural areas to urban centers and
\ncrowding into cities already bursting at the seams. That could lead to
\ngovernment instability and further unrest. The challenge is to better
\nunderstand the dynamics of climate-related migration and displacement. New
\nthinking and practical approaches are needed to address the threats that
\nclimate-related migration poses to human security and well-being. Climate
\nchange is a formidable foe that must be tackled. One doesn’t want to see
\nthe hopes of the world’s poorest turned to dust.<\/p>\n
The recipients were so grateful. Whole villages had been destroyed and
\npeople were forced to live out in the open. The tents have given them the
\nopportunity to start rebuilding their lives. Each ShelterBox contains a
\n10-person tent, blankets, water purification and cooking equipment, basic
\ntools, a stove and other essential equipment.<\/p>\n
In Ecuador, Chevron may be fined billions of dollars if an epic court case
\ngoes against them. The company is accused of dumping, in the 1970s and
\n1980s, more than 19bn gallons of toxic waste and millions of gallons of
\ncrude oil into waste pits in the forests, leading to more than 1,400 cancer
\ndeaths and devastation of indigenous communities. The pits are said to be
\nstill there, mixing chemicals with groundwater and killing fish and
\nwildlife. The Ecuadorian courts have set damages at $27bn (\u00a316.5bn).
\nChevron, which inherited the case when it bought Texaco, does not deny the
\noriginal spills, but says the damage was cleaned up. Back in the Niger
\ndelta, Shell was ordered to pay $1.5bn to the Ijaw people in 2006 \u2013 though
\nthe company has so far escaped paying the fines. After settling with Ogoni
\nfamilies in New York this week, it now faces a second class action suit in
\nNew York over alleged human rights abuses, and a further case in Holland
\nbrought by Niger Delta villagers working with Dutch groups. Meanwhile,
\nExxon Mobil is being sued by Indonesian indigenous villagers who claim
\ntheir guards committed human rights violations, and there are dozens of
\noutstanding cases against other companies operating in the Niger Delta.<\/p>\n
Now the pressure is on to develop new wheat varieties that are impervious
\nto Ug99. Hundreds of varieties will need to be upgraded in the U.S. alone.
\n“You can’t just breed it into one or two major varieties and expect to
\nsolve the problem. You have to reinvent this wheel at almost a local level.
\nThe first step is to identify Ug99 resistance genes by finding wheat plants
\nthat can withstand the deadly fungus. Roughly 16,000 wheat varieties and
\nother plants have been tested in the cereal disease lab over the last four
\nyears. The tests were conducted when the Minnesota weather is so frigid
\nthat escaping spores would quickly perish. These and similar efforts at a
\nresearch station in Kenya have turned up only a handful of promising
\nresistance genes, which crop breeders are trying to import into vulnerable
\nstrains of wheat.<\/p>\n
The FAO also expects foreign aid to drop by 25 percent to the poorest 71
\ncountries. Total official development assistance (ODA) aid from all
\ncountries has been about $100 billion a year\u2014as compared to bank bailouts
\nrunning in the trillions and a US military budget of more than $500
\nbillion. Countries that rely on exports have been particularly hard hit by
\nthe economic crisis, and world trade is anticipated to fall between 5 and 9
\npercent this year. The implications of the rapid deterioration of the
\nglobal economy and the consequent decline in living standards for millions
\nof people were not lost on UN officials. The silent hunger crisis poses a
\nserious risk for world peace and security. A hungry world is a dangerous
\nworld. Many commentators pointed to the possibility of a repeat of the food
\nriots that broke out in 2008. Earlier, the G8 countries met to discuss the
\nglobal \u201cfood emergency.\u201d Little emerged from the conference save a mutually
\nexpressed concern about the danger of social upheaval and revolution.<\/p>\n
“Indigenous groups are using the courts more but there is still collusion
\nat the highest levels in court systems to ignore land rights when they
\nconflict with economic opportunities. Everything is for sale, including the
\nIndians’ rights. Governments often do not recognise land titles of Indians
\nand the big landowners just take the land.” Indigenous leaders want an
\nimmediate cessation to mining on their lands. A conference on mining and
\nindigenous peoples in Manila called on governments to appoint an ombudsman
\nor an international court system to handle indigenous peoples’ complaints.
\nMost indigenous peoples barely have resources to ensure their basic
\nsurvival, much less to bring their cases to court. Members of the judiciary
\nin many countries are bribed by corporations and are threatened or killed
\nif they rule in favour of indigenous peoples. States have an obligation to
\nprovide them with better access to justice and maintain an independent
\njudiciary. But as the complaints grow, so does the chance that peaceful
\nprotests will grow into intractable conflicts as they have in Nigeria, West
\nPapua and now Peru. “There is a massive resistance movement growing. But
\nthe danger is that as it grows, so does the violence.”<\/p>\n
Each year, hundreds of plants are crossed in a greenhouse to produce as
\nmany as 50,000 candidate strains. Those are winnowed down, and the most
\npromising 2,000 are planted in the field. Only the hardiest strains are
\nreplanted each year, until the 12-year process results in a single new
\nvariety with dozens of valuable traits, such as the ability to withstand
\ndrought and make fluffy bread. The oldest of the plants bred for Ug99
\nresistance are only 3 years old, but one of the strains has been planted in
\nthe field already in case the fungus hitches a quick ride to the U.S. on an
\nairplane or in a shipping container. In the absence of stem rust, it would
\nnot be the highest-yielding wheat. In the presence of stem rust, it would
\nbe the only thing that would survive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About 500 heavily armed Maoists encircled Chonha village under Dumaria police station of Gaya district and blasted the primary health centre, middle school building and community hall in the village using dynamite sticks and other explosives. Earlier, the Naxalites had blown up a police building in the same village. Incidentally, it was the eighth Maoist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[48,50,51,52,5,56,6,59,7,8,12,14,15,16,19,23,25,26,66,31,32,33,35,38,65,42,64,44],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1374"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1376,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}