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[omkarg]

Top 10 Lies Told by Monsanto on GMO Labeling in California

The battle in California over Proposition 37, which would require labeling of foods containing GMOs, is really heating up. Millions of dollars are already being poured into the opposition campaign, with much of it going to former Big Tobacco shills. Over at GMO HQ, Monsanto recently posted this missive called “Taking a Stand: Proposition 37, The California Labeling Proposal,” in which the biotech giant explains why it is opposing the measure (to the tune of $4.2 million so far).

Even for a corporation not exactly known for its honesty and transparency, this brief webpage is riddled with deception and outright falsehoods about the initiative and its proponents. Here are the ten most blatant examples:

1)  The law “would require a warning label on food products.”

No warning label would be required. Rather, the words “partially produced with genetic engineering” or “may be partially produced with genetic engineering” would be required on the back of the package – similar to what is now required for ingredient or allergen labeling. For whole foods, like the sweet corn coming soon to a Walmart near you, a sign would be posted on the store shelf with the words “genetically engineered.” The aim is simply to offer consumers additional information about the contents of the foods they purchase.

2) “The safety and benefits of these ingredients are well established.”

Unfortunately, no long-term studies exist on either the safety or benefits of GMO ingredients, so Monsanto has no basis for making such a claim. Indeed, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not even require safety studies of genetically engineered foods. Meanwhile, some independent studies raise questions about links to allergies and other potential health risks.

3) “The American Medical Association just re-affirmed that there is no scientific justification for special labeling of bioengineered foods.”

This statement, while true, is taken out of context and is misleading because the AMA also (for the first time) called for mandatory premarket safety studies of GMOs. As Consumers Union recently noted in its reaction to AMA’s announcement, labeling and testing logically go together:

The AMA’s stance on mandatory labeling isn’t consistent with its support for mandatory pre-market safety assessments. If unexpected adverse health effects, such as an allergic reaction, happen as a result of GE, then labeling could perhaps be the only way to determine that the GE process was linked to the adverse health effect.

4) Food companies “have had the choice” to use GM ingredients.

Choice is a good thing; however, consumers have never had the choice. Prop 37 will give consumers a long-overdue choice about eating genetically engineered food.

5) “FDA says that such labeling would be inherently misleading to consumers.”

Of course FDA refuses to require GMO labeling, thanks to Monsanto’s arm-twisting that began more than 20 years ago. Food Democracy Now’s Dave Murphy explained the FDA decision in May upon its 20-year anniversary, which came as a result of a broader deregulatory push by the first Bush Administration:

Twenty years ago this week, then-Vice President Dan Quayle announced the FDA’s policy on genetically engineered food as part of his “regulatory relief initiative.” As Quayle explained in the 1992 press conference, the American biotechnology industry would reap huge profits “as long as we resist the spread of unnecessary regulations.”

Dan Quayle’s 1992 policy announcement is premised on the notion that genetically engineered crops are “substantially equivalent” to regular crops and thus do not need to be labeled or safety tested. The policy was crafted by Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto lawyer who was hired by the Bush FDA to fill the newly created position of deputy commissioner of policy.

Five years earlier, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush visited a Monsanto lab for a photo op with the developers of Roundup Ready crops. According to a video report of the meeting, when Monsanto executives worried about the approval process for their new crops, Bush laughed and told them, “Call me. We’re in the dereg businesses. Maybe we can help.”

Call they did. It’s typical for corporations to get their policy agenda approved through back-channel lobbying and revolving door appointments and then point to the magical policy outcome as evidence of scientific decision making.

6) “Consumers have broad food choices today, but could be denied these choices if Prop 37 prevails.”

There is no basis in logic that consumers could be denied food choices. Indeed, Proposition 37 actually broadens the meaningful food choices available through greater transparency. Right now, people are eating in the dark.

7) “Interestingly, the main proponents of Proposition 37 are special interest groups and individuals opposed to food biotechnology who are not necessarily engaged in the production of our nation’s food supply.”

In fact, quite a large number of food producers, farmers, and others very much “engaged in the production of our nation’s food supply” support the campaign. (See the growing list of endorsements.) Speaking of “special interest groups” wouldn’t that label apply to the likes of Monsanto and all the industrial food producers who oppose Proposition 37?

8) “Beneath their right to know slogan is a deceptive marketing campaign aimed at stigmatizing modern food production.”

“Modern food production,” is that Monsanto’s latest euphemism for scientifically altering the genetic code of the food supply? In truth, nothing is hidden “beneath” the Right to Know campaign, that’s all it’s about. But because Monsanto has no good argument for why consumers don’t have the right to know how their food is produced, it has to resort to distracting deceptions.

9) “[Proponents] opinions are in stark contrast with leading health associations.”

Another look at the long list of Prop 37 endorsements reveal that Monsanto and friends are actually out of step with leading health associations, such as:

American Public Health Association

American Medical Students Association

American Academy of Environmental Medicine

Physicians for Social Responsibility, California chapters

California Nurses Association

10) “The California proposal would serve the purposes of a few special interest groups at the expense of the majority of consumers.”

Again, logic defies this talking point, especially since all polling indicates a “majority of consumers” want GMO food to be labeled. Indeed, the most recent California poll shows the proposition winning by a 3-to-1 margin. No wonder Monsanto has to resort to such nonsensical talking points.

via appetiteforprofit.com

[omkarg]

10 die per week in drug trials in India

Express news service : New Delhi, Mon Jul 09 2012, 03:11 hrs

The government will be analysing mortality figures during drug trials in India following WHO data showing that 2,031 people died between 2008 and 2011 in such trials in the country. That amounts to about 10 people per week, or more than one person a day.

At the same time, the data shows that only 1.5 per cent of clinical trials held across the world so far (2,770 of 1,76,641) have taken place in India — belying the perception of India emerging as the hub of such experiments.

“There are some diseases like cancer where mortality is high so a blanket statement about the number of deaths cannot convey anything. We have no figures to compare this (2,031 deaths in four years) with world statistics... So we are starting a project to get people to analyse these deaths, find out the causes, find out what effect the trial had on subjects and see from a scientist’s viewpoint,” said Secretary, Health Research, Dr V M Katoch.

The data showing that India has hosted only a minuscule amount of global clinical trials at least makes it clear that the country is not as big a centre as is being made out, he added.

Mortality rates in clinical trials in India have remained consistently high despite intermittent public outcry. While 438 deaths were reported in 2011, 668 died in 2010, 637 in 2009 and 228 in 2008, as per the World Health Organisation’s international clinical trial database.

Cautioning against jumping to any conclusions, Dr Katoch pointed out that data available with the clinical trial registry of India also shows that only 25 per cent of all trials in India are global trials. The others are for indigenous products.

... contd.

via indianexpress.com

[omkarg]

Images of Repression and Freedom: Exploring Human Rights Through Photography

In case you missed the Freedom House's Images of Repression and Freedom: Exploring Human Rights Through Photography auction, don’t worry! All 30 photos are now available to view online.

The images hailed from 17 different countries, including Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Sudan, and Syria and expressed the artists’ take on freedom, political participation, human rights, and repression.

   First Place Photo "Central Black"  by Isa Ibrahim Location: Sitra Village, Bahrain Date: March 22, 2011

[omkarg]

July 12, 2012: Global Freedom of Association Day. Mapping freedom of association and union rights around the world.

World map of trade union rights, 2012 edition 

Freedom of Association: Trade Union

[omkarg]

Mixed marriage in Europe as an indicator of social integration

Mixed marriages

The mixture as before

6 July 2012, by J.P.

MARRIAGE between people of different backgrounds is one of the best barometers of social integration, especially for migrants. Few things say that someone born abroad is becoming part of his or her adopted country than marrying a local. Unfortunately, getting good figures on “mixed marriages” is hard. Marriage licences and censuses contain all sorts of information, but not all of it useful. All the more reason, then, to welcome a new study on mixed marriages in Europe by Giampaolo Lanzieri.

Mr Lanzieri, who works at Eurostat, the European Commission’s statistical body, is one of the most careful students of social trends around. He defines “mixed marriage” as one between a native-born person living in a country and someone born abroad. This definition is clear and means his figures are consistent and comparable from country to country. The drawback is that it makes them imperfect guides to integration. If a man born in France of Algerian parents marries a girl from his parent’s home town, that counts as a “mixed marriage” (he was born in France, she in Algeria). But it is the opposite of integration through marriage. If, on the other hand, a British man of Caribbean extraction marries a white British girl, that does not count as a mixed marriage, even though it is clearly an example of ethnical and racial integration.

Still, despite these qualifications, these are the best national figures going and the only ones that cast a clear and consistent light on marriages with foreigners in Europe. They show three trends.

First, mixed marriages are inching up almost everywhere. In 25 of the 30 countries, there were more mixed marriages in 2008-10 than there had been in 2005-07. That might suggest that at the intimate level of family formation, “ever closer union” is becoming more of reality in Europe - though in most countries, the share of the total population of marriageable age actually married to a foreigner is low, below 5%.

Second, there is substantial variety in the level. In the Baltic states, more than 15% of married couples include one spouse born abroad. At the other end of the spectrum, the figure for Romania and Bulgaria is below 0.5%. As the chart shows, there seems to be a broad north-south divide. Marriages to a foreigner are more common in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and France, than they are in Italy, Spain and South East Europe. 

Third, as a general rule, the smallest countries have the most mixed marriages, such as Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Baltic states. These countries tend to have close personal ties with their larger neighbours (and that is true even when, as in the Baltic states, political relations are bad). Linguistic ties matter too. German-speaking Swiss tend to marry Germans; French-speaking Swiss marrying French people.

The research also hints that Britain may have less immigrant assimilation than it sometimes imagines. Britain has somewhat fewer mixed marriages than France. The difference is not great but 8.8% of British marriages include a foreign-born spouse compared with 11.8% in France. Mixed marriages as a share of the total population of marriageable age are also lower in Britain (4.2%) than in France (5.6%). The difference seems to be concentrated among immigrant men. Foreign-born British men are much less likely to marry a local woman than foreign-born French men are. Only 28% of married British men born abroad are married to native-born British women, compared with 39% of married foreign-born French men. The explanation may be to do with Britain’s unusually open labour market, rather than the extent of immigrant assimilation (the labour market allows foreign men working in Britain to bring their families with them, skewing the figures). But whatever the reason, the result is that Britain has fewer mixed marriages than one might have expected. It is in the middle of the European range, not (as it might have been thought) nearer the top, along with France and Germany.

via economist.com

[omkarg]

We were wrong on peak oil. There's enough to fry us all

A boom in oil production has made a mockery of our predictions. Good news for capitalists – but a disaster for humanity

George Monbiot

2 July 2012

The great profusion of life in the past – fossilised in the form of flammable carbon – now jeopardises the great profusion of life in the present.' Illustration by Daniel Pudles

The facts have changed, now we must change too. For the past 10 years an unlikely coalition of geologists, oil drillers, bankers, military strategists and environmentalists has been warning that peak oil – the decline of global supplies – is just around the corner. We had some strong reasons for doing so: production had slowed, the price had risen sharply, depletion was widespread and appeared to be escalating. The first of the great resource crunches seemed about to strike.

Among environmentalists it was never clear, even to ourselves, whether or not we wanted it to happen. It had the potential both to shock the world into economic transformation, averting future catastrophes, and to generate catastrophes of its own, including a shift into even more damaging technologies, such as biofuels and petrol made from coal. Even so, peak oil was a powerful lever. Governments, businesses and voters who seemed impervious to the moral case for cutting the use of fossil fuels might, we hoped, respond to the economic case.

Some of us made vague predictions, others were more specific. In all cases we were wrong. In 1975 MK Hubbert, a geoscientist working for Shell who had correctly predicted the decline in US oil production, suggested that global supplies could peak in 1995. In 1997 the petroleum geologist Colin Campbell estimated that it would happen before 2010. In 2003 the geophysicist Kenneth Deffeyes said he was "99% confident" that peak oil would occur in 2004. In 2004, the Texas tycoon T Boone Pickens predicted that "never again will we pump more than 82m barrels" per day of liquid fuels. (Average daily supply in May 2012 was 91m.) In 2005 the investment banker Matthew Simmons maintained that "Saudi Arabia … cannot materially grow its oil production". (Since then its output has risen from 9m barrels a day to 10m, and it has another 1.5m in spare capacity.)

Peak oil hasn't happened, and it's unlikely to happen for a very long time.

A report by the oil executive Leonardo Maugeri, published by Harvard University, provides compelling evidence that a new oil boom has begun. The constraints on oil supply over the past 10 years appear to have had more to do with money than geology. The low prices before 2003 had discouraged investors from developing difficult fields. The high prices of the past few years have changed that.

Maugeri's analysis of projects in 23 countries suggests that global oil supplies are likely to rise by a net 17m barrels per day (to 110m) by 2020. This, he says, is "the largest potential addition to the world's oil supply capacity since the 1980s". The investments required to make this boom happen depend on a long-term price of $70 a barrel – the current cost of Brent crude is $95. Money is now flooding into new oil: a trillion dollars has been spent in the past two years; a record $600bn is lined up for 2012.

The country in which production is likely to rise most is Iraq, into which multinational companies are now sinking their money, and their claws. But the bigger surprise is that the other great boom is likely to happen in the US. Hubbert's peak, the famous bell-shaped graph depicting the rise and fall of American oil, is set to become Hubbert's Rollercoaster.

Investment there will concentrate on unconventional oil, especially shale oil (which, confusingly, is not the same as oil shale). Shale oil is high-quality crude trapped in rocks through which it doesn't flow naturally.

There are, we now know, monstrous deposits in the United States: one estimate suggests that the Bakken shales in North Dakota contain almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia (though less of it is extractable). And this is one of 20 such formations in the US. Extracting shale oil requires horizontal drilling and fracking: a combination of high prices and technological refinements has made them economically viable. Already production in North Dakota has risen from 100,000 barrels a day in 2005 to 550,000 in January.

So this is where we are. The automatic correction – resource depletion destroying the machine that was driving it – that many environmentalists foresaw is not going to happen. The problem we face is not that there is too little oil, but that there is too much.

We have confused threats to the living planet with threats to industrial civilisation. They are not, in the first instance, the same thing. Industry and consumer capitalism, powered by abundant oil supplies, are more resilient than many of the natural systems they threaten. The great profusion of life in the past – fossilised in the form of flammable carbon – now jeopardises the great profusion of life in the present.

There is enough oil in the ground to deep-fry the lot of us, and no obvious means to prevail upon governments and industry to leave it in the ground. Twenty years of efforts to prevent climate breakdown through moral persuasion have failed, with the collapse of the multilateral process at Rio de Janeiro last month. The world's most powerful nation is again becoming an oil state, and if the political transformation of its northern neighbour is anything to go by, the results will not be pretty.

Humanity seems to be like the girl in Guillermo del Toro's masterpiece Pan's Labyrinth: she knows that if she eats the exquisite feast laid out in front of her, she too will be consumed, but she cannot help herself. I don't like raising problems when I cannot see a solution. But right now I'm not sure how I can look my children in the eyes.

Twitter: @georgemonbiot

via guardian.co.uk

[omkarg]

British MP Alan Duncan issues memo at DFID banning jargon

 A Tory minister has issued a stern memorandum to his staff banning them from using jargon words such as “going forward”, “leverage” and “mainstream”

By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent

22 Jun 2012

Describing himself as a 'grammar fascist', Alan Duncan MP has issued a memo accusing officials at the Department for International Development of damaging Britain’s worldwide reputation by using “language that the rest of the world doesn’t understand” Photo: EDDIE MULHOLLAND

Describing himself as a “grammar fascist”, Alan Duncan MP has issued a memo accusing staff at the Department for International Development of damaging Britain’s worldwide reputation by using “language that the rest of the world doesn’t understand”.

The memo which was issued by his private office sets out the sort of language that the “MoS” – Minister of State – no longer wants to read from his civil servants either in internal briefings or in documents issued by the department.

It says: “The MoS would prefer that we did not ‘leverage’ or ‘mainstream’ anything, and whereas he is happy for economies to grow, he does not like it when we ‘grow economies’.

“Nor is he impressed with the loose and meaningless use of ‘going forward’, either at the beginning or the end of any sentence. Thus we do not ever ‘access’, ‘catalyse’, ‘showcase’ or ‘impact’ anything. Nearly as depressing for him is reading about DFID’s work in ‘the humanitarian space’.”

The memo which was published on the department’s internal website last week orders officials to think how a member of the public will interpret any written information before sending it out.

It says: “All our communication must be immediately explicable to the non-DFID reader. Clear language conveys clear thought. Its poor use suggests sloppy thinking.

“Officials are therefore required to express themselves in sentences which can be parsed and with grammar that sets a high standard.

“It irks when nouns are used as verbs, apostrophes are left off (or misplaced), compound adjectives (such as UN-led) are not hyphenated, and sentences are begun with ‘But’ or ‘However’.”

The page long note continues that Mr Duncan “funds it annoying when conjunctions such as ‘which’ or ‘that’ are inexplicably dropped in a way which ruins the flow and logic of a sentence.

“He would also prefer to meet someone than ‘meet with’ them. Likewise, a sentence which begins with ‘Grateful for your…’ would appear to be lacking the prefix ‘I would be…’.”

The memorandum goes on to say that “submissions should have a logical flow and not attempt to fill the page with every conceivable fact that can be retrieved by cut and paste.”

It concludes with further instruction on the type of letterhead that should be used, and the styling for how phone numbers are listed.

Mr Duncan, perhaps aware that his memo could damage morale in his department, concludes on a lighter note. The memo ends: “Disclaimer: MoS is always willing to be challenged about his judgement on grammatical standards and will not take offence at a properly reasoned opinion.”

Mr Duncan is not the first minister to complain about grammatical standards in his department. Last December it emerged that Department for Transport had issued a 1,500-word report listing ministers’ pet grammatical hates.

via telegraph.co.uk

[omkarg]

Was Angela Merkel von Elinor Ostrom lernen kann

13. Juni 2012

Hubert Beyerle

Wie es mit dem Euro weitergeht, hängt, so sieht es nun aus, vor allem von Angela Merkel ab. “Angela, können wir denn nicht mal endlich die Maschinen anwerfen?” fragt der „Economist“ in einem Titel-Cartoon mit einem längst untergegangenen Tanker. Selbst in Washington schaut man mit Sorge auf Berlin, weil man glaubt, es hinge nun alles in Europa vom Wort der Kanzlerin ab. Wird sie bei ihrer Meinung bleiben, oder wird sie sie ändern – dazulernen oder umfallen, je nach Blick?

 Das Prinzip der Europäischen Union war bislang das: gemeinsame Sache, aber getrennte Kasse. Ein bisschen Hilfe für Krisenländer war gerade noch okay, so lange sie „freiwillig“ geschieht, nicht auf der Basis von vertraglichen Verpflichtungen. Aber eine Haftungsgemeinschaft in Europa oder für den Euro, das kam nicht in Frage. „No-bailout“, wenigstens nicht verpflichtend. Euro-Bonds und eine Bankenunion also nur dann, wenn klar ist, dass der, der Geld und Garantien gibt, vorher auch mitredet. Merkel nennt es die Fiskalunion. Dann wären tatsächlich auch Euro-Bonds, also gemeinsame Anleihen, für die letztlich die Deutschen haften, denkbar. Aber das ist noch weit hin.

Warum ist sie so stur? Sie hat eben ihren Ökonomen zugehört, denn die sagen auch nur das, was der gesunde Menschenverstand sagt: So sagte sie am Dienstag vor dem Wirtschaftsrat der CDU in Berlin: “Gemeinsame Haftung und gemeinsame Kontrolle müssen in einer Hand liegen.” Alles andere, also Euro-Bonds vor Klärung der Haftung würde „Das Pferd von hinten aufzäumen“.

Keine Frage: Die Angst vor der gemeinsamen Kasse ist begründet. Es geht sicher um eine der wichtigsten und schwierigsten Entscheidungen in Europa seit den Römischen Verträgen. Trauen die Deutschen den anderen Europäern genug, um das Prinzip der gemeinsamen Kasse zu akzeptieren – hinter das es dann wohl kein Zurück mehr gäbe?

Am gleichen Tag, als Angela Merkel diesen seltsamen, etwas redundant klingenden Satz mit „gemeinsamer Haftung“ und „gemeinsamer Kontrolle“ „in einer Hand“ sagte, starb in Amerika in ihrer Heimat Bloomington in Indiana, Elinor Ostrom, die 2009 als erste und bislang einzige Frau den Wirtschaftsnobelgedenkpreis erhalten hat. Was haben Ostroms Ideen mit Merkels Entscheidungsproblem zu tun?

Ostrom bekam den Nobelpreis, weil sie “challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized”, so das Nobelkomittee damals zur Begründung.

Dass Gemeinschaftsgüter vor die Hunde gehen, weil sich keiner richtig drum kümmert. Von der WG-Küche über die Fischschwärme in den Weltmeeren und dem Weltklima – das Problem ist aus der Sicht von Standardökonomen immer das Gleiche: So lange keiner den Hut auf hat, geht alles vor die Hunde. In den 60er Jahren beschrieb ein Biologe das als „Tragedy of the Commons“, also als Tragödie der Allmende. Ihm folgten 40 Jahre Privatisierung und Aufteilung von Gemeinschaftsland in Afrika und Lateinamerika. Immerhin begann der Kapitalismus ja auch mit den Einhegungen von gemeinschaftlichem Weideland in England im 17. Jahrhundert. Fortschritt gab es nur mit Privatbesitz, hieß es eben.

Nun zeigte Ostrom mit ihren Forschungen, dass das nicht immer stimmt. In bestimmten Fällen funktioniert die gemeinsame Wirtschaft, wenn auch vor allem in traditionellen Agrargesellschaften, in der Fischerei oder der alpinen Almwirtschaft. Kann man das übertragen auf die moderne Welt? Zweifel sind berechtigt. Immerhin aber gibt es auch in der Internet-Ökonomie offensichtlich zunehmend Situationen, in denen das Privateigentum nicht mehr überzeugt.

Aber könnten Ostroms Ideen helfen bei der Frage nach der Euro-Haftung? Ostrom fand heraus, dass Menschen auch mit gemeinschaftlichem Besitz vernünftig wirtschaften können, wenn bestimmte Bedingungen erfüllt sind. Einige Gesellschaften scheitern, in anderen funktioniert es. Sie müssen dazu eine besondere Art von Selbst-Organisation entwickeln, die nicht automatisch passiert, die aber auch nicht immer gleich ist.

Zu diesen Bedingungen zähen etwa eine klare Definition der Akteure, persönliche Bekanntschaft und Überschaubarkeit (also keine Anonymität), ein gutes Monitoring, Regeln  und Sanktionen, Mechanismen zur Konfliktlösung, Kongruenz zwischen Kosten und Nutzen der Kooperation und noch ein paar mehr.

Gelten diese Bedingungen – zum Teil wenigstens – vielleicht doch für die Finanzen der Euro-Zone? Die Zahl der Akteure, nämlich die Regierungen, ist überschaubar, Staatsfinanzen lassen sich im Prinzip gut beobachten, usw. Darüber ließe sich ja mal nachdenken.

Merkels Position ist in Deutschland sehr populär und gilt als common sense. Aber sie ist natürlich nicht „alternativlos“. Vielleicht sind die Regierungen der Euro-Zone doch in der Lage, den Euro als Common Good, als Gemeinschaftsgut, zu „bewirtschaften“. Bislang hat es nicht gut geklappt. Musste es so kommen? Oder lag es nicht auch daran, dass man Anreize gegen Schuldensünden geschaffen hat, die mehr an die Regeln der Schulbücherei erinnern?

Und wieso glaubt das gleiche Deutschland beim Klimaschutz daran, dass es hilft, mit gutem Willen der Welt voran zu gehen? Eben für’s große Gemeinwohl, mit wirtschaftlichem Nutzen als Beigabe? Ganz absurd scheint uns Deutschen diese Logik ja offenbar nicht zu sein.

Das Nobelkomitee schrieb 2009: „Beyond showing that self-governance can be feasible and successful, Ostrom also elucidates the key features of successful governance. One instance is that active participation of users in creating and enforcing rules appears to be essential. Rules that are imposed from the outside or unilaterally dictated by powerful insiders have less legitimacy and are more likely to be violated. Likewise, monitoring and enforcement work better when conducted by insiders than by outsiders. These principles are in stark contrast to the common view that monitoring and sanctioning are the responsibility of the state and should be conducted by public employees.An intriguing outcome of these field studies concerns the willingness of individual users to engage in monitoring and sanctioning, despite only modest rewards for doing so. In order to ascertain more about individuals’ motivations for taking part in the enforcement of rules, Ostrom has conducted innovative laboratory experiments on cooperation in groups. A major finding is that many people are willing to incur private costs in order to sanction free-riders.“

Wenn man das Euro-Problem so analysiert, als ob die Akteure, also die Regierungen, anonyme, unkontrollierte und Gewinn-maximierende Privatakteure sind, kommt man natürlich zu einem anderen Schluss.

via wirtschaftswunder.ftd.de

[omkarg]

Sprouting success in Senegal: trees offer growing solution to Sahel

Farmers are finding that restoring soils with trees boosts crops in a region where drought has caused successive food crises

Cathy Watson

11 June 2012

Farmer Abdou Sall's newly regenerated trees in Kaffrine, Senegal. Photograph: Cathy Watson

Abdou Sall, 62, is a farmer in Kaffrine in Senegal's peanut basin. Peanut production has declined by two-thirds across the district in the past 15 years, which like the rest of the Sahel is in the grip of its third drought in a decade.

Sall is buoyant, however. He says his trees have shielded him from the hunger that affects as many as 18 million people across eight west African countries. "Last year there was lack of rain, but I had fewer problems than others. When it rained, the humidity stayed longer on my fields."

Since 2009, Sall has practised farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR), protecting wildlings and pruning stumps that coppice so they rapidly grow or regrow into trees. The conventional wisdom is that trees compete with crops, but FMNR has increased millet harvests from 430kg to 750kg a hectare, according to World Vision, which supports 39,000 hectares (96,000 acres) of FMNR in Kaffrine.

At a conference at the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi in April, scientists endorsed FMNR. "Fallowing used to take care of fertility, contributing 80-90% of all organic material in soil," said agro-ecologist Roland Bunch. "But today 80% of African farmers have under two hectares and cannot rest their land. Restoring soils with trees is key." Trees such as Faidherbia albida fix nitrogen in the soil.

Nevertheless, scanning Sall's fields at the end of the nine-month dry season, it is hard to account for the reported leap in yields. The sandy land has just a few large trees and the scattered young ones are only three to 15ft tall. But World Vision's Charles Bakhoum says that, after three to four years, a hectare of land under FMNR typically has 37-40 trees compared with six to seven where farmers clear all vegetation before sowing. And that seems to be enough to make a difference.

Sall is sure he knows how trees boosted his crop. They reduce the wind that blows away topsoil, and they provide shade to livestock, who drop manure and urine. Tree leaf litter forms humus, adding organic matter to the earth. "I do not need fertiliser now," says Sall.

Since he started re-greening, the ecosystem has begun to repair. "Now more tree seedlings come up with the rains," says Sall. Bush pigeons, guinea fowl, rabbits and jackals have returned.

His fields contrast with the bare, bleak ones of his neighbour, who has neatly burned the residue from last year's harvest and hacked away all regenerating stumps, the key to FMNR.

"Stumps are remnants of an underground forest that has been cleared and is waiting to be released," says Tony Rinaudo, the Australian missionary who stumbled across FMNR in the 1980s in Niger and went on to develop the technique. "50% of the biomass is under the ground."

Most indigenous trees in Africa coppice when cut, their stumps looking like tangled weeds and valueless scrub to the unknowing eye. But when the farmer selects the tallest and straightest stems and culls the rest, trees rapidly regrow.

"The best results from FMNR are attained when the farmer regularly prunes any unwanted new stems and side branches as they appear," says Rinaudo. The cuttings provide wood for cooking.

FMNR is far more successful than tree planting; west Africa has had legions of failed reforestation schemes. "I have no desire to plant trees," says Sall. "I do not think they will survive and also I have plenty coming up." Bakhoum says: "We have shut our central nurseries and basically abandoned tree planting. Less than 5% of our seedlings survived."

Donors are anxious to curb the food crises that are striking at ever narrowing intervals – in the Sahel in 2005, 2010 and 2012. "Building the resilience of communities by strengthening their agricultural practices is essential," says the UN World Food Programme deputy regional director for west Africa, Claude Jibidar. Aware of FMNR's ability to build resilience, the WFP is giving food for work to 5,000 FMNR farmers in Kaffrine.

FMNR increases resilience beyond its impact on soil. The leaves and fruit of trees in the Sahel are valued food and not only in times of extreme hunger. Near Sall's farm, teenage girls perch in trees, collecting the leaves of tamarind and the sugary fruit of Cordyla pinnata. Like baobab leaves, both make sauce for couscous.

Children suck the vitamin C-rich fruit of Balanites aegyptica (which tastes like apricot), while women crack its kernels for oil. A metal press stands nearby; goats will eat the remains. A woman has cut Anogeissus leiocarpus branches for forage for cattle.

FMNR is not seamless. "You have to be courageous," says Sall. "People steal my trees." A rumour that land under FMNR is to be seized has created fear, resistance and non-adopters. And World Vision regional food security adviser Claude Nankam thinks FMNR has limits. "We need to go further to conservation agriculture with trees – FMNR with no till farming and more rational use of manure."

But FMNR, new to Senegal, has undoubtedly worked elsewhere. In Humbo in Ethiopia, FMNR has re-greened 2,800 hectares: springs, dry for 30 years, are flowing again. And in Niger, FMNR has re-greened 5m hectares with 200m trees.

via guardian.co.uk

[omkarg]

Civil society organizations calls on the EU to re-commit to Rio Principles

Published on 12 June 2012 

Danish minister Ida Auken, EU commissioner Janez Potocnik and Danish expert Mikkel Aaro-Hansen at the Environment Counicil this week. (Photo: European Council)

Civil society organizations from around the world are calling on the EU to unreservedly re-commit, in both letter and spirit, to the Rio principles adopted 20 years ago. EU Environment Ministers, who meet in Luxembourg on Monday 11 June, are being urged to demonstrate that EU policies and practices pursued within and outside the EU will be consistent with the principles of sustainable development.

In light of the upcoming UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio2012), to be held in Rio de Janeiro from 20-22 June 2012, Social Watch, Eurostep, the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), the Third World Network (TWN), the Asociación Latinoamericana de Organizaciones de Promoción (ALOP) and LDC Watch have sent a letter to EU Environmental Ministers.

Whereas the EU has affirmed its commitment to contribute to a successful outcome of Rio2012, its policies are not always in line with rhetoric, the letter reads, calling upon the Union to take its responsibilities towards a global sustainable development agenda seriously.

With Rio2012 summit just days away the outcome is in jeopardy as differences on fundamental issues remain. “It is all too evident that safeguarding national economies is being prioritized over global sustainability in positioning towards the outcome,” said Roberto Bissio, Coordinator of Social Watch. “But contentious competition over the Earth’s limited resources cannot lead to sustainable development,” he continued.

“We are already consuming significantly more environmental resources than our planet can sustainably replenish and climate change effects keep advancing”, the letter reads, warning that the “failure to address our mounting levels of ecological debt can only diminish the already declining scope to achieve sustainable solutions”.

The letter was issued shortly after EU Commissioner for Environment, Janez Potočnik, had expressed his disappointment with the lack of progress achieved during the latest round of negotiations on the Rio2012 agenda, at UN level. Potočnik warned that the “inability to agree on actions needed to cope with the problems of finite resources, unsustainable development and mass poverty” could provide future generations with unpayable costs.

The EU has promoted itself as a global leader in the negotiations, on the basis of its “green” credentials and the principles and values on which it is founded. “The EU’s principles resonate well around the world but there is considerable concern over their application,” stated Ziad Abdel Samed, Director of the Arab NGO Network for Development.

“All too often the EU’s actions are not consistent with the principles it promotes. This undermines its claim as a credible global leader. For the EU to be consistent with the principals and values that it espouses it must demonstrate its commitment to fundamental changes in its policy framework based on the principles adopted in Rio 20 years ago, including the principle of common but differentiated responsibility,” added Ziad Abdel Samed.

The EU has been promoting the concept of the Green Economy as the path towards sustainability. “The EU’s proposals for the green economy do not address the root causes of the crisis, nor fundamentally tackle inequalities and power imbalances. Nor would they sufficiently regulate corporate sector activities,” stated Simon Stocker, Director of Eurostep. “The radical changes necessary must be reflected in reforms to national economies. There are many examples of good practices implemented at the local level and these must increasingly be promoted and drawn upon as sound solutions for sustainability.”

The meeting of the EU Environment Council is taking place just before the final negotiations on the outcome of the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio2012) opens in Rio de Janeiro. The conference will bring together some 110 world leaders, and is seen as a crucial moment in defining a global strategy to agree global strategies for achieving sustainable development.

The civil society organization’s letter reads as follows:

Brussels, 8 June 2012

Dear Minister for Environment,

The failure of last week’s negotiations in New York to make significant progress on an agreed outcome of the Rio2012 conferences is of great concern. Given the little time that is left, and the entrenchment of positions on fundamental issues, the prospect for any meaningful conclusion is clearly bleak. Yet the consequences of failure are alarming. If, as scientific assessments indicate, we are already consuming significantly more environmental resources than our planet can sustainably replenish and climate change effects keep advancing, then failure to address our mounting levels of ecological debt can only diminish the already declining scope to achieve sustainable solutions.

Negotiating positions are clearly determined by national interests to secure and safeguard the access and use of natural resources for economic recovery and growth, and poverty eradication is a priority for developing countries. Contentious competition over the Earth’s limited resources cannot lead to sustainable development. On the contrary it will reduce future options for achieving sustainability.

The EU has championed itself as an ambitious UN partner and has devoted much of its energy in trying to convince other UN members, in particular developing countries, to agree to implement green economy strategies. Without doubt the use of more efficient ecological practices is a vital component to promoting sustainability, but can only be part of the solution. Without radical reforms in approaches to economic development sustainability will not be achieved. The concept of the green economy, as presented by the EU, has raised concerns and many believe that corporate interests will be its main beneficiaries. The proposals for the green economy do not address the root causes of the crisis, nor fundamentally tackle inequalities and power imbalances. Nor would they sufficiently regulate corporate sector activities.

The EU’s promotion of fundamental principles such as equity, human rights and the integration of the three pillars of Sustainable Development is also viewed with caution. While these principles resonate well around the world there is considerable concern that their application as identified in EU proposals to the conference will re-enforce inequality and inequity rather than the contrary. In the context of existing EU trade and economic policies and practices, they are seen as a part of the EU’s strategies to increase opportunities for its own interests. Furthermore, EU policies and positions, such as the promotion of biofuel cultivation obstruct the realization of the right to food, as well as undermine the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) in the context of Rio2012 negotiations. This demonstrates the lack of coherence between the fundamental principles previously mentioned and the EU’s actual actions.

Clearly the EU faces testing economic and fiscal challenges. A viable and sustainable economy in Europe is vital for its own citizens, as well as for the rest of the world too. But more of the same, even with increased ecological efficiency is not a solution. For the EU to show real leadership in the pursuit of true sustainable development strategies and to be consistent with the principals and values that it espouses it must demonstrate its commitment to fundamental changes in its policy framework based on the principles adopted in Rio 20 years ago. It must demonstrate a commitment to ensuring that policies and practices pursued within and outside the EU are consistent with the principles of sustainable development.

In Rio it must reaffirm the Rio principles that are essential to equity and sustainable development, particularly the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), polluter pays principle, the precautionary principle and Principle 10 on access to information, public participation, and environmental justice. These principles must serve as guiding principles for the implementation of all action plans and initiatives to be agreed in Rio.

The EU must also clearly demonstrate its willingness to provide the necessary means for developing countries to achieve sustainable development, consistent with commitments made in various UN fora and treaties. Even in the current challenging economic and financial circumstances the EU has capacity to provide new and additional financial resources, help build capacity and transfer technology on favorable, concessional and preferential terms to developing countries (JPOI). This is vital for a successful outcome in Rio to be possible and for the EU to be seen as a credible and ambitious partner for sustainable development.

The EU puts great emphasis on the private sector and market based mechanisms in its approach to the green economy. While we recognize the important contribution the private sector can make towards a sustainable economy being realized, this is not inevitable as some will act in ways that hinder such a goal. Distinctions need to be made between different actors within the private sector and the roles that they play. Small and medium sized enterprises are the major generators of employment. They are more likely to be rooted in local communities, and be accountable to national regulations and accountability. The corporate sector is less responsive to national interests and strategies. Regulatory frameworks for corporate sector activities that are consistent with, and derived from, the principles for sustainable development and human rights as well as appropriate mechanisms for transparency and accountability, must be put in place, at both national and international levels.

Governments must be at the forefront of the designing and implementation of policies promoting sustainable development, and public leadership and financing must be at the centre of any strategies contributing to its achievement. There are many examples of good practices implemented at the local level; these must increasingly be promoted and drawn upon as sound solutions for sustainability. For the necessary radical changes to be achieved such practices must be encouraged, and must be reflected in reforms to national economies, while at the same time striving for global standards and norms to be adopted at the UN level particularly with regard to global economic reforms.

Yours sincerely,

Simon Stocker Director of Eurostep

Ziad Abdel Samad Director of ANND

Roberto Bissio Director of Social Watch

Chee Yoke Ling Director of Programme Third World Network

Dr. Arjun K. Karki   International Co-ordinator of LDC Watch

More information Letter from the six civil society networks: http://bit.ly/MGjWlq

Source Eurostep: http://bit.ly/LhrI37

via socialwatch.org

[omkarg]

Aung San Suu Kyi: the woman who never sought to lead

One evening early this year in Rangoon, a 65-year-old woman went to the cinema – on the face of it an unremarkable occurrence. Except for the fact that the woman was Aung San Suu Kyi and the films she was watching, on a makeshift screen in a shopping mall, showed monks on the march, beatings by riot police, apparent abductions, and even firefights between ethnic minority militias and the army.

The screening was unprecedented; nothing like it had occurred in the 50 years since the military had taken power. Between 1988, when the democracy movement had first been bloodied in clashes with the authorities, and mid-2010, when change had begun to come, participating in such an event would have meant imprisonment, torture, possibly death.

Now, a second screen outside the hall relayed the images for a crowd of hundreds gathered on the pavement.

Among them was Ei Thu, a 28-year-old accountant. "I don't really care about politics but I love Aung San Suu Kyi. I don't care what party she is from. I want her to be president," she said.

The pro-democracy leader watched the images of violence and repression impassively. Only after the screening, when a young man, head of security for the youth wing of her National League of Democracy and one of Burma's best-known hip-hop artists, took the stage to perform did she smile. A measure of how fast Burma is changing is that the 31-year-old musician became a member of parliament in recent elections.

For a long time the world paid little attention to Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi may have enjoyed a global celebrity on a level with Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama but few people could pronounce her name or point on a map to the city where she lived. This too is changing.

Aung San Suu Kyi was born in 1945 in the middle of a war as British forces, aided by nationalists, ousted the Japanese invaders. Her father was Aung San, the rough-tongued, charismatic leader of the Burmese effort for independence from their imperial overlords.

This is, many say, the primary determining factor of her personality and her life. She delivered her first major political speech at a vast rally at the Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon in 1988, beneath a giant screenprint of the father of the nation.

"It is difficult to overestimate the importance of her father, and what he did, for her," says Peter Popham, Aung San Suu Kyi's biographer.

Critics point out that she fits the familiar local profile of the dynastic heir to power. But though across much of Asia, the sons or daughters of colonial liberators or later leaders either hold high offices or are close to doing so, Aung San Suu Kyi, despite her background, never sought to lead.

A long-standing acquaintance said the influence of her parents explains why she accepted the role when asked to assume it, with all the sacrifices it would entail. Aung San was assassinated when his daughter was two years old and she was raised by her formidable mother.

"She was very strict, very hardworking … with high moral standards. If [Aung San Suu Kyi] got ambition from her father, she got a very strong sense of duty from her mother," the friend said.

A journalist remembered how, during a relatively frosty interview in the mid-1990s, the only question that elicited any warmth was about her mother.

Aung San Suu Kyi's upbringing was pure south Asian elite and this shows, at least in her icily correct interactions at the press conferences and functions she is now having to attend. First she attended one of the most exclusive schools in Burma. Then, when her mother was appointed ambassador to Delhi, she was sent to equally exclusive English-language institutions there.

The cool exterior is somewhat deceptive. Nirmal Khanna, one of her teachers in Delhi, remembers a "quiet modest girl who was a good debater".

Others remember a sharp wit. The philosopher Mary Warnock, who taught Aung San Suu Kyi at Oxford, remembered her as "totally untouched by the sexual aspirations of her friends, naive in a way, but sure-footed and direct in all her dealings … [who] found many things hilarious, not least her tutorials".

In 1972, after living and working in New York for the United Nations, she married Michael Aris, a Tibet scholar at the university whom she had met through mutual friends. Her marriage and domestic life in suburban north Oxford have given rise to what one acquaintance called the "myth of the housewife".

Though she pursued further studies and wrote, Aung San Suu Kyi did bring up children, darn socks and run grocery errands. But she was also, the acquaintance said, "still very conscious of being the daughter of Aung San". And from early on in their marriage, the couple were aware that one day the call of duty might separate them.

That call came when Aung San Suu Kyi was 42. Incompetent economic management over 26 years of army rule had impoverished most Burmese, despite their country being one of the most promising, resource-rich Asian nations.

In 1988, a series of demonstrations and strikes, often bloodily repressed, disturbed the country. By chance, she was in Rangoon, having returned to nurse her dying mother. As the daughter of the "father of the nation", she was the obvious choice to lead the disparate protesters.

Reluctantly but inexorably, she was drawn in. She helped found the National League for Democracy and threw herself into campaigning. Her husband and sons returned to Britain without her.

In July 1989 she was placed under house arrest for the first time. The results of elections in 1990, won categorically by the NLD after energetic campaigning, were ignored.

The pro-democracy leader remained imprisoned – largely under house arrest in her rundown family home on the banks of Inya lake in Rangoon – for the best part of the next two decades. There was an assassination attempt, periods of ill health and a spell of detention in the terrible Insein jail.

One witness remembered Aung San Suu Kyi and Tin Oo, a highly decorated senior soldier and pro-democracy activist, attacked by government goons in Rangoon in the mid-90s: "Their car had its windows smashed and Tin Oo came out bleeding and shouting. But Suu stepped out very composed, her face just a tiny shade paler than normal.

"Despite hundred of thugs nearby with knives and sticks she stood on a stool in the street and briefly spoke her usual message about how everybody has to work for democracy, and warned supporters not to react to the violence and to go home peacefully. As if nothing had happened."

Aung San Suu Kyi saw her husband for the last time in 1995 when he visited Burma four years before his death from cancer.

The regime had made it clear that she could travel overseas whenever she wanted, but it was also clear that she would not be allowed to return. "She has been attacked for being cold or unfeeling but she couldn't show the regime she was suffering. Her anguish was genuine and profound," said Popham, the biographer.

In November 2010, three years after a new wave of bloodily repressed protests dubbed the saffron revolution and to the surprise of virtually all observers, Aung San Suu Kyi was released. The regime appeared to have decided that, to preserve any power and wealth, they needed Burma to partake in the rapid local economic growth. This, the argument went, was impossible while under sanctions and without an element of political reform.

Despite the challenges Aung San Suu Kyi now faced as leader of the democracy movement, "there was a lightness to her", said one reporter who interviewed her shortly after her release. Others describe her as "mischievous, funny, relaxed".

Since, though the reforms have been steadily consolidated, an election held which saw her gain a seat in parliament and sanctions suspended, "the Lady" appears more, rather than less, careworn.

The question now being asked is whether the strength of character and determination that saw Aung San Suu Kyi through the decades of detention will serve her as well in the complex, fast-shifting new political environment.

There is also a concern that she has become the personification of Burmese democracy and this is dangerous.

"If the west put the whole focus on [Aung San Suu Kyi] that could be very misleading. We trust in her and her intuition but this is all happening very quickly," U Win Tin, one of the founders of the NLD, told the Guardian in January.

And how will Aung San Suu Kyi, who has repeatedly said she detests being described as a saint or an icon, cope with the adulation she will receive this week? On Thursday she appeared to bend over in pain before vomiting at a press conference in the Swiss capital, Bern.

"I don't understand why people say that I am full of courage. I feel terribly nervous," she told journalists.

"It's a duty," said the friend, who requested anonymity fearing Burma's still powerful security agencies. "I expect she will visit her husband's grave [in Oxford] but the emotional side will be sealed off.

"She is a very private person after all, a bookworm really, she once said. So she protects herself."

Potted profile

Born: 19 June 1945

Age: 66

Career: Campaigner for democracy and human rights

High point: Release from house arrest in November 2010 and successive subsequent releases of Burmese political prisoners

Low point: Separation from and eventual death of her husband from cancer in 1999

What she says: "It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."

What they say: "Her grace and forbearance despite all she has been through is a lesson to us all" Desmond Tutu

via guardian.co.uk

[omkarg]

Rio+20 a chance to engage smallholder farms in sustainable agriculture

Ifad's Kanayo Nwanze wants Rio+20 to put smallholder farmers at the centre of the agriculture debate

Mark Tran

13 June 2012

Farmers dig zai pits in Kitui, eastern Kenya. Photograph: Mark Tran for the Guardian

The draft outcome document of the Rio+20 summit mentions smallholder farmers – many of them women – in growing acknowledgment of their importance in terms of food security, with the continued threat of famine in the Sahel, and environmental sustainability, as farming accounts for at least 14% of global greenhouse emissions.

That smallholder farmers are on the agenda is gratifying for Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad), one of the three UN food agencies based in Rome. The Nigerian national, who has worked for 30 years in poverty reduction through agriculture, rural development and research, will be championing the cause of smallholder farmers in Rio next week.

Nwanze said smallholder farmers have gained tremendous importance in the past five years, beginning with the L'Aquila initiative in 2009, in which the G8 industrialised countries pledged to invest $22bn in agriculture in the developing world to boost food security.

"It has been fascinating to see the importance given to small farmers now compared with 20 years ago, when they were considered not sustainable because of their slash and burn techniques," Nwanze said in a telephone interview from Rome. "Now they are considered among the most sustainable private-sector enterprises in terms of family inputs and their relation to the land. Smallholder farmers were specifically mentioned by President Obama at Camp David last month [in the G8 food security initiative]."

Nwanze, who will be chairing a corporate sustainability forum in Rio, said he was looking for two things from the summit. First, he wants agriculture to remain pivotal in any agreement coming out from negotiations.

"There is not a trade-off between agriculture and the environment," he said. "It's both. It comes down to sustainable intensified systems and the engagement of small farmers. Secondly, governments have to take leadership and champion change, bring agriculture to the fore and the centrality of small farmers and 'climate smart' agriculture."

By climate smart agriculture, Ifad means the use of techniques that take into account climate change, extreme conditions of drought and flooding. Such techniques already exist, from terracing to prevent soil loss through erosion and flooding, minimum or zero tillage, coupled with crop rotation and the application of manure, compost or mulching. Agroforestry is also cited as a way of building up resilience, combining trees with agricultural crops or livestock, where trees improve soil quality by capturing nutrients from deep in the soil, as well as acting as a bulwark against erosion.

Ifad's rural poverty report 2011 said that, since the 1980s, new agroforestry systems have been built by farmers on 5 million hectares (12 million acres) in Niger's Maradi and Zinder regions, helping to produce more than 500,000 additional tonnes of food annually.

As Nwanze explained, the green revolution in the 1970s resulted in spectacular achievements. India, for example, increased its rice production between 1970 and 2008 from 63m to 148m tonnes and its wheat production nearly quadrupled from 20m to 78m tonnes. But the intensive use of inputs – pesticides and fertilisers – was not sustainable, hence a return to local innovations and the knowledge and seed varieties.

But as Olivier De Schutter, the UN's special rapporteur on the right to food, has argued, it is unrealistic to seek sustainable progress in combating rural poverty simply through technology. Just as important are what he calls the political economy of food systems and the question of bargaining power. He points out that small-scale farmers are often not organised enough to have a strong bargaining position in the food chain. They buy their inputs at retail prices and sell their crops at wholesale prices, because they cannot negotiate fair prices. De Schutter argues that farmers must be encouraged to form co-operatives and unions, and governments encouraged to involve such organisations in the design and implementation of public policies.

Nwanze certainly sees eye to eye with De Schutter on the question of collective power of smallholder farmers, although they probably part company on the use of technology and the role of the private sector (De Schutter is more sceptical of the private-sector role).

"The best way to create the conditions for poor farmers to grow their businesses is to support and work with their organisations," Nwanze said in a speech to the World Farmers' Organisation last week. "This is why farmers' organisations are Ifad's business partners in almost every country where we operate."

Nwanze cited examples of where Ifad has helped smallholders to organise themselves, including a project in Egypt, where farmers supply fresh oranges and mozzarella cheese to resorts in Sharm-el-Sheikh, and export sweet peppers and sun-dried tomatoes to Italy and the US. Most impressively, the farmers' associations have a contract with Heinz, the food giant, which buys 6,000 tonnes of tomatoes a year from 300 project farms.

The world's 500m smallholder farms provide up to 80% of food in developing countries so their significance should not be overlooked at Rio. Vietnam provides a telling example of how small farmers can prove a potent force for development. It has gone from being a food-deficit country to a major food exporter, and is now the second largest rice exporter in the world, largely through development of its smallholder farming sector. In 2007, the poverty rate fell below 15% compared with 58% in 1979. That is the kind of record Nwanze would like to see replicated in Africa.

via guardian.co.uk

[omkarg]

Syrian forces killing and sexually abusing children, says UN

Report into children and armed conflict says children have been tortured and used as human shields by forces loyal to Assad

Haroon Siddique and agencies

12 June 2012

UN observers in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Photograph: Youssef Badawi/EPA

Syrian government forces and militia loyal to the Assad regime are killing and sexually abusing children and using them as human shields, the UN says, amid fears that the conflict is intensifying.

Kofi Annan said he was "gravely concerned" about the escalation of fighting in Syria, citing the shelling of opposition areas in central Homs province and reports of mortar, helicopter and tank attacks in the town of Haffa and its surrounding villages in Latakia province on the Mediterranean coast. The US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland voiced fears about reports that the regime "may be organising another massacre" in Latakia, where UN monitors have been impeded.

The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon's annual report on children and armed conflict during 2011 included Syrian government forces and the allied shabiha for the first time on a list of 52 governments and armed groups that recruit, kill or sexually attack children in armed conflicts. "In almost all recorded cases, children were among the victims of military operations by government forces, including the Syrian armed forces, the intelligence forces and the shabiha militia, in their ongoing conflict with the opposition, including the Free Syrian Army," the report said.

The report quoted a witness to an attack on the village of Ayn l'Arouz in Idlib province on 9 March 2012 in which several dozen boys and girls between the ages of eight and 13 were forcibly taken from their homes and "used by soldiers and militia members as human shields, placing them in front of the windows of buses carrying military personnel into the raid on the village". The UN said it had collected dozens of witness accounts from children as young as 14 who were tortured in detention, as well as from former members of the Syrian military who were forced to witness or carry out acts of torture, the report said.

Most child victims of torture described being beaten, blindfolded, subjected to stress positions, whipped with heavy electrical cables, scarred by cigarette burns and in one case subjected to electrical shock to the genitals, the report said. One witness reported seeing a boy about 15 years old die as a result of repeated beatings.

The UN's special representative for children and armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, told the BBC: "We are really quite shocked. Killing and maiming of children in cross-fire is something we come across in many conflicts but this torture of children in detention, children as young as 10, is something quite extraordinary, which we don't really see in other places."

She also criticised the rebel Free Syrian Army for endangering children by placing them on the frontline, albeit mainly in mainly in medical and service orientated jobs.

More bloodshed was reported early on Tuesday. The Local Co-ordination Committees activist group said 11 people had been killed when government troops shelled a protest in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, bordering Iraq, after more than 100 people were killed on Monday. The British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights put Monday's death toll at 82, with clashes between military forces and rebel fighters in Homs, Idlib and Latakia provinces. Syrian activists say 13,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011. Restrictions on access to foreign media make the death tolls impossible to verify.

The US and UK have refused to rule out military intervention but appear wary of entering another conflict as they attempt to exit Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia and China have constantly warned against foreign interference and have already vetoed two UN security council resolutions which threatened sanctions against the Assad regime.

via guardian.co.uk