Monthly Archives: October 2010

Military, Peace, USA

After Service, Veteran Deaths Surge

Bay Citizen
Suicides, vehicle accidents and drug overdoses take lives. Veteran Suicides Outnumber US Military Deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By Aaron Glantz on October 16, 2010 – 2:00 p.m. PDT
In the six years after Reuben Paul Santos returned to Daly City from a combat tour in Iraq, he battled depression with poetry, violent video games and, finally, psychiatric treatment. His struggle ended last October, when he hung himself from a stairwell. He was 27. Continue reading After Service, Veteran Deaths Surge →

Food Security

Global food crisis forecast as prices reach record highs

The Guardian
Cost of meat, sugar, rice, wheat and maize soars as World Bank predicts five years of price volatility

An Indian farming family An Indian farming family carry bundles of paddy from a rice field in the northeastern state of Tripura. India has had food price inflation of 17% in the last year. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Rising food prices and shortages could cause instability in many countries as the cost of staple foods and vegetables reached their highest levels in two years, with scientists predicting further widespread droughts and floods.

Although food stocks are generally good despite much of this year’s harvests being wiped out in Pakistan and Russia, sugar and rice remain at a record price. Continue reading Global food crisis forecast as prices reach record highs →

Peru

Passionist order supports priest charged in Peru land battle

ROME (CNS) — A Passionist missionary on trial in Peru for allegedly inciting a riot has ministered constantly among the poor and has worked tirelessly to defend their rights, including the right to care for the land they have been farming to support their families, said the superior general and top officers of the Passionist order. Continue reading Passionist order supports priest charged in Peru land battle →

Brazil, Environment, Water

Severe drought afflicts Brazilian Amazon

BBC

Boy plays with paddle on the dried up bed of the Negro river Some rivers are at their lowest level in decades

The Brazilian government has announced $13.5m (£8.6m) in emergency aid for Amazon regions hit by the worst drought in decades.

The money will fund water pumping and purification, as well as food deliveries to towns cut off by the drop in river levels.

The Brazilian air force has already flown 500 tonnes of supplies to areas that usually depend on water transport. Continue reading Severe drought afflicts Brazilian Amazon →

trafficking

SAINT JOSEPHINE BAKHITA (of Dafur) – VICTIM OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Ursulines of the Roman Union

There’s a move under way in Oregon (USA) to seek Vatican approval for a patron saint of human trafficking and slavery victims.

St. Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese slave-turned-nun, is the ideal saint for people whose labor and bodies are being exploited, says Brian Willis. He’s a member of St. Mary Cathedral in Portland who has worked for years to help women who have been forced into the sex trade.  Trafficking, despite the name, does not require the crossing of international borders. “You can be born and raised and live in the same house and be a trafficking victim,” says Willis. “It is about exploitation.” Continue reading SAINT JOSEPHINE BAKHITA (of Dafur) – VICTIM OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING →

Zimbabwe

Debt Crowds Out Essential Spending on Health

By Stanley Kwenda

HARARE, Oct 18, 2010 (IPS) –

An activist's t-shirt displays the message of the ZIMCODD anti-debt campaign. / Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

Zimbabwe’s debt burden of about 8,3 billion dollars, owed to internal and external institutions, is crowding out essential national budget items such as health and basic services, with detrimental effects for particularly women. Continue reading Debt Crowds Out Essential Spending on Health →

Peru

Inambari dam: a ticking time bomb

Latin American Press

Puerto Manoa is one of the dozens of communities that will be flooded for for the dam. (Photo: aldosantosblogspot.com)

Hydroelectric project that will displace thousands strokes tensions.

Ramiro Escobar

“Starting here, we´ll be underwater,” says Aldo Santos, who works for the nongovernmental organization Rural Educational Services, as his truck drove along a stretch of the Inter-Oceanic Highway. Continue reading Inambari dam: a ticking time bomb →