Food Crisis Out of Control

Just got this in an email. Kindly view and sign the petition. Please share with others.

Thank You

Kind Regards

Dear friends,

Rocketing prices threaten to starve millions and make us all less secure — sign the emergency petition for action to stop the world food crisis Sign the Petition Watch the Video

Have you noticed food costing more when you shop? Here’s why — we’re plunging headlong into a world food crisis. Rocketing prices are squeezing billions and triggering food riots from Bangladesh to South Africa. Aid agencies say 100 million more people are at risk of starvation right now[1]. In Sierra Leone alone the price of a bag of rice has doubled, becoming unaffordable for 90% of citizens[2]. Fears of inflation stalk the whole world, and the worst could be yet to come.

We need to act now — before it’s too late. As Ban Ki-Moon holds a high-level UN meeting on the crisis, we’re launching an urgent campaign with African foreign minister and human rights campaigner Zainab Bangura. Click below to see Zainab’s video message and add your name to the food crisis petition — we need to raise 200,000 signatures by the end of this week to deliver a massive global outcry to leaders at the UN, G8 and EU:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_food_crisis/9.php

The prices of staple foods like wheat, corn and rice have almost doubled, and the crisis is slipping out of control — so we’re calling for immediate action on emergency food aid, speculation and biofuels policy, while asking forthcoming summits to tackle deeper problems of investment and trade.[3]

The global food crisis touches and connects us all, creating a tsunami of hunger for the poor and damaging economies and squeezing citizens in the rich world too. But solutions are on the horizon if leaders act fast [4] — sign the petition at the link below now, then forward this email and ask friends and family to do the same:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_food_crisis/9.php

With hope,

Paul, Galit, Ricken, Graziela, Iain, Mark, Pascal and the whole Avaaz team

Sources:

1. BBC: “How to stop the global food crisis”: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7365798.stm

“The New Economics of Hunger”, Washington Post, 27 April 2008 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/26/AR2008042602041_pf.html

2. Zainab Bangura, Foreign Minister of Sierra Leone, video message to Avaaz members http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_food_crisis/9.php

3. Chinese news citing World Bank figures: http://www.cctv.com/english/20080426/102406.shtml

Reuters: “Rising food prices to top UN agenda” http://www.reuters.com/article/gc08/idUSL1890947220080424

4. See BBC article above, and “Rising Food Prices” by Alex Evans (Chatham House report) http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/11422_bp0408food.pdf

UN scientific report on fixing the world food system: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7347239.stm

The Guardian: “Credit crunch? The real crisis is global hunger”, George Monbiot http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/15/food.biofuels

———-

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Israel limits impact of aid to Palestinians: World Bank

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Billions of aid dollars pledged to the Palestinians to bolster peace talks with Israel are having a muted economic impact because of Israeli restrictions on travel and trade, the World Bank said on Sunday.

The lending agency told donor nations in a report that per capita income in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 2008 would be static, if not lower, despite the $7.7 billion in aid pledged to the Palestinians in December.

The World Bank said modest gains in economic growth in the occupied West Bank, where Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas’s government holds sway, were not sufficient to offset the “severe contraction” seen in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Israel tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip after the Islamist group’s takeover in June from more secular Fatah forces loyal to Abbas.

“While the PA (Palestinian Authority) has moved ahead with its economic reforms, albeit slowly, there has been little progress on relaxing movement and access constraints,” the bank said in the report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

The World Bank said the impact of these restrictions, including hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank, “cannot be overestimated.”

Abbas responded to Gaza’s takeover by sacking a Hamas-led unity government and by appointing his own administration in the West Bank.

Western aid, frozen after Hamas won control of the Palestinian Authority in January 2006 elections, has since resumed to Abbas’s government to bolster final-status peace talks launched with Israel in November.

But those talks have shown little sign of progress and Israel has balked at removing major West Bank checkpoints and roadblocks, arguing that they are necessary to stop suicide bombers from reaching its cities. Palestinians call the obstacles collective punishment.

While the International Monetary Fund has projected growth of 3.0 percent in 2008, the World Bank said: “Taking into account population growth, it can be concluded that under the current movement and access restrictions, per capita incomes will drop or remain the same.”

The World Bank said Israel’s tightened cordon of the Gaza Strip has “considerably eroded whatever private sector backbone remained in the economy, and in a manner that is progressively more difficult to reverse.”

The bank, citing business associations in Gaza, said the current restrictions have led to the suspension of 96 percent of Gaza’s industrial operations.

Following a recent visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israel announced plans to remove 61 barriers in the West Bank. But a U.N. survey subsequently found that only 44 of the 61 obstacles had been removed and that most of them were of little to no significance.

(Writing by Adam Entous; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source

Open Letter on ‘Toronto 11′ to Authorities from 19 Groups

By Combined Sources

4-24-08, 11:42 am

Authorities Asked to Consider Reasonable Bail Terms and Re-examination of Solitary Confinement for ‘Toronto 11′

- For Immediate Release -

(Ottawa, Canada – April 22, 2008) – In an open letter, the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN) in partnership with the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), Federation of Muslim Women (FMW), Islamic Ahlul Bayt Assembly of Canada, Islamic Circle of North America Canada (ICNA Canada), Islamic Society of North America Canada (ISNA Canada) and Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), along with an additional 11 organizations, today asked authorities to consider reasonable bail terms and re-examine the use of solitary confinement for the “Toronto 11.”

In the letter the 19 organizations wrote:

Subject: Authorities asked to consider reasonable bail terms and re-examine solitary confinement for ‘Toronto 11′

April 22, 2008

During the week of April 14, 2008, charges against four more of the “Toronto 18″ were stayed. Along with the three men who were previously released, the case of the “Toronto 18″ has now been whittled down to the “Toronto 11.”

As representatives of Canada’s Muslim communities, we are committed to Canada’s security, while also ensuring that due process and civil liberties are respected. Thus, in consideration of the public knowledge we have of the cases, and the impact the proceedings have had on the accused and their families, we are requesting an end to solitary confinement and that their right to reasonable bail be seriously considered.

Citizens of conscience, including Canada’s Muslims, are deeply concerned about the status of each of the remaining 11 men still facing trial. It appears that our government, intelligence and law enforcement agencies have cast an extremely “wide net” in their quest to catch criminals and terrorists in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedies. As a direct result, innocent persons continue to be harassed, interrogated, detained, arrested and incarcerated. The reputations of many have been smeared and lives reduced to tatters.

This phenomenon has been exemplified in the cases of Maher Arar and Project Thread. The Arar case, as citizens are aware, resulted in a public inquiry and Mr. Arar’s complete exoneration. In the less well-known Project Thread case, 24 South Asian men were wrongly labelled as terrorists. They had their lives turned upside down. Ultimately, despite the media circus, no terror related or criminal charges were even laid. Most were deported on minor immigration offences.

It is now clear that the lives of seven more men and boys and their families have been irreparably harmed. Initially assumed to be part of the “Toronto 18″ plot, some of these men and boys have, as a result, spent nearly two years of their lives in jail. The majority were held in solitary confinement for 23½ hours a day. They have now been released and charges against them stayed.

Balancing the pursuit of law, order, peace and security with the protection of individual human rights and civil liberties is a difficult task, especially when the balancing process involves individuals who may be unpopular. Are we, as a society, prepared to suspend basic rights, such as freedom of association and the presumption of innocence, in the name of anti-terrorism?

Ten of the initial “Toronto 18″ remain incarcerated pending trial. Three men continue to be held in solitary confinement. Extreme isolation, conditions more severe than the majority of Canada ’s convicted murderers and rapists are subject to, is hardly appropriate for persons who have not been found guilty by our justice system. Perhaps it is time that the use of solitary confinement in the case of the Toronto 11 be re-evaluated, especially given its extensive use in the cases of the seven who were recently released.

Like any other individual who is subject to the operation of the law, each of the remaining accused have the right to be granted reasonable bail terms, as the court deems appropriate. This Charter right should be seriously considered, especially if strong sureties are provided to ensure that bail conditions will be fully respected.

It is in this spirit that we respectfully submit that the rights of the remaining accused be given every consideration and protection under the law. We respectfully request that the use of solitary confinement for the Toronto 11 be re-evaluated. Finally, having regard to all of the circumstances, we respectfully ask that their requests for bail be given the fullest consideration.

Sincerely,
Ihsaan Gardee

Director of Community Relations
Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations
CAIR-CAN

On behalf of:

Canadian Arab Federation (CAF)
Canadian Coalition for Peace and Justice
Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN)
Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC)
Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association (CMCLA)
Canadian Muslim Forum (FMC-CMF)
DawaNet Canada
Federation of Muslim Women (FMW)
Islamic Ahlul Bayt Assembly of Canada
Islamic Circle of North America Canada (ICNA Canada )
Islamic Society of North America Canada (ISNA Canada )
Islamic Society of Toronto
Muslim Community Council of Ottawa-Gatineau (MCCOG)
Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM)
Muslim Association of Canada (MAC)
Ottawa Muslim Association (OMA)
Salaheddin Islamic Centre
South-Western Ontario Muslim Students’ Association
Young Muslims Canada

Source

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By: Combined Sources

Published: 04/24/2008 11:41

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Is Al-Gore Leading by Example?

Hmm! today I searched Youtube for “The Inconvenient Truth” and instead found something else. Quite frankly, I used to be a fan but now I am only Dissapointed.

U.S. Preparing Military Options Against Iran

Let’s pray they won’t start another war, amin. If they did, I would say its pretty unpatriotic. The Iraq war is having its toll not only on the Iraqi people but also on the American people. I am afraid this crisis might turn into a third World War God forbid.  Please do anything in your capacity, given your circumstances, to do something about this issue.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Says U.S. Preparing Military Options Against Iran

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer

25/04/08 “Washington Post” — – The nation’s top military officer said today that the Pentagon is planning for “potential military courses of action” against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government’s “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq.

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a conflict with Iran would be “extremely stressing” but not impossible for U.S. forces, pointing specifically to reserve capabilities in the Navy and Air Force.

“It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability,” he said at a Pentagon news conference.

Still, Mullen made clear that he prefers a diplomatic solution to the tensions with Iran and does not foresee any imminent military action. “I have no expectations that we’re going to get into a conflict with Iran in the immediate future,” he said.

Mullen’s statements and others by Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently signal a new rhetorical onslaught by the Bush administration against Iran, amid what officials say is increased Iranian provision of weapons, training, and financing to Iraqi groups that are attacking and killing Americans.

In a speech Monday at West Point, Gates said that Iran “is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.” He said a war with Iran would be “disastrous on a number of levels. But the military option must be kept on the table given the destabilizing policies of the regime and the risks inherent in a future Iranian nuclear threat.”

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who was nominated this week to head all U.S. forces in the Middle East, is preparing a briefing soon to lay out detailed evidence of increased Iranian involvement in Iraq, Mullen said. The briefing will detail, for example, the discovery in Iraq of weapons that were very recently manufactured in Iran, he said.

“The Iranian government pledged to halt such activities some months ago. It’s plainly obvious they have not. Indeed, they seem to have gone the other way,” Mullen said.

He said recent unrest in the southern Iraqi city of Basra had highlighted a “level of involvement” by Iran that had not been understood by the U.S. military previously. “It became very, very visible in ways that we hadn’t seen before,” he said.

But while Mullen and Gates have recently stated that the Tehran government certainly must know of Iranian actions in Iraq, which they say are led by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, or Quds Force, Mullen said he has “no smoking gun which could prove that the highest leadership [of Iran] is involved in this.”

© 2008 The Washington Post Company

Source

Global Food Crisis Spread

Just got this in an email. Kindly subscribe to Mercy Corps if you are interested in what they have to say. Please donate if you are capable of doing so.

Rising Food Prices Impact Families Worldwide

Rising food prices impact the amount of food we provide for Iraqi refugee families. Photo: David Snyder for Mercy Corps

If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you know that a “perfect storm” of factors — including soaring fuel prices, erratic weather and growing demand for biofuels — is pushing global food prices up dramatically.

Surging food prices often hit those who can afford it the least — the very people who Mercy Corps supports in our programs around the world.

Reports from our staff around the world confirm that the situation is dire — and has the potential to grow much worse.

• In Niger, prices of bread, powdered milk and wheat flour have spiked, exacerbating the West African nation’s precarious food situation. Last December, more than three million Nigeriens didn’t have enough food to meet their minimum nutritional needs; today, shortages are pushing the country closer to famine.
• In Syria, spiraling food prices have forced Mercy Corps to cut back on the amount of food we can buy and distribute to hundreds of Iraqi refugee families.
• In Tajikistan, where we recently distributed blankets and generators to help residents keep warm during an unusually harsh winter, about 40 percent of households are down to no more than one warm meal a day. Neighboring Kazakhstan has suspended wheat exports — shutting off Tajikistan’s primary supply of the grain.

We need your help to make sure rising food costs don’t imperil our work — helping communities recover from disaster, expanding economic opportunities in the wake of conflict, and supporting hard-working families in their quest to bring positive change to their communities.

Please make a gift today. Your contributions will ensure our programs continue to bring about lasting change in the midst of the worst global food crisis in recent memory.

Donate now >

U.S. to Insist That Travel Industry Get Fingerprints

U.S. to Insist That Travel Industry Get Fingerprints

By Spencer S. Hsu and Del Quentin Wilber

23/04/08 “

Washington Post” — – The U.S. government today will order commercial airlines and cruise lines to prepare to collect digital fingerprints of all foreigners before they depart the country under a security initiative that the industry has condemned as costly and burdensome.

The proposal does not say where airlines must collect fingerprints — at airport check-in counters, departure gates or kiosks somewhere in between. But the government estimates the undertaking will cost airlines $2.3 billion over 10 years, a U.S. homeland security official said.

The overall economic impact on companies, passengers and the government is expected to exceed $3.5 billion, industry lobbyists said, at a time when carriers are struggling with safety concerns, high fuel costs and passenger complaints.

Formal announcement of the plan to track the departure of foreign visitors, as part of the Homeland Security Department’s US-VISIT program, comes after an extended battle between the security agency and airlines.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff linked the effort to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws recently, saying airlines were obstructing the measure for commercial reasons.

“If we don’t have US-VISIT air exit by this time next year, it will only be because the airline industry killed it,” Chertoff said recently. “We have to decide who is going to win this fight. Is it going to be the airline industry, or is it going to be the people who believe we should know who leaves the country by air?”

Doug Lavin, regional vice president for the International Air Transport Association, which represents major U.S. and international carriers, said the government, not airlines, should collect fingerprints. “This is ludicrous,” Lavin said. “We can’t afford anything in the billions to support a program that should be a government program.”

Fingerprinting an estimated 33 million departing foreign passengers a year will result in “delayed departures, missed connections here and around the world,” Lavin said.

Launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, US-VISIT is intended to automate the processing of visitors entering and exiting the country, using fingerprints and digital photographs to help find criminals, potential terrorists and people who overstay visas and join the nation’s illegal immigrant population.

While the program has succeeded in recording nearly 100 million people entering the country since 2004, the DHS has struggled to implement the exit portion. Frustrated at the department’s slow pace, Congress last year set a June 2009 deadline for DHS to collect fingerprints from departing air passengers in a law to implement recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

Otherwise, Congress said, the government cannot expand the Visa Waiver Program, under which residents of 27 friendly countries can visit the United States without a visa. Inclusion is a priority for nations including South Korea and Greece, and the tourism industry has also targeted South America for expansion.

The proposal will be open for a 60-day comment period. DHS could decide after that time where fingerprinting must be conducted, or it could leave the decision up to airlines, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the proposal has not been formally announced.

© 2008 The Washington Post Company

Source

UN Cuts School Children’s Meals

Once again the poor suffer the wrath of war, environmental changes, use of biofuel etc. Britain is willing to donate $US 900 million to this cause. I am not so sure which other countries are going to take action against this.

I think, WE – the PEOPLE of the DEVELOPED WORLD, should start caring about our own way of living and how it impacts others. WE should undergo this process of self-realization and self-amendment. I need to work on this too. From experience, I realize, it’s a life long struggle. But as long as some positive change can be implemented, it’s all cool.

At the end of this news article, I have put some resources that would help us take action against this.

UN Cuts School Children’s Meals

By Jeremy Lovell in London

23/04/08 “SMH” — – A “SILENT tsunami” unleashed by costlier food is threatening 100million people, the United Nations has warned, revealing that its World Food Program has begun cutting the provision of school meals to some of the world’s poorest children as the global food-price crisis worsens.

Aid bodies said there was enough food to go round but the key was to help the poor afford it, and urged producing nations not to curb exports to stockpile food at home.

In London, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said Britain would seek changes to EU biofuels targets if it was shown that planting crops for fuel was driving up food prices – a day after the bloc stood by its plans to boost biofuel use.

Britain has also pledged $US900million ($947 million) to help the UN World Food Program alleviate its immediate problems and address longer-term solutions to “help put food on the table for nearly a billion people going hungry across the world”.

In a meeting of experts which Mr Brown called on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, the head of the World Food Program, Josette Sheeran, said a “silent tsunami” threatened to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger.

“This is the new face of hunger; the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are,” she said.

Riots in poor Asian and African countries have followed steep rises in food prices caused by many factors: rising demand from consumers in developing countries such as China and India, the effect of climate change on food production, dearer fuel and the conversion of land to grow crops for biofuel.

Rice from Thailand has more than doubled in price this year.

Ms Sheeran said artificially created shortages, such as those caused by countries that have slowed or stopped exports, were worsening the problem.

The major food exporters Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Egypt and Cambodia have closed their stocks to safeguard supplies.

“The world has been consuming more than it has been producing for the past three years, so stocks have been drawn down,” Ms Sheeran said.

“The world knows how to produce food and will do so. But we will have a couple of challenging years.”

Rising prices meant the UN food program was running short of money to buy food.

A program providing meals for 450,000 Cambodian children has been suspended and Ms Sheeran said a similar program in Kenya, serving 1.2 million children, was facing cuts of nearly 50per cent.

She said the cutbacks reflected “heartbreaking decisions” and were the biggest challenges of the program in 45 years.

“The era of cheap food is over,” said Rajat Nag, managing director general of the Asian Development Bank.

He urged Asian governments not to distort markets with export curbs but use fiscal measures to help the poor.

“We want to temper what we think is a bit of an over-reaction. There is still enough supply,” he said.

Mr Brown raised further doubts about the wisdom of using crops to help produce fuel, an idea whose recent popularity in the United States and Europe has been dented by fears that it harms the environment and makes food dearer.

“We need to look closely at the impact on food prices and the environment of different production methods and to ensure we are more selective in our support [for biofuels],” Mr Brown said

Source

ACT NOW

So what can we do about this? Just casually thinking about it, this is how I think, WE-the PEOPLE, may combat this issue.

1- Decrease consumption. Watch our own shopping patterns. Cut back from consuming anything more than we really need.

http://www.volunteernow.ca/take_action/issues_consumerism.htm

2-Assist in Re-forestation activities. Also, we must pressure the government for more re-forestation activities.

http://www.10000trees.com/

http://www.celticreforestation.com/

Please do search for more re-forestation/tree planting groups in your area. If you can take some time and grow a plant in your backyard that would be just awesome.

3-Take actions to ensure positive influence on environment individually and also via the government.

Personally, I like working on saving water and electrical energy. I just came up with this idea that having a 1 hour BlackOut just in my room, daily, would make a big difference eh! We can all try that. Just go for a walk every hour or read a book for an hour daily. I am sure your electricity bills will be lower and the environment will be relatively healthier. And you will be a happier person as well.

http://www.ec.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=FD9B0E51-1

http://vladglebov.com/2008/01/07/its-getting-hot-in-heeere/

Sigh! struggle, struggle, struggle. Thank God, at least we aren’t LAZY!

Stay safe

Take care

Later Days

Another Journalist Killed in Gaza-Sign Petition Please

I read the following at a friend’s facebook profile. Kindly sign the petition.

***Before you go ahead and read below, please watch this heart-wrenching video (linked below) which is the final footage of Fadel Shana and other bystanders who were killed with him:

Video: final footage of Reuters journalist killed in Gaza

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3764160.ece

Fadel Shana was killed on Wednesday as he filmed an Israeli tank dug in about a kilometer (1,000 yards) away. A medical examination and X-rays showed several 3 cm (inch) -long spikes, known as flechettes, in the 23 year old’s body.

The last few seconds of video shot on Shana’s tripod-mounted camera show the tank firing, then a mid-air explosion consistent with the burst of a missile. The camera was shattered in the explosion that killed Shana. Black metal darts were embedded in his body armor, which bore a fluorescent strip reading “PRESS”.

Shana’s soundman, Wafa Abu Mizyed, was wounded in the arm and two teenage bystanders were also killed in the incident. A Reuters car carrying “TV” and “Press” markings was destroyed.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1632826120080417

***A petition has been created to put pressure on the news agency he used to work with so that they can pressure Israel to inquire into the death of Fadel himself and of the 3 bystanders***

http://www.petitiononline.com/fapril08/petition.html

Please take a minute to sign the above petition and forward to everyone and anyone.

***Video: Tributes to slain Reuters cameraman***

http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=80522&videoChannel=1

Thank You
Kind Regards

The War Against The Third World

Mainstream media won’t talk about this; yeah the usual. I was struck with the story of Panama though. US made a puppet government there too just like they did it in Iraq recently. This video is a must watch. I will make some time to watch it again, take notes for future readings. Kindly do watch and learn from this movie. Please make sure to spread the word around inshaAllah.

Thank You for taking the time to go over the videos. Let us all pray for the oppressed and try changing this world into something better.

Later
Take Care