Photo: Oxfam International

So far, the flooding has left between 1,400 and 1,600 people dead and 20 million more people affected by the floods are without proper shelter, food, or clean water to drink.

In a BBC news article discussing flooding in Pakistan, Daniel Toole of UNICEF said, “It is probably the biggest emergency on the planet today.” According to the latest data, 900,000 homes have already been destroyed from the flooding and one-fifth of Pakistan is submerged. Some of the people displaced from their homes are now living in temporary tents or community buildings; others have no place to go and are sleeping under the stars.

The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs has already identified at least one case of cholera and an additional 36,000 cases of diarrhea. Without clean water to drink, it’s not so much a question of if but when many more people in the flooded region fall ill. According to CNN, the United Nations fears that 6 million people, the majority of whom are children and infants, are in danger of catching diseases that are carried by contaminated water resulting from a shortage of aid money.

How Relief Organizations Are Helping

Here are some global organizations helping with the relief efforts:

The American Red Cross was founded in 1881 and still operates today. It offers humanitarian aid to victims of war-torn areas as well as to victims of natural disasters, both on a local and global scale. So far, the American Red Cross has committed $1 million to families in Pakistan who are affected by the flooding.

Oxfam International is a relief confederation of organizations operating in 99 countries that fight poverty and injustice. So far, Oxfam’s efforts in Pakistan have provided clean water and hot food to 182,000 people. Oxfam has also provided 30 boats used in the evacuation of 80,000 people in flooded regions.

Hidaya Foundation, along with its Pakistani sister organization Hidaya Trust, are currently aiding in four locations in Pakistan with the help of more than 250 employees and volunteers. Since the flooding started, Hidaya has provided more than 64,000 cooked meals, over 80 tents, and over 1,800 clothing packages (along with other items), and those numbers continue to climb.

CCP (Concerned Citizens Society of Pakistan) is a non-partisan organization of volunteers who are committed to establishing the “rule of law” and helping to aid suffering of Pakistanis in any way possible. So far, CCP has donated a combined amount of over 3.5 million rupees (the equivalent of over $40,000 USD) worth of cash, food, tents, and rations. CCP’s short term goals include providing temporary shelter and food to those left homeless. Longer term, CCP’s goal is to raise 25 million rupees (the equivalent of over $291 million USD) by December in an effort to feed, provide medicines for, and clothe 500 families affected by the disaster.

UNHCR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) was established in 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly to assist with refugee-related issues. UNHCR has already begun to airlift supplies such as tents and mosquito nets to help flood victims.

Why You Should Help

The United Nations has said that the amount of people affected by the Pakistani floods could be more than the total number of people affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti — combined.

Homes weren’t the only things washed away or ruined by the flood. According to a BBC news article, the Crops Protection Association estimated the cotton crop loss at $1.8 billion. Agriculture officials estimate that another 17 million acres of farmland are submerged. Roads, bridges, and power and communication lines have also been damaged or washed away.

“Two million dollars are needed every day to provide water – this is not sustainable. We don’t have two million dollars a day,” UNICEF’s regional director, Daniel Toole, told BBC News.

People are suffering, and the region’s monsoon season is only halfway over. Water levels are expected to rise even higher as more rain falls.

How You Can Help

So what can you do? Donate now, and here’s how:

The American Red Cross is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Cash donations are tax deductible (in the United States), and you can donate online. According to the American Red Cross’s website, on average, 91 cents out of every dollar is used on humanitarian services and programs.

Oxfam is a non-profit 501(c)(3). Direct campaigns for the Pakistan floods are being run out of multiple Oxfam locations: Oxfam America, Oxfam Australia, Oxfam GB (Great Britain), Oxfam Germany, Oxfam Hong Kong, Oxfam New Zealand, Oxfam Novib (Netherlands), Oxfam Québec, and Intermon Oxfam (Spain). Visit the Oxfam website for more information on how to donate.

Hidaya Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3). All cash (and in-kind donations) are tax deductible (in the United States), and you can donate online. Funds received by Hidaya are wire transferred to Pakistan and go towards four programs and 30 projects. According to the Hidaya’s website, none of its funds are given to government agencies, and less than 2 percent of those funds are given to other non-profit organizations that help Hidaya.

CCP accepts monetary donations through direct deposit to a bank or by foreign remittance in USD, GBP, or Euros. Visit the CCP website for more information on how to donate.

UNHCR’s tasks are to protect refugees and resolve worldwide refugee issues. Only 2-3 percent of the UNHCR’s funds come from the United Nations; the remaining funds come from direct contributions. Donate online.

UNICEF is a non-profit 501(c)(3) global organization operating in over 150 countries for the betterment of children in the areas of: “health care, clean water, nutrition, education, emergency relief, and more.” Cash donations are tax deductible (in the United States), and you can donate online.

Photo: Michael Hite

Cold? Think twice before bundling up in a blanket or sleeping bag, as doing so just may result in a warrant for your arrest.

At least it could in Boulder, Colorado.

How and why does the city of Boulder–especially known for its laid back vibe–appear to be criminalizing its homeless population?

The answer–though somewhat baffling–has to do with an anti-camping ordinance, which outlaws sleeping outside with any sort of shelter besides clothing. The law has resulted in Boulder police issuing over 1,600 tickets in the past year, reported The Boulder Weekly reported recently.

Sticking Up for Shelter

Boulder’s only homeless shelter shuts down during summer months, and can only accommodate 160 individuals in the winter–less than 25% of the city’s individuals living on the streets.

Last November, it was this lack of space that led David Madison to be turned away from the Boulder County Shelter. That night, Madison returned to the streets with a sleeping bag to shield himself from the bite of the 11 degree Colorado air.

When the police found Madison, they deemed him guilty of camping. The only reason? His frost-covered sleeping bag.

Should America’s homeless population be left to choose between hypothermia and jail?

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) doesn’t think so. On June 28th, the ACLU filed a suit in Boulder, calling the anti-camping ordinance unfair and unconstitutional. In a letter sent to the Boulder City Council, the ACLU wrote:

“The City of Boulder has no legitimate interest in criminalizing its residents who are without a home, forced to sleep outdoors in the cold, and merely want to cover themselves in order to survive.”

The ACLU has suggested that the city amend the ordinance to clarify that using a blanket or sleeping bag “by itself” is not shelter. Furthermore, it explained:

“While we continue to believe that the arrest and prosecution of Boulder’s homeless residents under these circumstances violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, it is not necessary to wait for a court ruling in order to conclude that these arrests and prosecutions are senseless, and bad public policy.”

Amen to that.

Homelessness by the Numbers

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty estimates that approximately 3.5 million people, 1.35 million of them children, are likely to experience homelessness in any given year. The number of families in homeless shelters even jumped 7% from 2008-2009.

With those statistics, the Obama administration–along with the support of volunteers throughout local communities–has taken on several initiatives to help to those without shelter.

On June 22nd, Obama issued a statement vowing to end homelessness within 10 years. The plan, called “Opening Doors,” grew out of a federal law signed in 2009, requiring the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness to develop a plan of action. Though their ideas have only recently been defined on paper, many remain optimistic about the administration’s commitment to this cause.

How Can I Help?

The National Coalition on Homelessness outlines four ways you can help America’s homeless: Contribute, Advocate, Reach out, and Educate, or “CARE.” For more information on each of these activities, visit the organization’s website.

If you’d like to support the ACLU’s efforts to decriminalize homelessness in Boulder, please sign this petition put together by Change.org.

Community Connection:

Want to work hands-on with people affected by homelessness? Check out our Urban Volunteering series, a guide to volunteer opportunities in cities around the world.

Police confront students in a protest on the Capitlol steps in Puerto Rico. Photo: tecnofilms

I stood in the check-out line and thumbed through El Nuevo Dia to occupy myself as one customer realized he’d forgotten something, another argued over the shelf price versus the register price, and the cashier wandered off to get some change.

The news in Puerto Rico is rarely good.

I remember the menacing “5″ that took up the entire front page of the newspaper once, “5″ being Puerto Rico’s ranking, at the time, in the list of the world’s most violent countries (per capita).

I remember the national outrage that was sparked in late 2007–just before I moved off the island–when the municipal animal control agency in the town of Barceloneta was accused of throwing more than 80 dogs and cats off a bridge (the last survivor of that event died last week, according to another article I read, this time while waiting for coffee).

Last summer, while I was in Puerto Rico working on a travel guide book, three people were killed while drinking on the patio of El Taquito. A waitress was shot in the hand.

I have friends on the island who have been affected directly by violence: one friend shot in the head (he survived) and another whose ear was grazed by an errant bullet during a New Year’s celebration (it’s common to fire guns into the air on New Year’s… so common–and so dangerous– in fact, that the police sponsor an annual campaign: “No mas balas perdidas” (literally translated: “No more lost bullets.”)

Ultimately, one of the reasons why I left the island was because of this violence, which works its way subtly into many aspects of daily life: casual conversations, driving, trying to resolve a legitimate concern about a service you’re paying for. The violence is verbal. Psychological.

And it is most definitely physical.

Unfortunately, the violence seems to be more prominent and more disturbing than ever. The week prior to my arrival, three men had killed their wives. All three were police officers. And to bookend the trip, as I packed my bag last night and prepared to fly back to New York, I heard the news about the teargassing of protesting students by police in front of the Capitolio. I’d driven past the protest just an hour before the shit hit the fan. In the hours since this encounter, as the public has called for the Superintendent of Police to justify the use of such extreme force, local politicians have come out in support of the violence. “Se tiene que respetar,” said the Superintendent. “They’ve got to respect [the law].”

You don’t teach respect for the law through violence. You don’t teach love through abuse.

It’s important to point out that violence in Puerto Rico rarely affects travelers. So why bring this up at all? Because a country that’s 100 miles by 39 miles shouldn’t be among the world’s most violent nations. Because the mainstream media in the US (Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, after all) and abroad pay little attention to the island and someone needs to do so. Because the situation in Puerto Rico provides us the impetus to examine our own acts of violence. How do we wound others with our words and actions?

If you’re interested in participating in any of the protests that are being organized in response to the police action against the protesting students, there is a protest today, July 2, at 4 PM at 135 West 50th Street (between 6th and 7th Aves.) in New York City. A National Day of Protest has been scheduled for July 18 in Puerto Rico.

Community Connection:

To learn more about other aspects of Puerto Rico’s history and culture, visit our Puerto Rico Focus Page.

Photo: Tracy O

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett made their fortunes in business (and continue to reap profits from their company and investments, respectively), and have spent years sharing their wealth with people in need through numerous philanthropic projects.

Now, they’re upping the ante, inviting the other people who run in their super-rich circles to increase their own commitments to spreading wealth. Specifically, Gates and Buffett want the super-wealthy to give away half of their net worth, whether during their lifetimes, or at the time of their deaths.

Earlier this week, CNN reported that Gates and Buffett are going after their companions on the Forbes 400–one of the indices that ranks the richest people in the world. In 2009, the combined net worth of the Forbes 400 was approximately $1.2 trillion. Yes, that’s trillion with a “t.” And 50% of $1.2 trillion is $600 billion.

$600 billion for philanthropy could go a long way.

The financial powerhouses who have signed onto the Gates-Buffett project are being referred to as The Great Givers, and their commitments will be made public on the website, The Giving Pledge.

It’s this aspect of the project–the making public of the pledge–that may be as significant as the pledges themselves. As the Giving Pledge FAQs explain, one of the goals of this initiative is to foster conversation about philanthropy and to envision new ways of giving that are morally and ethically appropriate, as well as effective in their aim to solve social problems.

You can read Warren Buffett’s pledge–his commitment to give 99% of his wealth away– here. Then, let us know what you think? Does this initiative represent an exciting new chapter for philanthropy?

Community Connection:

Read more about Gates’ philanthropic work in 4 Gates Foundation Projects You’ve Probably Never Heard of.

Photo: hill.josh

BP’s bad–no, really, really bad–at damage control.

And I’m not just talking about in the Gulf.

Someone from the petroleum giant’s public relations team failed to snatch up all the possible account names that could be established for the company on Twitter, and left one of the most obvious ones of all for the person behind @BPGlobalPR to snag.

It’s probably no big surprise that the “real” BP account, @BP_America, had a measly follower count of just 6,700 late this week (as of this writing, it’s topped 8,000), while @BPGlobalPR’s followers numbered more than 84,000– after all, how can an oil company really establish an authentic social media conversation when it can’t even use traditional media to convey an honest portrayal of itself?

@BPGlobalPR, on the other hand, has spent the past week calling BP out for its negligence that precipitated the oil spill and its relative ineptness at getting the spill under control.

A few choice tweets:

Proud to announce that BP will be sponsoring the New Orleans Blues Festival this summer w/ special tribute to Muddy Waters. #bpcares

What a gorgeous day! The ocean is filled with the most beautiful rainbows! #yourewelcome #bpcares

Just woke up from a terrible nightmare. I was driving a Prius and I kissed my wife on the lips. #bpcares

We plan on spending millions of dollars to fix this mess. We also plan on jacking gas prices so high that you’ll wish you never complained.

Lots of people blaming this on Bush or Obama. Pph, we wish. The truth is Presidents don’t have any control over what we do. #bpcares

This horrible spill wouldn’t be happening in the gulf of AMERICA! Arizona knows what I’m talking ’bout!! #fistpound #bpcares

Please text “Wildlife” to 20222 to donate hot dogs to the BP Corporate Memorial Day Picnic #bpcares #3dayweekend

Community Connection:

Want to know what you can do to help the Gulf? Read Nancy Harder’s article about donating your hair to absorb the spilled oil–yes, really.

Author’s Note

The “red shirts” are committed to non-violence, but somebody has been setting off bombs and taking potshots at government buildings anyway. Several soldiers in Bangkok have been wounded by grenade attacks in recent weeks and a few have even gone off in the northern capital of Chiang Mai.

The protesters have also employed some fairly disturbing tactics; two weeks ago, red shirt supporters donated dozens of liters of blood before throwing it on the government house and the prime minister’s residence.

Grenades, protests, and blood – how will it all affect tourism? The number of foreign visitors in 2010 is estimated to be down 30% compared to last year, and at nearly 7% of its GDP, tourists are one asset Thailand can’t afford to lose.

The dip in revenues is so severe that workers in the tourist industry have actually planned a protest against all the protesting. At least 30 embassies around the world have told their citizens to exercise “extreme caution” when visiting Bangkok, even going so far as to warn against visiting major tourist sites.

Despite what the television, US State Department, and even Thai people will tell you, Bangkok and the rest of the country aren’t any more dangerous than they were ten years ago (with the notable exception of the extreme south). The scattered accounts of violence, none of which have been targeted at or anywhere near foreigners, have predictably been overplayed by an action-hungry media.

Most of Thailand remains safer than any major American city.

Still, the protests are a sensitive issue.There’s no reason to cancel your trip to Thailand yet, but the situation is worth watching. Even if the red shirts get what they want, the King’s ailing health points towards another political crisis in the coming years.

Increasing violence in the far south shows no sign of abating, either. Thailand remains a fantastic destination worthy of a place on any traveler’s itinerary, but it will have to overcome a few challenges to maintain its reputation as the Land of Smiles.

1. Some of the red shirt protesters in Bangkok.

2. The protestors’ main target, current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, was born in the UK and educated at Eton and Oxford.

3.A red balloon floats over a portrait of Queen Sirikit.

4.Central Bangkok’s Democracy Monument draped in red cloth.

5.Protesting is hard work.

Community Connection:

Still considering visiting Thailand? Check out our Thailand focus page!

Fourteen years later, the Rajya Sabha has finally relented and the bill has been passed by what The Times of India has aptly termed “the first legislative hurdle”.

The Women’s Reservation Bill was drawn up in order to include more female legislators in a domain which has historically been a male bastion. Politicians supporting the bill believe that women have been inadequately represented thus far, and link this inadequacy to the perpetuation of women’s problems.  Others think of it as an “undemocratic” move.

Brinda Karat, a leading politician from The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has claimed that more women participating in the affairs of Parliament will lead to a more sensitive politics and perhaps to sensitive legislation. She also claims that women are caught in a culture trap and this piece of legislation might prove to be emancipatory.

After the constitution amendment bill had been put to vote by Chairman Hamid Ansari, Karat stated,

“the bill will change (the country’s political) culture because women today are still caught in a culture prison. In the name of tradition, stereotypes are imposed and we have to fight them every day. These stereotypes will also be broken (by the bill).” Source for Quote: IANS via Deccan Herald

While I do subscribe to Karat’s view on the matter of a more “sensitive politics”, the root cause of the insensitivity will not, in my opinion, be solved by this legislation. It will grant adequate representation at the highest level, but the bill will also allow for political parties to field undeserving candidates.

Many politically unfit leaders seep in to the system thanks to reservations. In light of the previous statement, do we really need another reservation? I would say that in the present situation, we do.

Reservation policies in India are often used in politics, such as when members of Parliament use reservation policies in order to leverage their popularity and gain votes. Given that unethical practices like corruption and bribery are rampant in India during election campaigns, will the reservation of seats for women change these pre-existing practices?

I don’t think so.

Since the problem of gender disparity appears to be at the root of this bill, the education provided at the grassroots level needs to lay special emphasis on gender discrimination.

These gender issues pose an important question that may only be answered over time – will the bill serve the purposes of the politicians or will it stand to benefit the women in India who are still subjugated and unable to express a voice that is truly their own?

Community Connection:

Gender roles are definitely changing. Check out JoAnna Haugen’s article about Marjan Kahlor, the first woman from Iran to compete in the Olympics this past winter in Vancouver. Or Julie Schwietert-Collazo’s article about how women are redefining politics in the Middle East.

Photo: Stewart

Things aren’t looking good for bluefin tuna or polar bears.

Enacting measures to protect bluefin tuna, threatened by overfishing, and polar bears, endangered by the effects of climate change, were on the agenda at the UN conference on endangered species held in Doha, Qatar earlier this week.

The proposed plan for bluefin was to ban international trade, while the plan for the polar bears was to enact protective international agreements to prevent poaching and trade of bear parts.

Both proposals were defeated by a margin that was disturbing to environmentalists: 68 to 20 in the case of the bluefin (with 30 voting members abstaining), and 62 and 48 for the polar bear (with 11 voting members abstaining).

Sharks and elephants are the animals that will be up for vote next, and with the bluefin and polar bear decisions, the future isn’t looking so great for them, either.

Community Connection:

Read more about bluefin tuna as big business in “Mitsubishi’s Back-up Business Plan.”

Feature Photo: swanksalot

A show about people who make money by dumpster diving and fashioning trendy new products out of old ones.

Community Connection:

MatadorNights co-editor Kate Sedgwick was dumpster diving before it was cool. And she’s written a how-to guide all about it.

Instead, they’re the ones shot by locals who have the greatest stake in what’s occurring around them.

Carlos, a Chilean photographer, took these shots in his neighborhood, Santiago Antiguo. He writes:

“Many immigrants live in this overcrowded neighborhood, and many are living in the streets. In some neighborhoods, there’s no lights or water… though the situation in Santiago isn’t as grave as it is in the south.”

1. A car is surrounded by rubble from partially collapsed buildings.

2. Neighbors survey the damage.

3. A woman salvages what she can.

4. A man assesses damage.

5. People have moved what’s left into the street.

6. A view of the old buildings in Santiago Antiguo.

7. Residents line up for aid provided by The Salvation Army.

Community Connection:

We are currently communicating with Matador members in Chile to find out what kind of help is needed. We will update readers here as we have more information.

A woman in Santiago surveys damage after the quake. Photo: todosnuestrosmuertos

One of the stories we’ve been working on since the Haiti earthquake is how social media platforms are being used in disaster to improve rescue, recovery, and rebuilding efforts.

In addition to Twitter, Facebook, and text messaging, a new and powerful app has been unleashed by Google: the Google Person Finder.

The Google blog explains:

“After hearing of the devastatingly powerful 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile overnight, we began to mobilize several teams to see what Google resources could help with disaster response. For those concerned about loved ones in Chile, the Person Finder tool, initially created in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, can be used to submit or search for information about individuals who may have been affected. The Person Finder tool has been translated into Spanish and is currently available at http://chilepersonfinder.appspot.com/, as well as several media sites and the US Department of State website.”

As a community of travelers and expats, Matadorians are in a unique position to use this app for massive information diffusion. Do you know someone in Chile? Have you heard from them since the quake? Add their name and update their status using the Person Finder tool.

The other app Google’s making available is Google Map Maker.

Again, from the Google blog:

“Google Map Maker is currently available in Chile, and we are making this map data available for download by relief and aid organizations. Visit http://mapmaker.google.com/datadownload for more information and to access the data. If you have familiarity with the region, please help these efforts by contributing data about Chile on Google Map Maker. We will be refreshing the download data frequently to reflect the latest set of contributions.

How are you using social media and online tools to respond to the quake and the resulting tsunami? Share your experiences in the comments.

Image: XOZ

The news is so fresh that even the New York Times hasn’t published anything about it as I sit down to write this:

The United States Department of the Treasury has just announced it has decided to collaborate with international partners to extend total debt relief to Haiti, a policy which is consistent with US’s own debt relief, which occurred this past September.

Below is the full text of the Department’s press release:

The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced the United States will work with its partners around the world to relieve all debts owed by Haiti to international institutions and to ensure grant financing to support Haiti’s reconstruction and recovery from the devastating earthquake in January.

“The earthquake in Haiti was a catastrophic setback to the Haitian people who are now facing tremendous emergency humanitarian and reconstruction needs, and meeting Haiti’s financing needs will require a massive multilateral effort,” said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. “Today, we are voicing our support for what Haiti needs and deserves – comprehensive multilateral debt relief.”

Secretary Geithner also welcomed International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s call to provide full relief for Haiti’s outstanding IMF debt, including the $102 million emergency loan approved on January 27, 2010.

“We are committed to working quickly and closely with these institutions in a way that provides immediate grant assistance to help the Haitian people recover and rebuild,” Secretary Geithner continued. “I very much welcome the initiative taken on this issue by leaders in Congress, the IMF, and the MDBs and look forward to working with them to provide the critical support Haiti needs for recovery as well as to discussing this issue with my G-7 colleagues this weekend.”

Treasury announced that the U.S. intends to seek a commitment with other donors for the relief of Haiti’s debt to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the International Development Association (IDA) in a manner that provides direct and immediate grant support to Haiti.

In September 2009, the U.S. concluded an agreement with Haiti that eliminated 100 percent of the Haitian Government’s outstanding debt to the U.S. This action was taken following Haiti’s successful completion of the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative process in June 2009.

Lakota woman and her daughter. Photo: crabshack

Lakota Sioux in the Dakotas, which include the Cheyenne River, Pine Ridge, Standing Rock and Rosebud reservations, are faced with the aftermath of fierce winter storms that have cut off water, heat, electricity, and food supplies.

Not yet recovered from debilitating storms in October and November, the tribes endured more storms last week, knocking out the tenuous infrastructure in some of the poorest communities of the nation.

Utilities aren’t expected to be up and running for weeks, or even months, and temperatures are already in the sub-zeros. Adding to this grim situation is another cold front projected to hit the area soon.

Unfortunately, little is mentioned in mainstream media about recent events. While Haiti is still, understandably, a headline story, a dire situation is worsening with few people giving it notice.

And dire isn’t exaggerating. Statistics for the reservations are dismal, commonly obscured from daily–or even occasional– exposure.

Pine Ridge, in Shannon County, South Dakota, is the poorest county in the U.S. The average population is 40,000 people, the homelessness rate is 80% – of which 50% are under 18. Unemployment ranges between 80-90% and 1/3 of homes do not have electricity or water. Infant mortality rate is 20 times higher than the national average. Teen suicide is so high that a state of emergency was declared in November, and about 60% of teens eventually drop out of high school.

The Rosebud Reservation lies within Todd County, the fourth poorest county in the U.S. 93% of Lakota children live below the poverty line and fewer than 50% have access to transportation. A majority of the households are single-parent homes, and unemployment hovers around 94%.

All tribal emergency funds are exhausted, and though a trickle of coverage is flowing through social media outlets, only $450 was raised on the first day for medical costs and emergency services.

Tens of thousands of residents are spread over 2.8 million acres on the reservations, making it difficult for scarce resources to arrive quickly. In the October blizzard, residents were found burning clothes for heat while waiting for wood.

Nobody, least of all in the U.S., should have to burn clothes for heat.

Shelters are presently in place to provide immediate assistance for the elderly, sick, and children, but with just a handful of generators, 11 tribal police, and much of the fuel and groceries provisions depleted, much more aid is needed.

What You Can Do to Help

This is a list of supplies in demand:

Non-perishable food
Cots
Heat sources (heaters & fuel)
Camp stoves & fuel
Lithium 1, 2 and 3 batteries for law enforcement
Lamps/Batteries/Lamp Oil
Toilet paper
Paper products for the shelters
Pampers/formula
Hand/baby wipes/Hand sanitizer

Ship in-kind donations to:


Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman’s Office

Attn: Ice Storm Emergency Supplies

PO Box 590
2001 Main Street (Tribal Offices)

Eagle Butte, SD 57625

Mail monetary donations to:


Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe/2010 Disaster Account

Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman’s Office

Attn: Ice Storm Emergency Fund

PO Box 590
2001 Main Street (Tribal Offices)

Eagle Butte, SD 57625

Or to make an online donation, you can donate through One Spirit, a non-profit organization working on Pine Ridge with several projects. This is a great group of volunteers that I have personally been involved with for the last several years and through which I sponsor three children.

And, of course, please spread the word! I saw miracles unfold in the Haiti aftermath, and there is no doubt in my mind the same could be achieved here.

Community Connection:

Learn more about the Dakotas in Top 10 Spots in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

An immunization clinic in Cambodia. Photo: Cambodia4Kids

Those of us living in the Western world have the luxury of indulging in debates about whether we should get vaccinated for common, deadly diseases.

For many people in developing countries, though, vaccines could–all debate aside–perform life-saving functions, particularly in areas where sanitation and public health services are in limited supply.

And many people in those areas don’t need to think about debating vaccines because they simply can’t afford to get them or they live in communities far from clinics where vaccines are administered.

Those are the people the Gates Foundation hopes to reach with its new vaccine initiative, announced last Friday at the Davos World Economic Forum.

The Gates Foundation announced that it would dedicate more than $10 billion USD to vaccines over the coming 10 years. “Why now?” asked Melinda Gates, the wife and philanthropic partner of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. “Because of the success we’ve seen” with the work they’ve done so far.

Among those successes are the eradication of polio from all but four countries in the world, the distribution of rotovirus vaccine (a diarrheal disease that kills babies and young children), and the ongoing research into the development of a malaria vaccine and an HIV/AIDS vaccine. At present, malaria kills more than 880,000 people every year.

“Our commitment isn’t enough to take full advantage of what needs to be done,” Bill Gates said at the press conference announcing the aid, inviting government, pharmaceutical, research and development, and private sector support to realize the full potential of what Gates calls “the decade of vaccines.”

According to the Gates Foundation, the vaccine project has the potential to save more than 8 million lives by 2020.

Watch the Gates’ full announcement of the initiative in this video:

What do you think about the Gates’ declaring the next 10 years “the decade of vaccines”? Do you support their vaccination project? Share your ideas in the comments below.

Community Connection:

Read more about the development of the malaria vaccine in In Search of a Malaria Vaccine: What Travelers Should Know.

On Tuesday, Google threatened to cease cooperating with China’s internet censorship practice, adding the possibility of closing all Google operations in the country, a decision spurred mostly by last week’s sophisticated, cyber attacks aiming to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Fortunately, according to Google, the attackers did not achieve their objective as only two accounts were hacked, but no email content was accessed.

Due to the serious nature and human rights implications of these attacks, Google is taking to its blog to talk about the investigation into the attacks and how it has changed Google’s stance with China.

From the blog: “These attacks… have led us to.. review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Since entering the Chinese market over three years ago, Google has been criticized for abiding by Chinese censorship law and restricting search results on google.com and google.cn, Google’s website in China. Though little is known about the technology behind how Google is self-censoring search results, it’s been clear that Google is consistently updating its filtering methods.

Earlier this year, Google blocked all searches for “Tiananmen Square” regardless of page content (even directions to the location had been filtered out) for eight days, after which search queries only turned up uncontroversial results such as links to shops in the area and benign, cheery photos of downtown Beijing.

Photo: mandiberg

Besides confirming that they had indeed abandoned old methods, Google would not provide more information on the topic.

For every search, Google informs users in China that “in accordance with local laws and policies, some of the results have not been displayed,” a necessary compromise, Google felt, in order to allow the company to provide information access to a fifth of the world’s population.

Being the second most widely used search engine in China, behind Baidu, Google knows it will have “potentially far-reaching consequences” should the company choose to leave the Middle Kingdom.

As for now, Google can only promise us they “are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.”

Photo: hdptcar

This weekend marked the fifth anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that finally forced an end to Sudan’s seemingly endless civil war, the longest running conflict in Africa.

The country is now at a critical crossroads: within the next year, it must resolve differences between the north and south or formally divide the country into two distinct nations.

Though mainstream media haven’t given as much attention to this story as it needs, artists and musicians from around the world lent their talent to the cause of peace in order to draw more awareness to current events in Sudan:

January 9 has come and gone, but you can still take action.

Read this quick primer on recent and current events in Sudan to get a sense of what’s been going on, then click back to Sudan365’s website and consider signing this petition, which calls upon key world leaders to provide the diplomatic support needed to uphold peace in Sudan.

Community Connection:

Are you a traveler who has spent significant time in Sudan? Consider becoming one of our Africa destination experts.

Photo: exfordy

Yesterday, INTERPOL announced the impressive crime bust victory, codenamed Operation Costa, was a result of incredible coordination between police, national wildlife, customs, and national intelligence agency officers from Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.

In addition to seizing over two tons of elephant ivory, officers in all six countries conducted inspections and raids that resulted in the confiscation of other wildlife products, such as leopard skins, as well as weapons, ammunition, and vehicles.

“The success of Operation Costa is notable not only for the sheer volume of illegal ivory which has been recovered, which is among the biggest ever hauls recorded, but because it also clearly shows the ability and will of law enforcement to effectively tackle wildlife crime,” said Peter Younger, manager of INTERPOL’s OASIS (Operational Assistance, Services and Infrastructure Support) Africa wildlife crime program.

Operation Costa is the second in a series of such operations and INTERPOL is confident ‘Costa’ will provide a strong foundation for information and intelligence gathering for future actions.

While this report is undoubtedly great news, it’s simultaneously sobering to think of the animals from which these seized products were sourced. Even more disturbing is hunting for the vicarious experience of murder.

Comments? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: ingridtaylar

A couple months ago, we featured the photographs of artist Chris Jordan in the popular–and highly controversial–photo essay, “Intolerable Beauty.”

When I last spoke with Jordan, he was thinking about a new project. Exhausted by the stress of the “Intolerable Beauty” project, which confronted him daily with our tendency toward excessive consumption and waste, he knew he’d be moving on to a new subject soon.

But that new project wouldn’t be escapist in any way because “Intolerable Beauty” also taught Jordan just how profoundly art could exert an influence over public opinion and personal lifestyle choices.

So it wasn’t too surprising when we received a message from Anna Brones, Matador member and senior editor at Wend Magazine, alerting us to Jordan’s next project: a visit to Midway Island, where he’ll be photographing the Pacific Garbage Patch, described here in this video from ABC News:

Dubbed the Midway Journey, Jordan’s new project will involve not just his own artistic interpretation of the problem of human waste; he’s bringing a few other artists along with him.

From their perch on Midway Island, Jordan and his colleagues will bear “witness [to] the catastrophic effect of our disposable culture on some of the world’s most beautiful and symbolic creatures,” especially albatross.

“But even more,” Jordan writes over at the Midway Journey blog, the artists are “embarking on an introspective journey to confront a vitally relevant question: In this time of unprecedented global crisis, how can we move through grief, denial, despair and immobility into new territories of acceptance, possibility, and wise action?”

Jordan explains more about the project in this video:

A Message from Chris Jordan from Midway on Vimeo.

Follow along on the Midway Journey blog or by adding @midwayjourney to the people you follow on Twitter.

Community Connection:

Matador contributing editor Carlo Alcos includes the Pacific Garbage Patch–also known as the Great Pacific Trash Gyre–in his list of the World’s Most Offensive Landfills.

Photo: 350.org

We’ve been keeping tabs on plastic bans around the world, and have come across two encouraging stories from different ends of the world this week.

First came the news that Mexico City has banned plastic bags. Our friends over at Wend Magazine reported that Mexico’s capital city has “banned businesses from distributing plastic bags that are not biodegradable. The ban affects all stores, production facilities and service providers.”

The policy is especially significant considering that Mexico City is one of the world’s most population dense metropolises. The plastic bag ban will prevent massive amounts of unnecessary waste from ending up in the country’s shrinking landfills.

On the other side of the world, the Herald Sun of Australia is reporting that a Melbourne primary school has banned students from bringing plastic water bottles to class. Instead, students are being told to bring reusable, environmentally friendly bottles from home, which can be refilled at fountains and taps in the school.

School principal David Foley indicated that the ban was part of a school-wide effort to improve its environmental consciousness and to decrease students’ collective carbon footprint.

What are policy trends related to plastic use where you live? Share the news from your area in the comments below!

Community Connection:

Why are plastic bottle bans important? Check out Eva Holland’s article “Bottled Water: Making a Big (Bad) Impact” for the answers.

Feature photo: Ferdinand Reus; Photo: dno1967

President Obama’s Cash for Clunkers Program (officially called–har har– CARS: the Car Allowance Rebate System) was renewed this week despite the grumbling of some lawmakers who view the program as yet another loopy Democratic scheme to prop up the wheezing economy.

The program, according to an official government website:

“…helps consumers buy or lease a more environmentally-friendly vehicle from a participating dealer when they trade in a less fuel-efficient car or truck. The program is designed to energize the economy; boost auto sales and put safer, cleaner and more fuel-efficient vehicles on the nation’s roadways.”

CARS was launched with enough money–Congress believed–to run through October; however, the rebate program has proven so popular that within six days of its launch, it was clear that more money would be needed.

Apparently, America’s got a lot of clunkers on the road.

But it’s not the only country with a Cash for Clunkers program.

In a recent article in The New York Times, reporter Carter Dougherty explained that France, Spain, and Austria have similar programs, as does Germany, where the Cash for Clunkers scheme may ultimately cause more problems than it solves.

Dougherty reports that unlike in the U.S.–where a provision was included to prevent the clunkers from being resold by unscrupulous dealers–the clunkers traded in by Germans aren’t simply being recycled… they’re entering a growing black market that sends the vehicles to Africa and Eastern Europe.

“Great!” you may say to yourself.

But hold on a second… the environmental motives behind the Cash for Clunkers programs, both in the U.S. and abroad, are to get old vehicles that are not fuel efficient and which are serious polluters off the road. Completely. The idea was not to simply put them on someone else’s road, and therein lies the problem.

By shipping the clunkers off to Africa or driving them across Europe’s western/eastern borders, some slick entrepreneurs are making a quick buck (and certainly more than they could make from recycling the car’s scrap metal– the Cash for Clunkers programs have had the unintended effect of causing a steep decline in the value of scrap metal as the market was glutted with the recyclable refuse).

But they’re also adding to environmental and health problems in other countries, exacerbating the divide between the “developed” world and the “developing” world.

Unfortunately, Dougherty’s article offers no indication of whether the German government is looking for ways to retool its Cash for Clunkers program so the problem can be controlled.

Community Connection:

In addition to cars, the West exports its e-waste to developing countries. Read about The Problem with E-Waste here.

Cars are one form of mass consumption. Check out Chris Jordan’s compelling photo essay “Intolerable Beauty: Chris Jordan Photographs American Mass Consumption.”

Finally, take a look at some of the implications of the West shoving its environmental problems on the East in East v. West: Who’s Responsible for World’s CO2?

Photos courtesy of author.

The Spot

“3 Miles of Golden Sands!” reads the sign as you enter the town of Hayle, in Cornwall. And the beach is spectacular, with the artistic haven of St. Ives at one end of the bay and Godrevy lighthouse (the inspiration for Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse) at the other.

As you look along the length of the bay, the only interruption is the broad mouth of the River Hayle as it leaves the town and breaks away into the Atlantic Ocean. This geographic feature makes the Victorian port such a special place for kitesurfers: at the right state of tide, the estuary provides a vast expanse of flat water and offers a haven for kiters to escape the chop of the open sea and glide unimpeded across the glassy estuary.

If any proof were needed that “The Bluff” (as it is known, on account of the pub overlooking the spot) is a world-class kitesurfing spot, then how about the fact that five-time kiteboarding world champion Aaron Hadlow cut his teeth here? Hadlow, acknowledged to be the most innovative and progressive rider the sport has ever seen, took his first shaky forays into the world of kitesurfing at The Bluff.

The Ban

Sounds idyllic? Well, it was. Until Dutch insurance giant ING bought much of the docklands in the town and began to plan a new residential and business development, including a marina.

For reasons that confound logic, ING decreed that kitesurfing would be likely to “impede the safe passage of vessels entering [the estuary]”, and banned kitesurfing within the jurisdiction of the harbour, which also extends out into the sea (how a vast financial institution can lay claim to a postcard-perfect estuary is another question entirely).

Although there may have been a case for a ban if these concerns were in any way legitimate, they do not stand up to any kind of scrutiny:

The entrance to the harbour is only navigable by shipping at high-tide. At high-tide there is no beach, so kitesurfers cannot launch their kites. The estuary is generally never suitable for both kitesurfing and shipping.

Hayle is not a busy harbour. ING’s own assessment declares that, “only a handful of… commercial [boats] use the harbour in the winter months as prevailing winds are onto the north coast and conditions over the Hayle bar at the harbour entrance prevent safe navigation.”

There have never been any accidents involving kitesurfers in the estuary or elsewhere in the Bay.

Local kitesurfers are further infuriated by ING’s policy of stonewalling and scaremongering. ING and their agents continually put off meetings and offer contradictory reasons for the ban. They have also threatened the British Kitesurfing Association with legal action for not making it clear on their website that kitesurfing is banned at the The Bluff.

The area is now patrolled by harbour officials on jet skis who send you on your way if you stray into the area and may follow you back to your vehicle and make a note of your details to pass on to the police. It all seems a bit heavy-handed doesn’t it?

Anecdotally, comparable waterways in southwest England have no problem with kitesurfers sharing the water with other vessels. The markedly busier and smaller harbours of Padstow and Exmouth are both bustling commercial ports (used throughout the tide), and have a harmonious relationship with the kitesurfing community.

And so Hayle’s “3 Miles of Golden Sands!” are now more famed for their reflection of how big business can whimsically flex its muscles to devastating effect rather than for the perfect golden playground that used to attract kitesurfers. Maybe next time you’re weighing up insurance options and ING pops up, you could spare a thought for the ex-kitesurfers of The Bluff and glide on by….

More Information

An anti-ban group has been set up on Facebook, and can be found here.

Kernow’s (Cornwall’s) Kitesurf Club provides general information about kitesurfing in the Cornwall area, as well as updates about the ban. Check out their website here.

Community Connection:

Have you discovered Matador’s newest blog, Matador Sports? Our resident adventurers and Sports editors are sharing how-to guides for getting started in a variety of sports and profiling some of the most on-the-edge athletes out there!

What about fun for everyone? Photo: havenholidays

“A ‘Whites-Only’ Pool in 2009?” That was the subject line of an e-mail that landed in my inbox a few days ago.

According to this story from NBC’s Philadelphia affiliate, black kids from the Creative Steps Day Camp visited a private pool in Philadelphia (having paid over $1,900 for the “privilege”) and were asked by pool attendants to leave because “minorities [were not allowed] in the club.”

Guess the pool administrators forgot to ask the camp leaders the race of the would-be swimmers.

In a follow up story, Valley Swim Club President John Duesler didn’t mention the pool attendants’ remarks, saying only that a comment about the kids “changing the complexion” of the club was “a terrible choice of words” that was “blown out of proportion.”

He added that the real reason the kids were asked to leave was because there were concerns about safety and the total capacity of the pool, though why such problems weren’t anticipated before both parties signed on the dotted line remained unclear.

The club has since invited campers to return, but in the interim, at least one lawsuit was filed and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission opened an investigation, scheduling a visit to the club for the end of this month.

Community Connection:

What’s the most offensive form of discrimination you’ve experienced or witnessed at home or during your travels? What did you do about it? Share your experiences in the comments below.

Photo: MastaBaba

This coming Saturday, Nelson Mandela will celebrate his 91st birthday.

On the same day, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the organization 46664 are inviting people everywhere to honor Mandela’s legacy of social struggle and change by participating in Mandela Day, a global call to service and celebration.

The sponsors of Mandela Day ask how you can spend 67 minutes (representative of the number of years Mandela has been engaged in social justice work) giving back to your community. Their website provides ideas about volunteer opportunities, or invites you to share your own by making your commitment to volunteer public.

New York City is the hub of this year’s celebrations, and if you’re in town, you can stop by Grand Central to take in a powerful art installation or attend a massive concert at Radio City that will feature Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Aretha Franklin, Wyclef Jean, Josh Groban, Angelique Kidjo, and the Soweto Gospel Choir, among many other artists.

Community Connection:

To read about Mandela’s 90th birthday celebration, check out this article from our archives. And to learn more about Mandela’s work–and nine other inspiring people–check out “10 Revolutionary Acts of Courage by Ordinary People.”

Photo: lemonjenny

Last year, the New York Philharmonic made a historic visit to North Korea.

Under the baton of conductor Lorin Maazel, the Philharmonic was received with tears by concert-goers and praise by critics, who called Maazel’s direction and the Philharmonic’s performance “sophisticated and sensitive.”

According to the New York Times’ account of the Philharmonic’s 2008 visit to North Korea:

“It was the first time an American cultural organization had appeared here, and the largest contingent of United States citizens to appear since the Korean War. The trip [was] suffused with political importance since North Korea’s invitation came to light last year. It was seen by some as an opening for warmer relations with the United States, which North Korea has long reviled.”

A broadcast on National Public Radio reported that “a senior U.S. diplomat reportedly told Maazel that the concert ‘could well have done more for U.S.-North Korean relations than 30 years of diplomatic efforts.’”

Now, the Philharmonic may be taking its show on the road again, this time to Cuba.

The Times reported on Thursday that Cuba has invited the Philharmonic to perform in the country that has a proud and diverse musical tradition. Groups such as the all-female Camerata Romeu draw sell-out crowds, despite tough economic conditions on the island:

The Philharmonic, whose administrators traveled to Cuba on Friday to investigate the possibility by visiting venues and speaking with Cuban officials, has already received a license to travel to Cuba and the Philharmonic’s president stated that Vice-President Biden’s office has verbalized support for the trip, calling it an important step in diplomacy with Cuba.

The concert is tentatively scheduled for the end of October.

While no one expects that the Philharmonic’s appearance in Cuba will result in the Obama administration’s overturning of the current US policies toward Cuba, the trip and performance would certainly go a long way toward re-establishing contact between Cubans and Americans outside the direct sphere of politics.

Community Connection:

Diplomacy doesn’t occur just among diplomats. Read more about a citizen diplomacy movement between the US and Iran in this article by Ryan Van Lenning.

When I moved to New York City 10 years ago, the Meatpacking District was a sketchy, marginal neighborhood frequented by prostitutes and drug users.

Today, it’s a neighborhood populated by trendy, expensive boutiques, name-dropper restaurants, and some of the city’s edgiest, most exciting architecture.

It’s also the location of New York City’s newest park: the High Line.

So named because the park is built atop an abandoned rail line that was originally constructed in the 1930s, the High Line was an urban eyesore from 1980 until this summer, when a 10 year old dream of the Friends of the High Line was finally realized.

Back in 1999, the city had slated the elevated rail for demolition. But some folks didn’t want to see this part of New York City history destroyed, and they effectively rallied to turn the space into an ambitious and unique urban park. Construction began in 2006 and the first part of what will be a mile and a half long park opened last month.

1. The wood used on the benches and decking was harvested from a managed forest certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. It was selected for its longevity and durability.

2. If you’re lucky enough to snag one of these seats at sunset, you’re all but guaranteed a spectacular light show on the Hudson River.

3. This IS an urban park, after all. These benches offer a view of a New York City street, but insulate park visitors from car noise.

4. Most of the plants and grasses on the High Line are native species, “inspired by the self-seeded landscape that grew on the out-of-use elevated rail tracks during the 25 years after the trains stopped running.”

5. The popularity of the High Line has attracted all sorts of new businesses to the neighborhood, including Van Leeuwen, which scoops up artisanal ice cream. They’re “green,” too: their cups, spoons, and straws are all made from corn husks.

6. View of the Meatpacking District from the High Line, now attracting the less criminal element.

All photos by Francisco Collazo.

Community Connection:

Planning a visit to New York City? Be sure to consult our Green Guide to New York City first!

A protest against the death penalty in Paris. Photo: World Coalition Against the Death Penalty

In the United States, capital punishment–or, put more bluntly, the death penalty– remains a deeply divisive issue.

In other countries, however, Amnesty International reports the death penalty abolition movement is gaining support, and they signal Togo legislators’ unanimous repeal of capital punishment earlier this week as the most recent proof of this trend.

Togo is the 15th African Union member nation to abolish the death penalty for all types of crimes, though it’s not likely to be the last: Mali is considering a similar move.

To see a full list of the countries that reject the death penalty as a form of punishment for all crimes, click here.

To learn more about the death penalty abolition movement in the United States, visit the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, which offers 10 ways you can take action to help abolish the death penalty. To read up on the death penalty abolition movement in other parts of the world, visit the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

Photo: Brooke Anderson

We’ve previously featured Idealist on Matador Change, calling the website “THE definitive online reference for voluntourism.”

So we were already big fans of the site before receiving the news that Idealist is currently looking for 10 bloggers to write for the soon-to-launch “La Vida Idealist” blog, a resource for English-speaking expats/travelers who are interested in free and low cost non-profit work in Latin America.

Candidates should be working or volunteering with a local community in Latin America, and willing to write openly about their experiences–positive and otherwise–of participating in community-building projects in a region Idealist considers “full of stories of people turning their good intentions into action to make the world a better place.”

Idealist is an internationally respected website with an average of 60,000 unique visitors per day.

If you’re interested in applying, you can read all the details here.

Community Connection:

Interested in volunteering in Latin America? Matador Trips co-editor Hal Amen offers some tips for getting started, while Alix Farr shares five tips about how to set realistic expectations about your volunteer experience.

Photo: .faramarz

Photo: .faramarz

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei raised the stakes on Friday when he defended President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the rightful winner in the country’s June 12th elections.

The supreme leader threatened “bloodshed and chaos” to Iranian citizens who defy his ban and take to the streets for Saturday’s anticipated protests.

Despite the threats, Iranians who want a better future are planning to rally on Saturday in the face of serious risk.

The stern warning has echoed fear of a massacre resembling the one that left 2,500 dead and 10,000 wounded in the Beijing’s Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

Here are five reasons we should support and applaud Iranian protesters on Saturday:

1) The protesters have the momentum.

Iranian activists have already accomplished much with the massive protests over the past week. They have captured the attention of the world, and posed a formidable challenge to their leadership and the rigged election. They have sent a message to Iranian leaders that they will not follow a government they did not choose.

Photo: mrarasmus

Friday’s harsh threats from the supreme leader are a last resort to quell the unrest and now the ball is in the people’s court.

If they have the courage to call his bluff, risking physical harm to themselves, it will represent a tipping point for the country.

2) The Iranians want our support.

You may have noticed in some of the most prolific photos of the protests this week, many of the signs are in English.

Iranian protesters know that the rest of the world is watching and with English signs, like “Where is my vote?”, they are sending us a message that they are not violent people, they want democracy to succeed and they want the improvements that it will bring to their lives.

3) It’s not about the opposition leaders anymore; it’s about the people.

The supreme leader’s threats are directed at all Iranians, but he specifically said that the responsibility for the chaos and bloodshed come Saturday would be on the hands of opposition leaders.

In other words, he’s ordering the opposition leaders to call off the rallies. Problem is, the time when that was possible has already passed.

Mr. Hossein Moussavi. Photo: Hamed Saber

On Tuesday, Mr. Hossein Moussavi, one of the main opposition leaders, urged his own supporters to cancel their plans to rally and it had no effect.

Hundreds of thousands showed up against his intentions and when the numbers neared a million, he joined them.

This shows that it’s ordinary citizens, not high-powered politicians fueling this unrest. It is the people–and a large section of the Iranian establishment– demanding a fair election.

4) Regime change can only come from within.

As much as Western governments would like to replace the totalitarian regime in Iran, real revolution must come from within. Outside governments like the US will never be able to successfully change a sovereign government like Iran through embargoes and political pressure.

More importantly, in Iran, the single biggest subject that unifies the most radical sects of the government is “outside power”, i.e. America vying for influence. In other words, the more western governments attempt to influence politics from the outside, the more we are emboldening politicians like Ahmadinejad and fueling hatred of America at the political level.

Photo: .faramarz

If successful regime change comes to Iran, it will arrive in the hands of Iranians.

5) There is so much future to fight for.

70% of Iranians are under the age of 30. A change in government now could have dramatically positive results for the lives of all young Iranians. Now is their chance.

The people of Iran have been entangled by the oppression of their government and the prejudice of the West for too long.

Just as many Americans cringed at the thought of foreigners perceiving our people by the measures of our government and foreign policy during the W. Bush years, Iranians too are frustrated by the fact that their people are judged by the decisions made by their government. This is an opportunity to change all that.

Just as we in the United States changed our leadership and elected Obama to open people’s minds back up to what we stand for, Iranians could do the same thing if they succeed in bringing new leadership to Iran.

The time is now.

So I urge you, regardless of where you are in the world, or what country you’re from, support the people of Iran on this fateful day. Make sure everyone you care about knows what’s happening and understands how high the stakes are for these people, who so desperately want a real democracy. To begin, here are six ways you can help.

On Wednesday and Thursday, people in 20 cities around the world–including Denver, Miami, Helsinki, Paris, Madrid, Torino, Stockholm, Ottawa, and Melbourne–gathered to express their solidarity with Peruvian protesters who were attacked by federal special forces in the remote region of Bagua last week.

My husband, Francisco Collazo, was at the New York City demonstration to document the diverse group of people who showed up at the Consulate of Peru in photographs:

1. A homemade sign expresses a protester’s beliefs.

After posting some of the photos on our blog, a commenter remarked: “Some people actually solve problems, others just make signs and pretend to make a difference.”

The comment rankled and I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon.

It’s easy–and important, too–to question the privilege that we have as protesters responding to an episode as serious as the attacks on the indigenous communities in Bagua from a distance. We’re not at any real risk.

Maybe this guy got arrested on a civil disobedience misdemeanor…

2. This man chained himself to a door.

but that’s hardly akin to putting one’s life on the line in a remote area of Peru. And granted, it’s not comparable to the work that Gregor MacLennan is doing in Bagua, gathering testimonies of survivors and eyewitnesses to the attack and informing the international media of what’s happening on the ground there.

Still, I think the anonymous commenter is cynical.

We can’t all be on the front lines gathering testimonies and providing direct aid. We have jobs and families and obligations that keep us tied to where we are. But we can gather together in our own communities with people who share a deep concern for fellow human beings experiencing crisis and injustice to let them know that their tragedy is being witnessed and that we won’t be silent. We can bring our signs and get together to say “We haven’t forgotten you” and to tell perpetrators of injustice “We hold you accountable.”

We can chain ourselves to the doors of our elected and appointed representatives to draw attention to world problems and say, “We expect you to intervene.”

And you know what, Mr. Cynical? Holding signs and chanting “El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido” (“The people, united, will never be divided”) doesn’t just make us feel better.

Today, just 24 hours after it launched an online petition calling the president of Peru to protect and uphold indigenous rights, the activist group Avaaz had collected over 113,000 signatures. In response to this action and the worldwide pressure put on President Alan Garcia by all these crazy protesters with their signs, the Peruvian legislature announced that it has temporarily suspended two of the free trade decrees that provoked the people of Bagua to protest and precipitated the full-on attack by Peruvian Special Forces.

Just look at what a few homemade signs can do.

Photo: Azfar Hakim

Last week, Matador reported breaking news in the Wiwa v. Shell case, explaining that the case 15 years in the making had first been rescheduled and then postponed indefinitely. In that article, we wrote:

“Initial unsubstantiated rumors indicated that Shell may have agreed to settle the case out of court by offering financial reparations without ever actually admitting, much less accepting, any responsibility for its role in the deaths of the activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and others, as well as other human rights and environmental violations.”

Turns out those rumors–which we’d first heard from reputable sources with close ties to the case–were true.

This afternoon, Riptide Communications issued a press release stating that Shell settled with the plaintiffs in the Wiwa v. Shell case for a total of $15.5 million USD.

That amount will be distributed amongst 10 plaintiffs, will cover some of the legal costs they incurred, AND establish a trust fund for the Ogoni people whose communities have been decimated by Shell’s actions in the Ogoniland region of Nigeria.

Now I’m not too good with numbers, but $15 million (about a million for every year the plaintiffs have been fighting for justice) seems a pretty pitiful sum when Shell’s most recently reported profits exceeded $31 billion USD for the past fiscal year alone. And while this figure represented a decline in the company’s profit margins compared to past years, its profit, when calculated by the hour, exceeded $4 million USD.

Yep.

$4 million every hour.

Shame on you, Shell.

While attorneys for the plaintiffs acknowledge–and rightfully so–that the settlement is a meaningful sign of the company’s acknowledgment of the human rights abuses it has perpetrated, $15 million hardly seems adequate apology.

Photos courtesy of Amazon Watch

[Editor's Note: This article contains extremely graphic images that may not be appropriate for all audiences. Please use your discretion.]

For people around the world who have limited access to traditional forms of power, the peaceful demonstration is often an effective means of bringing local and international attention to life and death issues that would otherwise go unnoticed.

This was true during the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., when African Americans dressed in their Sunday finest and sat at lunch counters, waiting to be served but knowing they wouldn’t be.

It was true two weeks ago in California, when supporters of gay rights gathered together to stage a sit-in in front of San Francisco’s City Hall.

And it was true on Friday morning, June 6, when several thousand Awajun and Wambis, indigenous Peruvians, continued their 56 day road block in the remote area of Bagua to protest free trade agreements that have opened ancestral lands to private companies for resource extraction without their input or agreement.

But traditional authority has little tolerance for these patient, often silent, forms of protest.

And so, around 2 AM on Friday morning, Peruvian Special Forces surrounded demonstrators set up along a roadway with steep embankments on either side. While the demonstrators were sleeping, police came in from both sides and even from above–by helicopter–trapping the indigenous groups and demanding they cede the land they were holding.

When the demonstrators refused, police fired tear gas, grenades, and bullets into the group, killing at least 25 civilians and wounding more than 150.

Gregor MacLennan of the environmental advocacy group Amazon Watch arrived in Bagua shortly after the attacks to begin collecting the testimonies of eyewitnesses. Based on the reports he collected, MacLennan reported:

“All eyewitness testimonies say that Special Forces opened fire on peaceful and unarmed demonstrators…. This was not a clash, but a coordinated police raid with police firing on protesters from both sides of their blockade…. Some have reported seeing the police throwing liquid on the cadavers and burning them.

“Also local residents have given accounts of having seen police throwing bodies of dead civilians into the river in an apparent attempt to underreport the number of dead. We’ve also received accounts that some of those injured were being detained by security forces and denied medical attention leading to additional deaths. There are many people still reported missing and access to medical attention in the region is horribly inadequate.”

Amazon Watch is currently monitoring events in the region and has established several opportunities for you to take action:

1. Send a direct message to Peruvian President Alan Garcia and the government to support the four-point agenda presented by the indigenous groups: (a) immediately suspend violent repression of indigenous protests and the State of Emergency; (b) repeal the Free Trade Laws that allow oil, logging, and agricultural corporations easy entry into indigenous territories; (c) respect indigenous peoples’ constitutionally guaranteed rights to self-determination, to their ancestral territories, and to prior consultation; and (d) enter into good faith process of dialogue with indigenous peoples to resolve this conflict.

2. Make a donation of any amount to a fund that has been established to provide emergency medical care and legal services to those directly affected by the violent raid.

Photo: irene.

When I was watching Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s address to the California legislature last week, I wasn’t sure I could believe my eyes or ears: The Terminator, er, Governator, almost sounded emotional as he talked about “seeing the faces behind those [budget] cuts,” which he’d made with his executive power.

“It’s an awful feeling,” Governor Schwarzenegger said, describing the sound of protesters outside the Capitol building and recounting the tales of civil servants, Alzheimer’s patients, and children who will be affected directly by cuts to the state’s three largest areas of spending: education, health care, and the prison system.

In addition to critical services, the governor announced that he plans to shut down 220 state parks as a cash-saving measure to help correct the $24 billion budget deficit.

Acknowledging that legislators’ decisions about the budget will likely be the most difficult choices they’ve ever faced, Schwarzenegger said that the state will run out of money if they don’t make those tough calls by June 15.

He’s right, of course– the only way the budget can be reined in is by making hard choices. But closing state parks doesn’t just affect people’s ability to enjoy California’s abundant natural resources; it will also affect their health and quality of life. As The Gaia Conservancy noted, state parks may actually help bail out the foundering economy. When local tourism is promoted, money goes directly to the state.

You can view the full speech in the video below:

Community Connection:

Want to take action? The Gaia Conservancy is sponsoring an online petition, which you can sign here. You can also view other resources and calls to action on the California State Parks Foundation’s Facebook account, which is here.

And if all your efforts don’t prevent California’s state parks from being closed, check out Matador contributor William Moss Wilson’s article about California’s best treks… some of the urban options may surprise you!

Bluefin tuna at a Tokyo market. Photo: Stewart

In the car industry and looking for a job? Try Mitsubishi; they might be hiring.

But it’s not designers, assembly workers, or car salesmen they’re looking for; it’s commercial fishermen.

The Independent reports that Mitsubishi, worried about its future in the auto industry, is making a move into a secondary market: the fishing of bluefin tuna.

According to the article and the soon to be released documentary, “The End of the Line,” Mitsubishi is responsible for supplying almost 40% of the world’s tuna. The company itself told The Independent that it “handles between 35 per cent and 40 per cent of Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna imported to Japan….”

The move is a brilliant business strategy. Though the market price of tuna tanked last December, economic analysts predict the price will start to rise exponentially as the availability of tuna–as with many other fish species–becomes increasingly limited. Mitsubishi, which has been freezing much of its supply, will then be able to release the in-demand fish to a market ready to pay a handsome price for the delicacy.

While Mitsubishi seems all but assured to make a tidy profit in the long-term, it’s already fending off criticism from environmentalists who charge the company with contributing to the perils of overfishing.

To learn more about overfishing, visit Greenpeace’s overview of this problem. And to learn more about how you can make sure your seafood buying practices aren’t contributing to the problem, check out this useful guide from the Blue Ocean Institute.

And if you’re interested in seeing “The End of the Line,” here’s the trailer. The film opens on June 8, 2009, World Oceans Day:

Community Connection:

Know which fish are environmentally friendly? Good. Now check out Turner Wright’s guide to ordering sushi like a pro.

As Matador reported on May 6, the case Wiwa v. Shell was scheduled to be heard in a New York City federal court on May 27. The case–almost 15 years in the making–involved Nigerian plaintiffs who suffered human rights and environmental abuses at the hands of Royal Dutch Shell, the mega-oil magnate extracting crude in the Nigerian Ogoniland.

But on May 27, the case was dismissed, rescheduled for today, June 3:

Document from Riptide Communications

And then, this afternoon, Judge Kimba Wood decided the trial would be adjourned indefinitely:

Document from Riptide Communications

What do these documents mean?

Initial unsubstantiated rumors indicated that Shell may have agreed to settle the case out of court by offering financial reparations without ever actually admitting, much less accepting, any responsibility for its role in the deaths of the activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and others, as well as other human rights and environmental violations.

But as of 5:30 PM EST this afternoon, Riptide Communications circulated a press release explaining that Judge Wood actually:

“…overturned [a 2008] District Court decision dismissing the Wiwa v. Shell plaintiffs’ claims against Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, Ltd. (Shell Nigeria), [which will] permit the plaintiffs to seek further information to establish Shell Nigeria’s connections to the United States.”

Attorneys at the Center for Constitutional Rights declared the decision a victory for the Nigerian plaintiffs, but one has to wonder if the plaintiffs themselves see it that way. Regardless of the information they obtain to add to the mountain of evidence that already exists to prove Shell’s misdeeds, the fact that no future trial date has been scheduled seems to signify not a victory, but rather another disappointing delay in the long wait for justice.

1. People of all ages…

2. People from all walks of life…

3. People from different tribes…

4. People from different countries…

5. brought together by the same sense of resolve…

6. brought together by the desire to take action.

7. They stood and they sat…

8. and they said, “We won’t be silent.”

Photos 1-5: David Gilbert, Amazon Watch

Photos 6-8: Thomas Cavanagh, Amazon Watch

Community Connection:

To read about the outcome of the Shareholder Meeting, click here. And to get the back story on Chevron, be sure to review Matador’s coverage, which you can access by clicking on “Related Posts” below.

Image courtesy of True Cost of Chevron

Big oil realizes it’s in big trouble.

The world’s big oil companies are in a tough position: they source and sell one of the most in-demand products in a world where consumers are increasingly sensitive to the environmental and human rights impacts of oil production and consumption.

Yet the Chevrons and Shells of the world are responding to market demand and making enormous profits, so there’s little incentive to stop oil drilling.

The oil companies and the consumer public share the responsibility for the consequences of oil dependence on human and physical environments, but big oil is directly on the hot seat. In order to draw attention away from the catastrophes caused by its activities, big oil has been rolling out new advertising and marketing strategies in an effort to change the public’s perception of oil companies AND to put the onus of environmental responsibility on consumers.

Chevron’s recent ad campaign, which revolves around the question, “Will you join us?”, features diverse people in television and print ads making firm, declarative commitments to reducing their own oil dependence:

“I will leave the car at home more.”

“I will finally get a programmable thermostat.”

“I will replace 3 light bulbs with CFLs.”

And so on.

But critics charge that Chevron’s empowering, “I can do it” campaign is little more than the company’s most recent–and boldest–attempt to greenwash its own activities.

In recent weeks, 11 organizations came together to launch the website, True Cost of Chevron. In addition to producing the “Alternative Annual Report,” the activist groups designed their own ad campaign.

Modeled after Chevron’s “Will you join us?” campaign, the True Cost of Chevron ads also feature individuals from around the world, making aspirational statements of an entirely different sort:

Burma:

Chevron has refused to acknowledge both the widespread human rights abuses caused by its Yadana project and the destructive effects that revenue from the project has had in Burma.

Canada:

In Canada, the toxic burden on communities near the tar sands is already enormous. In addition to direct human exposure, oil contamination in the local watershed has led to arsenic in moose meat – a dietary staple for First Nations peoples – up to 33 times acceptable levels. Drinking water has also been contaminated.

Ecuador:

While drilling in the Ecuadorian Amazon from 1964 to 1990, Texaco – which merged with Chevron in 2001 – deliberately dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater, spilled roughly 17 million gallons of crude oil, and left hazardous waste in hundreds of open pits dug out of the forest floor.

Nigeria:

Chevron continues to employ and pay the notoriously brutal Nigerian military to provide it with security services.

Iraq:

In 2007, Chevron paid $30 million to settle charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had paid illegal kickbacks to the Hussein regime to win its Iraqi marketing contracts, after it was revealed that Hussein had established a worldwide network of oil companies and countries that secretly helped Iraq generate about $11 billion in illegal income from oil sales.

Kazakhstan:

The surrounding populations began to suffer greatly from an unprecedented variety of illnesses upon development of the [oil] fields, including respiratory illnesses, blood illnesses, cardiovascular illnesses, and high levels of stillborn babies, all of which medical specialists have determined to be directly related to the oil industry.

Amazon Watch, one of the organizations in the coalition behind True Cost of Chevron, tried to sell the ads to CBS, which rejected the offer. Within 24 hours, visitors to the True Cost of Chevron site had downloaded the ads and pasted them around San Francisco.

Community Connection:

Want to make sure your money is supporting truly green companies? Check out “10 Brands That Don’t Deserve to Declare Themselves Green” and “10 Tested and True Green Companies.”

All True Cost of Chevron ads courtesy of True Cost of Chevron.

Image courtesy of truecostofchevron.com

It won’t be a fun week for oil company bigwigs.

As Matador reported previously, Wiwa v. Shell–a case almost 15 years in the making–will open this week in a New York City courtroom. The case brings Royal Dutch Shell to court and holds the oil company accountable for the deaths of Ken Saro-Wiwa and fellow activists in 1995, as well as other environmental and human rights violations.

Jury selection begins on Wednesday, May 27, and opening statements are expected to be delivered the following day, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights. If you’re in the New York City area and are interested in attending the trial, it will be open to the public. The Center for Constitutional Rights is also seeking NYC-area volunteers to provide logistical support to Nigerian plaintiffs; more information about that can be found here.

If you’re not in New York City, but wish to support the case against Shell, the Center for Constitutional Rights offers opportunities to host screenings of the documentary “Delta Force” or to help publicize the case via the Internet. Read more about those opportunities here.

Over on the West Coast, another oil company will be on the hot seat.

Chevron’s annual shareholders’ meeting is also scheduled for Wednesday, May 27, and will be held at Chevron’s headquarters in San Ramon, California.

The meeting promises to be dramatic: the company is currently embroiled in its own lawsuit, which was filed in New York in 1993 and was later moved to Ecuador at Chevron’s request. The class action suit is believed to be the largest environmental case in history, representing 30,000 plaintiffs in Ecuador, who charge Chevron of gross environmental and human rights abuses.

Shareholders may be happy with the company’s profits, but many have expressed concern about Chevron’s handling of the court case. New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo recently opened a probe of Chevron to determine if it is misleading shareholders, so passions are likely to be high at Wednesday’s meeting.

Environmental and human rights advocates are expected to stage a protest outside Chevron’s headquarters the day of the meeting, and members of indigenous and farming communities from Ecuador’s Amazon will be present to address Chevron’s management directly.

You can read background on the case and follow what unfolds this week here. And if you’d like to send Chevron your own message, visit this site.

Community Connection:

Keep coming back this week to learn more about the developments in both cases, and to read first-hand accounts of people affected directly by Chevron’s actions in Ecuador’s Amazon.

There are a lot of lifestyle changes I’ve made for the sake of the planet.

Photo: “thoR

I recycle. I got rid of my car a few years back and walk or use public transportation. I carry reusable bags so I don’t need plastic bags from the grocery store. I turn off the lights when I leave a room, unplug appliances that aren’t in use, take quick showers though I prefer long ones, use rechargeable batteries rather than disposables, and try to remember to carry a travel mug.

And that’s just the daily stuff.

But am I about to confront the limits of my environmental friendliness?

A recent article in the New Scientist reviewed research on the impact of computer and Internet use… and the results aren’t encouraging.

First: “the energy used by all… computers and peripherals…could be responsible for as much as 2 per cent of all human-made CO2 emissions, putting [computers] on a par with the aviation industry.”

And we gripe about the massive carbon footprint of air travel.

But that’s not all:

“According to Google, the production of the electricity needed for a single internet search generates 200 milligrams of CO2. This may not sound much, but it adds up: 1000 searches produce the same CO2 emissions as an average European car travelling 1 kilometre. Worse, internet traffic is currently growing at around 50 per cent each year. According to the international environmental coalition The Climate Group, total emissions from computers will increase by 280 per cent, to the equivalent of 1.4 gigatonnes of CO2, by 2020.”

Yikes.

I don’t know about you, but my computer is a pretty important part of my life. As a full time writer, editor, and researcher, I spend hours on my computer every day; it’s how I make a living.

So if the news about the negative environmental impact of computers and the Internet is true, what’s a girl like me– or you– to do? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Community Connection:

Beyond your daily computer use, do you travel with your laptop? If you’re considering a laptop-free trip, check out these tips in “Laptop Travel: To Bring or Not to Bring.

Photo: Yoshimai

Maybe you’re one of the millions of people who’s watched “The Story of Stuff.”

If you’re not, then here’s the quick overview: “The Story of Stuff” is a video made by Annie Leonard, an environmental activist and former Greenpeace employee who is deeply concerned about mass consumer culture and its effects on the environment.

Leonard put the video online in late 2007 and it became what the New York Times recently called “a sleeper hit.” Though it’s free online (both on The Story of Stuff website and on YouTube), thousands of churches and schools have ordered their own copies so they can teach their members about the ways our purchases ultimately impact the world we live in.

“The Story of Stuff” has been praised because it’s simple without being insulting, informative without being dry and overly didactic. It conveys a message without being painfully preachy. And it’s stimulated conversation online and off, encouraging people to share ideas about how they can take Leonard’s message and make it real in their own lives:

But not everyone is as enthusiastic about “The Story of Stuff.” One parent in the United States, annoyed that his child had been exposed to the video at school, argued that “The Story of Stuff” was just anticapitalist propaganda. In his complaint to the local school board, he griped, “There was not one positive thing about capitalism in the whole thing.”
The school board agreed, ruling that showing the video violated school policies.

And this guy’s by no means an anomaly.

A quick scan of the comment thread on “The Story of Stuff’s” YouTube account shows that plenty of folks have confused Leonard’s message of conscious consumerism with communism.

“Would someone tell this stupid commie #*&$% about economies of scale.” wrote one commenter.

Another: “Jesus enviros and their lackiers [sic] are troglodytes.”

That’s good for a laugh, maybe, but it’s too bad that some viewers (we’ll assume they did watch the video, right?) have blown “The Story of Stuff” out of proportion and find its call to be more conscious about our purchasing patterns a threat to capitalism.

Photo: Tomas Fano

The Concourse, restored and renovated between 1996 and 1998, is probably one of the city’s most visited places, included on walking tour itineraries because of its spectacular representation of the Beaux Arts style.

In addition to the stunning ceiling, there’s the four-sided opal-inlaid clock estimated to be worth $10-$20 million dollars that sits atop the information booth in the center of the Concourse, serving as a popular meet-up spot, and 10 gold chandeliers that light the Concourse. They’re 96 years old.

This week, the chandeliers were lowered to the floor so workers could replace the 110 bulbs that keep each chandelier blazingly bright with the compact flourescent bulbs considered to be environmentally friendly.

In addition to being better for the environment, the bulb-work came as the city continued looking for ways to trim its budget. Though the bulbs for each chandelier cost $1,100, the projected cost savings per year will be $200,000.

Read the full story about the greening of Grand Central’s chandeliers here.

Photo: Luxerta

I was listening to the radio as I was driving home from work. When I parked in front of my apartment building, I couldn’t get out of the car. The host was describing Saro Wiwa, a writer and an intellectual who had devoted his life to activism when oil giant Royal Dutch Shell began impinging upon environmental and human rights in Nigeria’s Ogoniland. His vision was to engage RDS through a peaceful, non-violent movement.

That movement attracted enough support and international attention to make RDS and the Nigerian government uncomfortable. In 1995, after having been arrested with eight other activists on unfounded allegations of murder, Saro Wiwa was brought to trial and sentenced to death by hanging. As if the execution was not enough, Saro Wiwa’s body was burned with acid and dumped in an unmarked grave.

No individual or group ever took responsibility for the torture and execution of Saro Wiwa and the other activists, as well as the exile of Wiwa family members that occurred after the murder.

Royal Dutch Shell, of course, carried on with business as usual.

The story of Saro Wiwa’s life and death was compelling, and I made a note to stop by the library the following day so I could read some of his work and learn more about him.

And then, September 11 happened.
*
I thought about that broadcast this weekend, when I attended PEN World Voices Festival’s panel discussion between Ken Saro Wiwa’s son, the journalist and government adviser Ken Wiwa, and the American novelist Richard North Patterson, whose most recent novel is based loosely on Saro Wiwa’s life and death. The two men convened, along with moderator Okey Ndibe, a Nigerian novelist, to talk about Saro Wiwa’s legacy.

Ndibe started the conversation by sharing his own recollections of Saro Wiwa. He was “ebullient” Ndibe said of Saro Wiwa, and he “always carried a book” and his signature smoking pipe. Ndibe recalled a man full of life and passion, even in the midst of struggle.

Photo of Ken Wiwa by Francisco Collazo

Wiwa acknowledged Ndibe’s vision of Saro Wiwa, but added that he believed his father also carried a weight of sadness, which came from the sense that he hadn’t achieved enough in the struggle, or that the efforts of the movement were not making progress quickly enough.

Over the course of the conversation, the three men agreed that the ambitious agenda of social, environmental, and economic justice advocated by Saro Wiwa was, if seemingly solitary for Saro Wiwa himself, also profoundly visionary. Today, climate change, desertification, land rights, and the effects of corporatocracies on communities might well be considered the core issues of our time. Saro Wiwa was largely responsible for putting them on the world’s radar screen.

In his final statement before the military tribunal, Saro Wiwa said:

I have no doubt at all about the ultimate success of my cause, no matter the trials and tribulations which I and those who believe with me may encounter on our journey.

The legacy Saro Wiwa left for us all, agreed Ndibe, Wiwa, and Patterson, was to always keep trying, to stay true to one’s ideals and goals even when no progress or support seems imminent, to stay engaged in the struggle.

It’s a message that’s a meaningful reminder for anyone engaged in social justice work, and one that had particular resonance on the day of the panel discussion. After more than 12 years, the Center for Constitutional Rights recently announced that Wiwa v. Shell will open in a federal court in Manhattan on May 26, 2009. After jury selection, the trial is expected to take 4 to 6 weeks.

To stay current with developments in the case, visit the CCR’s Wiwa v. Shell website.

And to learn more about the background of the case, take a few minutes to watch this video:

But mainstream media outlets are finally starting to take big oil to task, exposing its corporate social responsibility mantras as little more than hot air.

Chevron, according to a “60 Minutes” report that aired last night, is the third largest company in the United States, with oil interests all over the world. Drilling far from home, the company has responded to the U.S.’s unquenchable thirst for oil. While reaping a tidy profit–despite the economic downturn, Chevron managed to increase revenues by 25% (to $263 billion USD) in 2008 — Chevron has consistently engaged in business and environmental practices that have had very real and devastating consequences for communities and ecosystems in South America, Africa, and on other continents.

Photo: Kayana Szymczak, via chevrontoxico.com

Chevron’s dirty work has been especially damaging in Ecuador, where the world’s largest environmental lawsuit in history–with more than 30,000 litigants–is getting underway. Chevron, which started oil prospecting in Ecuador in the 1960s, took the money and ran, leaving a trail of environmental hazards–including leaching waste wells–in its wake.

To learn more about the situation, check out “60 Minutes’” full report in this video:

Watch CBS Videos Online

And to learn more about what you can do to hold big oil accountable for its environmental and human atrocities, check out Amazon Watch’s action alerts.

Ramirez, who read from his recently published novel, Mil y Una Muertes (A Thousand Deaths Plus One), spoke afterward about the importance of Nicaraguan intellectuals and writers telling their country’s history from their own perspectives–rather than only allowing that history to be told from the outside.

But news from Nicaragua this week suggests that intellectuals and writers may not be the only Nicaraguans writing or making history.

Dan..

TIME Magazine is reporting that an indigenous group along Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast has called for secession from the country. Journalist Isidro Hernandez explained:

“Frustrated by broken promises of autonomy and generations of exploitation by outsiders, traditional leaders on the rural Atlantic coast are calling for a clean break from Nicaragua and the creation of the Communitarian Nation of the Moskitia (named after the region’s indigenous people).”

The indigenous groups of the coastal region have historically been geographically, socially, politically, and economically marginalized.

Two weeks ago, Hernandez continued, indigenous leaders approved the call for secession, and sent a message to the leftist government of Nicaraguan President, Daniel Ortega, telling him that if the secession is not granted, their group is prepared to fight for their freedom.

The indigenous leaders also sent a letter to the United Nations in which they requested support and protection, expressing their belief that they are living in a state of emergency.

The call for secession poses a unique problem for President Ortega, who claims to have indigenous blood and who has supported secessionist movements around the globe, including those in former Soviet republics and a relatively weak Puerto Rican independence movement. To date, President Ortega has not commented publicly on the secession movement gathering momentum in his own country.

To keep up with developments on this issue, you can visit Nicaragua’s Spanish language newspaper, El Nuevo Diario, or its English language paper, The Nica Times, both of which are online.

Photo: sarihuella

If you’ve been following the swine flu news this week–and really, who hasn’t?– you probably know that you don’t need to worry that your taste for bacon puts you at risk of contracting the virus.

Health officials in the U.S. and abroad have repeatedly stated that people cannot contract swine flu from eating pork or pork products.

But that doesn’t mean that the world’s meat supply is safe.

In the U.S. alone, over 70% of all antibiotics used are administered not to people, but to cattle, pigs, and poultry eventually destined for the dinner table.

The antibiotics, which include tetracycline, penicillin, and erythromycin, among others, are routinely given to livestock not to treat existing illnesses, but to prevent illness, thus allowing livestock producers to raise greater numbers of animals in conditions that are not always safe.

Photo: sporkist

The overuse of antibiotics in the food supply has serious implications for human health, as the exposure to antibiotics through the pork, chicken, and beef we eat increases our bodies’ familiarity with infection-fighting drugs, thus making it less likely antibiotics will work when we need them for therapeutic purposes.

The problem is particularly common and pervasive among American hog farmers, according to New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, who wrote about the issue last month.

While public health officials around the world focus on managing the acute problem of swine flu, government officials need to get to work on the antibiotics issue, which may pose far more serious problems over the long run.

One U.S. Representative, Louise Slaughter, is doing just that– last month, she proposed PAMTA, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, which will “will phase out the feeding of massive quantities of antibiotics important in human medicine to food animals within two years of enactment.”

Photo: Andrew Stawarz

The bill is currently before Congress. If you live in the US and want to encourage your Representative or Senator to support PAMTA, you can take action here.

On display in Museo de la Memoria (Museum of Memory) between March 23 and May 30, I made it to the opening on the eve of Día Nacional de la Memoria por la Verdad y la Justicia (National Day of Memory for Truth and Justice), a holiday dedicated to the remembrance of the dictatorship and the atrocities and deaths attributable to it.

Family photos enlarged to the size of picture windows present a “before.” Before as in before the Argentinean dictatorship between the years of 1976 and 1983 that snuffed out the lives of as many as 30,000 people.

Above: Maria Irma Ferriera – missing since age 22, murdered January 7, 1977, in a family photograph from 1970.

To the right of each of these moments caught on film among family and friends are their modern counterparts. People who have aged in the interim, the ones who remain, recreate each scene under the careful direction of photographer Gustavo Germano.

Husbands, wives, parents, and children who once were there leave haunting spaces in the images. The gravity of the loss is apparent in the eyes of those in the enormous, full color prints. Many of the subjects gaze directly into the camera with sobering expressions.

The disappeared were from all walks of life. Children were taken from mothers who were suspected of having subversive views – the mothers killed and the children given to the military elite.

The following are some photographs I took of the exhibition along with translations from the program. The missing are named with their age at the time of their disappearance or murder.

María del Carmen Fettolini (age 29)
María Eugenia Amestoy (age 5)
Fernanado Amestoy (age 3)

(in this photo, you can see Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo viewing the work)

María del Carmen was born in 1947 in Nogoyá. Childhood sweetheart and wife of Omar Dario Amestoy, she was a kindergarten teacher in a Catholic school in Nogoyá.

At the age of 29, María del Carmen was brutally assassinated by Army forces and Federal Police along with her husband, Omar Dario Amestoy, and their small children, María Eugenia and Fernando. At six in the morning, tanks and trucks surrounded their house at 668 Justo Street while they slept.

Cars, submachine guns, shouts, grenades, tear gas. María del Carmen, Omar, and their friend Ana María Granada had no means of defending themselves. They tried to hide the children. The adults died riddled with bullets. The children, María Eugenia and Fernando, were asphyxiated by gas. Five month old Manuel, son of Ana María Granada, hidden in a blanket inside a wardrobe, was the only survivor. He recovered his identity in 1995.

In this 1974 photograph, María del Carmen on the right smiles next to her mother in law, Aurora Yturbe, her cousin Martín and her two children, María Eugenia and Fernando. Sunday lunch with the in-laws.

As of March 2009, the families continue to seek justice.

Orlando René Méndez (age 29)
Leticia Margarita Oliva (age 30)

Orlando René was born in San Salvador (Entre Rios) November 10, 1946. Leticia Margarita Oliva was born in Plaza Huincul (Neuquén) August 26, 1948. They were married in April 1970. Their only child, Laura, was born five years later.

Orlando “Toto” worked in an air conditioner factory and was a guerrilla soldier. On October 21, 1976, he was arrested during a meeting with this organization. His 11-month old daughter was with him. They were both transferred to the Navy Mechanics School. Orlando arrived dead.

María Álvarez, also detained there, looked after the baby for several hours. By night, the child was abandoned at an orphanage where, after several days of searching, her mother was found and they were reunited.

After the arrest and murder of her husband, Leticia abandoned activism and moved to another city. December 27, 1978, two years after Orlando’s arrest, an armed commando group invaded her home.

Three year old Laura was in the house with her babysitter. The soldiers waited six hours for Leticia to return from the clinic where she worked. As soon as she entered, they blindfolded her, beat her, and took her away. This is the last image Laura would ever have of her mother, who she would never see again.

In the photograph, Orlando and Leticia with Laura in the house of her grandparents days before the state strike of March 24, 1976.

As of March 29, 2009 Orlando and Leticia are still missing.

Eduardo Raúl Germano (age 18)

Eduardo Raúl was born February 20, 1958 in Villaguay. The oldest of four brothers, at 16 he was elected president of La Salle Student Center and started an activist group.

In July, 1976, he was detained nine days in the hidden detention center in Paraná City Army Squadron Communication Center (CCD). Once freed, he moved to Rosario where he lived in hiding. On December 17, 1976, he was arrested once again, this time by the Argentinean Army and Santa Fe Province Police.

For days he was tortured in the CCD, known as “El Pozo,” or the hole. Investigations following the dictatorship and verified recently by the Museum of the Memory in Rosario reveal that Germano was murdered December 23, 1976.

Rosario Chief of Police, Augustín Feced, organized a simulated terrorist attack in the Fisherton neighborhood to blow up the tortured bodies of Eduardo and his girlfriend. Eduardo “el Mencho” or “the Mensch,” was buried January 4, 1977 in an unmarked grave at La Piedad Cemetery, which was later turned into a mass reliquary.

In the photograph: 1969. The family goes on vacation to Uruguay. The Argentinean police demand an identity photo of the children before permitting them to cross the border. The photo was taken in a studio in a nearby town.

As of March 2009, Eduardo is still missing.

The artist is the subject on the left of each photo here.

Visit Germano’s website to see more photos. Even if you can’t speak or understand Spanish, these photos need no translation.

Photo: joiseyshowaa

Until relatively recently, pirates were characters with eye patches, wooden legs, and parrots who existed only in classic adventure books, bad movies, or on the labels of Caribbean rums. They were foul-mouthed, greasy-haired bad guys who had a penchant for drinking too much, and they spent their days strategizing about how to protect treasure chests full of coin they’d stolen from others.

But as John Burnett, author of Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas –a book about his own experience of being hijacked by pirates–has noted, modern piracy isn’t nearly so quaint:

“Today’s breed of pirates are not the colorful cutthroats painted by the history books. Unlike the romantic images from yesteryear of Captain Kidd and Blackbeard, they can be local seamen looking for a quick score, highly-trained guerillas, rogue military units, or former seafarers recruited by sophisticated crime organizations.

Armed with machetes, assault rifles and grenade launchers, they steal out in speedboats and fishing boats in search of supertankers, cargo ships, passenger ferries, cruise ships, and yachts, attacking them at port, on the open seas, in international waters. Off the coasts of Somalia, Nigeria, [and] Southeast Asia, entire ships are hijacked and cargo and crews simply vanish.”

That, or they’re held for ransom.

One of several pirate dramas of the past week involves a US ship seized by Somali pirates who are currently demanding $2 million USD in ransom to release their hostage, Captain Richard Phillips. At present, it’s unclear whether Maersk, the owner of the ship being sailed by Captain Phillips, will consider paying the ransom. The US government, for its part, has a policy of not paying ransom in exchange for property or life.

While shipping companies and governments affected by piracy have handled ransom demands in different ways, the general consensus is that paying ransoms will only make pirates more bold and more active.

James Christodoulou, CEO of Industrial Shipping Enterprises Corp., understood this argument, but chose to manage a hostage and ransom situation differently. His company paid a ransom of more than $1 million USD to Somali pirates in exchange for the safe return of its ship, cargo, and crew.

Asked why he made the decision to pay a ransom, Christodoulou said:

“At the end of the day, my job [to...] people who entrusted their lives to me when they sign onto my ships was to ensure that I would get them home to their families safely….I would do anything I had to do to make sure I got them home.”

Should ransoms be paid? And what are the appropriate roles of private businesses, of governments, and of international organizations in responding to the increasing acts of piracy? Share your opinion below!

Photo: BGNES (via Sofia News Agency)

The Communist Party won last Sunday’s election in Moldova, giving it the authority to change the country’s constitution and hand-pick the next president.

The news wasn’t well-received by opponents, however. Protesters–especially young people– began organizing demonstrations and takeovers of government offices by harnessing the power of social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook.

Within hours of establishing the hashtag #pman (Piata Marii Adunari Nationale, a public square in Moldova’s capital) to track posts on Twitter, at least 10,000 protesters gathered to express their dissatisfaction with the election’s outcome.

By Tuesday, a critical mass of protesters converged on the presidential office and the Moldovan parliament, seizing both temporarily in what the New York Times described as a “spontaneous riot.”

A comprehensive time line of events and helpful contextual information can be found in this article.

Photo: elisfanclub

Earlier today, Fran Golden, co-author of Frommer’s Alaska Cruises & Ports of Call and guest editor of USA Today’s Cruise Log Blog, reported that US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has proposed “more controls on tourism in Antarctica.”

Concerned about travelers’ safety and environmental integrity in the remote and frigid, region, Secretary Clinton’s proposal included:

“…new requirements on the number of lifeboats on ships…,[m]andatory limits on the size of cruise ships sailing in Antarctica and the number of passengers [who] can be brought ashore…, [as well as] one guide for every 20 visitors ashore.”

Signatory members of the Antarctic Treaty and the Arctic Council received Secretary Clinton’s proposal positively, but it remains to be seen if the policies advocated by the US will be implemented, especially if Antarctic tour operators have their say.

Antarctica has no government and does not belong to any country, though it is a temporary home to researchers from all over the world. To date, many of the continent’s tourism policies have been agreed upon by the Treaty and Council nations, which have little, if any, authority to exercise enforcement.

What kinds of policies might benefit Antarctica, how should tourism policies for the continent be developed, and how might they be enforced? Share your ideas in the comments below.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

Believe it or not, Matador has an Antarctica destination expert! rico nico, originally from San Francisco, California, worked in the dining room at McMurdo Station for five months. About the experience, he writes:

My experience at McMurdo was one my life’s highlights. I commonly describe it as “living on another planet.” Of the many oddities, a few of the most profound are: the absence of children, not seeing the stars or the moon (daylight 24/7), and the monochromatic landscape. Everything is white, grey, or blue. Seeing green and smelling the earth when I came home was incredible!

Another huge perk: included in your free/paid, trip to Antarctica is a return-when-you-wish trip to New Zealand (your departure point for the ice). I’ve been down there twice and am happy to make suggestions about traveling the islands–from how to buy a car to what trails to backpack.

Photo: helgasms!

One day in late January 2009, some young women in a pub in the city of Mangalore, in Karnataka, India, were beaten up by members of the group that calls itself the Sri Ram Sena. This political group, headed by a man named Pramod Muthalik, felt the women were degrading traditional Indian values by being in a pub where alcohol and the company of men were easily accessible.

The name of the group literally means “The army of Ram” – Ram is a Hindu god – and the men subsequently threatened to marry off any couple found in public celebrating Valentine’s Day.

By early February 2009, Nisha Susan and her friends initiated The Pink Chaddi Campaign against the moral policing of Indian women by Sri Ram Sena. The Pink Chaddi Campaign is a non-violent protest that has received tremendous support from people in India and the world over.

Photo: krinish

Hailed by many members of the press as a brilliant Gandhian political strategy, the Pink Chaddi Campaign urged people to mail pink underwear to Muthalik and the members of Sri Ram Sena as a Valentine’s Day present.

It also urged a nationwide pub crawl on Valentine’s Day, where women and men were requested to walk freely into pubs and raise a toast to Indian women and their rights.

On Valentine’s Day, Pramod Muthalik was taken into preventive custody by the government. Meanwhile, pink panties arrived by the dozens in the Sri Ram Sena office.

The Facebook group for the movement, A Consortium of Pub-going, Loose, and Forward Women, has played a major role in raising awareness about the campaign in urban India. The group and the fan page for the campaign provide a forum for active discussion and debate about the issues involved – the campaign has been thoroughly dissected and analyzed, celebrated and reviled, criticized and praised all over cyberspace.

The Pink Chaddi Campaign has also sparked many discussions offline among people who enthusiastically support it, violently oppose it, or are somewhere in between. Those in between question the political efficacy of such a campaign; some express support for the intentions but disagree with certain methods. Some conservatives also express their distaste for women who like to go to pubs, citing reasons with phrases such as “traditions” and “corrupting innocence” and “culture” bandied about.

As a young woman in urban India, I sent in a pink chaddi without delving too deeply into the political repercussions or analyzing the effectiveness of the strategy of the campaign. As someone who faces the pressures of street sexual harassment and other forms of woman baiting and suppression, I joined the Facebook page and sent in a note along with the underwear to play my part in the movement.

Photo: jaroslavd

I sent in the panties with two other friends, a man and a woman. We all signed our names, and my male friend put in “Woman Lover” beside his signature, while I scribbled the highly imaginative line “I am not afraid of you” after staring at the paper for a long time.

After all, what do you say to a group that thinks a woman’s right to be wherever she wants is against Indian culture, and beating her up is acceptable to and good for this so-called culture?

Young Indian people often find the dichotomy of their culture proclaimed by certain politicians and the actual nature of this culture ironic. This is the issue addressed by the new steps being taken by the Pink Chaddi Campaign– video testimonials inviting participants to define Indian culture.

As Nisha Susan says in her article in The Observer, Indian women are aware of the fragile nature of their rights and it looks like the political agenda of certain bigoted groups citing culture as a justification for their atrocities is now being challenged by thinking young Indians all over the country.

After all, the 600 U.S. soldiers who participated in the operation to capture Saddam Hussein in December 2003 were never named publicly.

Photo: jamesdale10

But Cruz, one of the special forces soldiers who literally pulled Hussein out of his underground hideout, was recognized by the military as a hero in the War on Terror for the role he played in ridding Iraq of its dictator.

Today, Cruz lives just around the corner from my old apartment in the South Bronx. He takes his son to school, comes home, and spends time reliving–and trying to ward off–the horrors of war. Many days, though, he fails, cutting or burning himself, and wondering when, exactly, his life fell apart.

Cruz– who like so many soldiers joined the military for its financial benefits, hoping to improve his lot in life– was honorably discharged from the military, fully expecting the benefits he’d been promised. But Cruz, like more than 20,000 other soldiers, was cut off from benefits, diagnosed by military doctors with Personality Disorder.

Cruz’s story is told in this 15 minute documentary, “Jeans Cruz,” released last week by London’s Journeyman Pictures on YouTube.

In the short film, Joshua Kors–investigative journalist for The Nation– explains Cruz isn’t the only soldier who was lauded as a hero, only to be told that he had a pre-existing psychiatric condition that now makes him ineligible for the benefits he desperately needs. 22,500 other soldiers have also been disenfranchised from care over the past six years.

The cost savings for the US government? 12.5 billion USD.

What makes the situation particularly problematic is the fact that the US military does a full psychiatric assessment of every new recruit– so even if 22,500 service members REALLY have personality disorder (a diagnosis that is rarely made anymore by civilian psychiatrists), why didn’t the military catch what it’s now claiming was a pre-existing problem in so many of its soldiers?

Kors wasn’t buying it, so he began investigating. And what he found has led to important changes in military policy. His full report can be read here.

As for Cruz, his struggle continues.

But when translated into a single powerful visual, the financial costs of war suddenly become real.

While these numbers represent total military expenditures for 2007, it’s clear that the United States is dedicating a large proportion of its military spending on the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Community Connection:

The costs of war and militarization aren’t just financial, of course. To learn more about the human and social consequences, read “Why One Casualty in Iraq is One Too Many,” “A Manifesto from a Young American,” or “The Chai Chronicles.”

Graphic designed by Kate Sedgwick
Information sourced from: SIPRI Yearbook 2008
Feature photo: cell105

Photo: terwilliger911

Blogs sprang up around the topic, with catchy names like “Obama Foodorama.” Food magazine editors made the rounds on American talk radio, offering the President and First Lady chef recommendations or dishing policy advice.

They suggested the President name a food czar. They even nominated their own candidate for the job: author and regular New York Times contributor, Michael Pollan, whose books The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto were bestsellers.

An online petition circulated, gathering almost 9,000 electronic signatures in support of Pollan, who, while flattered, declined being interested in such a position should it even be created–much less offered to him.

For his part, though, Pollan used his media cred to offer advice to Obama informally, including a public letter to Obama, addressed to the “Farmer in Chief.”

Since the Obamas moved in, the advice and rumors have hardly abated, though the Obamas decided to hang onto the chef from the previous administration and, to date, the President has not created a food czar position.

So it was with glee yesterday that one of the most exciting rumors was finally confirmed for foodies who have cultivated an obsessive interest in the Obamas: yesterday, ABC News reported the Obamas will be planting a garden on the White House lawn, producing herbs and vegetables for the residence. And… it will be organic!

The President has his hands full with wars and corporate thuggery, so don’t expect to see him in overalls or a straw hat anytime soon. But the foodies have a solution for that, too: check out White House Farmer to learn more about an interesting project pioneered by a farm couple in Illinois to send the First Family a First Farmer.

Community Connection:

Want to get your hands in the dirt? Learn about WWOOF-ing, or volunteering at home or abroad on organic farms, in this first-timer’s guide. Not sure what “organic” even means? Check out this interview with Derek Wallace of OrganicReform.org.