Economy

Detroit's Got the Slow-Selling Hybrid Blues

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Automakers, already flirting with bankruptcy, find themselves in another bind when introducing hybrid and fuel-efficient models — consumers aren’t buying if they can afford the gas. The Detroit News reports that small car and hybrid sales surged last year but have since fallen about 2 and 12 percent, mirroring dropping gas prices. Lower gas prices hinder investment in smaller vehicles and more efficient technology — yet in order to meet new emission standards being considered by Congress, automakers will need to spend billions on green technology. Auto sales have hit a 27-year low, and companies are deciding whether to spend limited resources on electric, hybrid, and fuel cell technology that might not sell. By 2012, the North American hybrid market is only projected to increase to 5.3 percent.

Democracy & Civics

'Human Rights Prison' Opens in Australia

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Radio Netherlands reports that Australia’s first “human rights” prison is now open in Canberra. The prison, which can house up to 300 co-ed inmates, was designed with “restorative justice” principals in mind, to help prisoners maintain a sense of self-respect to enable their rehabilitation. It boasts bright color schemes, views of nature and reinforced plastic, instead of bars, for the windows. “Prisoners can’t leave the grounds but they don’t have to be treated like animals in a cage,” one official said. Half of the inmates will live in small groups in cottages, while traditional cellblocks for higher-risk prisoners will be somewhat larger, and feature individual toilets.

Featured

The Once and Future Water War

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In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, known for its fertile cropland (right), an old feud between two clans that draw from the same water source is heating up, as resources strain to meet growing populations amid rising temperatures.
Photo: FlickrJunkie

Newsdesk News

Vote for local.newsdesk.org in the WeMedia Pitch-It Finals!

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Newdesk.org is one of nine nonprofit finalists out of more than 330 entries from 45 countries in WeMedia’s Pitch-It ’09 contest, developed in partnership with Ashoka’s Changemakers program. Read and rate the local.newsdesk.org pitch on the Changemaker’s Web site; your positive ratings will boost our chances. Learn more about WeMedia Pitch-It 2009
View all the finalists
The prize? $25,000, plus plenty of exposure and access to potential supporters — provided Newsdesk prevails in a live pitching session before a panel of judges and a demanding audience. The main event is in Miami on Feb.

Environment

Lebanon: Water Shortage May Renew Feud

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In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, known for its fertile cropland, an old feud between two clans that draw from the same water source is heating up, according to a United Nations report. Violence between two clans in 1951 saw the Tawk, a prominent Christian family, resettle closer to Oyoun Orghosh springs, where they developed orchards, restaurants and aquaculture that their rivals, the Shiite Amhaz, say violate water rights dating back to the Ottoman Empire. Eleven people were killed in the conflict before the Hizbollah organization established an employment program for the Amhaz in 1991. Now, population growth, outdated infrastructure and increasing temperatures are putting renewed pressures on the springs, leading the government to predict an 80 percent increase in demand for water in the next fifteen years. All this threatens to stability of a region where agriculture employs almost half the workforce.

Environment

Boy Scouts Logging Raises Questions

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The Boy Scouts of America, known for its dedication to conservation, faces scrutiny for the logging and commercial sales of land often donated for recreational purposes. A Hearst Newspapers investigation found that dozens of Boy Scout councils nationwide repeatedly logged in or near protected wildlife habitat, allegedly disregarding conservation and planning policies. At 99 years old and boasting 2.8 million members, the Boy Scouts is one of the nation’s oldest and largest nonprofit organizations. However, membership has fallen by 600,000 in a decade, and the Boy Scouts ban on gays and atheists in the ranks has further diminished funding. Public records indicate that many councils practice sustainable forestry that benefits local habitat — and Scout representatives say that trees are renewable and that logging is often used as a last resort to meet budget needs.

Economy

Is there a Carbon-Credit Bubble?

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Carbon trading, which seeks to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions through market-based incentives, is being threatened by the global economic downturn, the BBC reports. Carbon trading in the European Union and the United States enables governments to set limits on the amount of climate-changing pollution a company can produce. If carbon dioxide emissions exceed that limit, the offending company can buy emission credits from companies that pollute less; thus, credit buyers pay to pollute, while sellers are rewarded for reducing their own emissions. Yet the global recession is reducing industrial productivity, resulting in lower carbon emissions, and so creating a surplus of carbon credits whose market value has plunged. Critics of market-based carbon trading say the whole system is flawed and warn of a “carbon bubble.”

Featured

Wurst for Worse

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Hoping to combat climate change — but risking the wrath of its wurst-wolfing citizens — Germany is pushing for a more Mediterranean national cuisine that limits meat consumption to once a week and special occasions. Photo: Berlin wurst fans/Lang Heinz

Public Health

Scientists Fault 'Off Label' Pharma Marketing

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A major drug distributor used “deception and misinformation” to promote the unapproved, “off label” use of an epilepsy drug, two researchers from the University of California-San Francisco claim. What’s more, they claim the practice is widespread in the pharmaceutical industry, while other sources say the side effects of off-label prescriptions can be deadly. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the UCSF researchers say their review of a 1995 lawsuit against Parke-Davis revealed a “systematic” marketing campaign by the company to promote Neurontin, approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat epilepsy, for unapproved conditions such as pain, migraines and bipolar disorder. The company, now owned by Pfizer, pleaded guilty in 2004, and paid over $430 million in fines for trying to suppress publication of unfavorable peer-reviewed research, allowing sales reps to pitch “off label” uses to doctors, and providing gifts and financial compensation to doctors to attend presentations about Neurontin. The researchers say the extensive marketing and influence campaign was “disguised” as educational programming for researchers, and amounted to a manipulation of the medical establishment that pushed Neurontin sales from $93 million to $3 billion in a decade.

Environment

Wurst for Worse as Germans Ponder Less Meat

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Risking the wrath of its wurst-wolfing citizens, Germany’s government is asking them to eat less meat in an attempt to curb the effects of climate change. The government’s environmental advisor is urging citizens to adopt a more Mediterranean diet and limit meat consumption to once a week or special occasions, reports the Guardian. The Federal Environmental Agency said agriculture accounts for 15 percent of Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions, and meat production is a huge part of that. Agency head Andreas Troge said eating less meat “hardly means sacrificing quality of life,” but the advice may be hard to swallow for most Germans, who eat a great deal more meat than their European neighbors. Vegetarianism is not widely practiced and meatless dishes are “frowned upon” according to a Germany vegetarian association.