Featured

News You Might Have Missed * Vol. 7, No. 35

By |

Important but overlooked news from around the world. QUOTED:
“They’re afraid that what they call ‘foreign interests’ will use the Indians to then exploit the Amazon.” — Activist Tim Cahill on the politics behind Brazil’s battle over indigenous land rights (see “Top Stories,” below). CONTENTS:
*Top Stories*
In South America, land rights go native
Journalist’s slaying stirs up trouble in Russia’s hinterland

TOP STORIES
* In South America, Land Rights go Native
A group of new reports finds that land-rights battles in South America may be tipping in favor of indigenous peoples. In Brazil, the Supreme Court is deciding on the right of Amazon natives to live in their ancestral homelands.

Featured

Recipe for School Success? Add Three Eggs

By |

In India, there apparently is such a thing as a free lunch — for 140 million students, adding up to the largest school lunch program in the world. Simply adding three eggs per week to the student diet is credited for helping lower the elementary-school dropout rate from 12 to 2 percent since 2002. Photo: Feuillu

Newsdesk News

Full Funding for SF Election Coverage!

By |

Dear Readers,
Here’s some good news for supporters of independent journalism — our debut project with Spot.Us is a success. Thanks to your collective, aggregated donations, we tipped the scale last Tuesday afternoon, bringing us to our $2,500 goal. The whole campaign ran for a bit more than a month. We’re quite wowed by this enthusiastic response! The funding will be used to pay a team of freelance reporters who will be fact-checking election advertisements aimed at influencing San Francisco voters on Election Day.

Democracy & Civics

San Francisco's 'Black Exodus' Gathers Steam

By |

A new study has found that African Americans are abandoning San Francisco in droves, faster than any other U.S. city. The black population has decreased from 13.4 percent in 1970 to 10.9 percent in 1990 and comprises 6.5 percent of San Francisco’s population in 2005 — the latest year figures were available. The task force also projects the numbers to fall still further, to 4.6 percent by 2050. Speakers at a hearing in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood said that the findings are just the latest in a series of reports dating back to the 1970s, and validated their fears about an “black exodus” that could almost eliminate the city’s African American population. Critics blamed the problem on a dearth of economic opportunity and African-American culture, combined with skyrocketing housing prices driven by gentrification.

World

Dark Side of the Green Revolution

By |

It was the chemically supplemented Green Revolution of the 1960s that helped India end its cycles of famine. Yet a series of new reports reveal a dark side to dependence of pesticides, fertilizers and irrigation, including disease, environmental decline and social decay, the latter often driven by bad government planning. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that health problems previously unheard of are proliferating in the northwestern Punjab state — ground zero for the Green Revolution in India, and known as the nation’s breadbasket. Local medical clinics and health officials speak of a surge in cancer, muscular disorders in teens, early menstruation in young girls, lower sperm counts and more frequent stillbirths. According to the BBC, new questions have also emerged about the Green Revolution’s long-term ability to support ever-growing human populations.

Democracy & Civics

India's Recipe for school success? Add three eggs

By |

In India, there apparently is such a thing as a free lunch. The World Press Review reports that the government has mandated the world’s largest lunch program to keep 140 million public school students in the classroom. An estimated 2.1 million Indian children die before age 5 each year, and malnutrition is also blamed as one of the causes of India’s high dropout rate. Yet since the hot-lunch program debuted, the dropout rate for students 14 or younger has decreased from 32 million in 2001 to 7.6 million today, while overall enrollment figures and nutrition levels have increased. A government official said the program helped lower the elementary school dropout rate from 12 percent to two percent between 2002 and 2007.

Featured

News You Might Have Missed * Vol. 7, No. 34

By |

Important but overlooked news from around the world. QUOTED:
“In the old days we practiced subsistence agriculture and we felt a sense of control. Now everything is more complicated and lots of people are desperately in debt.” — A community activist in India’s Punjab state, on the dark side of the Green Revolution (see “Top Stories,” below). CONTENTS:

*Top Stories*
India’s recipe for school success?

Featured

Worked Up For Sick Leave

By |

Proposed laws in California and Ohio would mandate paid sick leave statewide. Businesses decry the plans as “job killing,” but advocates say paid sick days would control the spread of disease, and give low-earning workers benefits enjoyed by the highest paid. Photo: thegirlsmoma

Featured

A Maoist Among Us

By |

After years of struggle and the end of its traditional monarchy, Nepal, the world’s youngest republic, swore in Maoist and former guerrilla leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal as its prime minister. The ceremony brought dignitaries from around the world, including the United States and United Kingdom. Photo: Dahal poster/mattlogelin

Featured

Cell Phone to the Future

By |

Inexpensive mobile technology is opening doors in the developing world for those who have previously been shut out of the information revolution. Cell phones in India, Africa and beyond are used for banking, credit transfers, even reporting rights abuses.
Photo: India cell user/Tierecke