Korean peasants defeat propaganda at WTO protest
The press tried to paint the Korean peasants protesting the WTO as rampaging drunks, but their exhausting synchonized procession on Thursday moved Hong Kongresidents to join them in marching slowly forward, and bowing at each step. They chanted in English and Cantonese for three hours, while they moved 1/4 mile from Victoria Park to the designated protest zone. During the WTO ministerial meeting, activists from across Asia held a Peoples Camp on Food Sovereignty and Rice Festival, to celebrate the “culture” in agriculture. While WTO negotiators agreed on nothing more than extended deadlines and continued talks about farm subsidies, the peasants and other activists outside carried out tribunals, seminars, workshops, and exhibits, as well as protest actions aimed at the WTO’s empty promises to fight poverty.
Polar bear lawsuit targets global warming
The tragic drownings of exhausted polar bears, unable to swim from ice floe to ice floe in their search for food, will be taken up in federal court if environmental groups can win them ‘threatened species’ listing. Under the Endangered Species Act, the government cannot jeopardize populations of a ‘threatened’ species by destroying habitat. Winning protection for polar habitat would enable environmentalists to curb government emissions of greenhouse gases. Earlier this month, Inuit indigenous peoples filed a petition with the Organization of American States accusing the U.S. of human rights abuse, for undermining their hunting cultures by refusing to limit its carbon emissions.
The mystery behind unicorns
The tusk of the narwhal, often mistaken for a unicorn horn in earlier centuries, has mystified naturalists since the shy Arctic whales were first introduced to foreign explorers. A dental expert has learned how narwhals use their amazing horns – to detect minute temperature, pressure and particle gradients with an intense concentration of nerve endings near the surface of the giant spiral tooth. “This whale is intent on understanding its environment,” lead researcher Martin Nweeia told The New York Times. He translated the Inuit name for the whale as “the one that is good at curving itself to the sky.”
PayPaling development with p2p microloans
The non-profit Kiva aims to make development assistance a personal, direct action between individuals and small businesses. “I just noticed a huge surge in the popularity of microfinance among young liberal people right now,” Kiva’s co-founder Matthew Flannery told Alternet, “and I wanted to get personally involved.” Microcredit emerged as an alternative to larger-scale assistance in the 1970s, when activists noticed how many projects designed by international groups to serve rural communities in poor countries will have a short life-span and a slight impact on the lives of the people the project intended to help. By reaching individual microentrepreneurs directly, Kiva enables those disenfranchised by financial institutions to build up their families’ welfare and their communities’ economic and human potential. Taking off in the blogosphere over the past two months, Kiva immediately expanded from working with Ugandans to reach borrowers in Kenya and Tanzania as well.
Bolivia will elect Bush’s nightmare
The polls and the press are confident predicting that Evo Morales will win Bolivia’s election. “He would be the first Indian president in Bolivia, a country where Aymara and Quechua Indians make up a majority of the population of 8.5 million,” the Christian Science Monitor reports. An activist for energy reform and peasant rights, he is most feared in Washington for his anti-Bush campaign to protect coca farmers from the global war on drugs.