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December 22, 2011
Traditional medicine offers a “revolution” in Tanzanian healthcare
While other semi-industrialised countries, like India or Brazil, are pinning considerable hope for their economic futures on their booming generic (unbranded) pharmaceutical industries, a different option is about to be explored in one part of Africa. Tanzania's National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) recently announced that several unique remedies based on traditional herbal medicines are about to enter the approvals system – and could be in mass production within 6 months.
Read article on the Alliance for Natural Health (Europe) website
November 28, 2011
Forget Fracking, Vitamin B12 Could Make Fuel Cells Cheaper
Vitamin B12 could replace platinum as a catalyst in fuel cells, and that could lead to a new generation of emission free, low cost hydrogen fuel cells for cars and other vehicles. Aside from helping to reduce the use of petroleum-fueled vehicles, cheaper fuel cells could also help ease some of the pressure to drill for more natural gas. Natural gas is emerging as a low-emission alternative fuel for vehicles, but given the environmental risks and community disruption caused by fracking (a method of drilling that involves pumping chemicals underground), natural gas is not the kind of long term, sustainable solution that fuel cells have the potential to offer.
Read article at cleantechnica.com
Comment: Energy for All – through ending the world"s dependency on oil and bringing about a global change to renewable energy – is one of the main goals of the Movement of Life. To learn more about the Movement of Life, and support its campaign for Health, Peace and Social Justice for All, click here.
November 15, 2011
International biotechnology conference calls for a moratorium on genetically modified foods
Dar es Salaam – An international conference on Food Sovereignty calls for Government to suspend plans to spread GM biotechnology across Tanzania. The conference, hosted by international NGO SWISSAID, explores why communities around the world are rejecting GM foods and standing up for the rights of farmers and consumers to choose what they grow and what they eat.
Read article at swissaid.ch (Switzerland)
October 23, 2011
Still No Compensation for Trovan Victims as Pfizer Cuts Corners
Fifteen years after the disastrous Pfizer Trovan test trail and after an out-of-court settlement reached last year, in which the US pharmaceutical firm agreed to pay $35 million as compensation, families of the 200 victims in Kano still have no respite. With only eight of the victims’ families compensated so far, controversy is currently trailing the disbursement of the fund set up for that purpose.
Read article at thisdaylive.com (Nigeria)
October 22, 2011
A can of worms
As probes into corruption may widen, a lot of notable heads could—or should—roll
Yet another South African chief of police and at least two ministers look set to bite the dust in the latest swirl of corruption scandals to hit President Jacob Zuma’s government. An array of other politicians—bosses of state-owned companies, intelligence chiefs and directors of government departments—are also fighting for their professional lives over allegations of tender fraud and other irregularities. Even Mr Zuma could find himself back in trouble if the supposedly independent inquiry he has at last agreed to establish into a notorious arms deal worth $5 billion in 1999 is given a free rein.
Read article in The Economist (UK)
Comment: Prior to his assuming the South African presidency in May 2009, Zuma narrowly escaped standing trial by arguing that serious charges of corruption being brought against him should be dropped on a legal technicality. Following his election, it is notable that the flood gates were soon opened in the country for the mass distribution of toxic ARV drugs to patients suffering from AIDS.
October 20, 2011
Revealed – the Capitalist Network that Runs the World
As protests against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
October 5, 2011
Speculation in Agricultural Commodities: Driving up the Price of Food Worldwide and plunging Millions into Hunger
In late 2006, the price of food and other commodities began rising precipitately, continuing throughout 2007 and peaking in 2008. Millions were cast below the poverty line and food riots erupted across the developing world, from Haiti to Mozambique. While analysts initially framed the crisis in terms of market fundamentals (such as rising population, increased demand for resource-intensive food, declining stockpiles, biofuel and agricultural subsidies, and crop shortfalls from natural disasters), a growing number of experts have tied the massive spikes to financial intermediation.
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
October 4, 2011
ANC worse than apartheid govt: Tutu
The ANC government is "worse than the apartheid government", Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said in Cape Town. "Our government is worse than the apartheid government, because at least you were expecting it from the apartheid government," he said in a news conference on the government's failure to grant Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama a visa. "We were expecting we would have a government that was sensitive to sentiments of our Constitution," Tutu said. "The trouble is that the ANC on the whole reckons that the freedom that we enjoy is due to them. They reckon everyone else is just a sideline." Tutu, who shouted and shook his finger as he spoke, said President Jacob Zuma did not represent him.
Read article on the Times Online website (South Africa)
August 23, 2011
African Union: Time to scale up nutritional interventions
Nutritional interventions need to be scaled up to tackle malnourishment and undernourishment that affects more than 200m Africans, the African Union (AU) has said. The AU’s 10-year-old New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) said at a recent meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that local networks needed to be better utilised to deliver more potent nutritional interventions. “If Africa does not invest in food and nutrition security, the consequences will be big,” said Boitshepo Bibi Giyose, senior Advisor for Food and Nutrition Security at the NEPAD Agency.
Read article at nutraingredients.com
August 19, 2011
Study shows powerful corporations really do control the world's finances
For many years conventional wisdom has said that the whole world is controlled by the monied elite, or more recently by the huge multi-national corporations that seem to sometime control the very air we breathe. Now, new research by a team based in ETH-Zurich, Switzerland, has shown that what we’ve suspected all along, is apparently true.
Read article at physorg.com
August 17, 2011
Dag Hammarskjöld: evidence suggests UN chief's plane was shot down
Eyewitnesses claim a second aircraft fired at the plane raising questions of British cover-up over the 1961 crash and its causes
New evidence has emerged in one of the most enduring mysteries of United Nations and African history, suggesting that the plane carrying the UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld was shot down over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) 50 years ago, and the murder was covered up by British colonial authorities. A British-run commission of inquiry blamed the crash in 1961 on pilot error and a later UN investigation largely rubber-stamped its findings. They ignored or downplayed witness testimony of villagers near the crash site which suggested foul play.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)
August 11, 2011
Pfizer: Nigeria drug trial victims get compensation
US-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has made the first compensation payment to Nigerian families affected by a controversial drug trial 15 years ago. It paid $175,000 (£108,000) each to four families in the first of a series of payments it is expected to make. The payouts are part of an out-of-court settlement reached in 2009. In 1996, 11 children died and dozens were left disabled after Pfizer gave them the experimental anti-meningitis drug, Trovan.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
July 6, 2011
Famine Threat In The Horn Of Africa
The countries comprising the Horn of Africa face the threat of famine, after a series of failed and poor rainy seasons has created the worst drought in 60 years. The 2010 late rainy season failed completely in many parts of the area and the April-May rains were very low, with northeast Kenya getting only 10 percent of the usual rainfall. The impact is worst in Somalia and Ethiopia, but Kenya, Djibouti and parts of Uganda are also affected. The current USAID Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) map of the area, indicating levels of food insecurity, shows large parts of Ethiopia and Somalia classed as in emergency and most of the remaining parts of each country classed as in crisis. Large areas of northeastern Kenya are classed as in crisis. In total, around 10 million people are affected.
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
July 1, 2011
Kenyans protest over GM maize imports
Hundreds of people have marched in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, against government plans to import genetically modified (GM) maize. They were protesting at reports that Kenya would lift its restrictions on GM crops following a recent drought, leading to maize shortages. The demonstrators said they believed a shipment had already arrived and feared it could contaminate the soil.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
June 20, 2011
African Alliances Challenge Introduction of GM Technology
Civil society and private sector organisations come together to fight introduction of GM technology
The recent introduction of GM (genetic modification) technology into Tanzania has prompted local and international campaign groups to join forces in expressing concern for the conservation of agricultural biodiversity, which is crucial for food security and food sovereignty.
Read article on the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) website (UK)
June 16, 2011
Bilderberg 2011: The Rockefeller World Order and the "High Priests of Globalization"
Investigative journalist Daniel Estulin’s report of inside sources in this year’s meeting indicated a rather extensive discussion on the role of China, which is hardly surprising, considering this has been a central topic of discussion in meetings for a number of years. China emerged in discussions on Pakistan, as China has become increasingly Pakistan’s closest economic and strategic ally, a trend that is continuing as America continues to spread the Afghan war into neighbouring Pakistan. China is also a major player in Africa, threatening the West’s stranglehold over the continent, in particular through the World Bank and IMF. Most importantly, however, and not unrelated to its role in Pakistan and Africa, China has become the greatest economic competitor for the United States in the world, and as the IMF even admitted recently, its economy is expected to surpass that of the United States by 2016. Bilderberg paid attention to this issue not simply as a financial-economic consideration, but as a massive geopolitical transition in the world: “the biggest story of our time.”
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
June 13, 2011
Helen Keller battles blindness with vitamin A supplementation in Sierra Leone
The Seeing Is Believing and Helen Keller International foundations, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, are making vitamin A dietary interventions in Sierra Leone to battle blindess among children. The campaign, launched by the First Lady of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Sia Nyama Koroma, is part of a HKI project to deliver vitamin A to more than one million children in seven countries in Africa and Asia. The groups will also provide support to the Ministry’s efforts to develop a broader strategy to boost vitamin A levels. It is estimated 500,000 children go blind in developing countries each year due to nutrient deficiencies, 70% of whom die within a year of going blind. Seeing Is Believing said the mortality rate can be reduced by more than 30% in children up to five-years-old, if vitamin A deficiencies can be addressed.
Read article at nutraingredients.com
June 11, 2011
Media: The Spreading of False Ideologies into our Culture
Media has become a mirror of the disconnected state that humanity finds itself in. News, current affairs, even the dramas and reality TV shows that entertain us serve to exacerbate the religion of polarity being reflected back to us in all its forms – materialism, hatred, killing, idolization and separation. Almost all television, be it sagas and melodramas or daily news, is as addictive as any drug. This single dimensional ‘pulpit’ from which media preaches to us (often in the centre of our living rooms) actually seeds many of our negative behavior patterns in day-to-day life. Dramas and melodramas aside, we have been led to believe that the news and current affairs programs we watch are true, unbiased, fair. Often this is anything but the case.
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
May 29, 2011
Nigerian fraud prompts parliamentary control of European Development Fund
Millions of euros of EIB credits to Nigeria are being handed to dubious private equity funds and banks, a watchdog claims. The European parliament at the same time says it is “surprised at [a recent] EIB’s statement [saying] that no fraudulent practice exists in the context of EIB Investment Facility programmes.” In a recent report, the European Parliament has urged the Commission to compile an overall audit of all development projects financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB). The call reflects an investigation by Counter Balance, a group of non-governmental organisations published in the British newspaper The Guardian in November 2010. Claims have arisen that the EIB granted loans and credits out of the European Development Fund (EDF) to fraudulent private enterprises in Africa.
Read article on the New Europe website
May 25, 2011
Farmers reject genetically engineered seed
Farmers have strongly rejected the use of genetically modified (GM) seeds in Uganda, saying with their introduction is detrimental to the indigenous seed. At a meeting of farmers’ groups, organised by Pelum Uganda, held at Colline Hotel in Mukono last week, it was noted that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not the solution to the food challenges in Uganda or in Africa, instead, they pose more problems. They worry because GM crops transfer seed ownership into private hands and because there is great uncertainty surrounding their safety and impacts. However, farmers who comprise 80 per cent of the population face an uphill task to reverse the trend of enacting laws that permit the release of GMOs on the market, because the promoters of GMOs are moneyed companies. “The protection and preservation of indigenous/traditional seed is fundamental in ensuring food security,” read a joint statement from farmers, but the multinational companies pushing GMOs are driven by commercial interests.
Read article in the Daily Monitor (Uganda)
May 9, 2011
African Union to Support Organic Farming
An important milestone in sustainable agriculture for Africa was reached in a little-publicized decision made on organic farming by the African Union’s Executive Council in January 2011. The decision requests the African Union (AU) Commission and its New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordinating Agency to initiate and provide guidance for an AU-led coalition of international partners to establish an African organic farming platform based on available best practices; and to provide guidance in support of the development of sustainable organic farming systems and improve seed quality. In a speech given by Her Excellency Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, AU Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, to the Conference of African Ministers of Agriculture held in October 2010, which highlighted the potentials of ecological agriculture, she stressed that ecological agriculture generates both economic value and sustainable development: “We believe that promoting it in all of our countries would enable Africa to exploit this niche.”
Read article on the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) website (UK)
April 24, 2011
Tanzanian NGOs Challenge GM Biotechnology
Tanzanian civil society and private sector organizations have come together to express their concern about the impact of GM technology on smallholder farmers and the environment. Tanzania Alliance for Biodiversity is a coalition of civil society and private sector organizations concerned with the conservation of agricultural biodiversity for livelihood security and food sovereignty. The members of the alliance share the aims of conserving biodiversity and supporting sustainable development, promoting farmers’ self-determination and food sovereignty, facilitating exchange of information and experiences concerning sustainable and healthy agriculture policies and practices, ensuring public awareness on issues of concern to the environment, agriculture and biodiversity, and promoting citizen involvement in the decision-making processes which guide the development of biotechnology particularly GMO.
Read blog entry by Michael Farrelly at mrfarrelly.wordpress.com
April 19, 2011
Web creator's net neutrality fear
The inventor of the web has said that governments must act to preserve the principle of net neutrality. Sir Tim Berners-Lee told the BBC that legislation may be needed if self-regulation failed.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
Comment: To learn more about the concept of net neutrality and understand why it is important, visit the Save the Internet website.
March 17, 2011
Secretive Plan For a Global Currency
Is the Group of Twenty Countries (G20) envisaging the creation of a Global Central bank? Who or what would serve as this global central bank, cloaked with the power to issue the global currency and police monetary policy for all humanity? When the world’s central bankers met in Washington in September 2008 at the height of the financial meltdown, they discussed what body might be in a position to serve in that awesome and fearful role.
Read excerpt from "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century" by Ellen Brown on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
February 22, 2011
Pfizer Reaches Deal To Resolve All Trovan Litigation
Nearly 15 years after a clinical trial of its Trovan antibiotic caused a scandal in Nigeria, Pfizer has reached a global settlement that resolves all lawsuits filed both there and in the United States. Terms, however, were not disclosed. The agreement follows another reached in July 2009 with the Kano state government in Nigeria in which Pfizer agreed to pay $75 million to settle civil and criminal charges.
Read article at pharmalot.com
January 31, 2011
EU calls for 'free and fair' elections in Egypt
European Union foreign ministers on Monday called on Egypt to embark on an "orderly transition" leading the way to "free and fair elections."
Read AFP news report at yahoo.com
Comment: It is of course deeply hypocritical of the Brussels EU to call on Egypt to hold ‘free and fair’ elections. As a construct whose president (Herman van Rompuy) and 27-member executive body (the so-called “European Commission”) were appointed completely outside of the democratic process on behalf of corporate interests, the Brussels EU is clearly in no position to lecture anybody about building and supporting democracy. On the contrary, whilst it portrays itself to the world as a shining example of a 21st century democracy and regularly calls on other governments to hold “free and fair elections,” the fact is that, by preventing its own citizens from having any control over its unelected executive level, the Brussels EU is itself a dictatorship.
January 25, 2011
Global Poverty, Food Riots, and the Economic Crisis
The sugar-coated bullets of the “free market” are killing our children. The act to kill is instrumented in a detached fashion through computer program trading on the New York and Chicago mercantile exchanges, where the global prices of rice, wheat and corn are decided upon. People in different countries are being impoverished simultaneously as a result of a global market mechanism. A small number of financial institutions and global corporations have the ability to determine the prices of basic food staples quoted on the commodity exchanges, thereby directly affecting the standard of living of millions of people around the world. This process of global impoverishment has reached a major turning point, leading to the simultaneous outbreak of famines in all major regions of the developing world.
Read article by Michel Chossudovsky on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
January 5, 2011
Genetically modified crops breed economic dependence, new form of slavery, says Cardinal Turkson
VATICAN CITY – If farmers in Africa had greater access to fertile, arable land safe from armed conflict and pollutants, they would not need genetically modified crops to produce food, said the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Making growers reliant on proprietary, genetically modified seeds smacks of “the usual game of economic dependence,” which in turn, “stands out like a new form of slavery,” said Cardinal Peter Turkson. The Ghanaian cardinal’s comments came in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano Jan. 5. It is “a scandal” that nearly 1 billion people suffer from hunger, Cardinal Turkson said, especially since there is more than enough food to feed the whole world.
Read article in The Catholic Review (Maryland/USA)