Volunteer Latin America has made a US$100 donation to help the victims of the Haitian earthquake-induced tragedy through a campaign set up by Richard Dawkins. Richard has generously offered to cover all the PayPal fees so 100% of any donation goes to the named charities (Doctors without Borders and the International Red Cross). This means that more of your money will reach the people in need.
Archive for January, 2010
Donation for Disaster Relief
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010Ecological Stove Project & Spanish Classes
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
This project develops new technologies and ideas to improve the quality of life of people living in poor rural communities. Since its inception it has installed thousands of ecological cookers into the homes of community members; thus, reducing the health risks and damage done to the environment through use of traditional gas stoves. It seeks enthusiastic and committed volunteers/interns to help develop and collaborate on a number of projects. In most cases volunteers/interns choose their own personal project according to their skills and interests and the needs of the community. In the past volunteers/interns have constructed solar cookers, assisted with cooker demonstrations and training, collected data on fuel savings, evaluated the impact of stoves, created newsletters and television advertisements.
The project costs £340 per month which includes: accommodation (home stay); all meals; laundry service; 4 hours of private Spanish classes per week (materials included); airport pickup; local orientation; and a donation to the project to subsidize the cost of an ecological cooker to a family in need.
Brazil (Group G)
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
When discussing the World Cup it is inevitable we would eventually get round to five-time winners Brazil, the only team to have appeared at every finals to date. They made sure that record continued in the best possible fashion, beating their bitter rivals Argentina 3-1 on their home turf. Two goals from striker Luis Fabiano and another from defender Luisao was enough as they inflicted only the second home defeat in World Cup qualifiers on Diego Maradona’s struggling side.
The men in yellow and blue are always favoured, but this time, under the managerial guidance of former World Cup-winning captain Dunga they are justifiably considered one of the teams to beat. Dunga’s approach may not please those in his homeland who favour samba style over substance, forged as it is around solidity and efficiency, but there can be no doubting his results and he is rapidly winning over the purists. Real Madrid midfield maestro Kaka will be the key man, but he is ably assisted by the likes of Seville’s prolific striker Luis Fabiano, Juventus midfield enforcer Felipe Melo and Barcelona’s pacey full-back Daniel Alves.
Manager: Dunga
Key player: Kaka
Best: Winners (1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, 2002)
World ranking: 2
Rain Frogs, Tiny Geckos and Snail-Sucking Snakes
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
A team of scientists working for Reptile & Amphibian Ecology International (RAEI) have discovered a treasure trove of previously undiscovered biodiversity in a rare and dwindling ecosystem in Ecuador. The apparently new species include a slug-sucking snake and 30 species of rain frog.
The snake belongs to a small group of serpents that specialise in eating gastropods – snails and slugs – and the closest relative of this intriguing snake is found in Peru. Another snake, a snail-sucker, just discovered by the researchers may even be a new species. The snail-sucker was first encountered by a 15-year-old volunteer working with the scientists.
The new frogs have an extraordinary life-cycle. Instead of laying eggs in water which hatch into tadpoles, later to metamorphose into the adult form, they lay eggs in trees. The eggs then hatch out into miniature versions of the adults, some barely larger than a pinhead.
Other animals found include a gecko so small that it can perch with ample room to spare on the top of a pencil and three species of lungless salamanders.
A majority of the new species were found in Cerro Pata de Pajaro, a samall mountain just a few minutes from the Pacific Ocean and sitting right atop the Equator. Pata de Pajaro is surrounded by a type of rainforest and capped in cloud forest. The extent of cloud forest on the site is only a couple miles wide, yet houses at least 14 of the 30 new species known nowhere else on Earth.
“There is obviously a great concern that these species will disappear even before, they are formally described by science”, said expedition leader Paul Hamilton of RAEI.
Indeed, sites like Pata de Pajaro are under siege from countless ecological disturbances, from widespread deforestation for cattle grazing to timber harvesting and hunting. Climate change models actually predict that many of these mountaintop cloud forests – along with the animals that depend on them – will disappear altogether if something is not done to save them. The rain frogs just discovered are particularly susceptible to climate change since they rely on moist trees to lay their eggs which may dry up with rising temperatures.
Previous work by the scientists in the area yielded an amazing diversity of reptiles and amphibians, over 140 species in number. Incidentally, the team has found four new species of stick insect (casually known as stick bugs), just from taking photos of these fascinating creatures in the course of research.
“There are countless gaps in our knowledge of tropical animals; this study just scratches the surface of what we know about this region alone, much less what is happening to global patterns of extinction”, said Hamilton.
“The good news is, the animals are still there and alive, so there is still time to save them from extinction,” said Kerry Kriger, Executive Director of the NGO Save the Frogs.
Earthquake Hits Guatemala and El Salvador
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
A 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit offshore Guatemala yesterday (18 January) at 9.40am local time, the United States Geological Survey revealed. The epicenter of the earthquake was located about 97 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Guatemala City in the Pacific Ocean. So far, there have been no reports of injuries or damages in either Guatemala or El Salvador. The US Geological Survey has, however, warned of further earthquakes or aftershocks in the region in coming days. Authorities in both countries have reportedly launched search operations in the effort to find possible casualties.
The Central American tremor comes days after a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake that wreaked havoc in the Caribbean state of Haiti.
Unusual Hotels (Part Eight) – Canopy Tower Ecolodge and Nature Observatory, Panama
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
What do you do with an abandoned military installation in the middle of the Panamanian jungle? For avid bird-watcher, businessman, and nature conservationist, Raul Arias de Para, the answer to this question was simple: turn it into a unique ecolodge and rainforest canopy observation post. His dream finally came true in January 1999 with the opening of the Canopy Tower Ecolodge and Nature Observatory in Soberania National Park, a 55,000-acre wilderness reserve bordering the Panama Canal.
An exhibit called “Parting of the Green Curtain” occupies the cylindrical structure’s ground floor. This permanent display, donated by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, uses pictures, artefacts, and text to introduce visitors to the diversity of Panama’s rainforest and to trace the history of biological research in the Tropics.
Metal stairs lead to the tower’s second level, which harbours six comfortable, two-person bedrooms decorated with tropical plants and colourful molas made by Panama’s Kuna Indians. Each room has large windows opening into the canopy, so that overnight guests need only roll over in their beds to watch the forest come to life. The next floor has a large common area with hammocks, easy chairs, and a well-stocked reading nook.
The tower’s rooftop observation deck is built around a 30-foot-tall yellow geo-tangent dome, similar to Buckminster Fuller’s famous geodesic dome. Over 250 species of birds are present, along with four types of monkeys, jungle cats, and many other animals.
The Canopy Tower Ecolodge is probably the best perch in Panama for serious bird watchers and nature lovers.
Paraguay (Group F)
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
Paraguay secured their place at a fourth-straight World Cup finals with two games to spare after a 1-0 win over Argentina. Nelson Valdez’s goal earned his side victory over Diego Maradona’s struggling outfit in the South American qualifying group as Paraguay joined Brazil in qualifying for South Africa. Finishing just one point behind Brazil is no mean feat for Paraguay and demonstrates that this solid, counter-attacking side should not be underestimated.
After the disappointment of failing to emerge from the group phase at Germany 2006, Paraguay will be hoping to bounce back in South Africa. They may still be finding their feet as a side following the retirement of key players but in forward trio Nelson Haedo Valdez of Borussia Dortmund, Oscar Cardozo of Benfica and Manchester City’s Roque Santa Cruz they have the firepower to pose plenty of problems. Bowing out in the group stages is likely but they cannot be discounted as a dark horse to scrape through.
Manager: Gerardo Martino
Key player: Oscar Cardozo
Best: Round two (1986, 1998, 2002)
World ranking: 29
Demand Justice for the People of Haiti
Monday, January 18th, 2010
Anyone feeling solidarity with fellow humans is moved by the tragedy in Haiti. One is especially moved if aware of the world’s debt to the Haitian people for their historic contribution: they carried out a successful slave rebellion and liberated their island from French colonialism.
French and U.S. imperialism owes a great portion of its wealth and subsequent development to its looting of the natural resources and exploitation of labour, yet they both refuse to acknowledge the reparations they owe to the Haitian people for that and for their continued role in preventing Haiti’s development.
The progressive movement in the U.S. and around the world, while joining in providing aid and solidarity to the Haitian people, should also demand that the U.S. government stop deporting Haitians, allow the return of Aristide and provide reparations so the new Haitian government can establish a functioning system, stop military intervention and the subversion of Haiti.
Haiti Earthquake: Imperialism Responsible for Large Death Toll
Monday, January 18th, 2010
It is estimated that the death toll from the Haitian earthquake could be as high as 200,000. Most people are sincerely touched by the tragedy but few stop to think about the realities that have led to such a high loss of life and an enormous amount of suffering.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blamed the spite of the Almighty for this latest disaster, saying “It is biblical, the tragedy that continues to haunt Haiti and the Haitian people.” This fork-tongued imperialist double-speak is appalling. No supernatural force was responsible for this earthquake. Nor, was any natural force the main culprit behind the high death toll. Imperialism is mainly responsible; the people of America and France who benefit from and uphold imperialism in Haiti are responsible.
In 1804, what began as a slave uprising led by a former slave – the outstanding freedom fighter Toussaint l’Ouverture – liberated Haiti from French colonial rule. Quoting anthropologist Ira Lowenthal, in his book Hegemony Or Survival (America’s Quest for Global Dominance), Noam Chomsky writes:
“Haiti was more than the New World’s second oldest republic, more than even the first black republic of the modern world. Haiti was the first free nation of free men to arise within, and in resistance to, the emerging constellation of Western European empire.”
Haiti’s hard-won national freedom was to be short lived, however, as an even more vicious foe than France soon appeared ready to remove it. Fearful that the example of Haiti might inspire its own Black internal colony to revolution, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson had supported France and was horrified when it was defeated. A gleam of light came for imperialism in 1825 when Haiti was forced to pay France a huge indemnity for the “crime” of having liberated itself. This extortion re-established French dominion and caused economic devastation in Haiti, formerly France’s richest colony.
From that point on, the U.S. applied the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 – which conceived the entire western hemisphere as the special preserve of U.S. capitalism – to Haiti. Having subjected Haiti to disgusting racist abuse and international isolation between 1849 and 1913 the U.S. Navy entered Haitian waters 24 times to “protect American lives and property”. America was out to make a mockery of Haiti’s sovereignty and sent marines in to abolish its parliament. From 1915 to 1934, the United States occupied Haiti using the most racist whites of the occupied deep South as its storm troopers. Its aim was to maximally and exclusively (in the face of French and German incursions) exploit Haiti’s land and resources, to which end it acquired plantations and built railroads to transport the loot out of the country. In the process of trying “to help our black brother put his disorderly house in order,” as one contemporary journal spun it, the U.S. killed over 2,250 Haitians in the first five years of the occupation (losing only 16 of its own soldiers), gentrified the urban areas and instituted Jim Crow-style segregation throughout the country.
From the 1960s right through to the 1980s, Haiti was ruled by the comprador juntas of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and then his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier on behalf of U.S. monopoly agriculture and manufacturing. According to Chomsky:
“From the 1960s, assembly operations for US corporations grew rapidly in the Caribbean region, in Haiti, from 13 companies in 1966 to 154 in 1981. These enterprises furnished about 40 percent of Haitian exports (100 percent having been primary commodities in 1960), though limited employment or other benefits for Haitians, apart from new opportunities for enrichment for the traditional elite.”
The fascist Duvalier regimes’ ton-ton macoute soldiers – armed, trained and backed to the hilt by their U.S. masters repressed the Haitian people using vicious and widespread state terrorism. All the while the country’s economy became completely dependent on cash-crop exports and food imports. Haiti’s comprador capitalist economy ruined domestic agriculture, forcing its farmers to flock to Port-au-Prince, only to swell its precarious shantytown population and provide readily super-exploitable labour for U.S. corporations.
In 1991, under circumstances of U.S.-backed repression of his followers and supporters, the Haitian people elected reformist Catholic Priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide as President. As a friend of the people, he promised to make a positive difference to their grim situation. America reacted as it always does against any expression of genuine democracy; it overthrew President Aristide in 1991 and again in 2004, when it kidnapped him and flew him to Jamaica. Between those two dates, America lavished huge funds on business and right-wing state and para-state elites in Haiti, enforcing neoliberal structural adjustment on the country, opening up its markets to predatory capital and corporate dumping. Since 2004, Haiti has been occupied by the “United” Nations, as usual, providing a convenient fig-leaf for U.S. colonialism.
We must be absolutely clear: it is no accident that the two poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere (Haiti and Nicaragua) are also the two countries that have had the most U.S. intervention through history. The reason that the Haitian people are forced to live in unsafe, makeshift dwellings is because of imperialism’s underdevelopment of their country. The reason that there are no state regulations barring people from living in such terrible accommodation is because of imperialism. The reason there are no hospitals, fire engines, ambulances, rescue equipment, food and medicine for the victims of this earthquake is because of imperialism. It is outrageous that such obscene parasitic wealth exists just 1000 kilometres away from Haiti, yet the only thing that country (the U.S.) can do is kidnap its progressive-leaning president. Aristide was not a communist and his chosen electoral road to socialism is an impossibility under imperialism, but he was almost certainly Haiti’s best chance for modernizing building construction and infrastructure.
If we really want to help the poor people of Haiti we must expel imperialism forever.
Saving Haiti from Disaster Capitalism
Monday, January 18th, 2010
Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine warned of the rise of “disaster capitalism” under which governments and corporations use disasters as a chance to push through free-market policies unachievable in times of stability. Where most see a crisis, neoliberal actors spy new market opportunities. And with poor countries desperate for any kind of aid, they are often forced to carry out extensive privatisation, deregulation and wage cuts in return.
Following the devastation inflicted on Haiti by Tuesday’s earthquake, it’s clear that the country has become a target for such economic “shock therapy”. Over at Left Foot Forward, Adam Ramsay notes that some right-wing institutions have explicitly declared their intention to use the disaster to further a corporate agenda.
In the introduction to a paper on Haiti, originally titled “Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S.”, the conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation declared: “In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region.”
After just two hours the foundation removed the offending passage and changed the title to the rather gentler “Things to Remember While Helping Haiti” but the damage was done.
Meanwhile, according to the Nation’s Richard Kim the IMF has agreed a new US$100 million loan to Haiti but has insisted on stringent conditions including raising electricity prices, keeping inflation low and freezing the wages of all state employees except those on the minimum wage.
As Klein argues in the video below, it is up to campaigners to insist that Haiti receives grants not loans. With existing debts of $891m the people of Haiti cannot afford for economic dogma to trump human need.
Naomi Klein Issues Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert :Stop Them Before They Shock Again