Coming
Soon!
From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
June
12, 2003
Ray
McGovern
Deceived into War: Reflections of
a Former CIA Analyst
June
11, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Attack of the Hog Killers: Why the
Generals Hate the A-10
Elaine
Cassel
Meet Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's
Top Gremlin
David Lindorff
The Republican Drive to Eliminate Overtime Pay
Tom
Gorman
Greens, the Antiwar Movement and 2004
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia: The Most Dangerous Place
on Earth for Trade Unionists
Nnimo
Bassey and Lawrence Bohlen
Bush Must Stop Telling Us What to
Eat!
Julie Hilden
Spike Lee v. Spike TV
CounterPunch
Wire
Blair Bros. Change Jobs!
Eric
Hobsbawm
The Empire Expands, Wider and Still
Wider
Steve
Perry
DHS: As Big
a Planning Snafu as Iraq?
June
10, 2003
Benjamin
Shepard
A Season in the Anti-War Movement
Chris
Floyd
Bush Family Lies About Iraq and Nazi
Germany
Wayne
Madsen
Weaponsgate
Jason Leopold
Powell's Denials Ring Hollow
Richard
Lichtman
Whining, Whimpering Leftists Confront the Logic of American World
Domination
Ray
Close
A CIA Analyst on Why the Lies About
WMD Matter
Hammond
Guthrie
Banking on Saddam?
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/10
June
9, 2003
Alex
Coolman
Male Rape in US Prisons
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft is Coming!
Lee
Sustar
Is Iran Next?
Agustin
Velloso
Equatorial Guinea: Few Rich, Many
Poor
Gila
Svirsky
Some Lives Are Worth Less Than Others
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Human Worth in Bush's America
Michael
S. Ladah
A True Liberation
Ishmael Reed
Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder
Steve
Perry
How to Beat Bush, part 1
June
7 / 8, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Terrible Truth
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species
Joanne
Mariner
Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers
Steven
Sherman
A Different Theory of Everything
Ron Jacobs
Sports, Politics and the 60s
M.
Shahid Alam
Pauperizing the Periphery
Amelia
Peltz
If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost
Shelton
Hull
Another Powell, Another Capitulation
Binoy Kampmark
Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea
Ben
Tripp
A Fish Story
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Where is the Outrage?
Robin
Philpot
Congo Distortions
Julie Hilden
Murder and the Matrix
Laura
Flanders
An Interview with Isabel Allende
David Lindorff
The Last Byline
Adam
Engel
Talk Dirty Scary Monsters
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod
June
6, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Steve
Perry
Greens and
Moore in 04? No
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
June
4, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Federal Judge Blinks; Rosenthal
Walks
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
The Isaiah Crowd: The Threat of Neo-Christianity
Jason
Leopold
Manufacturing the Iraq War
John Chuckman
Blackmail as Policy
Mazin
Qumsiyeh
Summit: Peace or Pretense?
Issam Nashashibi
Sharon's Sword of Damocles
Steve
Perry
Wolfowitz of Arabia: the VF interview transcript
June
3, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Copycat Killers: Bush, Jakarta and
the Slaughter in Aceh
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Tells All
Elaine
Cassel
We Interrupt Your Normal Show to Bring You an Important Message
from Michael Powell: "Go to Hell, Americans!"
Tom
Crumpacker
The Politics of US Cuba Policy
William
S. Lind
Fourth Generation Warfare in Iraq
Sam
Hamod
The Final Brick in the Wall
Uri
Avnery
The Altalena Affair
Hammond
Guthrie
Stepping into Some Deep DARPA
Steve
Perry
The WashTimes'
al-Qaeda nuke "exclusive"
June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Ashcroft's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
Susan
Davis
Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite
Chris
Floyd
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
Adam Engel
Gravity's End Zone
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert
May
30, 2003
Ben
Tripp
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda
Neve
Gordon
The Bad Fence
Todd
Steiner
Endangered Ocean
Robert
Freeman
Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity
Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
Daniel
Bacher
How Bush's War Violated International Laws
Tariq
Ali
Re-Colonizing Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush Wars
Web Log
May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
America: Pay More to Die Sooner
Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
the Top of the IRA
Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
June
12, 2003
Hunger and Security
Global
Killer of the Small and the Weak
By LAURA CARLSEN
Hunger is a slow, quiet killer. It does not make
loud explosions. It does not crumble tall buildings. It kills
mostly children, whose voices are small and weak.
No wonder it took a back seat to terrorism
at the G-8 annual meeting held June 1-3 in Evian, France.
The political leaders did discuss important
trade and global economy issues, but as in last year's summit,
the U.S. ensured that its security agenda was the central focus.
President Jacques Chirac, the summit's host, invited the leaders
of twelve developing countries (Algeria, Brazil, China, Egypt,
India, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal,
and South Africa) to participate in a "broadened dialogue"
at the G-8 meeting. Predictably, however, the rich and famous
stole the spotlights. The press concentrated on picking up the
French barbs and Texan snubs that characterized the three-day
meeting, reporting more on who chatted with whom in the post-Iraq
political sphere than on substantive issues.
Lula da Silva, Brazil's working class
president, raised the issue of world hunger. On the first day
of the summit, Lula proposed a plan to create an international
hunger fund "capable of feeding whoever is hungry."
Lula mentioned two possibilities for financing the fund: a tax
on international arms sales and the reinvestment of part of indebted
nations' interest payments. The first, he noted, "would
have advantages from economic and ethical points of view"
while the second would help to reverse the net outflow of capital
caused by servicing the huge foreign debt of developing countries.
In his speech to the G-8, Lula noted
that hunger--intolerable in and of itself--is inextricably related
to security. "I am convinced that there will not be economic
development without social sustainability and that, without both,
we will live in a world that is less secure each day. It is in
the space of social inequality that resentment, crime, and, especially,
drug trafficking and terrorism, prosper."
As the representative of Latin America,
along with Vicente Fox of Mexico, Lula reflected what is perhaps
the single most urgent problem on the continent. In Brazil, 46
million people survive on less than a dollar a day and malnutrition
is widespread. In Central America, the UN World Food Program
calculates that 690,000 people require urgent food aid as a result
of the twin afflictions of drought and low international coffee
prices. In Haiti, food insecurity is so prevalent that a UN representative
warned of "the risk of losing an entire generation to hunger."
The Brazilian president called for "structural
solutions" in which wealthy nations fully participate. Both
he and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stressed the need to reduce
developed country subsidies, especially in agriculture. Subsidies
have been a sore point for poor countries, where they are viewed
as a major source of inequity in international trade. Another
major demand was to provide medicines to patients in developing
countries, where curable or controllable diseases kill millions
of people who could be saved through access to existing drugs.
Too bad nobody was listening. Lula's
speech, and developing-country issues in general, remained way
off the radar of press and politicians alike. The U.S. press
largely ignored the speech, choosing instead to gossip about
Gallic gall and President Bush's decision to leave early.
The final G-8 statement emphasized "the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction" and "the
spread of international terrorism." Counterterrorism activity
was spelled out at length. Meanwhile, the part of the statement
regarding trade reiterated the need to "strengthen existing
WTO rules and disciplines, as well as developing further multilateral
rules so as to provide fairer, less distorted conditions for
world trade." But there were no specific commitments to
subsidy reduction or other reforms by the G-8 industrialized
countries. Nor was there any progress on facilitating access
to essential medicines.
Hunger? In the time it took to read this,
630 people died of hunger in the world--seven every two seconds.
Three-fourths of them never reached their fifth birthday. One
hopes there were no were no deaths from terrorist attacks in
the same three minutes. But if there were, they would have at
least gained world attention.
Some deaths, particularly killings of
Americans abroad, receive primetime attention. Then there are
the millions who go out, in T.S. Eliot's words, "not with
a bang, but a whimper." It seems the G-8 has decided, once
again, to ignore their whimper.
Laura Carlsen directs
the Americas Program<
of the Interhemispheric Resource Center. She can be contacted
at laura@irc-online.org.
Today's
Features
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Attack of the Hog Killers: Why the
Generals Hate the A-10
Elaine
Cassel
Meet Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's
Top Gremlin
David Lindorff
The Republican Drive to Eliminate Overtime Pay
Tom
Gorman
Greens, the Antiwar Movement and 2004
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia: The Most Dangerous Place
on Earth for Trade Unionists
Nnimo
Bassey and Lawrence Bohlen
Bush Must Stop Telling Us What to
Eat!
Julie Hilden
Spike Lee v. Spike TV
CounterPunch
Wire
Blair Bros. Change Jobs!
Eric
Hobsbawm
The Empire Expands, Wider and Still
Wider
Steve
Perry
DHS: As Big
a Planning Snafu as Iraq?
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|