March 20, 2009

Support the people of Siberian Altai

Filed under: Human Rights, International, Russia — Tags: Human Rights — bestredunderthebed @ 3:18 pm

The Preservation groups, led by indigenous activists Danil Mamyev and Svetlana Katynova, are working against time and new Russian privatization laws to save some of Earth’s most pristine sacred lands from unmanaged tourism and industry.

Beginning in 2010, the remains of the Altai People’s land will go up for sale.

Tragically, like the experiences of Indigenous peoples in the Western Hemisphere, Altai’s precious land is coveted by those who wish to profit. Due to Russian land privatization laws that exploit the Altai people’s cultural incomprehension of “owning” the Earth, half is ALREADY reportedly lost to developers. To save most sacred lands, the Altai people need emergency funds to pay fees to survey and register communally held land before 2010

The cost to keep the communal land of their ancestors is about $2000 per person more than most of these subsistence herders and farmers see in their lifetimes.

“The whole world hears about the sanctity of the land of Altai and about the spiritual culture of the people living on this ground. But only a few understand what irreversible processes are occurring in the Siberian Altai. We ask for help from friends, to keep even part the most basic territories: the primordial land of the ancestors.” writes Svetlana Katynova Throughout Eurasia, this land is recognized as the sacred, and very alive, umbilicus of Mother Earth. The Altai people understand that this land must be kept intact for the health of the whole Earth. Many links indicate Altai as the primeval Central Asian homeland of numerous American First Nations. Native Americans visitors are welcomed like long-lost family.

With outside support, a few parcels of land are now being registered. It is a huge and specialized task, and thus far only Danil and Svetlana have been able to effectively cut through the obstructions, and only by totally devoting their lives to saving their people’s sacred way of life.

Despite requests from other Altai locales, Danil and Svetlana have had to focus on only the most at-risk lands around the two sacred mountains, Uch Enmek and Ak Sumer (Mt. Belukha). They have done all they can do, by preparing the huge number of necessary personal documents, as well as complex legal frameworks to allow continuing communal ownership under new Russian laws. Those who have requested help are strongly committed to maintaining these lands traditionally as the sacred covenant of their culture. Now, to optimally implement what Danil and Svetlana have prepared to secure this irreplaceable cultural heritage they request that we raise $100,000, no later than midsummer. Thus far, the efforts of grassroots organizations around the world have been passionate but not sufficient. To my knowledge, about $10,000 has been raised globally this year, from $10 and $20 donations. We need a different route to save Altai.

First Nations understand more than anyone what is at stake here. As the wisdom and power of the First Nations surges back into human conscience, please support your brothers and sisters in Altai with your ceremony and your funds. Both are necessary.

If your organization would prefer to support Altai nonprofits directly, we will gladly facilitate your direct contact, as well as tracking, and reporting back to you, as part of our own acts of gratitude to Mother Earth. Altai is more than a place – it Is a sacred way of being. <http://cts.vresp.com/c/?AltaiMirUniversity/d219b49054/93995a7979/e1f2e2ea83> THIS WEEK ONLY:

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March 19, 2009

East Harlem/El Barrio: Homeless People take over Vacant Building

Filed under: America, Homeless, Human Rights — Tags: America, America homeless, East Harlem, Homeless, housing, US Homeless, USA homeless — bestredunderthebed @ 9:30 pm

Homeless people have taken over an empty building in East Harlem, as part of a coordinated push-back against city policies that let buildings stay empty. The building, which is owned by the city, has been completely vacant for decades.

Deborah Dickerson, a homeless woman who is one of the organizers of the takeover, says “This building is dead. The city killed it. We’re going in there to revive this building, and there are many more. We’re not going to stop until all of these buildings have people in them. Let these buildings go!”

A massive banner hanging from the roof says THEY SAY GENTRIFY/ WE SAY OCCUPY. Community support for the takeover is high, with neighbors rallying on the sidewalk in support of the event. Neighborhood resident and community leader Gloria Quiñones says, “In my forty years of community activism on this issue, I have never seen things get so desperate. Families are doubled and tripled up while there are vacant city-owned properties and no plans to use them to house low-income folks. This is disgraceful! We know the Mayor is a great businessman and he’s one of the richest people in the world, he can do much better than having poor people living on the streets.”
Local elected officials are also signaling their support for the takeover. East Harlem City Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito stated “Today’s action is an exciting development and should send a message that the situation has grown too serious to ignore; that low-income New Yorkers are becoming more frustrated as they wait for the city to solve the housing crisis and that we must not hesitate in our search for creative solutions to our most pressing housing challenges.”

Organizers of the building takeover are demanding that the City Council pass new legislation to turn vacant city-owned buildings into housing for the homeless, and a commitment from city officials to conduct an annual citywide count of all vacant buildings and lots.
Dickerson adds, “Being homeless is one of the most degrading things that can happen to any human being. And for too long, people have presumed to speak for the homeless. We have a voice, we are human beings, and we deserve to live. It’s too long that the warehousing has gone on. We want housing. Let the warehousing stop. We want to live in a home like everybody else. The city has made enough money on us. We want our legislation to go through. We want the city to count up all these empty buildings and lots. And we want truly-affordable housing for low-income and homeless people.”overnment

For interviews with homeless people and neighborhood residents on the inside of the building, call 718-593-1979

People within the building takeover will be Twittering from the inside. Follow http://twitter.com/pthny and hashtag #bldgtakeover.

UPDATE @ http://picturethehomeless.org/blog/node/84

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March 12, 2009

Housing the ‘homeless’ saves money!

Filed under: America, Homeless — Tags: America, America homeless, Homeless, housing, US Homeless, USA homeless — bestredunderthebed @ 5:12 pm

Asheville’s Housing Support Team Indicates 32% Reduction in Costs to the Community and Lacks Funding to Continue

A preliminary report released by the Jordan Institute for Families shows a 32% reduction in costs for formerly homeless tenants who participated in the Housing Support Teams Program. These costs were related to mental health inpatient treatment, incarcerations, emergency shelter use, and emergency and inpatient medical treatment. The Housing Support Teams Program began two years ago as a pilot project in Asheville and Buncombe County.

Since May 2007, 74 formerly homeless individuals have obtained and maintained housing through this program. With a 91% retention rate, the program has been able to help the hardest to reach people obtain housing. This program is a tangible, successful example of Asheville and Buncombe County’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness in action.

“We never imagined you could pluck someone from a primitive campsite, provide them with an apartment and a case manager, and end up making such a difference. We have been able to connect clients with mental health and substance abuse providers and find work or disability income. We watched these men and women become productive members of our community,” said Cynthia Smith, Director, Homeward Bound’s Pathways to Permanent Housing.

Asheville-Buncombe’s Housing Support Teams pilot program provides critical services necessary to re-house people experiencing homelessness in the community. The program provides non-clinical services like assistance with housing searches, budget counseling, assistance in obtaining necessary personal identification and documentation, and planning around mental health treatment, including housing options for people exiting hospitals or inpatient facilities.

Despite the program’s success, funding is not being renewed for the fiscal year beginning July 2009. The program was originally funded by the State Mental Health Trust fund and reflected the first ever state-dedicated funding to a homeless-specific program. Asheville and Buncombe County was one of three communities to receive initial funding. However, with the state’s budget uncertain and the Mental Health Fund depleted, the Housing Support Teams program is at risk.

“Over the past eighteen months we have felt that our success with clients would guarantee ongoing funding for this project. That is what we were led to believe and are now disappointed to see that the reality is just the opposite,” said Smith.

Community partners have rallied to save the program, and are looking for new individuals, groups, and agencies to join the effort. Western Highlands manages the grant, and the program has been implemented by Homeward Bound. Partners include the City of Asheville, Buncombe County, the Asheville Housing Authority, and local faith groups. Statewide, partners include the Guilford County Housing Support Team program, the Durham County Housing Support team program, and the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness. (www.ncceh.org/hst)

“It is always unfortunate when Western Highlands loses funding for a program, but especially sad to lose our state funding for a program that has been as successful as Homeward Bound’s implementation of the Housing Support Team pilot. They are providing a service in the community that is unduplicated, and meeting a need that will soon be unmet unless new funding sources can be found. Western Highlands is currently looking at alternative resources, in hopes that this program can continue to house and provide ongoing support services to Asheville’s homeless,” says Laura Willis, Western Highlands Network Housing Specialist.

“This isn’t just putting a successful best-practices program at risk, but it is putting real people’s lives at risk,” said Amy Sawyer, Coordinator for the Homeless Initiative.

Without renewed support, 23 households in the program will face homelessness again, including 7 children. Despite the fact that program participants have applied for housing subsidies and are actively seeking to increase their income, results are slow in coming. Even with income from employment or disability, many people have trouble affording market-rate apartments and the wait for housing vouchers is currently two to three years long. During the time that they work to increase income and access affordable housing, participants receive much needed financial support from the Housing Support Teams program in order to maintain stable housing.

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March 7, 2009

Israel plans to destroy 88 Palestinian houses and make 1500 more Palestinians homeless to build a tourist theme park

Filed under: Homeless, Human Rights, International, Palestine — Tags: exploitation, Homeless, housing — bestredunderthebed @ 6:10 pm

Close as it is to the historic and politically radioactive Old City of Jerusalem, when Naji Qafishi built his two-storey house in the Silwan district in 1994, he hardly expected it to be at the core of a global debate over the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even now, he is more worried about the impact of the demolition order for the property on the 14 people who live in its four rooms – his three sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren.

“My grandson Naji, who is seven, came home from school yesterday. He got 96 in his test – and he said, ‘Grandad, how will I be able to study if our house is destroyed?’”

“I felt very bad about what he said. He is only in the first grade,” said Mr Qafishi, 54, an unemployed former building worker. Naji’s mother, his daughter-in-law, had fallen into depression because of the threat to the home.

But Mr Qafishi – who walks most Fridays from his house in the Old City’s historic basin to the Al Aqsa mosque 10 minutes to pray – is not alone. His house is one of 88 in Silwan’s crowded Bustan neighbourhood to have been served with similar orders, to make way for an archaeological park and tourist site – or what one of the plan’s opponents, the Israeli lawyer Daniel Seidemann, calls “something with the trappings of a Jewish evangelical theme park of the religious-nationalist right … an ersatz biblical village.”

This is no mere local zoning row. The largest planned demolition operation in Jerusalem since the Six Day War in 1967, it would trigger the eviction of 1,500 residents in what Palestinian officials say amounts to ethnic cleansing. The project by the government, Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, and the settler organisations has become a potential flashpoint and the most imminent test of whether Arab East Jerusalem can ever become the capital of a future Palestinian state or remain entrenched in Israel, as the Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants it to be.

Which is why on Wednesday the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the demolition plans were “unhelpful”, not in keeping with Israel’s international obligations and a matter she would raise with the country’s authorities. “It is clearly a matter of deep concern to those who are directly affected. But the ramifications go far beyond the individuals and the families that have received the notices,” she said.

The Jerusalem municipality says most of the houses were built without permits, like Mr Qafishi’s, although it has accepted the £585 council tax he has paid annually for the past 15 years. A spokesman for Mr Barkat said that “illegal building is illegal wherever it is.” But Mr Seidemann points out that while Israelis simply apply for a building permit, Palestinians have to undergo the “Sisyphean” process of submitting a detailed town planning scheme, only 125 of which were granted across all of East Jerusalem last year.

Mr Seidemann, the chairman of Ir Amim, which supports a pluralist, shared Jerusalem, says the planning regime has sought to preserve what the authorities call the “demographic balance” of Jerusalem – in other words “ensuring a solid Jewish majority”. It is not only houses built without permits that are threatened. Mohammed Badran, 47, shares his house with his two brothers and their families – 25 people in all. It was built in 1961, when the area was under Jordanian rule. Moreover he has the British mandate deed in the name of his great-grandmother to prove that the land has been in his family for more than 80 years. What’s more, the Badran brothers not only pay more than £1000 council tax a year, they have spent most of their working lives employed by the municipality which now wants to evict them.

Mr Badran successfully fought a previous demolition order in the courts four years ago, foregoing an expensive computer for his blind son to pay the lawyers’ fees. But the family says the stay of execution was granted only on condition that the plans to build a park in Bustan did not go ahead. The purpose of that plan from 2005, which now threatens to become a reality for the Badrans, was officially described as to “strengthen Jerusalem as the capital of Israel”. The plan is to develop the historic basin and the Mount of Olives above it at a cost of £66m. The development provides for a cable car running from the Old City possibly to the Mount of Olives and what Mr Seidemann says are “escalators running through the most important archaeological site on the planet”.

Mr Seidemann believes the plan is “dangerous” to the city’s stability and potentially fatal to a two-state solution. He says for all its encroachments in East Jerusalem since 1967, Israel has always treated the religious and cultural “complexity of this area with a good deal of reverence. But this is a clear departure from maintaining the cultural and religious integrity” of the city. He believes the plan could ignite the city, as did the building of a tunnel from the Western Wall to the Muslim quarter, which caused lethal rioting, and the walk Ariel Sharon took on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, which helped to trigger the second intifada. Beyond that, he says it could even to turn a basically political and territorial conflict into a fundamentalist religious one. Its impact on a peace deal could be just as devastating, not least because it could create a new humanitarian refugee problem of profound significance, however historically small in scale, because of its location.

“This is a deal breaker,” says Mr Seidemann. “There will not be a peace agreement under any kind of foreseeable circumstances [for] 10, 20, 30 years, [if you create] a new category of Palestinian refugee. I consider the settler activities in Silwan to be a highly disproportionate strategic threat not only to the nature of the conflict and the viability and character of the city but also to a two state solution.”

Mr Badran’s concerns are more immediate. “This is the house where I was born. I am attached to Silwan.” Although a Muslim, he adds: “The water of Silwan is the holy water Jesus used to heal a blind man.”

The municipality has raised the possibility of compensation but like Mr Qafishi, he says he will not accept it and adds he turned down a $10m offer for the house 12 years ago. He refers to Mayor Barkat’s description of Bustan as “The Valley of the King” and says: “Would King David have agreed to have me evicted from my house to build a garden in his name? I don’t think so.”

Independent

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March 4, 2009

Canadian Doctor recycles prescription drugs to the homeless

Filed under: America, Canada, Homeless, International — Tags: America, Canada, Dr. Jeff Turnbull, Health, Homeless, prescription drugs, US Homeless, USA homeless — bestredunderthebed @ 12:24 am

A prominent Canadian doctor has begun to recycle unused prescription drugs to homeless people in Ottawa because he says they could not afford them otherwise, CBC News has learned. Dr. Jeff Turnbull, chief of staff at the Ottawa Hospital in Ottawa, acknowledges the practise is controversial but says it is one way to ensure that homeless people get the medication they desperately need.

Dr. Jeff Turnbull

He and Dr. Ron MacCormick, an oncologist in Sydney, N.S., want provincial governments to establish regulations that would guide doctors who want to recycle unused prescription drugs that would otherwise be thrown out.

“I think it’s a common sense issue where we could come up with common sense guidelines to direct this,” Turnbull said. Turnbull, who will become president of the Canadian Medical Association later this year, gives the unused drugs to patients at an inner city health centre in Ottawa. He said his patients include people who have lived on the streets for years, people who don’t have a drug plan or who don’t have a health card. The medication that is handed out is not yet expired.

“We make sure that they are the right medications and the right dose, that they haven’t been opened and are completely new and sealed.”

MacCormick, who works in an area of Cape Breton where there are high cancer rates and low incomes, said he completely supports the call for provincial regulations on the issue and the need to recycle prescription drugs.

“I would do whatever I could to get that drug into their hands and not let technical or technicalities get in the way of me getting that drug,” he said.

In 37 U.S. states, unused prescription drugs are legally recycled. In Iowa, for example, there is a redistribution centre where unused prescription drugs are sorted and screened and then given to people in need. David Freis of the Iowa Prescription Drug Corporation said the redistribution centre makes sense.

“We shipped out over $650,000 US worth of drugs to these clinics, which provide drugs to individuals. So a lot of pills got into people’s mouths that would not have gotten in there without the program,” he said.

But according to the Ontario College of Pharmacists, the Drug and Pharmacies Regulation Act prohibits the redispensing of drugs that have been returned to a pharmacy once the dispensed drug has left the pharmacy. In a statement, the college said: “This protects the public from potential harm in receiving a drug that may have been tampered with or altered in some way, and is based on the premise that all patients — no matter what their financial status or abilities — deserve drugs that are of high quality; this cannot be assured where returned drugs are “recycled” or re-dispensed to patients.”

Health Canada said the issue falls under the jurisdiction of the provinces and territories. The Food and Drugs Act applies to the sale of drug products, not the dispensing of them. It said the dispensing of approved drugs donated by patients to a doctor or pharmacist would fall under the practice of medicine and pharmacy, which is the responsibility of the provinces and territories.

Its the simple things Folks, that can make real differences…

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March 3, 2009

Guantánamo: The Definitive Prisoner List (Part 1)

Filed under: America, Human Rights, International — Tags: America, Andy Worthington, exploitation, guantanamo bay, Guantánamo, Human Rights, Prisoners, terrorism — bestredunderthebed @ 8:35 pm

The following list (also see Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4) is the culmination of a three-year project to record the stories of all the prisoners held at the US prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The first fruit of this research was my book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, published by Pluto Press in November 2007, and available from Amazon (US and UK), in which I related the story of Guantánamo, established a chronology explaining where and when the prisoners were seized, told the stories of around 450 of these prisoners, and provided a context for the circumstances in which the remainder of the prisoners were captured.

In the last 15 months, I have also published 12 online chapters telling the stories of over 250 prisoners that I was unable to include in the book (either because they were not available at the time of writing, or to keep the book at a manageable length), and have written over 300 articles about Guantánamo, for a variety of publications, expanding on and updating the stories of all 779 prisoners. In particular, I have covered the stories of the 143 prisoners released from Guantánamo since June 2007 in unprecedented depth, and have also covered the stories of the 27 prisoners charged in Guantánamo’s Military Commission trial system in more detail than is available from most, if not all other sources.

As a result, this is the most comprehensive list ever published of the 779 prisoners who have been held at Guantánamo, providing details of the 533 prisoners who have been released (and the dates of their release), and the 241 prisoners who are still held (including the 59 prisoners who have been cleared for release). I will, of course, continue to update it as more prisoners are released. At the time of publication (March 2009), it provides links to my articles or online chapters telling the stories of over 400 prisoners, and, where these are not available online, provides references for the chapters in The Guantánamo Files where their stories can be found. The stories of 87 prisoners remain unknown, because they were released in 2003 or 2004, and the Pentagon has not been obliged to publish any information relating to these men, and their stories have not surfaced in the media or in research undertaken by NGOs.

It is my hope that this project will provide an invaluable research tool for those seeking to understand how it came to pass that the government of the United States turned its back on domestic and international law, establishing torture as official US policy, and holding men without charge or trial neither as prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, nor as criminal suspects to be put forward for trial in a federal court, but as “illegal enemy combatants.”

I also hope that it provides a compelling explanation of how that same government, under the leadership of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, established a prison in which the overwhelming majority of those held — at least 93 percent of the 779 men and boys imprisoned in total — were either completely innocent people, seized as a result of dubious intelligence or sold for bounty payments, or Taliban foot soldiers, recruited to fight an inter-Muslim civil war that began long before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or international terrorism.

Andy Worthington, London, March 2009

The 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo

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Action Aid UK: Corporate abuse in India – stop Vedanta

Filed under: Economy, Human Rights, India, International — Tags: Action Aid, corporate abuse, exploitation, Human Rights, India, kondh tribe, mining, Vedanta — bestredunderthebed @ 4:25 pm

We need your help to stop Vedanta, a British mining company, threatening the home of thousands of the world’s most vulnerable people.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2997262350966752303&hl=en

The Kondh tribe have lived a self sufficient life in the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa, India for generations. The hills provide their food, water and medicines and they worship the Niyamgiri mountain as their living God, the supreme Deity NiyamRaja. But now Vedanta wants to build a mine in the area.
Official reports suggest it will lead to massive deforestation, threaten water sources and destroy local ecosystems (home to endangered animals such as the tiger, leopard and elephant).
It will also end the Kondh’s ancient way of life.
We were really inspired by the amazing women in the above video. Vedanta is a huge corporation with a lot of power but they refuse to be bullied.
We especially love the woman at the end who says she’ll beat Vedanta with her broom – what a legend!
The below video tells the full story.

Your voice is powerful. Use it to get them heard. Email the Indian High Commissioner in London.

In the words of 16 year old Rapna Majhi:

“We don’t know how to take forward our struggle in London. We can not take this struggle on our own – but we will fight here til we die”.

Want to know more? Click here

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Best red under the bed

March 20, 2009

Support the people of Siberian Altai

March 19, 2009

East Harlem/El Barrio: Homeless People take over Vacant Building

March 12, 2009

Housing the ‘homeless’ saves money!

March 7, 2009

Israel plans to destroy 88 Palestinian houses and make 1500 more Palestinians homeless to build a tourist theme park

March 4, 2009

Canadian Doctor recycles prescription drugs to the homeless

March 3, 2009

Guantánamo: The Definitive Prisoner List (Part 1)

Action Aid UK: Corporate abuse in India – stop Vedanta

Your voice is powerful. Use it to get them heard. Email the Indian High Commissioner in London.

March 2, 2009

No Oasis in China…..

Sinn Féin author sees its future as part of radical left

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Your voice is powerful. Use it to get them heard. Email the Indian High Commissioner in London.

March 2, 2009

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