Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has thrown the lever to populism, calling for tighter restrictions on the sale of Australian land to foreign individuals and state-owned enterprises and admitting he feels ''anxious'' about foreign ownership.
The shift came as Mr Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott faced off at the third and final leaders debate of the 2013 campaign. Both leaders were noticeably tired but managed to present a more civil atmosphere than at previous encounters, even if the questioning from voters took on a harsher edge.
An exit poll of the hand-picked audience of 100 undecided voters scored the debate as a comfortable win for Mr Rudd with 45 votes, to Mr Abbott on 38. Nineteen remained undecided.Other questions dealt with Mr Abbott's gold-plated Paid Parental Leave scheme with Mr Rudd hammering the super-generous provisions as Hands free access, and at least one questioner agreeing.
Small businessman Ian, told Mr Abbott: ''I just think, that a fork-lift driver from Mount Druitt should not be paying his taxes so a pretty little lady lawyer on the North Shore on 180 grand a year can have a kid,'' he said. Mr Abbott countered by saying that big business funded the scheme, via a levy, not taxpayers.
Declaring himself ''old-fashioned'' when it comes to allowing access foreign access to Australian land, Mr Rudd said he was ''not quite as free market as Tony [Abbott] on this stuff.'' He said he was far more in favour of joint venture approaches to access foreign capital to ensure Australian land stayed in Australian hands.Mr Abbott said a Coalition government would lower the scrutiny threshold to ensure the Foreign Investment Review Board examined acquisition proposals above ''about $15 million'' - down from more than $220 million currently.
Mr Rudd's shift appeared to come without prior consultation. It came as the trailing Mr Rudd was also forced to defend his sustained internal campaign against Julia Gillard through this year. He claimed he did ''absolutely the right thing'' by replacing her.''I can say that through all of that I believe I was doing absolutely the right thing by the party and by the country,'' he replied to the questioner, Amanda.
Mr Abbott declared he would not close any Medicare Locals. The definitive guarantee appeared to be improvised after he had pointedly left open the possibility of closures less than a week ago when he said: ''Now, can I say that absolutely no Medicare Local will close? I'm not going to say that.''
Police Chief Bill Blair has for quite some time been on the record as urging broader deployment of Tasers as an option less harmful than guns. Yet in an interview with the Star last week, the chief was careful to qualify his support of Tasers for front-line cops.
“It’s not risk-free. When they first brought them out, they made it sound like it was as safe as Tylenol. There’s a risk associated to its use. It’s what we call a less-lethal-force option. That’s a good thing — if you can do it. But you should always try to resolve these things using the least amount of force possible.’’
It’s all after-the-fact speculation, of course. Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack has claimed Forcillo called for a Taser to be brought before he fired his weapon nine times. Why he didn’t wait will no doubt be a matter explored at trial.
What is clear, from the numerous studies conducted, is that a Taser — like any other weapon — is dangerous in the wrong hands, no less when those are an officer’s hands. Many civil rights groups deplore the thing. These are the same people often most vocal in their condemnation of police shootings, particularly when the victims suffer from mental illness.
Amnesty International, for one, claims there have been more than 500 deaths due to Tasers since 2001. One of them was Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, zapped five times by RCMP officers in the Vancouver airport in 2007. That disturbing event triggered an exhaustive inquiry that delivered a slew of recommendations about when conductive energy weapons should be deployed — most crucially, only when there’s a danger the suspect will cause bodily harm, which still leaves it hopelessly discretionary. The Vancouver Tasering, also captured on video that the RCMP originally claimed didn’t exist, was deemed a homicide, with the officers acting too quickly.
The weapons gadgetry available to law enforcement is only as good as the decision-making, the judgment, of those invested with the authority to use it. And that judgment will not necessarily be sufficiently honed by a few days of training on stun guns. Indeed, there’s ample evidence showing that officers reach for the Taser more frequently, too frequently, than they would reach for a sidearm, in circumstances that don’t warrant use of force.
They defuse with a fuse because they’ve got this handy new toy that emits an electrical current via wires and barbs which disrupts voluntary control of muscles — electro-muscular disruption technology, as described by the manufacturer, Taser International. Around the world, some 17,000 law enforcement and military agencies in more than 100 countries use Tasers now. In some jurisdictions, corrections officers use them to subdue prisoners as well. Little wonder Taser stock surged more than 30 percent in the last two weeks alone, though the spike is also attributable to police demand for the company’s merchandizing of wearable video cameras, tucked into a patrol cop’s vest, for the purpose of documenting incidents with the public.
It’s unclear where Toronto Police Services will get the money to pay for equipping all front-line officers with Tasers — which could cost up to $10 million. One suggestion is that cops pay for it out-of-pocket, which is unreasonable.
The Ontario government maintains its shift on Tasers was not influenced by Sammy Yatin’s death and certainly appears to have been in the works before that shooting. More likely, the Ministry was reacting to an inquest earlier this year in Midhurst — the first where use of a Taser was a “contributing factor’’ in the death, officially caused by cardiac arrhythmia due to a state of excited delirium. In that 2010 case, OPP responding to an assault complaint came upon Aron Firman, a 27-year-old schizophrenic who was Tased when he made a movement toward one of the officers. The SIU cleared the officer of any wrongdoing. But the inquest jury heard immensely contradictory evidence about what happened.
Specific cases can be used to buttress both the pro- and anti-Taser constituencies. Earlier this month, a suicidal woman holding a knife near the railroad tracks in Burlington was subdued by a Taser and taken to hospital under provisions of the Mental Health Act. A life may have been saved.
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2013年8月28日星期三
Thousands pack commemorate 1963 march
Fifty years to the day after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a large crowd streamed onto the National Mall and listened as civil rights leaders urged them - sometimes defiantly - to keep fighting for equal rights and justice.
Civil rights leader and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young urged thousands who had returned to the spot to "Pray on, stay on and fight on."
Through on-and-off rain showers that were occasionally heavy, marchers making their way to the Mall waved banners that read, "The new Jim Crow must go" and "50 years later still fighting to vote," sang traditional protest songs and chanted, "Education is our right - education is our fight!"
The 1963 march focused on what Young called "the triple evils of racism, war and poverty," but he said King's speech focused mostly on poverty. "He said that the Constitution was a promissory note to which all of us would fall heir, but that when men and women of color presented their check at the Bank of Justice, it came back marked 'insufficient funds.' "
"Fifty years later," Young concluded, "we're still here trying to cash that bad check. Fifty years later, we're still dealing with all kinds of problems, and so we're not here to claim any victory - we're to simply say that the struggle continues."
Wednesday's march started about 9:10 a.m.Banners and T-shirts and chants focused on the Trayvon Martin verdict and on protecting the Voting Rights Act. Other banners focused on gun control, mass incarceration of African-Americans and equal access to education. Marchers of all ages and races walked the route together, some singing songs such as "We Shall Not Be Moved."
Reginald Gilluno, 39, stood next to a portrait of King made of melted crayons and makeup so that people who are visually impaired could feel the power of the portrait. His mother, Oni Gilluno, 57, was 8 years old in 1963 and acknowledges that much has changed since the first march. But she believes there is still a lot of underlying racism. "A Caucasian person just doesn't get it."
Robin McNair, a teacher at Dupont Park Adventist School in D.C., says she and fellow teachers brought 50 students to the indoor Tracking. "We want them to experience history and be a part of it. Fifty years from now, they will be able to look back and remember this day and say they were there."
Alonza Lawrence, 57, a pastor at the Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., said he drove to Washington Wednesday morning with his sister, Roberta Walker, from Richmond. "I was 7 at the time of the original march. I wanted to be part of the celebration this time. There are so many issues to protest: voting rights, racism, ageism, sexism - many of the 'isms.' The goal of this country is to become a place where all people are treated equally and have a fair chance. We have made strides, but have a long way to go. It's definitely not a level playing field."
James Carter, 62, a retired educator from Hershey, Pa., said he left home at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday with a friend and his local pastor. "I wanted to be part of the march this time. I was too young - 12 - to go in '63."
Carter said the dream of equal rights "has been realized for some, but there appears to be a concerted effort to diminish the dream. It's important to let them know that we won't stand for it. Dr. King wanted a complete America and we don't have that now."
He's concerned about a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidating a key part of the Voting Rights Act, passed a year after the original march. "The court took away clauses that allowed the (Justice Department) to address injustice," he says. "Look at North Carolina and Texas, which passed repressive laws (soon after) the Supreme Court decision. To say that everything is OK now is far from the truth."
Wednesday's commemoration culminates a week's worth of events marking the 1963 march, which was organized by civil rights and labor groups. Wednesday's event will feature afternoon speeches by President Obama and former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
Farmer was there because jailers in nearby Iberville Parish had run out of space. About 500 people had rallied in Plaquemine for access to the ballot, and about half that number had been arrested, including the national director of CORE himself.
"The tear gas and the electric cattle prods of Plaquemine, Louisiana, like the fire hoses and dogs of Birmingham, are giving to the world a tired and ugly message of terror and brutality and hate," Farmer wrote from Donaldsonville. "Theirs is a message of pitiful hopelessness from little and unimaginative men to a world that fears for its life. It is not they to whom the world is listening today. It is to America's Negroes."
Lolis Edward Elie, an attorney who represented CORE in its Louisiana protests, said the struggle in Plaquemine was real and that the racist oppression in the town and surrounding parish was immense. Even so, Elie said, Farmer's arrest was part of CORE's strategy, meant not only to highlight how different CORE was from its enemies, but also how different CORE was from its allies.
But sacrificing oneself and one's own personal freedom for the larger good was CORE's modus operandi. Farmer says in his jailhouse letter that he couldn't walk around free while others who had protested in Plaquemine were confined.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a gathering of hundreds of thousands of individuals, but more significantly, the march was a gathering of six important civil rights groups, three predominantly white religious organizations and organized labor. The civil rights groups had similar goals but different methods and often attracted different pools of people for its members.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the nation's premier civil rights organization, was arguably the most conservative, eschewing direct confrontation in favor of dispassionate courtroom battles. The National Urban League was similar in style with a greater emphasis on increasing black employment. The Negro American Labor Council shared the emphasis on employment. Its leader, A. Philip Randolph - who put together the 1963 event with deputy director Bayard Rustin - had been wanting to march on Washington for more than twenty years. But the 1941 march Randolph planned to press for anti-lynching legislation and desegregation of the military never got off the ground.
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Civil rights leader and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young urged thousands who had returned to the spot to "Pray on, stay on and fight on."
Through on-and-off rain showers that were occasionally heavy, marchers making their way to the Mall waved banners that read, "The new Jim Crow must go" and "50 years later still fighting to vote," sang traditional protest songs and chanted, "Education is our right - education is our fight!"
The 1963 march focused on what Young called "the triple evils of racism, war and poverty," but he said King's speech focused mostly on poverty. "He said that the Constitution was a promissory note to which all of us would fall heir, but that when men and women of color presented their check at the Bank of Justice, it came back marked 'insufficient funds.' "
"Fifty years later," Young concluded, "we're still here trying to cash that bad check. Fifty years later, we're still dealing with all kinds of problems, and so we're not here to claim any victory - we're to simply say that the struggle continues."
Wednesday's march started about 9:10 a.m.Banners and T-shirts and chants focused on the Trayvon Martin verdict and on protecting the Voting Rights Act. Other banners focused on gun control, mass incarceration of African-Americans and equal access to education. Marchers of all ages and races walked the route together, some singing songs such as "We Shall Not Be Moved."
Reginald Gilluno, 39, stood next to a portrait of King made of melted crayons and makeup so that people who are visually impaired could feel the power of the portrait. His mother, Oni Gilluno, 57, was 8 years old in 1963 and acknowledges that much has changed since the first march. But she believes there is still a lot of underlying racism. "A Caucasian person just doesn't get it."
Robin McNair, a teacher at Dupont Park Adventist School in D.C., says she and fellow teachers brought 50 students to the indoor Tracking. "We want them to experience history and be a part of it. Fifty years from now, they will be able to look back and remember this day and say they were there."
Alonza Lawrence, 57, a pastor at the Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., said he drove to Washington Wednesday morning with his sister, Roberta Walker, from Richmond. "I was 7 at the time of the original march. I wanted to be part of the celebration this time. There are so many issues to protest: voting rights, racism, ageism, sexism - many of the 'isms.' The goal of this country is to become a place where all people are treated equally and have a fair chance. We have made strides, but have a long way to go. It's definitely not a level playing field."
James Carter, 62, a retired educator from Hershey, Pa., said he left home at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday with a friend and his local pastor. "I wanted to be part of the march this time. I was too young - 12 - to go in '63."
Carter said the dream of equal rights "has been realized for some, but there appears to be a concerted effort to diminish the dream. It's important to let them know that we won't stand for it. Dr. King wanted a complete America and we don't have that now."
He's concerned about a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidating a key part of the Voting Rights Act, passed a year after the original march. "The court took away clauses that allowed the (Justice Department) to address injustice," he says. "Look at North Carolina and Texas, which passed repressive laws (soon after) the Supreme Court decision. To say that everything is OK now is far from the truth."
Wednesday's commemoration culminates a week's worth of events marking the 1963 march, which was organized by civil rights and labor groups. Wednesday's event will feature afternoon speeches by President Obama and former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
Farmer was there because jailers in nearby Iberville Parish had run out of space. About 500 people had rallied in Plaquemine for access to the ballot, and about half that number had been arrested, including the national director of CORE himself.
"The tear gas and the electric cattle prods of Plaquemine, Louisiana, like the fire hoses and dogs of Birmingham, are giving to the world a tired and ugly message of terror and brutality and hate," Farmer wrote from Donaldsonville. "Theirs is a message of pitiful hopelessness from little and unimaginative men to a world that fears for its life. It is not they to whom the world is listening today. It is to America's Negroes."
Lolis Edward Elie, an attorney who represented CORE in its Louisiana protests, said the struggle in Plaquemine was real and that the racist oppression in the town and surrounding parish was immense. Even so, Elie said, Farmer's arrest was part of CORE's strategy, meant not only to highlight how different CORE was from its enemies, but also how different CORE was from its allies.
But sacrificing oneself and one's own personal freedom for the larger good was CORE's modus operandi. Farmer says in his jailhouse letter that he couldn't walk around free while others who had protested in Plaquemine were confined.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a gathering of hundreds of thousands of individuals, but more significantly, the march was a gathering of six important civil rights groups, three predominantly white religious organizations and organized labor. The civil rights groups had similar goals but different methods and often attracted different pools of people for its members.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the nation's premier civil rights organization, was arguably the most conservative, eschewing direct confrontation in favor of dispassionate courtroom battles. The National Urban League was similar in style with a greater emphasis on increasing black employment. The Negro American Labor Council shared the emphasis on employment. Its leader, A. Philip Randolph - who put together the 1963 event with deputy director Bayard Rustin - had been wanting to march on Washington for more than twenty years. But the 1941 march Randolph planned to press for anti-lynching legislation and desegregation of the military never got off the ground.
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2013年8月26日星期一
Claims processors received bonuses
While veterans waited longer than ever in recent years for their wartime disability compensation, the Department of Veterans Affairs gave its workers millions of dollars in bonuses for “excellent” performances that effectively encouraged them to avoid claims that needed extra work to document veterans’ injuries, a News21 investigation has found.
In 2011, a year in which the claims backlog ballooned by 155 percent, more than two-thirds of claims processors shared $5.5 million in bonuses, according to salary data from the Office of Personnel Management.
The more complex claims were often set aside by workers so they could keep their jobs, meet performance standards, or, in some cases, collect extra pay, said VA claims processors and rtls. Those claims now make up much of VA’s widely scrutinized disability claims backlog, defined by the agency as claims pending more than 125 days.
“At the beginning of the month … I’d try to work my really easy stuff so I could get my numbers up,” said Renee Cotter, a union steward for the local Reno, Nev. American Federation of Government Employees.
Now, claims workers said, they fear the VA’s aggressive new push to finish all one-year-old claims by Oct. 1 — and eliminate the entire backlog by 2015 — could continue the emphasis of quantity over quality in claims processing that has often led to mistakes. VA workers have processed 1 million claims a year for three years in a row.
Beth McCoy, the assistant deputy undersecretary for field operations for the Veterans Benefits Administration, said bonuses for claims processors were justified because, even though the number of backlogged claims was rising, workers were processing more claims than ever before.
“There are many, many employees who are exceeding their minimum standards and they deserve to recognized for that,” she said.She also said the VBA is improving quality even as it processes more claims.
But documents show that a board of veterans judges found in 2012 that almost three out of four appealed claims — which determine how much money veterans receive for their disabilities — were either wrong or based on incomplete information. When veterans choose to appeal a claim decision, it can add several years to their wait, records show.
But the VA’s plan to process the oldest claims did not address the quarter-million veterans in its appeals process as of July. Approximately 14,000 veterans had an appeal pending for more than two years as of November 2012.The VA has promised to lower wait times and improve accuracy by scanning the piles of paper claims into an electronic system for processing with new software, but the expensive transition has been beset with problems.
The workload for VA claims workers also has doubled in the last five years. This included new claims from a quarter-million Vietnam veterans in 2010, when the VA expanded added B-cell leukemias, Parkinson’s disease and ischemic heart disease to the growing list of health conditions that veterans could claim as a result of the toxic chemical, Agent Orange. In addition, more than 830,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans returning home had filed claims as of March 2013, according to VBA data.
In an attempt to encourage more productivity, the VA changed a claims processor’s performance criteria between 2010 and 2012 to discourage spending time gathering additional documents that could prove complicated claims, according to written performance requirements for real time Location system.
McCoy said she heard from employees in the field that they felt performance standards were not fair. “Things are changing very quickly and we’re struggling a little bit to keep up with the pace of change as we update our performance standards,” she said.
A processor must gather medical and military records for each disability and give veterans disability ratings based on the severity of injury, which then determines their monthly check from the government.
Claims for multiple injuries require significant time to gather documentation. Other claims, for post-traumatic stress disorder, military sexual trauma or traumatic brain injury can require just as much effort because they can be more difficult to prove than physical injuries.
In April 2010, the VA stopped giving performance credit for “supplemental development,” which included tasks such as calling and sending follow-up letters to veterans, follow-up requests for military documents and medical records.
The change was meant to encourage processors to finish claims. But a complex disability claim could take all day, while a claim for one or two injuries could be completed much faster, said David Bump, a national representative for the AFGE and former claims processor at the Milwaukee regional office.
“I think after a couple of years of seeing things piling up, they realized that that didn’t work,” said Bump, part of the VBA’s bargaining committee that has met three times in 10 months to discuss changing the performance standards.Claims workers can be fired or demoted for not meeting standards in Automated Standardized Performance Elements Nationwide, or ASPEN, the VA’s system of awarding a specific number of points daily for each task an employee performs.
Annual performance evaluations for all claims workers include the elements of “productivity,” “quality” and “customer service.” While “quality” is measured by a random sampling of an employee’s claims and “customer service” is measured by the number of complaints against the employee, “productivity” is judged by ASPEN points, the average work credits the employee must earn per day.
ASPEN points could translate into financial awards at the end of each year if a worker earns an “excellent” or “outstanding” performance.
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In 2011, a year in which the claims backlog ballooned by 155 percent, more than two-thirds of claims processors shared $5.5 million in bonuses, according to salary data from the Office of Personnel Management.
The more complex claims were often set aside by workers so they could keep their jobs, meet performance standards, or, in some cases, collect extra pay, said VA claims processors and rtls. Those claims now make up much of VA’s widely scrutinized disability claims backlog, defined by the agency as claims pending more than 125 days.
“At the beginning of the month … I’d try to work my really easy stuff so I could get my numbers up,” said Renee Cotter, a union steward for the local Reno, Nev. American Federation of Government Employees.
Now, claims workers said, they fear the VA’s aggressive new push to finish all one-year-old claims by Oct. 1 — and eliminate the entire backlog by 2015 — could continue the emphasis of quantity over quality in claims processing that has often led to mistakes. VA workers have processed 1 million claims a year for three years in a row.
Beth McCoy, the assistant deputy undersecretary for field operations for the Veterans Benefits Administration, said bonuses for claims processors were justified because, even though the number of backlogged claims was rising, workers were processing more claims than ever before.
“There are many, many employees who are exceeding their minimum standards and they deserve to recognized for that,” she said.She also said the VBA is improving quality even as it processes more claims.
But documents show that a board of veterans judges found in 2012 that almost three out of four appealed claims — which determine how much money veterans receive for their disabilities — were either wrong or based on incomplete information. When veterans choose to appeal a claim decision, it can add several years to their wait, records show.
But the VA’s plan to process the oldest claims did not address the quarter-million veterans in its appeals process as of July. Approximately 14,000 veterans had an appeal pending for more than two years as of November 2012.The VA has promised to lower wait times and improve accuracy by scanning the piles of paper claims into an electronic system for processing with new software, but the expensive transition has been beset with problems.
The workload for VA claims workers also has doubled in the last five years. This included new claims from a quarter-million Vietnam veterans in 2010, when the VA expanded added B-cell leukemias, Parkinson’s disease and ischemic heart disease to the growing list of health conditions that veterans could claim as a result of the toxic chemical, Agent Orange. In addition, more than 830,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans returning home had filed claims as of March 2013, according to VBA data.
In an attempt to encourage more productivity, the VA changed a claims processor’s performance criteria between 2010 and 2012 to discourage spending time gathering additional documents that could prove complicated claims, according to written performance requirements for real time Location system.
McCoy said she heard from employees in the field that they felt performance standards were not fair. “Things are changing very quickly and we’re struggling a little bit to keep up with the pace of change as we update our performance standards,” she said.
A processor must gather medical and military records for each disability and give veterans disability ratings based on the severity of injury, which then determines their monthly check from the government.
Claims for multiple injuries require significant time to gather documentation. Other claims, for post-traumatic stress disorder, military sexual trauma or traumatic brain injury can require just as much effort because they can be more difficult to prove than physical injuries.
In April 2010, the VA stopped giving performance credit for “supplemental development,” which included tasks such as calling and sending follow-up letters to veterans, follow-up requests for military documents and medical records.
The change was meant to encourage processors to finish claims. But a complex disability claim could take all day, while a claim for one or two injuries could be completed much faster, said David Bump, a national representative for the AFGE and former claims processor at the Milwaukee regional office.
“I think after a couple of years of seeing things piling up, they realized that that didn’t work,” said Bump, part of the VBA’s bargaining committee that has met three times in 10 months to discuss changing the performance standards.Claims workers can be fired or demoted for not meeting standards in Automated Standardized Performance Elements Nationwide, or ASPEN, the VA’s system of awarding a specific number of points daily for each task an employee performs.
Annual performance evaluations for all claims workers include the elements of “productivity,” “quality” and “customer service.” While “quality” is measured by a random sampling of an employee’s claims and “customer service” is measured by the number of complaints against the employee, “productivity” is judged by ASPEN points, the average work credits the employee must earn per day.
ASPEN points could translate into financial awards at the end of each year if a worker earns an “excellent” or “outstanding” performance.
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Chemical Weapons Used In Syria
Kerry said in a press conference that the number of victims of the attack on Wednesday, the reported symptoms and the accounts of humanitarian organizations strongly indicate that chemical weapons were used in Syria.Kerry added that the U.S. believes the regime of president Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the attack, and that the Syrian government's decision to grant U.N. investigators access to the site of the attack came "too late to be credible."
Syrian opposition forces said last Wednesday that hundreds of people were killed near Damascus in an alleged chemical weapons attack. The international medical organization Doctors Without Borders announced on Saturday they had counted at least 355 deaths in the suburb of Ghouta.U.N. investigators inspected the site of the alleged chemical attack on Monday, despite being targeted by snipers earlier that day. Reuters reports that the investigators met with survivors and took samples on the site.
Secretary of State John Kerry declared Monday that there was "undeniable" evidence of a large-scale chemical weapons attack in Syria, toughening the Obama administration's criticism of Bashar Assad's regime and outlining a justification for possible U.S. military action.
Kerry, speaking to reporters at the State Department, said last week's attack was a "moral obscenity" that "should shock the conscience" of the world. Officials said there was very little doubt that the attack was perpetrated by the Syrian government.
"The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of Indoor Positioning System and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable and – despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured – it is undeniable," said Kerry, the highest-ranking U.S. official to confirm the attack in the Damascus suburbs that activists say killed hundreds of people.
"This international norm cannot be violated without consequences," he added.Officials said President Barack Obama has not decided how to respond to the use of deadly gases, a move the White House said last year would cross a "red line." But the U.S., along with allies in Europe, appeared to be laying the groundwork for the most aggressive response since Syria's civil war began more than two years ago.
The international community appeared to be considering a response that would punish Assad for deploying deadly gases, not sweeping actions aimed at ousting Assad or strengthening rebel forces. The focus of the internal debate underscores the scant international appetite for a large-scale deployment of forces in Syria and the limited number of other options that could significantly change the trajectory of the conflict.
"There is not a military solution to that conflict," White House spokesman Jay Carney saidThe Obama administration was moving ahead even as a United Nations team already on the ground in Syria collected evidence from last week's attack. The U.S. said Syria's delay in giving the inspectors access rendered their investigation meaningless and officials said the administration had its own intelligence confirming chemical weapons use.
"What is before us today is real and it is compelling," Kerry said. "Our understanding of what has already happened in Syria is grounded in facts."The U.S. assessment is based in part on the number of reported victims, the symptoms of those injured or killed and indoor Tracking. Administration officials said the U.S. had additional intelligence confirming chemical weapons use and planned to make it public in the coming days.
Syrian President Bashar Assad has denied launching a chemical attack. The U.N. team came under sniper fire Monday as it traveled to the site of the Aug. 21 attack.It's unclear whether Obama would seek authority from the U.N. or Congress before using force. The president has spoken frequently about his preference for taking military action only with international backing, but it is likely Russia and China would block U.S. efforts to authorize action through the U.N. Security Council.
Kerry on Monday made several veiled warnings to Russia, which has propped up Assad's regime, blocked action against Syria at the U.N., and disputed evidence of the government's chemical weapons use."Anyone who can claim that an attack of this staggering scale can be contrived or fabricated needs to check their conscience and their own moral compass," he said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who also cut short his vacation because of the attack, spoke Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin to outline the evidence of chemical weapons use by Assad's regime.Cameron's office also said the British government would decide on Tuesday whether the timetable for the international response means it will be necessary to recall lawmakers to Parliament before their scheduled return next week. That decision could offer the clearest indication of how quickly the U.S. and allies plan to respond.
More than 100,000 people have died in clashes between forces loyal to Assad and rebels trying to oust him from power over the past two and a half years. While Obama has repeatedly called for Assad to leave power, he has resisted calls for a robust U.S. intervention, and has largely limited American assistance to humanitarian aid. The president said last year that chemical weapons use would cross a "red line" and would likely change his calculus in deciding on a U.S. response.
Last week's attack in the Damascus suburbs is a challenge to Obama's credibility. He took little action after Assad used chemical weapons on a small scale earlier this year and risks signaling to countries like Iran that his administration does not follow through on its warnings.
Syrian activists say the Aug. 21 attack killed hundreds; the group Doctors Without Borders put the death toll at 355 people.The president did not speak publicly Monday about the chemical weapons attack, leaving Kerry as his administration's most prominent spokesman. Carney said the president would speak about his decision after settling on a response.
Obama pressed on with an array of events unrelated to Syria, including a Medal of Honor ceremony for an Afghan war veteran.The president has ruled out putting American troops on the ground in Syria and officials say they also are not considering setting up a unilateral no-fly zone.
Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the most likely option appeared to be the U.S. and NATO partners deploying airstrikes against Syrian missile sites, aircraft and other infrastructure that may be used to deploy chemical weapons.
"I think that would be punishing and a deterrent to their future use," Schiff said in an interview, adding that the approach would carry "less risk of drawing us in further, or spreading the conflict."It's unlikely that the U.S. would launch a strike against Syria while the United Nations team is still in the country. The administration may also try to time any strike around Obama's travel schedule – he's due to hold meetings in Sweden and Russia next week – in order to avoid having the commander in chief abroad when the U.S. launches military action.
An Obama decision to attack Syria could present an eerie parallel to a U.S. military campaign against Iraq in 1998 that was ordered by President Bill Clinton.
After then-dictator Saddam Hussein refused to let U.N. weapons inspectors into Iraqi sites, the U.S. and Great Britain unleashed a 70-hour barrage of hundreds of cruise missiles, bombs and rockets on Baghdad and elsewhere in the country. The assault aimed to prevent Iraq from building the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons it was prohibited from having under U.N. resolutions after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
But the Iraqi leader himself was unharmed, and taunted the U.S. and Britain by declaring victory afterward.U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday countered the U.S. claim that the investigation at the site of last week's attack was too little, too late."Despite the passage of a number of days, the secretary-general is confident that the team will be able to obtain and analyze evidence relevant for its investigation of the August 21 incident," U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/!
Syrian opposition forces said last Wednesday that hundreds of people were killed near Damascus in an alleged chemical weapons attack. The international medical organization Doctors Without Borders announced on Saturday they had counted at least 355 deaths in the suburb of Ghouta.U.N. investigators inspected the site of the alleged chemical attack on Monday, despite being targeted by snipers earlier that day. Reuters reports that the investigators met with survivors and took samples on the site.
Secretary of State John Kerry declared Monday that there was "undeniable" evidence of a large-scale chemical weapons attack in Syria, toughening the Obama administration's criticism of Bashar Assad's regime and outlining a justification for possible U.S. military action.
Kerry, speaking to reporters at the State Department, said last week's attack was a "moral obscenity" that "should shock the conscience" of the world. Officials said there was very little doubt that the attack was perpetrated by the Syrian government.
"The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of Indoor Positioning System and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable and – despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured – it is undeniable," said Kerry, the highest-ranking U.S. official to confirm the attack in the Damascus suburbs that activists say killed hundreds of people.
"This international norm cannot be violated without consequences," he added.Officials said President Barack Obama has not decided how to respond to the use of deadly gases, a move the White House said last year would cross a "red line." But the U.S., along with allies in Europe, appeared to be laying the groundwork for the most aggressive response since Syria's civil war began more than two years ago.
The international community appeared to be considering a response that would punish Assad for deploying deadly gases, not sweeping actions aimed at ousting Assad or strengthening rebel forces. The focus of the internal debate underscores the scant international appetite for a large-scale deployment of forces in Syria and the limited number of other options that could significantly change the trajectory of the conflict.
"There is not a military solution to that conflict," White House spokesman Jay Carney saidThe Obama administration was moving ahead even as a United Nations team already on the ground in Syria collected evidence from last week's attack. The U.S. said Syria's delay in giving the inspectors access rendered their investigation meaningless and officials said the administration had its own intelligence confirming chemical weapons use.
"What is before us today is real and it is compelling," Kerry said. "Our understanding of what has already happened in Syria is grounded in facts."The U.S. assessment is based in part on the number of reported victims, the symptoms of those injured or killed and indoor Tracking. Administration officials said the U.S. had additional intelligence confirming chemical weapons use and planned to make it public in the coming days.
Syrian President Bashar Assad has denied launching a chemical attack. The U.N. team came under sniper fire Monday as it traveled to the site of the Aug. 21 attack.It's unclear whether Obama would seek authority from the U.N. or Congress before using force. The president has spoken frequently about his preference for taking military action only with international backing, but it is likely Russia and China would block U.S. efforts to authorize action through the U.N. Security Council.
Kerry on Monday made several veiled warnings to Russia, which has propped up Assad's regime, blocked action against Syria at the U.N., and disputed evidence of the government's chemical weapons use."Anyone who can claim that an attack of this staggering scale can be contrived or fabricated needs to check their conscience and their own moral compass," he said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who also cut short his vacation because of the attack, spoke Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin to outline the evidence of chemical weapons use by Assad's regime.Cameron's office also said the British government would decide on Tuesday whether the timetable for the international response means it will be necessary to recall lawmakers to Parliament before their scheduled return next week. That decision could offer the clearest indication of how quickly the U.S. and allies plan to respond.
More than 100,000 people have died in clashes between forces loyal to Assad and rebels trying to oust him from power over the past two and a half years. While Obama has repeatedly called for Assad to leave power, he has resisted calls for a robust U.S. intervention, and has largely limited American assistance to humanitarian aid. The president said last year that chemical weapons use would cross a "red line" and would likely change his calculus in deciding on a U.S. response.
Last week's attack in the Damascus suburbs is a challenge to Obama's credibility. He took little action after Assad used chemical weapons on a small scale earlier this year and risks signaling to countries like Iran that his administration does not follow through on its warnings.
Syrian activists say the Aug. 21 attack killed hundreds; the group Doctors Without Borders put the death toll at 355 people.The president did not speak publicly Monday about the chemical weapons attack, leaving Kerry as his administration's most prominent spokesman. Carney said the president would speak about his decision after settling on a response.
Obama pressed on with an array of events unrelated to Syria, including a Medal of Honor ceremony for an Afghan war veteran.The president has ruled out putting American troops on the ground in Syria and officials say they also are not considering setting up a unilateral no-fly zone.
Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the most likely option appeared to be the U.S. and NATO partners deploying airstrikes against Syrian missile sites, aircraft and other infrastructure that may be used to deploy chemical weapons.
"I think that would be punishing and a deterrent to their future use," Schiff said in an interview, adding that the approach would carry "less risk of drawing us in further, or spreading the conflict."It's unlikely that the U.S. would launch a strike against Syria while the United Nations team is still in the country. The administration may also try to time any strike around Obama's travel schedule – he's due to hold meetings in Sweden and Russia next week – in order to avoid having the commander in chief abroad when the U.S. launches military action.
An Obama decision to attack Syria could present an eerie parallel to a U.S. military campaign against Iraq in 1998 that was ordered by President Bill Clinton.
After then-dictator Saddam Hussein refused to let U.N. weapons inspectors into Iraqi sites, the U.S. and Great Britain unleashed a 70-hour barrage of hundreds of cruise missiles, bombs and rockets on Baghdad and elsewhere in the country. The assault aimed to prevent Iraq from building the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons it was prohibited from having under U.N. resolutions after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
But the Iraqi leader himself was unharmed, and taunted the U.S. and Britain by declaring victory afterward.U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday countered the U.S. claim that the investigation at the site of last week's attack was too little, too late."Despite the passage of a number of days, the secretary-general is confident that the team will be able to obtain and analyze evidence relevant for its investigation of the August 21 incident," U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York.
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2013年8月19日星期一
Tech-savvy pastor with Illinois ties
Standing in a security line at O'Hare International Airport seven years ago, the Rev. Bobby Gruenewald wished he had a Bible in his pocket to pass the time. Then the tech-savvy pastor raised in central Illinois had a thought: Wouldn't it be grand if anyone could have their favorite version of the Bible within reach anywhere at any time?
"Could we be at one of these moments in history where technology, if we leverage it correctly, could transform how we engage in the Bible?" Gruenewald, 37, recalls thinking that day. "Drawing from the story of the real time Location system, for centuries, that really changed our access to the Bible. It's probably something today we easily take for granted, but it came through invention."
Represented by the simple icon of a Bible with a bookmark, the app offers audio versions for listeners, navigation tools to look up passages, social media capability to share verses on Facebook and Twitter, and private or public platforms to store or share notes. The app is free and generates no revenue for the church. It simply aims to fulfill the Christian mission of spreading God's word, Gruenewald said.
But Gruenewald's idea required more than technical expertise. It has taken nearly $20 million from donors, 30 paid staff and 500 volunteers worldwide to get off the ground.
It also needed cooperation from publishers to grant access to the hundreds of translations of the Christian Bible available on YouVersion's menu, including ones popular with evangelical Christians, Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, and Messianic Jews, who blend evangelical Christian theology with Jewish rituals.
Tyndale House Publishers was one of the first companies to grant access. It took 90 scholars commissioned by the Carol Stream company seven years to develop the New Living Translation, which is now the world's third-most popular biblical translation. Company officials said they weren't eager to give away their work.
But when Gruenewald shared his vision of making the Bible more accessible to people on the go, the west suburban publishing house reconsidered. It signed a two-year trial agreement in 2008 to license the translation for free. It has since renewed that agreement twice after discovering that popularity has soared.
"We found that when people read the New Living Translation they are able to experience it personally and it speaks to their heart," said Jeffrey Smith, the New Living Translation brand director for Tyndale House. "We know that, for many, they'll adopt it as their translation of choice, then follow through and purchase other resources from us. … When something is so successful like this, it's the hand of God."
But when Gruenewald shared his vision of making the Bible more accessible to people on the go, the west suburban publishing house reconsidered. It signed a two-year trial agreement in 2008 to license the translation for free. It has since renewed that agreement twice after discovering that popularity has soared.
"We found that when people read the New Living Translation they are able to experience it personally and it speaks to their heart," said Jeffrey Smith, the New Living Translation brand director for rtls. "We know that, for many, they'll adopt it as their translation of choice, then follow through and purchase other resources from us. … When something is so successful like this, it's the hand of God."
Gruenewald was an unlikely dot.com entrepreneur. Growing up in Decatur, dubbed the "Soybean Capital of the World" because of the presence of agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland, he followed his high school sweetheart (now wife) to Oklahoma's Southern Nazarene University to study finance in 1994.
When an outside company offered to build a website for the car dealership where he worked on the side, Gruenewald proposed doing it for a fraction of the price. He studied the HTML codes during his winter break in Decatur and designed the site in his dorm room.
Gruenewald created a site that helped the dealer peddle auto parts. Sales eventually grew to $100,000 a month and the dealer offered to invest in Gruenewald's talents. In 2001, after a series of successful Web ventures, Gruenewald and his wife joined what would later become LifeChurch.tv, in Edmond, Okla., where "the best technology was air conditioning" and where "my passion for the church eclipsed my passion for business," he said.
YouVersion didn't see instant success, he said. Its full potential didn't emerge until mobile devices began to catch on. In fact, the church was on the brink of shutting down the endeavor when Apple introduced its App Store for the iPhone in 2008. YouVersion became one of the first 200 apps available, enabling Gruenewald's concept to take off and help other churches grow as well.
One of those churches, the six-campus Park Community Church in Chicago, encourages worshippers to download YouVersion Bible plans so they can access the scripture passages at the core of Sunday services and refer to the pastors' notes as they follow a sermon.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/!
"Could we be at one of these moments in history where technology, if we leverage it correctly, could transform how we engage in the Bible?" Gruenewald, 37, recalls thinking that day. "Drawing from the story of the real time Location system, for centuries, that really changed our access to the Bible. It's probably something today we easily take for granted, but it came through invention."
Represented by the simple icon of a Bible with a bookmark, the app offers audio versions for listeners, navigation tools to look up passages, social media capability to share verses on Facebook and Twitter, and private or public platforms to store or share notes. The app is free and generates no revenue for the church. It simply aims to fulfill the Christian mission of spreading God's word, Gruenewald said.
But Gruenewald's idea required more than technical expertise. It has taken nearly $20 million from donors, 30 paid staff and 500 volunteers worldwide to get off the ground.
It also needed cooperation from publishers to grant access to the hundreds of translations of the Christian Bible available on YouVersion's menu, including ones popular with evangelical Christians, Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, and Messianic Jews, who blend evangelical Christian theology with Jewish rituals.
Tyndale House Publishers was one of the first companies to grant access. It took 90 scholars commissioned by the Carol Stream company seven years to develop the New Living Translation, which is now the world's third-most popular biblical translation. Company officials said they weren't eager to give away their work.
But when Gruenewald shared his vision of making the Bible more accessible to people on the go, the west suburban publishing house reconsidered. It signed a two-year trial agreement in 2008 to license the translation for free. It has since renewed that agreement twice after discovering that popularity has soared.
"We found that when people read the New Living Translation they are able to experience it personally and it speaks to their heart," said Jeffrey Smith, the New Living Translation brand director for Tyndale House. "We know that, for many, they'll adopt it as their translation of choice, then follow through and purchase other resources from us. … When something is so successful like this, it's the hand of God."
But when Gruenewald shared his vision of making the Bible more accessible to people on the go, the west suburban publishing house reconsidered. It signed a two-year trial agreement in 2008 to license the translation for free. It has since renewed that agreement twice after discovering that popularity has soared.
"We found that when people read the New Living Translation they are able to experience it personally and it speaks to their heart," said Jeffrey Smith, the New Living Translation brand director for rtls. "We know that, for many, they'll adopt it as their translation of choice, then follow through and purchase other resources from us. … When something is so successful like this, it's the hand of God."
Gruenewald was an unlikely dot.com entrepreneur. Growing up in Decatur, dubbed the "Soybean Capital of the World" because of the presence of agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland, he followed his high school sweetheart (now wife) to Oklahoma's Southern Nazarene University to study finance in 1994.
When an outside company offered to build a website for the car dealership where he worked on the side, Gruenewald proposed doing it for a fraction of the price. He studied the HTML codes during his winter break in Decatur and designed the site in his dorm room.
Gruenewald created a site that helped the dealer peddle auto parts. Sales eventually grew to $100,000 a month and the dealer offered to invest in Gruenewald's talents. In 2001, after a series of successful Web ventures, Gruenewald and his wife joined what would later become LifeChurch.tv, in Edmond, Okla., where "the best technology was air conditioning" and where "my passion for the church eclipsed my passion for business," he said.
YouVersion didn't see instant success, he said. Its full potential didn't emerge until mobile devices began to catch on. In fact, the church was on the brink of shutting down the endeavor when Apple introduced its App Store for the iPhone in 2008. YouVersion became one of the first 200 apps available, enabling Gruenewald's concept to take off and help other churches grow as well.
One of those churches, the six-campus Park Community Church in Chicago, encourages worshippers to download YouVersion Bible plans so they can access the scripture passages at the core of Sunday services and refer to the pastors' notes as they follow a sermon.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/!
Eat what you sow and sell the surplus
Could global food security be achieved by growing tomatoes up a wall and pumpkins on a rooftop? It sounds unlikely, but food security isn't just about full stomachs. Adequate nutrition is also crucial, and helping women in particular to run productive home gardens could save millions of lives in developing countries.
Research published by The Lancet just ahead of the Nutrition for Growth summit in June revealed that malnutrition kills 3.1 million children annually, and caused stunting in 165 million in 2011. Micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron and zinc are essential, particularly in the first few years of life, and it is women who tend to be responsible for feeding families.
But women also have unequal access to land and, according to the FAO, receive only 5% of agricultural extension services globally. This is why some development agencies are putting the tools for good nutrition into women's hands, helping them make better use of one space they can control: their homestead garden.
In 2009, Care International launched an EU-funded Food Security for the Ultra-Poor project targeting 55,000 women in the north-east of Bangladesh, which included training in homestead gardening."The training showed the women how to use the small space available around their homestead," says Sekhar Bhattacharjee, FSUP team leader.
"It demonstrated the use of trellises to grow vegetables, growing vegetables in plastic bags on the ground, and how to use the roofs of homes to grow vegetables. The women received training in summer and winter vegetable cultivation, and were given vegetable seed packets to begin their own gardens."
The crops grown as part of the project include cucumber, gourds, red amaranth, spinach, papaya, indoor Tracking, tomatoes, and beans, and they're grown both around homesteads and in shared community gardens. The harvests may not be huge, but they provide a year-round supply of nutrients to communities who would otherwise rely heavily on rice alone.
Homestead gardens have not only increased access to vegetable and fruits, but have also provided participating women with income from selling surplus produce. A sample of 1,614 families taking part in FSUP showed that between December 2012 and March 2013, households produced an average of 53kg of vegetables and fruits, consuming on average 36kg and selling on average 18kg.
The impact of this income is just as important as what is eaten directly, says Larissa Pelham, food security adviser at Care International UK."I can't emphasise enough the importance of getting money into women's hands," she says. "Suddenly they can make choices in how they spend for the household. This has a phenomenal impact, and research has shown that when women have control over household resources, they are likely to spend it on the wellbeing of the household overall."
This is backed up by findings from Helen Keller International's homestead food production programme which launched in Bangladesh in the early 1990s and has since expanded to Nepal, Cambodia and the Philippines. HKI works with local NGOs and extension workers to establish Village Model Farms (VMFs) in villages, which serve as training and support hubs for women to learn to manage their own homestead gardens.
"They identify a farmer, preferably female, who has adequate land for a model farm, and that farmer will get training and inputs," says Victoria Quinn, HKI's senior vice president of programmes."Other women then come there around once a month in groups of 20, and the village model farmer who has been trained will share their knowledge with those other mothers and provide them with seedlings so they can go and do it themselves."
In a study of its programmes between 2003-2007, HKI found that in Cambodia, 92% of households engaging in homestead food production spent the income earned from garden products on buying more food for the household. In Bangladesh, the figure was 70%. However, having more food – even a good variety – doesn't automatically translate into better nutritional outcomes on its own.
"You have to improve not just food production but practices too," says Quinn. "You have to provide access to healthcare and hygiene training, because if children are sick it will just come out the other end."Care found evidence for this through another project – Shouhardo – which bundled training in home gardens with support in maternal health, nutrition, immunisation and financial services to women. This package of interventions reduced the incidence of child stunting from 56.1% to 40.4% in less than four years.
"The gardens have an important role in dietary diversity, but you need a range of other things going with it," says Pelham. "You need to teach women and families about sanitation, health and Hands free access. Without that, the gardens are not a silver bullet."Meanwhile, climate change is also an increasingly pressing issue for women engaging in homestead gardening, just as in other forms of agriculture. Flooding in Bangladesh is becoming more unpredictable and severe, and the 2009 cyclone there increased soil salinity in more than a third of home gardens but also showed resilience in certain crops, according to Lalita Bhattacharjee, a nutritionist with the FAO in Bangladesh.
"These included Indian spinach, sweet pumpkin, and okra. Kang kong, or water spinach, also flourishes naturally in waterways and requires little care, making it resilient to the effects of climate change. There's a need for awareness and knowledge among those households who are reliant on home gardens for their food and income. Women farmers should be given training on key salinity coping practices such as mulching with rice straw to increase retention of water in the soil."
Home gardens have thrived in Bangladesh and other parts of Asia, and HKI is also actively promoting them in sub-Saharan Africa now. Perhaps the biggest challenge, though, is to convince more policymakers that what women grow in their gardens can actually make such a difference.
"I think a lot more work has to be done in advocating that this is a really important part of the solution to food insecurity and undernutrition in these countries," says Quinn.
"Fruits and vegetables and small animal husbandary gets short shrift in ministries of agriculture, so we need to promote the fact that you can produce a lot of highly nutritious crops this way that will help address the chronic problem of undernutrition."
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/!
Research published by The Lancet just ahead of the Nutrition for Growth summit in June revealed that malnutrition kills 3.1 million children annually, and caused stunting in 165 million in 2011. Micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron and zinc are essential, particularly in the first few years of life, and it is women who tend to be responsible for feeding families.
But women also have unequal access to land and, according to the FAO, receive only 5% of agricultural extension services globally. This is why some development agencies are putting the tools for good nutrition into women's hands, helping them make better use of one space they can control: their homestead garden.
In 2009, Care International launched an EU-funded Food Security for the Ultra-Poor project targeting 55,000 women in the north-east of Bangladesh, which included training in homestead gardening."The training showed the women how to use the small space available around their homestead," says Sekhar Bhattacharjee, FSUP team leader.
"It demonstrated the use of trellises to grow vegetables, growing vegetables in plastic bags on the ground, and how to use the roofs of homes to grow vegetables. The women received training in summer and winter vegetable cultivation, and were given vegetable seed packets to begin their own gardens."
The crops grown as part of the project include cucumber, gourds, red amaranth, spinach, papaya, indoor Tracking, tomatoes, and beans, and they're grown both around homesteads and in shared community gardens. The harvests may not be huge, but they provide a year-round supply of nutrients to communities who would otherwise rely heavily on rice alone.
Homestead gardens have not only increased access to vegetable and fruits, but have also provided participating women with income from selling surplus produce. A sample of 1,614 families taking part in FSUP showed that between December 2012 and March 2013, households produced an average of 53kg of vegetables and fruits, consuming on average 36kg and selling on average 18kg.
The impact of this income is just as important as what is eaten directly, says Larissa Pelham, food security adviser at Care International UK."I can't emphasise enough the importance of getting money into women's hands," she says. "Suddenly they can make choices in how they spend for the household. This has a phenomenal impact, and research has shown that when women have control over household resources, they are likely to spend it on the wellbeing of the household overall."
This is backed up by findings from Helen Keller International's homestead food production programme which launched in Bangladesh in the early 1990s and has since expanded to Nepal, Cambodia and the Philippines. HKI works with local NGOs and extension workers to establish Village Model Farms (VMFs) in villages, which serve as training and support hubs for women to learn to manage their own homestead gardens.
"They identify a farmer, preferably female, who has adequate land for a model farm, and that farmer will get training and inputs," says Victoria Quinn, HKI's senior vice president of programmes."Other women then come there around once a month in groups of 20, and the village model farmer who has been trained will share their knowledge with those other mothers and provide them with seedlings so they can go and do it themselves."
In a study of its programmes between 2003-2007, HKI found that in Cambodia, 92% of households engaging in homestead food production spent the income earned from garden products on buying more food for the household. In Bangladesh, the figure was 70%. However, having more food – even a good variety – doesn't automatically translate into better nutritional outcomes on its own.
"You have to improve not just food production but practices too," says Quinn. "You have to provide access to healthcare and hygiene training, because if children are sick it will just come out the other end."Care found evidence for this through another project – Shouhardo – which bundled training in home gardens with support in maternal health, nutrition, immunisation and financial services to women. This package of interventions reduced the incidence of child stunting from 56.1% to 40.4% in less than four years.
"The gardens have an important role in dietary diversity, but you need a range of other things going with it," says Pelham. "You need to teach women and families about sanitation, health and Hands free access. Without that, the gardens are not a silver bullet."Meanwhile, climate change is also an increasingly pressing issue for women engaging in homestead gardening, just as in other forms of agriculture. Flooding in Bangladesh is becoming more unpredictable and severe, and the 2009 cyclone there increased soil salinity in more than a third of home gardens but also showed resilience in certain crops, according to Lalita Bhattacharjee, a nutritionist with the FAO in Bangladesh.
"These included Indian spinach, sweet pumpkin, and okra. Kang kong, or water spinach, also flourishes naturally in waterways and requires little care, making it resilient to the effects of climate change. There's a need for awareness and knowledge among those households who are reliant on home gardens for their food and income. Women farmers should be given training on key salinity coping practices such as mulching with rice straw to increase retention of water in the soil."
Home gardens have thrived in Bangladesh and other parts of Asia, and HKI is also actively promoting them in sub-Saharan Africa now. Perhaps the biggest challenge, though, is to convince more policymakers that what women grow in their gardens can actually make such a difference.
"I think a lot more work has to be done in advocating that this is a really important part of the solution to food insecurity and undernutrition in these countries," says Quinn.
"Fruits and vegetables and small animal husbandary gets short shrift in ministries of agriculture, so we need to promote the fact that you can produce a lot of highly nutritious crops this way that will help address the chronic problem of undernutrition."
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/!
2013年8月14日星期三
The need for speed
No matter who wins the election on September 7, Australia's telecommunications networks will receive a long-overdue multibillion-dollar facelift funded by the federal government.
Australia has never topped global broadband rankings for speed and value. The OCED ranks us 25th in the world for fibre connections in its latest communications outlook report and Australia still has more dial-up internet connections than any other country in the OECD, apart from New Zealand.
While policy wonks and politicians claim broadband remains one area where the major parties offer voters a real choice, there are more similarities than many realise.There are differences - real time Location system, construction efforts, and using the Telstra copper network - but not as many as Labor politicians have been claiming during this campaign.
For example, Communications Minister Anthony Albanese claims towns will be ''divided by broadband'' and that ''planned [broadband] construction … will be cancelled''. While NBN Co under a Coalition government might change fibre-to-the-home installations to fibre-to-the-node in years to come, the Coalition no longer plans to halt construction and sell off the network like it did in 2010.
Earlier this year the Liberal Party adopted the very un-Liberal policy of publicly funding a government-managed and operated broadband network. This is because it can't unscramble Labor's omelet, and partly because it recognised votes were lost in 2010 when its broadband policy seemed to lack vision and did nothing to improve broadband speeds.
''It certainly was one of the things that affected us, definitely,'' says one Coalition frontbencher. ''Tony's [Abbott's] 7.30 Report interview was pretty bad. And the press conference with Andrew Robb and [former opposition communications spokesman] Tony Smith where they unveiled our policy was a debacle.''
The new broadband policy ''makes the best of a bad situation'' and the ''vast majority'' of Coalition members support it, he adds.The opposition's current communications spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, convinced Tony Abbott the party needed a better policy. It turns out that policy will cost $30 billion, but at least the party can argue against accusations of being troglodytes.
Turnbull says his plan can be delivered sooner and at less cost with ''everyone in the nation'' getting access to minimum speed of 25 megabits per second [Mbps] by 2016 and 100 Mbps to the majority by 2020.
Turnbull says he still believes the best model is private sector upgrades done with ''judicious levels of government subsidy to make sure uncommercial areas are dealt with''. However, he has to live with the facts on the ground and work out how to complete the network that has been started.
''The gap between the parties' [policies] would be regarded outside Australia as being relatively modest … what I have got to do … is completely depoliticise this thing,'' he says in an interview with Fairfax Media. ''Our job is to open all the books, rtls, lay it all out and say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is where we are. This is the business you own. This is the position you're in. Here are our options for sorting it out.'''
Turnbull's policy adopts Labor's plan to raise tens of billions of dollars through government bonds, which keeps the project off the budget, and spend that money building networks that are available to all service providers at the same prices. Both aim to separate Telstra so its retail operations cannot benefit from it also owning infrastructure and evenutally privatising NBN Co to recoup costs.
The Coalition's regional communications spokesman, Luke Hartsuyker, says both broadband policies are ''very very similar'' for the 7 per cent of Australia's population in regional areas that have been told to expect a fixed wireless or satellite connection.
''We will maximise the value of the assets that we inherit. We will not be junking the work that has been done on ideological grounds,'' he says.Albanese says the differences between Labor's NBN and the ''Coalition's lemon of an alternative couldn't be more stark''. He pointed to faster speeds, guaranteed upload speeds, free fibre installations and universal pricing.
''The Coalition's alternative relies on last century's copper, will be obsolete before it is finished, forces homes and businesses to pay as much as $5000 to connect directly to fibre, will result in regional Australians paying more for broadband than people living in the cities, and costs only 3 per cent less in terms of government investment than Labor's vastly superior NBN.''
There is certainty in Labor's policy that is missing in the Coalition's, partly because Turnbull wants to initiate three reviews if he becomes minister that could change his current rollout plans. Labor's NBN Co charges the same wholesale prices around the country, whereas the Coalition wants a regulated price cap that allows lower prices in viable areas. While Telstra's is settled under Labor's plan, the regulations surrounding NBN Co have stalled over concerns about cost and pricing into the future.
NBN Co has now grown to 1620 employees and spends about $1 billion a year in operating costs, including payments to Telstra. It had commitments worth $3.9 billion at the end of last financial year. The latest financial information has not been released by Albanese, even though guidelines for all government business enterprises, including Australia Post and Medibank Private, recommend corporate plans be submitted by July 31.
NBN Co has 33,000 households connected to its fibre, and 36,000 with fixed wireless or satellite connections, for a total of about 70,000. About 130,000 households have been ''passed'' by fibre, which means they can connect to the NBN, although apartment blocks remain a logistical nightmare. About 30 per cent of users are paying for the fastest speeds possible and downloading more than average households.
Fibre construction has started at 1.15 million more premises and Labor argues not all of these houses can be completed under the Coalition's plan, which expects just 2.8 million premises to be connected directly to fibre, including premises with degraded copper and 1.6 million future houses in new estates.
NBN Co announced in March it was three months behind schedule, but has not said if it expects to catch up by July 2014 when its target is to have 551,000 premises connected.Recently NBN Co has been criticised for contractors working with asbestos, claims of cost overruns and construction delays. Some of these issues are beyond NBN Co's control and not its responsibility - such as asbestos in Telstra's pits. The cost-overrun stories are based on unsourced industry figures claiming current contracts are too stingy and should be at least $5 billion more generous.
But there is genuine concern about the lack of skilled technicians available, exacerbated by government policies requiring NBN to install fibre in new housing estates. Estates are springing up around mines and regional towns, so NBN contractors are stretched across all states and working in remote places.
The lack of centralised training and registration in Australia's telecommunications industry that has led to under-skilled subcontractors working for Telstra and NBN Co and a high level of rework, according to Kevin Fothergill, training consultant at industry peak body CITT and TITAB.
''We have all the national training programs developed where competencies have been specified for all the various skill levels,'' he says. ''All the core material is in place. What is not in place is a viable telecommunications group training model and industry plan to have people trained and able to be deployed on a needs basis.''
It now appears the tenders for NBN construction work underpriced the cost of subcontractors. Most of the work has ended up in the hands of mega-companies such as Lend Lease, Downer EDI and Leightons that can afford to absorb losses or cross-subsidise from other projects.
This election, voters are being asked to choose between technology options and who they believe can better manage NBN Co, which is ultimately owned by the communications minister and the minister for finance.The obvious difference between the two policies is the choice between a direct-fibre connection into households or a fibre-boosted copper connection. Each choice comes with different construction costs and time frames. At the moment, voters can only rely on estimates produced by consultants and NBN Co, or the estimates produced by Turnbull's office.
Fibre into the home can already deliver download speeds of up to 100Mbps with upload speeds of up to 40Mbps and can be upgraded in the future. A fibre-to-the-node rollout by BT Group in the UK is advertising download speeds of up to 76Mbps and upload speeds of up to 17Mbps.
Senior research engineer at the Australian National University's College of Engineering and Computer Science, Bob Edwards, says speed is the main difference for consumers. He says there is little evidence that research labs around the world are working on applications that expect households to have speeds of 100Mbps or more.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Australia has never topped global broadband rankings for speed and value. The OCED ranks us 25th in the world for fibre connections in its latest communications outlook report and Australia still has more dial-up internet connections than any other country in the OECD, apart from New Zealand.
While policy wonks and politicians claim broadband remains one area where the major parties offer voters a real choice, there are more similarities than many realise.There are differences - real time Location system, construction efforts, and using the Telstra copper network - but not as many as Labor politicians have been claiming during this campaign.
For example, Communications Minister Anthony Albanese claims towns will be ''divided by broadband'' and that ''planned [broadband] construction … will be cancelled''. While NBN Co under a Coalition government might change fibre-to-the-home installations to fibre-to-the-node in years to come, the Coalition no longer plans to halt construction and sell off the network like it did in 2010.
Earlier this year the Liberal Party adopted the very un-Liberal policy of publicly funding a government-managed and operated broadband network. This is because it can't unscramble Labor's omelet, and partly because it recognised votes were lost in 2010 when its broadband policy seemed to lack vision and did nothing to improve broadband speeds.
''It certainly was one of the things that affected us, definitely,'' says one Coalition frontbencher. ''Tony's [Abbott's] 7.30 Report interview was pretty bad. And the press conference with Andrew Robb and [former opposition communications spokesman] Tony Smith where they unveiled our policy was a debacle.''
The new broadband policy ''makes the best of a bad situation'' and the ''vast majority'' of Coalition members support it, he adds.The opposition's current communications spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, convinced Tony Abbott the party needed a better policy. It turns out that policy will cost $30 billion, but at least the party can argue against accusations of being troglodytes.
Turnbull says his plan can be delivered sooner and at less cost with ''everyone in the nation'' getting access to minimum speed of 25 megabits per second [Mbps] by 2016 and 100 Mbps to the majority by 2020.
Turnbull says he still believes the best model is private sector upgrades done with ''judicious levels of government subsidy to make sure uncommercial areas are dealt with''. However, he has to live with the facts on the ground and work out how to complete the network that has been started.
''The gap between the parties' [policies] would be regarded outside Australia as being relatively modest … what I have got to do … is completely depoliticise this thing,'' he says in an interview with Fairfax Media. ''Our job is to open all the books, rtls, lay it all out and say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is where we are. This is the business you own. This is the position you're in. Here are our options for sorting it out.'''
Turnbull's policy adopts Labor's plan to raise tens of billions of dollars through government bonds, which keeps the project off the budget, and spend that money building networks that are available to all service providers at the same prices. Both aim to separate Telstra so its retail operations cannot benefit from it also owning infrastructure and evenutally privatising NBN Co to recoup costs.
The Coalition's regional communications spokesman, Luke Hartsuyker, says both broadband policies are ''very very similar'' for the 7 per cent of Australia's population in regional areas that have been told to expect a fixed wireless or satellite connection.
''We will maximise the value of the assets that we inherit. We will not be junking the work that has been done on ideological grounds,'' he says.Albanese says the differences between Labor's NBN and the ''Coalition's lemon of an alternative couldn't be more stark''. He pointed to faster speeds, guaranteed upload speeds, free fibre installations and universal pricing.
''The Coalition's alternative relies on last century's copper, will be obsolete before it is finished, forces homes and businesses to pay as much as $5000 to connect directly to fibre, will result in regional Australians paying more for broadband than people living in the cities, and costs only 3 per cent less in terms of government investment than Labor's vastly superior NBN.''
There is certainty in Labor's policy that is missing in the Coalition's, partly because Turnbull wants to initiate three reviews if he becomes minister that could change his current rollout plans. Labor's NBN Co charges the same wholesale prices around the country, whereas the Coalition wants a regulated price cap that allows lower prices in viable areas. While Telstra's is settled under Labor's plan, the regulations surrounding NBN Co have stalled over concerns about cost and pricing into the future.
NBN Co has now grown to 1620 employees and spends about $1 billion a year in operating costs, including payments to Telstra. It had commitments worth $3.9 billion at the end of last financial year. The latest financial information has not been released by Albanese, even though guidelines for all government business enterprises, including Australia Post and Medibank Private, recommend corporate plans be submitted by July 31.
NBN Co has 33,000 households connected to its fibre, and 36,000 with fixed wireless or satellite connections, for a total of about 70,000. About 130,000 households have been ''passed'' by fibre, which means they can connect to the NBN, although apartment blocks remain a logistical nightmare. About 30 per cent of users are paying for the fastest speeds possible and downloading more than average households.
Fibre construction has started at 1.15 million more premises and Labor argues not all of these houses can be completed under the Coalition's plan, which expects just 2.8 million premises to be connected directly to fibre, including premises with degraded copper and 1.6 million future houses in new estates.
NBN Co announced in March it was three months behind schedule, but has not said if it expects to catch up by July 2014 when its target is to have 551,000 premises connected.Recently NBN Co has been criticised for contractors working with asbestos, claims of cost overruns and construction delays. Some of these issues are beyond NBN Co's control and not its responsibility - such as asbestos in Telstra's pits. The cost-overrun stories are based on unsourced industry figures claiming current contracts are too stingy and should be at least $5 billion more generous.
But there is genuine concern about the lack of skilled technicians available, exacerbated by government policies requiring NBN to install fibre in new housing estates. Estates are springing up around mines and regional towns, so NBN contractors are stretched across all states and working in remote places.
The lack of centralised training and registration in Australia's telecommunications industry that has led to under-skilled subcontractors working for Telstra and NBN Co and a high level of rework, according to Kevin Fothergill, training consultant at industry peak body CITT and TITAB.
''We have all the national training programs developed where competencies have been specified for all the various skill levels,'' he says. ''All the core material is in place. What is not in place is a viable telecommunications group training model and industry plan to have people trained and able to be deployed on a needs basis.''
It now appears the tenders for NBN construction work underpriced the cost of subcontractors. Most of the work has ended up in the hands of mega-companies such as Lend Lease, Downer EDI and Leightons that can afford to absorb losses or cross-subsidise from other projects.
This election, voters are being asked to choose between technology options and who they believe can better manage NBN Co, which is ultimately owned by the communications minister and the minister for finance.The obvious difference between the two policies is the choice between a direct-fibre connection into households or a fibre-boosted copper connection. Each choice comes with different construction costs and time frames. At the moment, voters can only rely on estimates produced by consultants and NBN Co, or the estimates produced by Turnbull's office.
Fibre into the home can already deliver download speeds of up to 100Mbps with upload speeds of up to 40Mbps and can be upgraded in the future. A fibre-to-the-node rollout by BT Group in the UK is advertising download speeds of up to 76Mbps and upload speeds of up to 17Mbps.
Senior research engineer at the Australian National University's College of Engineering and Computer Science, Bob Edwards, says speed is the main difference for consumers. He says there is little evidence that research labs around the world are working on applications that expect households to have speeds of 100Mbps or more.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
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