While the Human Rights Council has focused only on a small number of States where human rights are abused - basically the Israel-Palestine conflict, the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, and Darfur, Sudan - the Council has played a key role in building awareness of the growing flow, world wide, of human trafficking.
Kofi Annan has just agreed to head the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. But can Africa afford this proposed "green revolution" in terms of human health and environmental sustainability?
Watch this online video interview with David Dellinger prior to anti drug war march in Chicago August 1996.
What does a poor government do when it finds an oil treasure in a protected natural park? Does it choose profit, and therefore the pollution and the cultural extinction of indigenous people that goes with it, or does it leave the oil in the ground and wave goodbye to millions of dollars that could be spent fighting poverty?
As we approached the bus stop over on the north side of Union Square, we knew all of our hard work over the past few months had been well worth it. Looking out over the 100 person, two-bus delegation, you couldn't help but be struck by the amazing cross section of people and organizations we were rolling with on our way down to the first ever US Social Forum (USSF) in Atlanta.
If the government-run water system is sufficient and affordable, people won't revolt. If farmers have access to land, if people see their mineral, oil and gas wealth used nationally, or going toward developments in healthcare, education and roads, there will be less conflict. If coca growers can expand their crops and produce in peace, without U.S.-funded military and police terrorizing them, then they won't protest as much. These advances are happening across the continent, with contradictions and problems, but heading in a positive direction.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019