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NEWS from AEFJN – No. 55, January 2012
_________________________________________________________________________________ CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
How big business has seized control of global climate negotiations
The Polaris Institute has prepared a report outlining how multinational corporations and their lobbyists have infiltrated the United Nations and are influencing the outcomes of climate negotiations. The report uncovers and describes where corporations influence the United Nations in the build up to and during climate change negotiations and how this corporate interest is the driving force behind the preferred market based initiatives that are emerging from the UNFCCC process.
http://www.polarisinstitute.org/files/CorporationsClimateandtheUN.pdf FOOD SOVEREIGNTY
A global framework to conserve and sustainably use plant species
FAO renews international commitment, containing 18 Priority Activities, to ensuring effective management of plant diversity as a key element in fighting poverty and achieving increased food security in the face of climate change. One of the main causes of the loss of biodiversity, named “genetic erosion”, is the replacement of local varieties by “modern” varieties. Other causes include environmental degradation, urbanization and land clearing through deforestation and bush fires.
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/113740/icode/ Land Rights and the Rush for Land
The findings of the research project on commercial pressures on land in the world, a project led by ILC, IFRPI and CIRAD, have just been published. The scramble for land is made possible by corruption and neglect of the interests of rural communities by governments. Livelihoods of rural populations are threatened by the lack of protection of their land rights (customary and col ective) and of their access to resources and the lack of action to limit the losses entailed by land grabbing . A clear and simple summary is available at: http://www.landcoalition.org/fr/node/1205 CLIMATE CHANGE
UN Climate Summit
Negotiators at the UN climate talks have narrowly avoided a col apse, agreeing to the bare minimum deal possible. The plan gets the Green Climate Fund up and running without any sources of funding, preserves a narrow pathway to avoid 4 degrees of warming and gets a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol without key members.
http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/pressroom/pressrelease/2011-12-11/durban-platform-leaves-world- AEFJN NEWS No. 55, January 2012 – www.aefjn.org - aefjn@aefjn.org
REDD strongly criticized by Indigenous Peoples
While in Durban negotiations continued on REDD (Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), an NGO report strongly criticised the market mechanism which, it says, is similar to a new tool for land grabbing in the South. In the name of the fight against climate change, indigenous communities are seeing their access to forests being confiscated. The REDD programme does not reduce global warming, but the Durban conference was endorsed for financial reasons.
http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/19799 (French only) Indigenous communities are asking for a moratorium on REDD+ projects.
See: http://www.aefjn.org/index.php/375.html and for more detail: http://noredd.makenoise.org/indigenous-peoples-condemn-climate-talks-fiasco-and CONTROL OF SMALL ARMS
Smal Arms Flows and Communities in Urban and Rural Kenya
In the slums of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, the easy availability of weapons—many having found their way there from conflicts in other countries in the region—has contributed to an increase in violent crime. Along the border between Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda, the on-going rivalry between the nomadic Turkana people and neighbouring pastoralist groups has grown increasingly lethal as resources diminish and deadly weaponry becomes more accessible. This photo essay, by photographer Gwenn Dubourthoumieu, traces the trail of devastation left by small arms and armed violence in urban and rural Kenya, exemplifying global challenges.
Go to the small numbers under the photos to see all the series.
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/?photo-essay-kenya A Deadly Cycle: Ethno-Religious Conflict in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria
Over the last decade, a political crisis in Jos, capital of Nigeria’s Plateau State, has developed into a widespread, protracted communal conflict. Up to 7,000 people have been kil ed since riots broke out in the city in late 2001, and ten years later a fragile calm in the city is kept only by the heavy presence of military and police forces. The tensions between ethnic groups have been exacerbated by a combination of conflict over the allocation of resources, electoral competition, fears of religious domination, and contested land rights.
The presence of wel -organized armed groups in rural areas, the proliferation of weapons, and the sharp rise in gun fatalities within Jos all point to a risk of future large-scale violence. The new Working Paper from the Geneva Declaration Secretariat—examines the root causes of conflict in Jos, mapping the spread of violence.
http://www.genevadeclaration.org/fileadmin/docs/regional-publications/GD-WP-Jos-deadly-cycle.pdf MEDICINES AND HEALTH
UHIP was official y launched by Benin Head of State, Dr. Thomas Boni Yayi
Benin’s Universal Health Insurance Plan (UHIP) was officially launched in December 2011. Established by the Government, the UHIP aims to improve people's access to care and quality health services. This is a concrete AEFJN NEWS No. 55, January 2012 – www.aefjn.org - aefjn@aefjn.org
way of reducing for service users the money needed for payment of health care. It is also a move towards including all social strata of the country.
The Constitution of 11 December 1990 states that "access to an adequate level of social protection for all people of Benin is a fundamental right and the State must provide its citizens with equal opportunities for health, education, information, vocational training and employment.” Through a monthly contribution of 1,750 to 15,000 francs (3-23 euros, depending on income, and even free for the needy) the people of Benin wil from 1 April 2012 have the right to third-party payment for access to quality care and health services.
http://www.afro.who.int/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=7279&Itemid=2593 Resistance rate higher for regimens with efavirenz and AZT
HIV treatment regimens that include both efavirenz and AZT have the highest rates of resistance, according to Swiss research published in the online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases. The findings underline the greater durability of antiretroviral drug combinations that include tenofovir rather than one of the older nucleoside analogues like AZT, and are of particular relevance to low and middle-income countries considering the trade-offs between cost and durability of various first-line antiretroviral regimens. During six years of fol ow-up, 16% of patients treated with a combination including efavirenz (Sustiva) and AZT (zidovudine, Retrovir), developed resistance compared to 5% to 9% of patients taking alternative combinations. Two-thirds of all cases of resistance emerged when a patient had a viral load between 50 and 500 copies/ml.
http://www.aidsmap.com/page/2133366/ Africa Lies Naked to Euro-American Military Offensive
As the U.S. and its NATO allies move southward to further consolidate their grip on Africa, fol owing the seizure of Libya and its vast oil fields, most of the continent’s leadership seems to welcome re-absorption into empire. “Africa is the most vulnerable region in America’s warpath, a continent ripe for the plucking due to the multitudinous entanglements of Africa’s political and military classes with imperialism.” AFRICOM is already in the cat-bird seat, placed there by Africans, themselves.
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/africa-lies-naked-euro-american-military-offensive MALAWI: Urban poor hit by slew of price increases
Devaluation, fuel shortages and economic mismanagement have conspired to push staple food prices to “alarming levels” in urban areas of Malawi, where even catching a bus to work has become an unaffordable luxury for many, according to residents and analysts. Since Malawi started experiencing severe shortages of fuel and foreign exchange currency, soap, beans, dry fish, bread, sugar and cooking oil have become luxuries for Tambula's family, and even affording maize, Malawi’s staple food, has become a struggle.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94498 AEFJN NEWS No. 55, January 2012 – www.aefjn.org - aefjn@aefjn.org

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