In the 90’s there was the big collapse of coffee prices, and the millions of farmers whose lives were ruined while their story was barely covered in the mainstream.
Today I’ve been reading more and more about the collapse of tea prices in the last 10 years; ruining the lives of tea farmers in India. Between 1998 and 2004 the price of tea dropped dramatically, and now the major tea companies are buying each other up… once again.. leaving tea farmers to pick up the pieces.
It is yet another one of those stories we never hear about. We drink coffee, tea, expect dirt cheap prices, and put little more thought into how it gets to us.
This will be a topic for an upcoming podcast, just as soon as I get a hold of some people with some experience or knowledge related to this topic. In the meantime it reminds me of a recent post about the Development of India by Dilip over at Death Ends Fun.
Corruption is a global problem, and Transparency International has made it their business to track and measure corruption worldwide. In this program I head to TI headquarters in Berlin to ask about their projects in Latin America.
My first guest is Marta Erquicia, programme coordinator, Americas Dept. at TI.
Then via telephone we hear from Silke Pfeiffer, regional director, also from the Americas Dept.
We discuss:
– Transparency International’s mission
– How the organization functions
– Funding sources
– Different areas of focus in Latin America
– Political Campaign Funding
– Who cooperates who doesn’t?
– Recent meeting with the OAS
– Group of 8 involved in the campaign
– Sources of dirty money
– Much more, so give it a listen
More info at the Carter Center as well
A cool wind blew through my tshirt and grey clouds rumbled above my head today, as I scooped water from out the boat. Never the funnest task in the world, I always have podcasts playing in my ears while I balance myself over the boat, keeping my feet from touching the water.
A perfect backdrop for listening to Radio Open Source’s interview with Norman Mailer. I’m often quick to say that I admire Mailer, and look up to him as a writer and a thinker. But as I listened today, I realized I hardly know the man.. and in fact there is much more to admire than I’d previously assumed.
What I liked best was his words regarding ignorance and television. And even his take on George Bush was actually extremely telling beyond the typical criticism you can hear everywhere else. It was about intelligence and admitting one’s mistakes, one’s limitations. Actually if you listen you may hear something even different from the way I summarize it… so you know what to do: listen to it!
Click here to see a good video from today’s events demonstrating against the G8 Summit.
What I like best about this one is how it shows one member of the group speaking politely with police explaining that they are not the enemy and they will not act violently towards them. He even asks if they would please open their helmets and put down their clubs. (which they don’t seem to, but at least one cop seems to want to do so)
It has been quite difficult to get any of the many organizations involved in demonstrations at the G8 summit in Germany to talk to me. This could be because they are so busy with the never ending media requests they get (wouldn’t that be nice!). It could also be that things are so tense on the front lines of these demonstrations that the last thing you worry about is answering a phone.
Meanwhile, my brave friends Kiwi and Fabian just returned from Rostock where the first days of protests were held and some big confrontations with police took place. Here is a excerpt from Kiwi’s email to me: (note to the grammar police, she’s Estonian and above the laws of grammar)
The weekend was full of impressions. We are still dealing with some of the things that happened. As you know some conflicts escalated on saturday. It started already as the first protesters had just reached the destination of the strike (Rostock harbor). Me and Fabian were pretty much at the front but we didn’t see what happened. People from the Black Block just started running around everywhere. It turned out later
that the police had parked an empty car/bus in the very middle of the protest area + a helicopter was flying right above the main stage making any speech/concert impossible. The organizers repeatedly asked the police to move the helicopter but no action was taken. This was interpreted as pure provocation and some (I would say the BB mostly but thats a guess) tore up the sidewalk an started to throw pavment stones
at the police.
So this was pretty much at the beginning. An hour or two later the situation began to get worse. More and more police gathered at the scene of the protest. Me and a friend had just sat down on the sidewalk and Fabian was away to get st to drink as people just started to run away suddenly.
2 minutes later as we felt an uncomfortable burn in our eyes it became clear that the police had used tear gas to force people to back off. We were only a 100 meters away and I still don’t understand why drastic measures like these were necessary. In our oppinion the crowd was peaceful.
As Fabian came back we wanted to make a plan in case things got worse
but it was obviously to late. A car was burning and 3 fire engines followed by armored cars with water cannons drove into the crowd. Soon the whole place was full with tear gas and water cannons were used to scatter the protesters. The program on stage was disrupted and organizers tried to calm people down. They spoke to the police publicly
and told them to stop the provocation. In the mean time police were everywhere and people were running in all directions. Me and Fabian were cut off from our friend. Since we couldn’t see properly anymore and the situation began to get dangerous we tried to run into town but the police were blocking some of the streets so we felt really trapped.
Well these are just some of the weird ways the police acted. The rumor was actually that they tried to get as much of the riot on tape as possible so they could argue against further protests, get more freedom to act cruel or whatever. I must say it fits to the profile.
Anyway, the sad part is the way our beloved media is pulling the whole protest into dirt and not even mentioning the motives of “peaceful” protesters. There are so many great discussions – the people are doing an amazing job. But it is not in the interest of the system to let them be heard.
They call it debt relief, but it is not as simple as it sounds. As the elite club of G8 nations meets and the people protest outside, more plans are being laid out to squeeze developing nations in ways that are rarely reported about in the mainstream. My guest on this podcast is Ceri Dingle of Worldwrite, an education charity that challenges stereotypes and lies on issues like debt relief.
We talk about:
– What Worldwrite does
– How it views the G8
– Debt relief and what happens to countries that “get it”
– Live 8, Bono, and the real result of such campaigns
– Difference between development aid from western countries and China
– The prospect of new and worse conditions for debt relief
– The Film: Damned by Debt Relief
– A Debt Relief Quiz to see if you can spot the truth
– What should be done with the G8 summit
Also my recommendation, watch G8-TV for video directly from the streets