A bit on the IMF meeting in Pittsburg last week

[the_future_modernes]

G20:Europeans Resist More Clout for South in IMF

PITTSBURGH, Sep 25 (IPS) - An initiative to reform the International Monetary Fund (IMF) voting structure is causing tension at the G20 here as European delegations resist a U.S.-spearheaded effort to give greater clout to emerging economies, primarily because it would decrease European voting power.

The proposed reform would increase the voting power of emerging economies in the IMF in hopes that these increasingly wealthy and influential countries would become more engaged members of the Fund.

"A shift toward emerging countries at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank is the right thing to do and it's going to happen," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told reporters in Pittsburgh Thursday.

But some civil society groups disagree. "It is tinkering," Jon Slater, Oxfam's economic justice press officer, told IPS. "The reforms we've seen in the draft communiqué don't address the fundamental need for [change in] how votes in the IMF are allocated. The IMF will remain the rich country club." MORE

G20:IMF Finds a New Unpopularity

BRATISLAVA, Sep 25 (IPS) - When some Eastern European states faced economic collapse as the financial crisis took hold, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stepped in and offered governments huge loans.

But, as the G20 summit in Pittsburgh considers reform of the IMF, some economists and sociologists are now asking whether the social and economic cost of adhering to the strict credit conditions that came with them may not be too high for some.

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Washington-based think tank, the Centre for Economic and Policy Research told IPS: "The IMF loans have made the economic and social situations in these countries worse.

"The IMF will say that if a country is living beyond its means then it has to adjust, but what they do is make the adjustment even harder with really austere (loan) conditions."

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Indigenous People around the World

[the_future_modernes]

COLOMBIA:Neutrality Impossible for Indigenous Groups

BOGOTA, Sep 10 (IPS) - The latest killings of Awá Indians in southern Colombia – 12 members of a family, including four children and three teenagers –, the forced displacement of hundreds of native villagers, and death threats against indigenous leaders and teachers are signs indicating that their demand to be considered neutral in the armed conflict is still being ignored.

The Aug. 26 murders were preceded by the killings of at least 17 members of the Awá community in February by the left-wing FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrillas, and by death threats against Indigenous Unity of the Awá People (UNIPA) leaders.

Some become obstacles for the armed groups, as awkward witnesses. That was the case of Tulia García, one of the Aug. 26 victims, who had seen armed men detain her husband Gonzalo Rodríguez on Aug. 23 and later found his body, with shots to the head.

According to a statement by Human Rights Watch, "Colombia: Investigate Massacre in Southern Region; Possible Army Involvement and Effort to Eliminate Witnesses in Killings of 12 Indigenous People", García had accused the army of killing her husband.

The Awá collectively own the land and rivers in the Gran Rosario reservation or "resguardo" in the southwestern province of Nariño, a place of strategic value for the armed groups. They also have strong boys and young men that the armed groups recruit, against the wishes and cultural values of their families.

The Awá are intimately familiar with the region, but refuse to serve as guides for any group that carries weapons. Like other indigenous communities, "they are opposed to any form of violence," as missionary Antonio Baraín explains. MORE

CHILE:Preserving the Kaweshkar Language – In the Nick of Time

SANTIAGO, Sep 30 (IPS) - Sound files containing recordings of spoken Kaweshkar - a nearly extinct indigenous language of southern Chile – have been put together thanks to the work of ethnolinguist Óscar Aguilera and anthropologist José Tonko, and donated to national and foreign institutions with the aim of preserving the culture of one of Chile’s nine native groups.

Kaweshkar is on the verge of joining hundreds of native languages that have disappeared over the past 500 years in South America, a process many blame on colonialism and the imposition of a dominant language, while others attribute it to the natural evolution of languages.

Whatever the reason, the reality is that the vast majority of the 600 to 800 languages that were spoken when the Europeans arrived in the continent have disappeared.

In recent years international agencies and language experts have agreed on the need to work towards preserving languages regardless of the number of speakers, because of their importance to cultural identity and diversity, and a series of legal instruments have been adopted towards that end.

The Kaweshkar - also known as Alacaluf - are one of the nine indigenous ethnic groups legally recognised by the Chilean government.

A nomadic sea-faring people, in the early twentieth century they finally settled down on the Island of Wellington, some 3,000 kilometres south of Santiago, in the Chilean fjords.

Today, only seven speakers of Kaweshkar are left in Puerto Edén, the island’s small port village, which is considered one of the country's most isolated inhabited places. MORE

RIGHTS-MALAYSIA: Win Some, Lose Some for Beleaguered Penan Tribe

KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 21 (IPS) - In wealthy Malaysia that employs over four million Asians to service its high- rolling lifestyle, a tiny indigenous tribe is fighting for its survival against state inaction and bureaucratic apathy, as well as marauding giant multinationals and timber loggers.

It is an increasingly losing battle for the Penan, a tribe of about 12,000 semi- nomadic people fighting against destruction of their home in the jungles of Sarawak state in East Malaysia, home to the world’s oldest rain forest and a complex ecosystem.

The state’s wildlife and unique tropical ecosystem are equally under threat from loggers who swing into the forest felling the best trees, leaving giant oil palm plantations while clearing the logged forest to grow more palm oil.

In recent months about 3,000 Penan in the Bakun area in upper Rejang River – the second longest river in the country – faced severe food shortage for various reasons, including drought sparked by deforestation. Food supplies had to be airlifted after church groups raised the alarm.

Exacerbating their already harsh living condition is that Penan women and children are being raped by loggers and their workers, according to a long- delayed government report that concluded in mid-September what human rights activists and non-governmental organisations had been saying for at least a decade.

But despite evidence of sexual assaults, Malaysian police are dragging their feet in investigating the cases and bringing the culprits to justice.

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education

[the_future_modernes]

Saudis launch hi-tech university - 24 Sep 09

Saudi Arabia has opened the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) near Jeddah, its first co-educational university.

Authorities hope the mixed-gender centre will help modernise the kingdom's deeply conservative society.

The high-tech campus will focus on science and technology, with professors and students drawn from around the world.

The multi-billion-dollar university is being seen as an attempt by King Abdullah to promote reforms in the kingdom.

Women will also not be required to wear veils in the co-educational classes.

This is in contrast to the wider country where a strict Wahhabi branch of Islam is practised and women are completely segregated.

Hussein Shobokshi, a columnist for the Asharq Alawsat newspaper, told Al Jazeera: "It is a paradigm shift. Education is the tool for empowering this change. This is a global initiative.

"This is a very ambitious project that puts a lot of pressure on the Saudi institutions to raise the bar and meet the level of this university - culturally and ethics wise."

Al Jazeera's Sabina Castelfranco reports from Jeddah.