Discussion of All Things Political

RÍO DE JANEIRO, Jun 8 (IPS) - While their protest marches and occupations of government and business offices recall the struggles of landless campesinos, this group of Brazilian farmers are drawing attention to a distinct facet of agrarian reform. These workers have mobilised to hold onto the land they own and build a more just and environmentally sound society.

The Small Farmers Movement (MPA) has incorporated many new organisational ways of fighting economic and social injustice.

The activists stepped up their protests this year, "with very positive results," Aurio Scherer, an MPA coordinator, based in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, told IPS.

Following the most recent protests, held May 23 and 24, the government granted payment deferrals for investment loans and reduced debts taken on to pay for production expenses. Weather problems and falling prices have triggered several bankruptcies, and Minister of Agrarian Development Guilherme Cassel has acknowledged that there is a farm price crisis.

Another "major step forward" was, according to Scherer, the government's promise to make the temporary social security provisions for rural communities a permanent law, consolidating one of Brazil's main income-redistribution policies, by allowing campesinos to retire at the age of 60 for men and 55 for women and draw a pension equivalent to the minimum wage of 155 dollars a month. MORE

PENANG, Malaysia, Oct 9 (IPS/IFEJ) - When organisers of an international conference on climate change and the food crisis first scheduled the event here for late September, little did they realise the event would be sandwiched by two typhoons buffeting the region. Ironically, the first typhoon, ‘Ketsana’, delayed the arrival of conference delegates from the Philippines.

A week after Ketsana struck the Philippines on Sep. 26 and then Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, it was the turn of Typhoon Parma to wreak havoc in the Philippines on Oct. 3. Now downgraded to a tropical storm, ‘Parma’ is still lingering over the region and initially entangled with another Pacific super typhoon, ‘Melor’, which then headed towards Japan.

Ketsana left a devastating trail after it dumped the equivalent of one month's rainfall over Manila within six hours. Although Parma largely spared the country, it flooded large tracts of rice fields in northern Philippines and destroyed crops ready for harvest.

The typhoons in the region brought into sharp relief the issue of climate change as farmers struggle to cope with changing weather patterns. It is not just the sudden storms and heavy rainfalls that are disrupting farming but also the blurring of the seasons. MORE

BAMAKO, Sep 15 (IPS) - Cars and motorcycles are stuck because of the heavy rains that have drenched Mali’s capital for the past few days. It is late afternoon and the water, mud and damaged fruit from nearby stalls make the journey for those heading home to celebrate Ramadan even more treacherous.

These sudden floods are a direct consequence of climate change that is causing extreme changes of weather with shorter and more abrupt rainy seasons alternating with drought and desertification. "Since the beginning of the 1970s, Mali has experienced a 20 percent decrease in rainfall and a 50 percent decrease in the rate of flow of the largest rivers," describes Sidi Konate.

He is an engineer who works at the technical permanent secretariat (TPS) of the ministry of environment, which is in charge of implementing the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Kyoto Protocol forms part of this convention.

Konate was participating in a panel organised this past weekend by the Media 21 Global Journalism Network in Bamako. The network is a Geneva-based initiative that a team of journalists launched to improve the media coverage of key issues such as climate change.

In order to help developing countries adapt to a phenomenon they have not contributed to but which they suffer the consequences of, the Kyoto Protocol foresees a transfer by Northern countries of environmentally friendly technologies to help poor countries develop and industrialise but still pollute less.

"But up to now we have not received anything!" exclaims Konate. "Technology is not something you can transfer -- mainly because of intellectual property rights. You have to copy it, like the Chinese! The convention has not found any satisfying mechanism and the Copenhagen conference will not find it either." MORE