serious times
June 27, 2014 at 8:09 pm (Air, anuraagah, Art, Attainment of the Dao, ॐ, Balance, Biology, Chakras, Dalai Lama, Earth, Emotions, Energy, Environmental activism, Equanimity, Fire, Genetics, Global Warming, Globalization, Greece, Healing, Health, Herbal Medicine, History, Homer, Human Rights, Internal Arts, ﷲ, Judaism, Justice, Learning disorders, Liberation, Love, Matter, Medicine, Meditation, Metaphysics, Motivation, Nei Kung, plant-based diet, Prayer, Quantum Physics, Response to Intervention (RTI), Revolutionary, Science Education, Spiritual, spirituality, Taiji Chuan, the "gods", the garden, the LORD of ALL, the power that commands the universe, the Source of all life, Tibet, Vice, Virtue, Wood, Xing Yi, Yang, Yin, zombie apocalypse)
Tags: environmental activism, Human Rights
World Hunger
- 842 million people – or one in eight people in the world – do not have enough to eat. 2
- 98% of the world’s undernourished people live in developing countries.2
- Where is hunger the worst?
- Asia: 552 million2
- Sub-Saharan Africa: 223 million2
- Latin America and the Caribbean: 47 million2
Aiming at the very heart of hunger, The Hunger Project is currently committed to work in Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, India, Ghana,Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, Peru, Senegal and Uganda.
Women and Children
- 60 percent of the world’s hungry are women.2
- 50 percent of pregnant women in developing countries lack proper maternal care, resulting in 240,000 maternal deaths annually from childbirth.3
- 1 out of 6 infants are born with a low birth weight in developing countries.4
- Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five – 3.1 million children each year. That is 8,500 children per day.6
- A third of all childhood death in sub-Saharan Africa is caused by hunger.5
- 66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.6
- Every 10 seconds, a child dies from hunger-related diseases.5
The Hunger Project firmly believes that empowering women to be key change agents is an essential element to achieving the end of hunger and poverty. Wherever we work, our programs aim to support women and build their capacity.
HIV/AIDS and other Diseases
- 35 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.7
- 52 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS are women.7
- 88 percent of all children and 60 percent of all women living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa.7
- 6.9 million children died in 2011 each year – 19,000 a day- mostly from preventable health issues such as malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia.5
Launched in 2003, The Hunger Project’s HIV/AIDS and Gender Inequality Campaign works at the grassroots level to provide education about preventative and treatment measures.
Poverty
- 1.4 billion people in developing countries live on $1.25 a day or less.8
- Rural areas account for three out of every four people living on less than $1.25 a day.9
- 22,000 children die each day due to conditions of poverty.10
Rural Hunger Project partners have access to income-generating workshops, empowering their self-reliance. Our Microfinance Program in Africa provides access to credit, adequate training and instilling in our partners the importance of saving.
Agriculture
- 75 percent of the world’s poorest people — 1.4 billion women, children, and men — live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihood.11
- 50 percent of hungry people are farming families.11
In each region in which we work, The Hunger Project provides tools and training to increase farming production at the local level. In Africa, our epicenter partners run community farms where they implement new techniques while producing food for the epicenter food bank.
Water
- 1.7 billion people lack access to clean water.12
- 2.3 billion people suffer from water-borne diseases each year.12
- 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and none of the 12 percent lives in developing countries.13
The Hunger Project works with communities to develop new water resources, ensure clean water and improved sanitation, and implement water conservation techniques
Sources:
- US Census Bureau, International Data Base
- State of Food Security in the World 2013
- MDG Report – Goal 5, 2013 (pdf)
- World Hunger and Poverty Statistics, 2013
- MDG Report – Goal 4, 2013 (pdf)
- World Food Programme Hunger Statistics
- UN AIDS Report on the Global Epidemic, 2013
- IFAD Rural Poverty Report 2011
- Human Development Report, 2007/2008
- UNICEF State of the World’s Children, 2010 (pdf)
- FAO Addressing Food Insecurity in Protracted Crises, 2010 (pdf)
- WHO Unsafe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (pdf)
- Water as Commodity – The Wrong Prescription by Maude Barlow, The Institute for Food and Development Policy
- A Life Free From Hunger: Tackling Child Malnutrition, Save the Children, Feb 2012
VICTIMS
SHORTLY after the birth of her sixth child, Mathilde went with her baby into the fields to collect the harvest. She saw two men approaching, wearing what she says was the uniform of the FDLR, a Rwandan militia. Fleeing them she ran into another man, who beat her head with a metal bar. She fell to the ground with her baby and lay still. Perhaps thinking he had murdered her, the man went away. The other two came and raped her, then they left her for dead.
Mathilde’s story is all too common. Rape in war is as old as war itself. After the sack of Rome 16 centuries ago Saint Augustine called rape in wartime an “ancient and customary evil”. For soldiers, it has long been considered one of the spoils of war. Antony Beevor, a historian who has written about rape during the Soviet conquest of Germany in 1945, says that rape has occurred in war since ancient times, often perpetrated by indisciplined soldiers. But he argues that there are also examples in history of rape being used strategically, to humiliate and to terrorise, such as the Moroccan regulares in Spain’s civil war.
As the reporting of rape has improved, the scale of the crime has become more horrifyingly apparent (see table). And with the Bosnian war of the 1990s came the widespread recognition that rape has been used systematically as a weapon of war and that it must be punished as an egregious crime. In 2008 the UN Security Council officially acknowledged that rape has been used as a tool of war. With these kinds of resolutions and global campaigns against rape in war, the world has become more sensitive. At least in theory, the Geneva Conventions, governing the treatment of civilians in war, are respected by politicians and generals in most decent states. Generals from rich countries know that their treatment of civilians in the theatre of war comes under ever closer scrutiny. The laws and customs of war are clear. But in many parts of the world, in the Hobbesian anarchy of irregular war, with ill-disciplined private armies or militias, these norms carry little weight.
Take Congo; it highlights both how horribly common rape is, and how hard it is to document and measure, let alone stop. The eastern part of the country has been a seething mess since the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In 2008 the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a humanitarian group, estimated that 5.4m people had died in “Africa’s world war”. Despite peace deals in 2003 and 2008, the tempest of violence has yet fully to subside. As Congo’s army and myriad militias do battle, the civilians suffer most. Rape has become an ugly and defining feature of the conflict.
Plenty of figures on how many women have been raped are available but none is conclusive. In October Roger Meece, the head of the United Nations in Congo, told the UN Security Council that 15,000 women had been raped throughout the country in 2009 (men suffer too, but most victims are female). The UN Population Fund estimated 17,500 victims for the same period. The IRC says it treated 40,000 survivors in the eastern province of South Kivu alone between 2003 and 2008.
“The data only tell you so much,” says Hillary Margolis, who runs the IRC’s sexual-violence programme in North Kivu. These numbers are the bare minimum; the true figures may be much higher. Sofia Candeias, who co-ordinates the UN Development Programme’s Access to Justice project in Congo, points out that more rapes are reported in places with health services. In the areas where fighting is fiercest, women may have to walk hundreds of miles to find anyone to tell that they have been attacked. Even if they can do so, it may be months or years after the assault. Many victims are killed by their assailants. Others die of injuries. Many do not report rape because of the stigma.
Congo’s horrors are mind-boggling. A recent study by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Oxfam examined rape survivors at the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, a town in South Kivu province. Their ages ranged from three to 80. Some were single, some married, some widows. They came from all ethnicities. They were raped in homes, fields and forests. They were raped in front of husbands and children. Almost 60% were gang-raped. Sons were forced to rape mothers, and killed if they refused.
The attention paid to Congo reflects growing concern about rape in war. Historically the taboo surrounding rape has been so strong that few cases were reported; evidence of wartime rape before the 20th century is scarce. With better reporting, the world has woken up to the scale of the crime. The range of sexual violence in war has become apparent: the abduction of women as sex slaves, sexualised torture and mutilation, rape in public or private.
In some wars all parties engage in it. In others it is inflicted mainly by one side. Rape in wars in Africa has had a lot of attention in recent years, but it is not just an African problem. Conflicts with high levels of rape between 1980 and 2009 were most numerous in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Dara Kay Cohen of the University of Minnesota (see chart). But only a third of sub-Saharan Africa’s 28 civil wars saw the worst levels of rape—compared with half of Eastern Europe’s nine. And no part of the world has escaped the scourge.
The anarchy and impunity of war goes some way to explaining the violence. The conditions of war are often conducive to rape. Young, ill-trained men, fighting far from home, are freed from social and religious constraints. The costs of rape are lower, the potential rewards higher. And for ill-fed, underpaid combatants, rape can be a kind of payment.
Full article: http://www.economist.com/node/17900482
Honey offers a successful approach to fighting antibiotic resistance
March 25, 2014 at 5:47 am (Alternative Medicine, Art, Balance, Biology, Chakras, Earth, Education, Emotions, Energy, Environmental activism, Healing, Health, Human Rights, Liberation, Love, Medicine, Motivation, plant-based diet, Science, Science Education)
Tags: bees, cures, honey, natural medicine
Honey could be one sweet solution to the serious, ever-growing problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, researchers said in Dallas* today. Medical professionals sometimes use honey successfully as a topical dressing, but it could play a larger role in fighting infections, the researchers predicted.
“The unique property of honey lies in its ability to fight infection on multiple levels, making it more difficult for bacteria to develop resistance,” said study leader Susan M. Meschwitz, Ph.D. That is, it uses a combination of weapons, including hydrogen peroxide, acidity, osmotic effect, high sugar concentration and polyphenols — all of which actively kill bacterial cells, she explained. The osmotic effect, which is the result of the high sugar concentration in honey, draws water from the bacterial cells, dehydrating and killing them.
In addition, several studies have shown that honey inhibits the formation of biofilms, or communities of slimy disease-causing bacteria, she said. “Honey may also disrupt quorum sensing, which weakens bacterial virulence, rendering the bacteria more susceptible to conventional antibiotics,” Meschwitz said. Quorum sensing is the way bacteria communicate with one another, and may be involved in the formation of biofilms. In certain bacteria, this communication system also controls the release of toxins, which affects the bacteria’s pathogenicity, or their ability to cause disease.
Meschwitz, who is with Salve Regina University in Newport, R.I., said another advantage of honey is that unlike conventional antibiotics, it doesn’t target the essential growth processes of bacteria. The problem with this type of targeting, which is the basis of conventional antibiotics, is that it results in the bacteria building up resistance to the drugs.
Honey is effective because it is filled with healthful polyphenols, or antioxidants, she said. These include the phenolic acids, caffeic acid, p-coumaric acid and ellagic acid, as well as many flavonoids. “Several studies have demonstrated a correlation between the non-peroxide antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of honey and the presence of honey phenolics,” she added. A large number of laboratory and limited clinical studies have confirmed the broad-spectrum antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral properties of honey, according to Meschwitz.
She said that her team also is finding that honey has antioxidant properties and is an effective antibacterial. “We have run standard antioxidant tests on honey to measure the level of antioxidant activity,” she explained. “We have separated and identified the various antioxidant polyphenol compounds. In our antibacterial studies, we have been testing honey’s activity against E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, among others.”
*This study was presented the 247th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140316132801.htm
Eating organic food protects from pesticide exposure
March 7, 2014 at 3:15 am (Air, Alternative Medicine, anuraagah, Art, ॐ, Balance, Biology, Chakras, DNA, Earth, Education, Emotions, Energy, Environmental activism, Equanimity, 道, Genetics, Globalization, Healing, Health, Herbal Medicine, Human Rights, Internal Arts, ﷲ, Justice, Learning disorders, Liberation, Love, Matter, Medicine, Meditation, Motivation, Philosophy, plant-based diet, Psychology, Quantum Physics, Science, Science Education, Water, יהוה)
Tags: health
Eating organic food protects from pesticide exposure
Filed Under: Pesticides Organics Health Children
Children who switched to eating organically-grown food greatly reduced their exposure to organophosphate insecticides. Scientists from Seattle and Atlanta just published the results of their study which linked pesticides in children’s urine to pesticide residues on food. Scientists worry that organophosphates might harm children’s developing nervous systems.
Children who switched to eating organically-grown food greatly reduced their exposure to organophosphate insecticides. Scientists from Seattle and Atlanta just published the results of their study which linked pesticides in children’s urine to pesticide residues on food. Scientists worry that organophosphates might harm children’s developing nervous systems.
Twenty-three elementary-aged children participated in a 15 day study which was divided into three parts. First the children ate their usual diet of conventionally-grown food for 3 days. Then they were switched to organically-grown substitutes for 5 days. For the final 7 days, they switched back to conventional food.
The organic substitutes were mainly fruits, vegetables, juices, and grain products (such as wheat) because these foods are often contaminated with organophosphates.
Urine samples were collected twice a day for each child. Researchers tested the urine for signs of pesticides.
In the case of two organophosphate insecticides — malathion and chlorpyrifos — the results were startling. Signs of these two chemicals were found in the urine in the first part of the study. Almost immediately after the children switched to an organic diet, these chemicals could not be detected. The chemicals showed up again when the children switched back to their normal diet.
The researchers said “We were able to demonstrate that an organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposures to organophosphorus pesticides that are commonly used in agriculture.”
More information on chlorpyrifos
The organophosphate family of chemicals damages the nervous system (which includes the brain), so scientists are particularly concerned about children’s exposure because their bodies are still developing. Chlorpyrifos is one of the many insecticides in this chemical family.
In 1999, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to start cancelling some uses of chlorpyrifos, in part because of some disturbing animal studies. For example, newborn rats were much more susceptible to toxic effects of chlorpyrifos than adults. Also, even low doses of chlorpyrifos caused structural changes in the development of the brain.
While chlorpyrifos has been greatly restricted for uses in and around homes, it is still widely used in agriculture. The study described above makes it clear that children are still exposed to chlorpyrifos from residues on food.
http://www.pesticide.org/the-buzz/eating-organic-food-protects-children-from-pesticide-exposure
the power of pure/positive thought
January 29, 2014 at 3:23 am (Air, Alternative Medicine, anuraagah, Art, Attainment of the Dao, ॐ, Biology, Chakras, Chi Gung, DNA, Earth, Education, Emotions, Energy, Environmental activism, Equanimity, 道, Genetics, Globalization, Healing, Health, Human Rights, Internal Arts, Learning disorders, Liberation, Love, Matter, Medicine, Meditation, Metaphysics, Music, Nei Kung, Philosophy, Psychology, Quantum Physics, Response to Intervention (RTI), Revolutionary, Science, Science Education, Spiritual, spirituality, Vice, Virtue, Yang, Yin, יהוה)
Dr. Masaru Emoto, a researcher and alternative healer from Japan has given the world a good deal of evidence of the magic of positive thinking. He became famous when his water molecule experiments featured in the 2004 film, What The Bleep Do We Know? His experiments demonstrate that human thoughts and intentions can alter physical reality, such as the molecular structure of water. Given that humans are comprised of at least 60% water, his discovery has far reaching implications… can anyone really afford to have negative thoughts or intentions.
The rice experiment is another famous Emoto demonstration of the power of negative thinking (and conversely, the power of positive thinking.) Dr Emoto placed portions of cooked rice into two containers. On one container he wrote “thank you” and on the other “you fool”. He then instructed school children to say the labels on the jars out loud everyday when they passed them by. After 30 days, the rice in the container with positive thoughts had barely changed, while the other was moldy and rotten.
After watching this video, we have to ask ourselves…if our thoughts can do that to the water and rice?.. then what do our thoughts do to our body??? It seems clear that negative/impure thoughts damage our body. The more we allow our minds to dwell in negativity and impurity, the worse the damage is. The more we keep our minds on pure/positive thoughts, the more we can enhance our health and well-being.
derekcheyyim 