Thousands of children across the US and Canada are turning the traditional Halloween ritual on its head: They are the ones handing out the chocolate. Reversing the trick or treat model, these youths will give away more than a quarter million pieces of Fair Trade Certified™ chocolates. Now in its second year, the “reverse trick or treating” program is involving many more schools and partners than when it first kicked off for Halloween 2007. [...more]
New research shows rights-based approaches necessary and cost-effective; call for independent advisory and auditing to support UN action on climate change [...more]
While medical diagnoses are based on science, psychiatric “diagnoses” are not at all scientific. They do not reveal what is wrong, what is the preferred treatment, and what is the likely outcome. Nor are they reliable. Different psychiatrists who examine the same patient typically offer different “diagnoses.” Moreover, psychiatric “diagnoses” move in and out of favor, depending on a variety of social factors. [...more]
Food prices have soared over the past year. One might think that this would provide a welcome boost to the incomes of the world’s poorest people, most of whom are farmers and farm workers. But it doesn’t work that way, as Raj Patel explains [...more]
Nationwide, uninsured children in families earning between $38,000 and $77,000 a year are just as likely to go without any health care as uninsured children in poorer families. More than 40 percent of children in those income brackets who are uninsured all year see no physicians and have no prescriptions all year, according to new research from the University of Rochester Medical Center. [...more]
According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, which tracks hate groups, their number has increased by a dramatic 48 per cent since 2000.
At the same time the FBI says that hate crimes against Latinos jumped 35 per cent between 2003 and 2006.
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Poorest countries’ cereal bill continues to soar, governments try to limit impact.
Forecast growth in 2008 cereal production could ease tight global supply.
The cereal import bill of the world’s poorest countries is forecast to rise by 56 percent in 2007/2008. This comes after a significant increase of 37 percent in 2006/2007, FAO said today.
For low-income food-deficit [...] [...more]
There is a new reason to feel ashamed about America’s failure to fight poverty. Neuroscientists have recently discovered that children who grow up in poor families with a low social status are prone to experiencing unhealthy stress levels, which in turn may impair their neural development. This effects both language development and memory, and may predispose these children to lifelong poverty. [...more]
New government research has found "large and growing" disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades.
Life expectancy for the nation as a whole has increased, the researchers said, but affluent people have experienced greater gains, and this, in turn, has caused a widening gap.
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At least 48 million Americans in working families lack the income needed to gain a toehold in the middle class, according to a new report released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
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