Do the Poor Have Human Rights?

What Has Soaring Food and Fuel Prices Got to Do with Human Rights?

Whose fault is it If the poor can’t afford food? Give them more money and you create a bigger problem: Inflation.

It’s not the job of your government to control these things you know, they have more important things to do: National security and the Economy (!)

The poor don’t come with engines and wheels; you can’t drive them like cars. Why should they get all the grains at dirt cheap prices, when biofuels bring in a decent profit and help turn the wheels?

Neither the UN nor the so-called global relief organizations seem to care about the plight of the world’s poor. So, once again, do the poor have human rights?

Related Links:

• We Need Food!
• Rome food protesters demand rethink (Video report)
• Human right to food denied in Haiti: Preliminary findings of the fact-finding mission

China Dead and Missing Nos Climb, Again!

80,000 people are dead or missing in China’s earthquake, 300,000 injured

The government’s figure for the dead is 51,000 with 29,000 missing. It’s not known how many survivors were rescued from the rubble. In Beichuan county, about two-thirds of the population were killed.

[You Killed My Baby!] “A mother gestures as she confronts Zhu Qi (R), education dean of Mianyang city, while she and more than 100 parents attend a memorial service for their dead children at the destroyed Fuxing Primary School in the earthquake-hit Wufu town of Mianzhu county, Sichuan province May 21, 2008.” REUTERS/Jason Lee. (Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!)

A mother holding a portrait of her dead son confronts Zhu Qi (L), education dean of Mianyang city, as she and more than 100 parents attend a memorial service at the destroyed Fuxing Primary School in the earthquake-hit Wufu town of Mianzhu county, Sichuan province May 21, 2008. Parents said their children died unnecessarily because of the bad quality of the school’s classrooms. REUTERS/Jason Lee (CHINA). (Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!)

Related Links:

• Quake-hit leg of Olympic torch relay postponed [O RLY]
  
• Bigger China Disaster Unfolds

• China’s grieving quake parents start to voice anger
• China Earthquake, Heavy Death Toll, Corruption, Criminal Incompetence
• The Anguished Cries of China Quake Nurse
• Chinese paratroopers rescuing survivors or preventing plague?
• Chinese Leaders Incapable of Handling Quake Aftermath

• Beijing’s quick response to disaster won’t cover cracks of corruption
• Almost five million left homeless, China says
• Corruption blamed for rising death toll in China
• Parents’ grief turns to anger at shoddily built deathtrap schools

Video Links:

• Quake parents mourn their only child (Every Building survived the quake, except the school!)
• Quake parents grief turns to anger
• Terror in quake’s aftershocks

Warming Affects Poor Children Most

Climate enhanced diseases could claim 20 percent more deaths among poor children

“Those who have contributed least to climate change – the world’s poorest children – are suffering the most,” said the director of Unicef UK.

Bangladeshi Children and adults move through a flood stricken area.
[Photo Credit: University of Alabama]

UNICEF report “Our Climate, Our Children, Our Responsibility” says that increases in floods, droughts and insect-borne disease are affecting health, education and welfare of children in poor countries.

The environmental changes will expand the range and spread of deadly diseases like malaria, which already claims the lives of 800,000 children, and may increase the number of victims by about 20 percent. (Source)