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 Quake: Why Was the Girl Removed from Family?

Why was the Wenchuan girl photographed below separated from her parents? Where is she now?

[Why is this girl being taken away?] “A girl waves goodbye to her parents as she is airlifted out of the earthquake-hit city of Wenchuan, Sichuan province May 22, 2008. REUTERS/Reinhard Krause (CHINA)” (Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!)

• In China, stories of children sold for slavery

• Post-quake China on alert against disease
• Illegal China organ trade ends in tragedy
• Illegal Human Organ Trade from Executed Prisoners in China

• 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

Bigger China Disaster Unfolds

We all know that earthquakes are natural disasters. But what happened to our children also has human causes, and they’re even more frightening. —A grieved parent who lost his son.

Zhao Deqin Lost Her 15-year-old Twins, Yajia and Yaqi

JUYUAN, China (Reuters) – Zhao Deqin keeps a kerbside memorial to her twin daughters killed when their school collapsed in China’s earthquake, and a petition-signing site alongside that has become a focus of protest by grieving parents.

The most lamented victims of the quake that shattered parts of Sichuan province in southwest China eight days ago have been the thousands of children killed when school buildings collapsed.

Earthquake survivor, Zhao Deqian, the mother of twins Zhao Yajia and Zhao Yaqi, 15, who were killed when their school building collapsed in the earthquake, cries at their memorial altar in the town of Juyuan in the quake-hit area of Dujiangyan, Sichuan province, May 20, 2008. REUTERS/Nicky Loh (Image may be subject to copyright. See RTSF Fair Use Notice!)

As the ruling Communist Party seeks to maintain a staunch front of unity and stability after the quake, the incipient protests by parents could be troublesome, for many of them blame official graft and laxity, more than nature, for the deaths.

“How come all the houses didn’t fall down, but the school did? And how come that happened in so many places?” Asked Zhao.

“This was a tofu dregs project and the government should assume responsibility,” said Pu Changxue, whose son Pu Tong died in a classroom.

“To think that I lived and they died,” said an old woman living opposite Zhao’s shrine. “That is just too unfair.” (Source)

Related Links:

• 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