Government Grants for All

AGRICULTURE – SOUTH AFRICA: Small Scale Farmers Face Uphill Battle

Just before sunrise 39-year -old Alan Simons, an emerging small-scale farmer,
gets ready for his usual nine-hour day of harvesting, packing and deliveries.
In his black Nissan van he drives ten kilometres to the seaside town of Strand
outside of Cape Town to pick up his six workers, all of who are women.

Subsidies: Who Really Benefits? – INTER PRESS SERVICE

Tags: Africa, Agriculture, Battle, Face, Farmers, Scale, Small, South, Uphill

Children Of Working Moms Face More Health Problems

Children Of Working Moms Face More Health Problems
Children of working mothers are significantly more likely to experience health problems, including asthma and accidents, than children of mothers who don’t work, according to new research from North Carolina State University. “I don’t think anyone should make sweeping value judgments based on a mother’s decision to work or not work,” says Dr. Melinda Morrill, research assistant professor of …
Read more on redOrbit

Children of working moms face more health problems, study suggests
Children of working mothers are significantly more likely to experience health problems, including asthma and accidents, than children of mothers who don’t work outside the home, according to new research.
Read more on Science Daily

Former Riley patient shares experiences at Dance Marathon
Evan Meade and Braden Tamosaitis sit in the bounce house at Dance Marathon. One Friday night, Evan Meade was just another healthy kid, jumping up and down in the bleachers during a Franklin Community High School basketball game. By Sunday, what he thought was the flu turned out to be cancer.
Read more on Ball State Daily News

Children of working moms face more health problems
( North Carolina State University ) Children of working mothers are significantly more likely to experience health problems, including asthma and accidents, than children of mothers who don’t work, according to new research from North Carolina State University.
Read more on EurekAlert!

Tags: Children, Face, Health, Moms, More, Problems, Working

BP’s New Partners Face Fraud Allegation

BP faced new embarrassment last night after detailed allegations were made in a US court about bogus deals and possible UK tax frauds by its new Russian partners from TNK.

Papers lodged in a New York district court allege that more than $160m (£96m) in profits were diverted from TNK to its affiliated Crown Group from January 1999 until November 2000, with more than $100m of that being passed on to Isle of Man and Bermudan firms as part of “sham” agreements.

“In addition, these profits were improperly attributed to CTF (Crown Trade and Finance) in Gibraltar, instead of CCL (Crown Commodities Ltd) in England, without commercial justification,” alleges German oil and gas consultant Helmar Traugott Schank. “Based on the instructions I have been given, this may well constitute a tax fraud on the Inland Revenue,” he concludes.

The expert witness statement was lodged on Wednesday in the southern district court of New York by NoreX Petroleum of Canada as part of a wider legal challenge against Access, Renova and Alfa which are leading shareholders in TNK.

The deposition from Mr Schank – previously a managing director of oil trader Rhein – also contains references to a copy of an Alfa/Crown internal document he has obtained and published. “Sooner or later (and probably sooner) Inland Revenue will become aware of the size of, and gamut of, activities conducted by Crown Commodities and will seek to subject to UK corporate income tax all or a significant part of the trading profit ‘booked’ by Crown Trade in Gibraltar,” says a memorandum of May 9, 1999, from lawyer Scott Newman to [TNK] defendant Elliot Spitz. There was also a pattern of “abnormal transfer pricing practice through manipulation of pricing conditions by TNK and Crown”, according to Mr Schank, leading to substantial “artificial” profits. A manipulated loss of revenue “prejudiced seriously the minority shareholders of TNK, which at the time included the Russian government,” he adds.

TNK hit back last night. “Our position against NoreX has not changed. We believe this is a claim without merit and it will be defended vigorously. They [NoreX] have lost more than 10 lawsuits launched against TNK in the past,” said a TNK spokeswoman. General allegations about the behaviour of these TNK shareholders have been made before but BP will not welcome more publicity as it finalises a $6.15bn deal with TNK.

BP chief executive Lord Browne said last week at the launch of the new venture TNK-BP that he had taken steps to ensure there could be no legal liability for BP from any historical cases against the Russians.

The new revelations have led financial analysts to question the wisdom of allying BP’s future to a company such as TNK which is also facing legal challenges in the Cayman Islands, where it is formally registered. Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst with Fahnestock & Co in New York, said: “I am astounded that a company such as BP, which takes its corporate responsibilities so seriously, wants to get involved so deeply with interests which came out of the wild, wild west.”

It could also add to fears of those opposed to the takeover of Chelsea football club by another Russian oil oligarch, Roman Abramovich.

Tags: Allegation, BP's, Face, Fraud, Partners

UN Warns of New Face of Hunger As Global Prices Soar

The UN warned yesterday that it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay this year in the face of a dramatic upward surge in world commodity prices, which have created a “new face of hunger”.

“We will have a problem in coming months,” said Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP). “We will have a significant gap if commodity prices remain this high, and we will need an extra half billion dollars just to meet existing assessed needs.”

With voluntary contributions from the world’s wealthy nations, the WFP feeds 73 million people in 78 countries, less than a 10th of the total number of the world’s undernourished. Its agreed budget for 2008 was $2.9bn (£1.5bn). But with annual food price increases around the world of up to 40% and dramatic hikes in fuel costs, that budget is no longer enough even to maintain current food deliveries.

The shortfall is all the more worrying as it comes at a time when populations, many in urban areas, who had thought themselves secure in their food supply are now unable to afford basic foodstuffs. Afghanistan has recently added an extra 2.5 million people to the number it says are at risk of malnutrition

“This is the new face of hunger,” Sheeran said. “There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market. There is vulnerability in urban areas we have not seen before. There are food riots in countries where we have not seen them before.”

WFP officials say the extraordinary increases in the global price of basic foods were caused by a “perfect storm” of factors, including a rise in demand for animal feed from increasingly prosperous populations in India and China, the use of more land and agricultural produce for biofuels, and climate change.

The impact has been felt around the world. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. and Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety.

“For us, the main concern is for the poorest countries and the net food buyers,” said Frederic Mousseau, a humanitarian policy adviser at Oxfam. “For the poorest populations, 50%-80% of income goes on food purchases. We are concerned now about an immediate increase in malnutrition in these countries, and the landless, the farmworkers there, all those who are living on the edge.”

Much of the blame has been put on the transfer of land and grains to the production of biofuel. But its impact has been outweighed by the sharp growth in demand from a new middle class in China and India for meat and other foods, which were previously viewed as luxuries.

“The fundamental cause is high income growth,” said Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute. “I estimate this is half the story. The biofuels is another 30%. Then there are weather-induced erratic changes which caused irritation in world food markets. These things have eaten into world levels of grain storage.

“The lower the reserves, the more nervous the markets become, and the increased volatility is particularly detrimental to the poor who have small assets.”

The impact of climate change will amplify that already dangerous volatility. Record flooding in west Africa, a prolonged drought in Australia and unusually severe snowstorms in China have all had an impact on food production.

“The climate change factor is so far small but it is bound to get bigger,” Von Braun said. “That is the long-term worry and the markets are trying to internalise it.”

The WFP is holding an emergency meeting in Rome on Friday, at which its senior managers will meet board members to brief them on the scale of the problem. There will then be a case-by-case assessment of the seriousness of the situation in the affected countries, before the WFP formally asks for an increased budget at its executive board meeting in June.

But the donor countries are also facing higher fuel and transport costs. For the biggest US food aid program, non-food costs now account for 65% of total program expenditure.

Global impact: Where inflation bites deepest

1United States The last time America’s grain silos were so empty was in the early seventies, when the Soviet Union bought much of the harvest. Washington is telling the World Food Program it is facing a 40% increase in food commodity prices compared with last year, and higher fuel bills to transport it, so the US, the biggest single food aid contributor, will radically cut the amount it gives away.

2Morocco 34 people jailed this month for taking part in riots over food prices.

3Egypt The world’s largest importer of wheat has been hard hit by the global price rises, and most of the increase will be absorbed in increased subsidies. The government has also had to relax the rules on who is eligible for food aid, adding an extra 10.5 million people.

4Eritrea It could be one of the states hardest hit in Africa because of its reliance on imports. The price rises will hit urban populations not previously thought vulnerable to a lack of food.

5Zimbabwe With annual inflation of 100,000% and unemployment at 80%, price increases on staples can only worsen the severe food shortages.

6Yemen Prices of bread and other staples have nearly doubled in the past four months, sparking riots in which at least a dozen people were killed.

7Russia The government struck a deal with producers last year to freeze the price of milk, eggs, vegetable oil, bread and kefir (a fermented milk drink). The freeze was due to last until the end of January but was extended for another three months.

8Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has asked the WFP to feed an extra 2.5 million people, who are now in danger of malnutrition as a result of a harsh winter and the effect of high world prices in a country that is heavily dependent on imports.

9Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf announced this month that Pakistan would be going back to ration cards for the first time since the 1980s, after the sharp increase in the price of staples. These will help the poor (nearly half the population) buy subsidized flour, wheat, sugar, pulses and cooking fat from state-owned outlets.

10 India The government will spend 250bn rupees on food security. India is the world’s second biggest wheat producer but bought 5.5m tonnes in 2006, and 1.8m tonnes last year, driving up world prices. It has banned the export of all forms of rice other than luxury basmati.

11 China Unusually severe blizzards have dramatically cut agricultural production and sent prices for food staples soaring. The overall food inflation rate is 18.2%. The cost of pork has increased by more than half. The cost of food was rising fast even before the bad weather moved in, as an increasingly prosperous population began to demand as staples agricultural products previously seen as luxuries. The government has increased taxes and imposed quotas on food exports, while removing duties on food imports.

12 Thailand The government is planning to freeze prices of rice, cooking oil and noodles.

13 Malaysia and the Philippines Malaysia is planning strategic stockpiles of the country’s staples. Meanwhile the Philippines has made an unusual plea to Vietnam to guarantee its rice supplies. Imports were previously left to the global market.

14 Indonesia Food price rises have triggered protests and the government has had to increase its food subsidies by over a third to contain public anger.

FAQ: Food prices

Few winners and many losers

What is the problem?

In the three decades to 2005, world food prices fell by about three-quarters in inflation-adjusted terms, according to the Economist food prices index. Since then they have risen by 75%, with much of that coming in the past year. Wheat prices have doubled, while maize, soya and oilseeds are at record highs.

Why are food prices rising?

The booming world economy has driven up prices for all commodities. Changes in diets have also played a big part. Meat consumption in many countries has soared, pushing up demand for the grain needed by cattle. Demand for biofuels has also risen strongly. This year, for example, one third of the US maize crop will go to make biofuels. Moreover, the gradual reform and liberalization of agricultural subsidy programs in the US and Europe have reduced the butter and grain mountains of yesteryear by eliminating overproduction.

Who are the winners and losers?

Farmers are the obvious winners, as are poor countries that rely extensively on food exports. But consumers are having to pay more, and the urban poor in many developing states will be hardest hit, as they often spend more than a third of their income on food.

How long are prices likely to be high?

The US department for agriculture says the country’s wheat stocks are at their lowest for 50 years and demand will continue to exceed supply this year. There is potential to bring more land into production in countries such as Ukraine, but that could take time. And as all foodstuffs have risen sharply in price there is little incentive for farmers to switch from one crop to another.

What about the EU’s common agricultural policy?

High food prices certainly remove the need to subsidize farmers and so there is a chance, say experts, that badly needed reductions in CAP subsidies, which cost European taxpayers dearly, could now be within reach.

Are other commodity prices also rising?

Oil, metals and coal have seen their prices rise strongly as the global economy has expanded rapidly, driving up demand for almost everything,

particularly from emerging economies such as China and India. Some economists think speculation may also play a part. Disappointed by the sub-prime collapse and falling property values in many countries, investors have piled money into commodities.Ashley Seager

Tags: Face, Global, Hunger, Prices, Soar, Warns

Over 4,000 Doctors Face Charges in Italian Drugs Scandal

One of the biggest inquiries carried out into marketing practices in the drugs industry ended yesterday with Italian police asking for almost 5,000 people to be put on trial, including more than 4,000 doctors and at least 273 employees of the British pharmaceuticals giant, GlaxoSmithKline. Some face up to five years in jail if tried and convicted.

Italy’s revenue guard, the Guardia di Finanza, said in a statement that GlaxoSmithKline and its predecessor firm had spent €228m (£152m) on “sweeteners” for doctors, chemists and others over four years to 2002. The alleged bribes ranged from cameras, computers and holidays to outright cash payments.

The Guardia di Finanza said GlaxoSmithKline “should be held responsible for corporate crime as its managers and other employees acted in the company’s interest”.

A spokesman for GSK said last night it had been “cooperating closely with the authorities to facilitate their investigations.

“GSK is committed to ensuring that all its business practices are of the highest standards and any breach of that is unacceptable,” the spokesman added.

But a British-based pharmaceuticals analyst said yesterday the type of activity the Italian authorities allege to have uncovered is common practice among global drug companies.

“It goes on all over the world – but in parts of Europe, these things are absolutely rife,” he said. “For example, doctors may be given ‘research grants’ – but there are no limits on how they can spend them.”

He cited cases in which doctors have been offered cars or holidays as inducements to prescribe a particular brand.

Italy’s Adnkronos news agency reproduced what it said was a letter written by a GlaxoSmithKline district manager contained in the 10,000 pages of evidence assembled by the Guardia di Finanza. The letter urged sales representatives to approach specialists directly to get them to prescribe a cancer drug produced by the company.

“The initiative can work well with oncologists who have congresses, investments from us … and who have not given us anything in return,” the district manager was quoted as writing.

Illicit incentives were said to have been disguised in the firm’s accounts under the headings of “field selling”, “other promotion” and “medical phase IV”.

Of the 4,713 people from all parts of Italy facing charges, 4,440 are doctors. They include more than 2,500 GPs and some 1,700 specialists.

The most serious accusations have been levelled at doctors, pharmacists and sales representatives alleged to have been involved in a programme intended to promote Hycamtin, a drug mainly used in the treatment of lung and ovarian cancers.

In some cases, it is claimed, specialists received a pro rata cash payment based on the number of patients treated with the drug.

At a press conference yesterday, a senior revenue guard officer, Giovanni Mainolfi, estimated that the two-year investigation – codenamed Operation Jupiter – was costing GlaxoSmithKline’s Italian subsidiary €400m a year in lost sales.

“In 2002, the firm had a turnover of around €1.5bn. The following year, it lost more than 20%[of its sales], with a turnover cut back to €1.1bn,” he said.

Evidence gathered during the investigation has been passed to the chief prosecutor of the northern Italian city of Verona. He will decide whether to seek indictments from a judge.

Other drug firms are being investigated by revenue guard units based in Rome, Milan and Florence.

Tags: 4000, Charges, Doctors, Drugs, Face, Italian, Over, Scandal

Qinghai Tibetan Carpet Industry Exports Face a Crisis in Emerging Consumer Markets Birth

The global financial crisis, export orders dropped almost as many companies, the biggest difficulty, highly dependent on the international market for Chinese enterprises, especially the carpet. Sellers are loot at home and abroad of China’s domestic market a piece of “fat”, but an export domestic remedies are not necessarily eliminate all diseases. For someone who used to export enterprises, in the process, must learn to endure the throes of transformation.

Do not hear sound but see children loom hee.

Because after the rain, cars began to look at highway bumpy dirt road in the mud before the trip, which is blocking access to Long Huang County Town of Red Lam Tsuen only route. Huangzhong County is in Xining, Qinghai, Hung Lam 20 kilometers from Xining, however, but the road was gone for nearly an hour. Poverty in the typical western village, no decent homes, end of the village with a compound of this workshop has been part of Tibetan carpet landmark. Tibetan carpet Honglin Li Choi-processing plant manager told reporters that the village shop was built in 2006, a total of 10 looms.

Now is the busy time to shop the farmers to work less, a total of 29 individuals, if the winter slack time, this village of 400 families is the most popular place this small workshop, and to finding a carpet in a working Hung Lam position as the most complacent of women do. Hung Lam bear workshop is hand-woven Tibetan carpets which the procedures. Tibetan carpet weaving patterns made in the design is completed and stained after a good line drawings sent to here.

Tibetan carpet weaving is the longest production process is the most cost manual. Local women to weave carpets are on a Tibetan carpet factory after round of free specialized training at least three months before induction, the wages paid piece rate, according to weave a different dimension of difficulty and complete the level.

Yu-Fang Chen has been working here for over a year, as a “technical director”, she will check again every day workshop at the completion of the situation is to ensure product quality. Her workshop for women to get 200 yuan a month to wage ranging from 500 yuan, accounting for 60% of family income over all, so come to shop to work very status of women in the family.

Workshop with the normal sense different workshops around the red end of the village in Lam Tsuen, children everywhere play figure. Most of these children less than school age. Finance Director Li said: “We’ve got to work more flexible, able to bring their children, so that the children at home unattended. Busy time at home to help her husband on the farm, when you can slack since the carpet.”

According to report, in Qinghai Province such as the red carpet shop in Lam Tsuen, nearly 400 farmers and herdsmen to provide close to transfer 33,000 jobs. Carpet weaving in average annual income of farmers reached 3,000 workers or more (an average of 8 months of work per year), the basic realization of the farmers to convert from one person, family stability goal of poverty.

This is in a crisis situation six years ago is still in the Tibetan carpet industry was not easy. Carpet exports in Qinghai Province after the founding of new China and some traditional items, but the planned economy era, in order to make most of the state-owned carpet production Ding Xiao enterprises have been closed down 90 of the last century. Although private enterprises were born carpet, but the throes of change makes the carpet weaving industry in Qinghai to leak to other areas, the industry faced a crisis.

Qinghai carpet to see the loom by a neighboring truck sold at low prices in 2003, Qinghai Provincial Department of Commerce report on the revitalization and development of Tibetan carpet industry, the provincial leadership of the report handed it desk. Through research, Qinghai and industrial raw materials and labor traditionally has an advantage. So then the Government on the development of the province Qinghai Tibetan Carpet Industry Development goals, strive to cultivate leading enterprises.

Regard to funding, the government must devote greater efforts to support the agricultural and pastoral areas of Jianshe Tibetan carpets Bianzhi workshop, weavers and the training of professional and technical personnel, technology and new product research and development, opening up new markets.

Handmade Tibetan carpets are labor-intensive industries, with the land but not leave their homes and production layout characteristics of combining centralization and decentralization. After several years of exploration, Qinghai’s Tibetan carpet production out of a “company + shop + farmers” business model and formed a 11 Tibetan carpet manufacturer of industrial clusters.

Tags: Birth, Carpet, Consumer, Crisis, Emerging, Exports, Face, Industry, Markets, Qinghai, Tibetan

Qinghai Tibetan Carpet Industry Exports Face a Crisis in Emerging Consumer Markets Birth

The global financial crisis, export orders dropped almost as many companies, the biggest difficulty, highly dependent on the international market for Chinese enterprises, especially the carpet. Sellers are loot at home and abroad of China’s domestic market a piece of “fat”, but an export domestic remedies are not necessarily eliminate all diseases. For someone who used to export enterprises, in the process, must learn to endure the throes of transformation.

Do not hear sound but see children loom hee.

Because after the rain, cars began to look at highway bumpy dirt road in the mud before the trip, which is blocking access to Long Huang County Town of Red Lam Tsuen only route. Huangzhong County is in Xining, Qinghai, Hung Lam 20 kilometers from Xining, however, but the road was gone for nearly an hour. Poverty in the typical western village, no decent homes, end of the village with a compound of this workshop has been part of Tibetan carpet landmark. Tibetan carpet Honglin Li Choi-processing plant manager told reporters that the village shop was built in 2006, a total of 10 looms.

Now is the busy time to shop the farmers to work less, a total of 29 individuals, if the winter slack time, this village of 400 families is the most popular place this small workshop, and to finding a carpet in a working Hung Lam position as the most complacent of women do. Hung Lam bear workshop is hand-woven Tibetan carpets which the procedures. Tibetan carpet weaving patterns made in the design is completed and stained after a good line drawings sent to here.

Tibetan carpet weaving is the longest production process is the most cost manual. Local women to weave carpets are on a Tibetan carpet factory after round of free specialized training at least three months before induction, the wages paid piece rate, according to weave a different dimension of difficulty and complete the level.

Yu-Fang Chen has been working here for over a year, as a “technical director”, she will check again every day workshop at the completion of the situation is to ensure product quality. Her workshop for women to get 200 yuan a month to wage ranging from 500 yuan, accounting for 60% of family income over all, so come to shop to work very status of women in the family.

Workshop with the normal sense different workshops around the red end of the village in Lam Tsuen, children everywhere play figure. Most of these children less than school age. Finance Director Li said: “We’ve got to work more flexible, able to bring their children, so that the children at home unattended. Busy time at home to help her husband on the farm, when you can slack since the carpet.”

According to report, in Qinghai Province such as the red carpet shop in Lam Tsuen, nearly 400 farmers and herdsmen to provide close to transfer 33,000 jobs. Carpet weaving in average annual income of farmers reached 3,000 workers or more (an average of 8 months of work per year), the basic realization of the farmers to convert from one person, family stability goal of poverty.

This is in a crisis situation six years ago is still in the Tibetan carpet industry was not easy. Carpet exports in Qinghai Province after the founding of new China and some traditional items, but the planned economy era, in order to make most of the state-owned carpet production Ding Xiao enterprises have been closed down 90 of the last century. Although private enterprises were born carpet, but the throes of change makes the carpet weaving industry in Qinghai to leak to other areas, the industry faced a crisis.

Qinghai carpet to see the loom by a neighboring truck sold at low prices in 2003, Qinghai Provincial Department of Commerce report on the revitalization and development of Tibetan carpet industry, the provincial leadership of the report handed it desk. Through research, Qinghai and industrial raw materials and labor traditionally has an advantage. So then the Government on the development of the province Qinghai Tibetan Carpet Industry Development goals, strive to cultivate leading enterprises.

Regard to funding, the government must devote greater efforts to support the agricultural and pastoral areas of Jianshe Tibetan carpets Bianzhi workshop, weavers and the training of professional and technical personnel, technology and new product research and development, opening up new markets.

Handmade Tibetan carpets are labor-intensive industries, with the land but not leave their homes and production layout characteristics of combining centralization and decentralization. After several years of exploration, Qinghai’s Tibetan carpet production out of a “company + shop + farmers” business model and formed a 11 Tibetan carpet manufacturer of industrial clusters.

Tags: Birth, Carpet, Consumer, Crisis, Emerging, Exports, Face, Industry, Markets, Qinghai, Tibetan

Qinghai Tibetan Carpet Industry Exports Face a Crisis in Emerging Consumer Markets Birth

The global financial crisis, export orders dropped almost as many companies, the biggest difficulty, highly dependent on the international market for Chinese enterprises, especially the carpet. Sellers are loot at home and abroad of China’s domestic market a piece of “fat”, but an export domestic remedies are not necessarily eliminate all diseases. For someone who used to export enterprises, in the process, must learn to endure the throes of transformation.

Do not hear sound but see children loom hee.

Because after the rain, cars began to look at highway bumpy dirt road in the mud before the trip, which is blocking access to Long Huang County Town of Red Lam Tsuen only route. Huangzhong County is in Xining, Qinghai, Hung Lam 20 kilometers from Xining, however, but the road was gone for nearly an hour. Poverty in the typical western village, no decent homes, end of the village with a compound of this workshop has been part of Tibetan carpet landmark. Tibetan carpet Honglin Li Choi-processing plant manager told reporters that the village shop was built in 2006, a total of 10 looms.

Now is the busy time to shop the farmers to work less, a total of 29 individuals, if the winter slack time, this village of 400 families is the most popular place this small workshop, and to finding a carpet in a working Hung Lam position as the most complacent of women do. Hung Lam bear workshop is hand-woven Tibetan carpets which the procedures. Tibetan carpet weaving patterns made in the design is completed and stained after a good line drawings sent to here.

Tibetan carpet weaving is the longest production process is the most cost manual. Local women to weave carpets are on a Tibetan carpet factory after round of free specialized training at least three months before induction, the wages paid piece rate, according to weave a different dimension of difficulty and complete the level.

Yu-Fang Chen has been working here for over a year, as a “technical director”, she will check again every day workshop at the completion of the situation is to ensure product quality. Her workshop for women to get 200 yuan a month to wage ranging from 500 yuan, accounting for 60% of family income over all, so come to shop to work very status of women in the family.

Workshop with the normal sense different workshops around the red end of the village in Lam Tsuen, children everywhere play figure. Most of these children less than school age. Finance Director Li said: “We’ve got to work more flexible, able to bring their children, so that the children at home unattended. Busy time at home to help her husband on the farm, when you can slack since the carpet.”

According to report, in Qinghai Province such as the red carpet shop in Lam Tsuen, nearly 400 farmers and herdsmen to provide close to transfer 33,000 jobs. Carpet weaving in average annual income of farmers reached 3,000 workers or more (an average of 8 months of work per year), the basic realization of the farmers to convert from one person, family stability goal of poverty.

This is in a crisis situation six years ago is still in the Tibetan carpet industry was not easy. Carpet exports in Qinghai Province after the founding of new China and some traditional items, but the planned economy era, in order to make most of the state-owned carpet production Ding Xiao enterprises have been closed down 90 of the last century. Although private enterprises were born carpet, but the throes of change makes the carpet weaving industry in Qinghai to leak to other areas, the industry faced a crisis.

Qinghai carpet to see the loom by a neighboring truck sold at low prices in 2003, Qinghai Provincial Department of Commerce report on the revitalization and development of Tibetan carpet industry, the provincial leadership of the report handed it desk. Through research, Qinghai and industrial raw materials and labor traditionally has an advantage. So then the Government on the development of the province Qinghai Tibetan Carpet Industry Development goals, strive to cultivate leading enterprises.

Regard to funding, the government must devote greater efforts to support the agricultural and pastoral areas of Jianshe Tibetan carpets Bianzhi workshop, weavers and the training of professional and technical personnel, technology and new product research and development, opening up new markets.

Handmade Tibetan carpets are labor-intensive industries, with the land but not leave their homes and production layout characteristics of combining centralization and decentralization. After several years of exploration, Qinghai’s Tibetan carpet production out of a “company + shop + farmers” business model and formed a 11 Tibetan carpet manufacturer of industrial clusters.

Tags: Birth, Carpet, Consumer, Crisis, Emerging, Exports, Face, Industry, Markets, Qinghai, Tibetan

Face to Faith

To celebrate the 40th anniversary this month of the World Council of Churches’ program to combat racism (PCR), one of the WCC’s most controversial and successful programs, conceived after the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, a conference is to be held in the Netherlands, always one of the most supportive countries.

The program’s most contested aspect was its special fund, which provided support for the liberation movements of southern Africa, then seen as terrorist organizations. Although the fund was for humanitarian assistance, some European churches refused to allow any of their money to go into it. Two UK churches suspended their WCC membership, but the Dutch and Scandinavian governments gave grants.

Poignantly, the conference is taking place around 16 June, the date in 1976 when tens of thousands of black school students in South Africa marched against “Bantu education”, which denied them the chance of equal opportunities with whites. Dozens were killed, and the photograph of a student carrying the body of 13-year-old Hector Petersen, shot down by police, became a shocking symbol of apartheid oppression.

The PCR was hotly debated among the WCC’s member churches in South Africa. The Dutch Reformed Church, which helped to provide the theological justification for apartheid, resigned, but the South African Council of Churches, led for part of the period by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, welcomed the WCC’s work. The struggle also built bridges among the faiths. Progressive Muslims, Jews and others made common cause.

The program eventually changed much thinking in the churches and to some degree in wider western society. It made European and north American societies look at themselves, and some churches and national councils set up racial justice initiatives. This helped to create a climate in which governments also looked at the treatment of minorities, and various racial equality commissions and bodies to support minorities emerged. A unit to monitor racial incidents was set up at European level.

A key issue to be discussed at the conference is caste discrimination, which affects some 200 million people worldwide, 20 times the number affected by apartheid. The absence of the color element makes it much more difficult to identify the breadth and depth of the oppression. However, it has now been accepted as an international issue by the UN, as apartheid eventually was, though the global action to tackle it – as with apartheid – is painfully slow.

The current world situation gives faith communities a chance to reassert their values, and to ask for a fairer and more regulated international economic system; control of giant corporations, especially in food production, tax avoidance and promoting consumerism; vigorous campaigning on carbon emissions; a proper sharing of the earth’s resources, particularly water; and an end to the preventable diseases that still cause thousands of deaths. Much injustice in these fields is also predicated on racism, the underlying belief that the lives of Africans, Asians and indigenous peoples are of less value than the lives of those of European origin.

Racism is alive and well in much of Europe, as seen in the poverty statistics in Britain and France, the treatment of Roma in Italy, the attitudes to asylum-seekers and Muslims in western Europe and last weekend’s election results. The Church of England’s General Synod has spelt out the incompatibility of BNP policies with Christian faith.

The work of the PCR is not over. The worst excesses of racial superiority may have gone, but the ideology remains. Faith communities, at their best, transcend ethnic difference, and celebrate it.

• The Rev David Haslam is a former secretary for racial justice of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland and author of Race for the Millennium.

Tags: Face, Faith

Qinghai Tibetan Carpet Industry Exports Face a Crisis in Emerging Consumer Markets Birth

The global financial crisis, export orders dropped almost as many companies, the biggest difficulty, highly dependent on the international market for Chinese enterprises, especially the carpet. Sellers are loot at home and abroad of China’s domestic market a piece of “fat”, but an export domestic remedies are not necessarily eliminate all diseases. For someone who used to export enterprises, in the process, must learn to endure the throes of transformation.

Do not hear sound but see children loom hee.

Because after the rain, cars began to look at highway bumpy dirt road in the mud before the trip, which is blocking access to Long Huang County Town of Red Lam Tsuen only route. Huangzhong County is in Xining, Qinghai, Hung Lam 20 kilometers from Xining, however, but the road was gone for nearly an hour. Poverty in the typical western village, no decent homes, end of the village with a compound of this workshop has been part of Tibetan carpet landmark. Tibetan carpet Honglin Li Choi-processing plant manager told reporters that the village shop was built in 2006, a total of 10 looms.

Now is the busy time to shop the farmers to work less, a total of 29 individuals, if the winter slack time, this village of 400 families is the most popular place this small workshop, and to finding a carpet in a working Hung Lam position as the most complacent of women do. Hung Lam bear workshop is hand-woven Tibetan carpets which the procedures. Tibetan carpet weaving patterns made in the design is completed and stained after a good line drawings sent to here.

Tibetan carpet weaving is the longest production process is the most cost manual. Local women to weave carpets are on a Tibetan carpet factory after round of free specialized training at least three months before induction, the wages paid piece rate, according to weave a different dimension of difficulty and complete the level.

Yu-Fang Chen has been working here for over a year, as a “technical director”, she will check again every day workshop at the completion of the situation is to ensure product quality. Her workshop for women to get 200 yuan a month to wage ranging from 500 yuan, accounting for 60% of family income over all, so come to shop to work very status of women in the family.

Workshop with the normal sense different workshops around the red end of the village in Lam Tsuen, children everywhere play figure. Most of these children less than school age. Finance Director Li said: “We’ve got to work more flexible, able to bring their children, so that the children at home unattended. Busy time at home to help her husband on the farm, when you can slack since the carpet.”

According to report, in Qinghai Province such as the red carpet shop in Lam Tsuen, nearly 400 farmers and herdsmen to provide close to transfer 33,000 jobs. Carpet weaving in average annual income of farmers reached 3,000 workers or more (an average of 8 months of work per year), the basic realization of the farmers to convert from one person, family stability goal of poverty.

This is in a crisis situation six years ago is still in the Tibetan carpet industry was not easy. Carpet exports in Qinghai Province after the founding of new China and some traditional items, but the planned economy era, in order to make most of the state-owned carpet production Ding Xiao enterprises have been closed down 90 of the last century. Although private enterprises were born carpet, but the throes of change makes the carpet weaving industry in Qinghai to leak to other areas, the industry faced a crisis.

Qinghai carpet to see the loom by a neighboring truck sold at low prices in 2003, Qinghai Provincial Department of Commerce report on the revitalization and development of Tibetan carpet industry, the provincial leadership of the report handed it desk. Through research, Qinghai and industrial raw materials and labor traditionally has an advantage. So then the Government on the development of the province Qinghai Tibetan Carpet Industry Development goals, strive to cultivate leading enterprises.

Regard to funding, the government must devote greater efforts to support the agricultural and pastoral areas of Jianshe Tibetan carpets Bianzhi workshop, weavers and the training of professional and technical personnel, technology and new product research and development, opening up new markets.

Handmade Tibetan carpets are labor-intensive industries, with the land but not leave their homes and production layout characteristics of combining centralization and decentralization. After several years of exploration, Qinghai’s Tibetan carpet production out of a “company + shop + farmers” business model and formed a 11 Tibetan carpet manufacturer of industrial clusters.

Tags: Birth, Carpet, Consumer, Crisis, Emerging, Exports, Face, Industry, Markets, Qinghai, Tibetan