Global military expenditure and arms trade form the largest spending in the world at over one trillion dollars in annual expenditure and has been rising in recent years.

The USA, is responsible for 43% of the world’s overall military spending in 2005?

Hunger and World Poverty

About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. This is one person every three and a half seconds, as you can see on this display. Unfortunately, it is children who die most often.

Yet there is plenty of food in the world for everyone. The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They lack the money to buy enough food to nourish themselves. Being constantly malnourished, they become weaker and often sick. This makes them increasingly less able to work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier. This downward spiral often continues until death for them and their families.

There are effective programs to break this spiral. For adults, there are “food for work” programs where the adults are paid with food to build schools, dig wells, make roads, and so on. This both nourishes them and builds infrastructure to end the poverty. For children, there are “food for education” programs where the children are provided with food when they attend school. Their education will help them to escape from hunger and global poverty.

Hunger and World Poverty Sources: United Nations World Food Program (WFP), Oxfam, UNICEF.

You can help http://www.poverty.com/

NEW PROPOSED WAR SPENDING TOPS $611 BILLION;

With the Bush Administration's recent request for an additional $45.9 billion in war spending for fiscal year 2008, the total proposed war spending would rise to $611.5 billion, according to the National Priorities Project (NPP), a non-profit research group.

Cost of the War in Iraq

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THE COSTS OF THE WAR IN IRAQ:

Instead, we could have hired 8,156,696 additional public school teachers for one year.

Instead, we could have built 4,237,907 additional housing units.

Instead, we could have paid for 62,339,926 children to attend a year of Head Start.

Instead, we could have insured 281,836,244 children for one year.

Instead, we could have provided 22,816,880 students four-year scholarships at public universities.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

TAKE ACTION

Once you've got the facts and figures, let your voice be heard. To find your representative's phone or fax number, call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your Senator and/or Representative's office.

Note: For security reasons, letters to Capitol Hill are frequently delayed for up to two weeks. Most members of Congress urge their constituents to call, fax or email or, if sending a letter, to send it to their local office rather than Washington. Elected officials will respond to their constituents, whatever form of communication you choose.

UPDATE: Blind Chinese Human Rights Activist Chen Guangcheng On Prison Hunger Strike After Being Beaten

Beijing, China (AHN) - A leading Chinese human rights activist was ordered beaten by other prisoners in his Chinese prison after he refused to allow guards to shave his head until he has a chance to complete the appeal of his sentence. Guards ordered other prisoners to beat Chen Guangcheng, who is blind. He was jailed in 2006 on charges of destroying property and disrupting traffic.
Chen said he was beaten for being disobedient for refusing to give up on appealing his sentence. He told his wife that guards ordered six prisoners to beat him, then denied him medical care for his injuries. He has started a hunger strike to protest, BBC news reported Friday.
His wife visited him shortly after the beating and told his lawyer Li Jinsong what she found.
"She saw that his mood was unhappy, that his knees and ribs were red, injured and swollen," Li told the Washington Post in a telephone interview Friday. "She was afraid one of the ribs might be broken. He began rejecting food and water after the beating," the Washington Post reported Friday.
Chen, 35, lost an appeal in January and his current appeal has been delayed because his blindness requires him to have assistance to write it, but jail officials limit visits by his wife and attorneys to 30 minutes a month.
His lawyers and the human rights group Amnesty International have said that the case against Chen was politically motivated and that it resulted from his exposure of China's enforcement of its one-child policy.
Amnesty International has said that with the approaching World Olympics focusing attention there on China's broken promises to improve its human rights record that the government needs to stop persecuting it's citizens who stand up for human rights.
Chen landed in trouble with Chinese law after "helping villagers sue local authorities for carrying out forced abortions and sterilizations," according to a statement on Amnesty International's Web site.
In the past Amnesty International has objected to Chen's "frequent beatings by the local authorities" and has called for his immediate release. The group has also declared Chen a "prisoner of conscience -- someone imprisoned solely for the peaceful expression of their beliefs."

There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The modern commerce in humans rivals illegal drug trafficking in its global reach—and in the destruction of lives.

With 27 million people in slavery today, how can we ever hope to eradicate this horror? In fact, this generation, after 5,000 years of human slavery, can bring it to an end.
The anti-slavery movement was the world's first human-rights campaign. Growing not from politicians, but from everyday people, it swept away legal slavery. In the early 20th century courageous campaigners, fighting both financial interests and governments, brought an end to the continuing slavery in places like the Congo.
Those heroes won great battles for us. Today we do not have to win the legal argument—laws against slavery exist in every country. In the past many national economies were based on the profits of slavery, but now we do not have to win an economic argument. If all slavery stopped today, no industry or country would suffer economically; Only the criminals who profit from slavery would be disadvantaged. And today we do not have to win the moral argument; almost everyone in the world agrees that slavery is wrong.
To bring people to freedom and to end slavery, three things have to happen: 1. Public awareness has to grow, and there has to be public agreement that it is time to end slavery once and for all. This public commitment must be communicated to politicians.2. Money needs to be spent to eradicate slavery, but not nearly as much as you might think. For the price of a bomber or a battleship, the amount of slavery in the world could be dramatically reduced.3. Governments must enforce their own anti-slavery laws. To make this happen every country has to understand that they must take action or face serious pressure. We all know about the United Nations weapons inspectors, who enforce the Conventions against Weapons of Mass Destruction, but where are the United Nations Slavery Inspectors? When the same effort is put behind searching out and ending slavery, there will be rapid change.
While the 27 million people enslaved today are the largest number of slaves alive at any time in human history, they are also the smallest proportion of the world population to ever be held in slavery. No one wants to live in a world with slavery. Today the slaveholders are weaker than they have ever been, and there is universal agreement that slavery must end. In South Asia whole villages come to freedom when others help them form institutions such as small credit unions, inform them of their rights, and show them how to organize to fight for them. Slaves everywhere outnumber their masters. When we all stand with the slaves, their masters cannot keep them in bondage. It is true that criminal mafias control some of the traffic in people, and they will be difficult to root out. But slavery will end if corruption is tackled, victims are treated with respect, and those of us who are free decide to support all those who help others to freedom.
Imagine that after 5,000 years of slavery we commit ourselves to achieving its eradication in our lifetimes.Imagine that your generation will be the one that is looked back on in history as the generation that ended slavery. Imagine that your children and your grandchildren will grow up in a world where slavery is just seen as an ugly blot on our history.Imagine a world where every person is born in freedom and lives in liberty.
All this is possible, just follow these three steps:
1. Learn! Become aware of how slavery touches your life. For more information, visit http://www.freetheslaves.net/, and read "Disposable People." Then download our Teaching Pack.2. Join! Work with others who want to live in a world without slavery. Free the Slaves is one American organization fighting slavery worldwide.3. Act! Bring your strength and imagination to ending slavery.

National Geographic online map reflecting slavery geographically:

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0309/feature1/map.html

Related Organizations:

Amnesty Internationalwww.amnesty.orgAmnesty International is a worldwide campaigning movement that works to promote internationally recognized human rights.

Anti-Slavery International

www.antislavery.orgFounded in 1839, Anti-Slavery International is the world's oldest international human rights organization and the only charity in the United Kingdom working exclusively for the elimination of all forms of slavery. Anti-Slavery International has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Through campaigning, research, supporting local NGOs' work, and pressing governments to implement national and international laws against slavery, the organization works to end this abuse throughout the world.

Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition

www.omnigon.com/~bsccThis organization works on prevention of sexual exploitation of people from Central America, Mexico, and the United States.

Children of the Night

childrenofthenight.orgChildren of the Night has rescued more than 10,000 American children from prostitution since 1979. It is dedicated to assisting children between the ages of 11 and 17 who are forced to prostitute on the streets for food and a place to sleep.

Coalition Against Trafficking in Women

www.catwinternational.orgThe Coalition Against Trafficking in Women is a nongovernmental organization that promotes women's human rights. It works internationally to combat sexual exploitation in all its forms, especially prostitution and trafficking in women and children, particularly girls.

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

www.ciw-online.org/The CIW is a community-based worker organization with a member base of mostly Latino, Haitian, and Maya Indian immigrants working in low-wage jobs throughout the state of Florida. CIW works for fair wages, better working conditions, stronger laws and law enforcement of workers' rights, and respect.

Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking

www.castla.orgCAST is the first and only organization in the United States dedicated exclusively to serving survivors of trafficking. CAST is a nonprofit organization that provides comprehensive social services to survivors of trafficking and conducts advocacy through training and outreach to raise awareness on the needs of trafficking survivors.

ECPAT International

www.ecpat.net/eng/index.aspECPAT is a network of organisations and individuals working together for the elimination of child prostitution, child pornography and trafficking of children for sexual purposes.

Free the Slaves

www.freetheslaves.netFree the Slaves fights slavery all over the world by helping people to freedom and to stable lives after liberation, by removing slave labor from the products we buy, and by helping governments enforce their own anti-slavery laws. Free the Slaves is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that is leading U.S. work against slavery.

Global March Against Child Labour

www.globalmarch.orgChild labor and its worst forms are a problem affecting every part of the world, be it slavery, prostitution, armed conflict, or hazardous work. Children are being used as an expendable commodity, to be used and discarded. Global March works to put an end to child labor worldwide.

Human Rights Watch: Campaign Against the Trafficking of Women and Girls

www.hrw.org/about/projects/traffcamp/intro.htmlHRW investigates and exposes trafficking and slavery incidences around the world. This site links to numerous reports about trafficking in countries in every region of the world.

International Human Rights Law Group

www.hrlawgroup.org/initiatives/trafficking_persons/default.aspThe International Human Rights Law Group is a nonprofit organization of human rights and legal professionals from over 20 countries engaged in advocacy, human rights lawyering, and training around the world. IHRLG's Initiative Against Trafficking in Persons assists advocates and NGOs in building their advocacy, legal-literacy, and case-monitoring skills; encourages governments to protect the rights of victims of trafficking and also to prosecute traffickers; disseminates up-to-date information on trafficking cases and anti-trafficking legislation in countries around the world; and seeks to increase the awareness of the link between trafficking and the subordinate status of women and other vulnerable groups in all societies.

International Justice Mission

www.ijm.org/ijm_home.htmlIJM's legal and law enforcement professionals use investigation strategies, legal expertise, and cutting-edge technology to rescue individual victims of injustice and abuse around the world.

International Organization for Migration

www.iom.int/IOM's counter-trafficking activities are geared toward the prevention of trafficking in persons, particularly women and children, and the protection of migrants' rights.

Interpol: Children and Human Trafficking

www.interpol.com/Public/THB/default.aspThe main aim of Interpol is to promote assistance among all criminal police authorities. It provides a structured platform for raising awareness, building competence, and identifying best practices within law enforcement worldwide. Trafficking in human beings is considered one of the top priorities at Interpol, and only by ascertaining the true character of trafficking can we hope to adapt appropriate measures against it.

Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse

www.mincava.umn.edu/traffick.asp#A101280100The Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse Electronic Clearinghouse provides a quick and user friendly access point to the extensive electronic resources on the topic of violence and abuse available online. It also has a section of links to trafficking articles and resources.

Polaris Project

www.polarisproject.orgVisit the site of Polaris Project, a non-profit organization that researches and combats the sex trafficking of women and children.

The Protection Project

www.protectionproject.orgThe Protection Project is a human rights research institute based at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. The project documents and disseminates information about the scope of the problem of trafficking in persons, especially women and children, with a focus on national and international laws, case law, and implications of trafficking on U.S. and international foreign policy.

Rugmark

www.rugmark.org/RUGMARK is a global nonprofit organization working to end child labor and offer educational opportunities for children in India, Nepal, and Pakistan. The RUGMARK label is your best assurance that no illegal child labor was employed in the manufacture of a carpet or rug.

United Nations Children's Fund

www.unicef.orgUNICEF works to protect the rights of children worldwide, including protecting them from trafficking and slavery.

U.S. Agency for International Development, Trafficking in Persons

www.usaid.gov/wid/pubs/trw01a.htmUSAID is funding direct anti-trafficking activities that include prevention through economic and educational opportunities targeted at groups that are especially vulnerable to traffickers, public awareness, protection and rehabilitation of trafficked victims, and legislative changes.

U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

www.state.gov/g/tipThe Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons assists in the coordination of the U.S. government's anti-trafficking efforts, both domestically and abroad, guided by the vision of eradicating trafficking worldwide. It also releases an annual report on the state of trafficking worldwide.

Applied Research Center responds to controversial Supreme Court Segregation Ruling

Many organizations responded to today's historical decision by the Supreme Court to reject the use of race in creating programs to enhance racial diversity in public schools. Read here why this ruling was both a blow to racial justice movements and a re-assertion of the importance of race as a factor in school organization. ***The Applied Research Center is dismayed by today’s decision from the United States Supreme Court to overturn lower court rulings allowing the districts of Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky to use race in making school assignments. This decision is especially disappointing, given that the majority of the Court affirmed race as an important factor to consider in educational equity and school integration. For more than half a century, the moral compass of 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education has guided our nation toward integration and equal treatment. The Court's conservative bloc has led us backwards.
The 5-4 decision included Justices Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy, and Alito. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the majority opinion, said that schools should use factors other than race to achieve racial inclusion. Roberts wrote: “[In Brown] it was not the inequality of facilities but the fact of legally separating children based on race on which the Court relied to find a constitutional violation.”
This is a disingenuous use of Brown against desegregation efforts. As they were 50 years ago, racial segregation and unequal facilities remain closely linked. In California, for example, a state that ranks number one in school segregation among Blacks and Latinos, 75 percent of high school seniors of color will not complete the courses they need to enroll in the state’s public colleges.
Brown has been relentlessly attacked by its opponents for five decades. As they worked to repeal and rewrite the mandate through constant legal and legislative challenges, segregation has been on the rise. Schools are now more segregated than they were 30 years ago. The need for race-explicit integration programs is as urgent now as ever.
We appreciate the dissenting opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote that the majority opinion "reverses course and reaches the wrong conclusion. In doing so, it distorts precedent, it misapplies the relevant constitutional principles, it announces legal rules that will obstruct efforts by state and local governments to deal effectively with the growing resegregation of public schools, it threatens to substitute for present calm a disruptive round of race-related litigation." We also note that Justice Anthony Kennedy, although he joined the majority, validated the idea that race can be a factor if used narrowly to ensure integrated schools.
Racial segregation in schools results from discrimination against people of color in housing and employment. Sharply divided living and working conditions produce similarly divided educational systems. It is folly to accept the majority’s assertion that a situation created through highly calculated social engineering can somehow be reversed through spontaneous individual choices about where to send one’s child to school.
The strength of Brown was its insistence on explicitly confronting race as a critical factor shaping access to quality education. The conservative justices have corroded this critical tool. Although the nation’s highest court may be divided on this issue, communities, school administrators, and elected officials must rededicate themselves to addressing the discriminatory policies that continue to leave students of color separate and unequal.
Your thoughts will help as we continue interrogating the implications of this decision.

Ask your Senators to Support the Sudan Divestment Authorization Act!

VIDEOS ABOUT THE GENOCIDE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z63Ku0PYiKM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcrD2WKrkAg&mode=related&search

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttEKMhHRyXk&mode=related&search=

The Sudan Divestment Authorization Act (Senate Bill 831), introduced on March 8, provides federal protection for states that divest from foreign companies funding the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
This bill comes at a crucial moment when the government of Sudan has refused to allow an expansion of the peacekeeping mission and the violence has spread to eastern Chad and the Central African Republic. It is clear that the United States must increase its pressure on the government of Sudan to end the genocide.
Ask your senators to co-sponsor the Sudan Divestment Authorization Act!
What to do:
Call 1-800-GENOCIDE (1-800-436-6243)
Enter in your five-digit zip code
Choose to be connected to your senator’s office
What to say — talking points:
Tell your senator that you are a constituent concerned about the genocide in Darfur; and
Ask your senator to co-sponsor S. 831, the Sudan Divestment Authorization Act.

More information on targeted Sudan divestment can be found at the website of the Sudan Divestment Task Force, a project of the Genocide Intervention Network.

John Prendergast on Darfur at ENOUGH! Project Launch Event:
http://www.chbn.com/Clip.aspx?key=67A8CC0A4A242659

ENOUGH
A new non-profit bringing people together through a comprehensive approach to ending incidents of genocide and mass atrocities.
http://www.enoughproject.org/

STAND
A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition is an umbrella organization of over 600 high school and college chapters dedicated to putting an end to genocide.
http://www.standnow.org/