by Cesar Chelala and Alejandro M. Garro

Several NGOs have filed an amicus brief urging the United States Supreme Court to review the ruling of an appeals court that corporations, under international law, cannot be held liable for damages on account of serious human rights violations. The Supreme Court should accept the case and hold that, if supported by the evidence, civil damages is an available remedy against corporations for aiding and abetting international wrongs.

Kiobel vs. Royal Dutch Petroleum is a lawsuit filed in 2002 by members of the Ogoni community complaining of human rights violations that took place in the 1990s. The Ogoni are approximately half a million people who live in a 650 square kilometers region in Rivers State, Nigeria. Traditionally, they made their living by fishing and as subsistence farmers, a way of life threatened when Shell discovered oil in 1958.

The environmental effects of oil exploitation in Ogoni territory have been dire. Major oil spills have caused serious damage to the ground and jeopardized the livelihood of the Ogoni people. Gas flares produce a constant noise near Ogoni villages. Polluted air from the flairs produces acid rain and causes respiratory problems in the surrounding communities. These damages are underscored in the lyrics of an Ogoni song:

'The flames of Shell are flames of Hell,
We bask below their light,
Nought for us to serve the blight,
Of cursed neglect and cursed Shell.'
The Ogoni people have seen their livelihood threatened by rapacious oil exploitation in their land. In 1998, the United Nations Rapporteur accused both the Nigerian government and Shell of abusing human rights and failing to protect the environment in the Ogoni Region. However, both Shell and the Nigerian government have been unresponsive.

The survivors of serious human rights violations resorted to the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) as a way to seek civil compensation in U.S. Courts. The ATS allows non-U.S. citizens to bring civil suits in U.S. federal courts for wrongful acts that in violation of international law, regardless of the country where the wrong was perpetrated or the harm was suffered. Whereas criminal liability of legal entities remains a controversial issue under international law, corporate civil liability for egregious wrongs is a widely accepted principle of international law.

In September of 2010, a split panel decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the ATS does not apply to corporations but only to individuals. As indicated by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York, this view is at odds with previous decisions of other federal courts, such as a relatively recent by the Seventh and District of Columbia circuit courts of appeals, holding that corporations can be held liable under the ATS. As recalled by the CCR, the majority of a panel in the District of Columbia case, held that corporations (such as EXXON Mobil on account of operations conducted in Indonesia), are not immune “for torts based on heinous conduct allegedly committed by its agents in violation of the law of nations.” As stated by Katherine Gallagher, a Senior Staff Attorney at the CCR: “The Second Circuit’s decision undermines fundamental concepts of accountability and leaves victims of the most serious human rights violations without a remedy.”

Making corporations immune from suits resulting from human rights violations will only ensure that these violations will continue to occur, unimpeded by any legal constraint. The Supreme Court should take the case, opening up the possibility, in cases where the evidence supports such a finding, to hold corporations liable for damages under international law.

Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of the Overseas Press Club of America award for "Missing or Dead in Argentina: The Desperate Search for Thousands of Abducted Victims," which was a cover story for The New York Times Magazine.

Alejandro M. Garro teaches comparative law at Columbia Law School and sits on the advisory boards for Human Rights Watch/Americas, the Center for Justice and International Law, and the Due Process of Law Foundation.

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

We know that trees can help mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide from the earth’s atmosphere. But what is less widely understood is how many of these trees can also help to bring an end to hunger and poverty.

Today, Nourishing the Planet takes a look at five varieties of tree that you have likely never heard of, but that are helping to alleviate hunger and poverty and protect the environment.

1. Black Plum: Black plums are common across tropical sub-Saharan Africa’s coastal savannas and savanna woodlands. The black plum tree is not domesticated, but it is widely utilized and protected, and is often found at the center of West African villages. The black plum is useful in agroforestry and organic farming. It is nitrogen fixing, meaning it adds nitrogen to the soils it grows in. Whether the tree is growing in fields or along boundaries, crops can benefit from natural soil nutrients. Leaves from the tree are also used as nutrient-rich mulch.

Best Way to Eat It: The fruit makes good quality jellies and jams, as well as a black molasses. A beverage similar in flavor to coffee is also made from roasted fruits. Young, leafy shoots from the tree are picked, boiled, seasoned, and eaten like spinach.

Black Plum in Action: Black plum trees’ fruit and leaves support wildlife and its nitrogen fixing abilities encourage soil health. Its deep roots protect soils from erosion, benefitting other plant life and helping rebuild degraded ecosystems.

2. Ebony: Ebony wood is world renowned for its dense fine-grain quality and rich dark color. It is prized for use in musical instruments, such as pianos and violins, and is considered superior for woodcarving. The tropical species—including Africa’s most common, the jackalberry (Diospyros mespiliformis)—produce the finest ebony wood and a fruit akin to the persimmon.

Best Way to Eat It: The fruits are commonly eaten fresh, dried, or pulped for sauces. They can be used in porridges and toffee, brewed into beer, fermented into wine, and distilled into an ebony brandy. In Namibia they are made into a hot liqueur called ombike.

Ebony in Action: The roots of the jackalberry tree are made into a mixture for treating dysentery and fever and getting rid of parasites. The mixture has also been used to help treat leprosy in Southern Africa. Ebonies are also protecting African communities from famine. The tree’s deep roots keep its leaves green during drought, which can be emergency fodder for grazing livestock when grasses dry up.

3. Marula: The marula tree is found throughout 29 sub-Saharan African countries—from Cape Verde to Ethiopia to South Africa. While the tree is not domesticated, the marula tree has been intentionally cultivated in the wild for hundreds of years, and its distribution closely matches human migration patterns.

Best Way to Eat It: In the center of each fruit is a large nut stone, which contains a soft macadamia-like nut kernel. The highly nutritious kernels, which are eaten raw and roasted, are rich in antioxidants.

Marula in Action: In South Africa alone, around 500 tons of marula fruit is commercially processed for juice and 2,000 tons for Amarula Cream every year. In Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, fruits are often collected and sold by villagers to marula processing facilities.

4. Dika: Indigenous to West Africa, a Dika tree can grow to be as tall as 40 meters and produces a small green and yellow fruit that looks, at first glance, like a small mango. When forests are cleared in West Africa for firewood or for farmland, the Dika trees are, more often than not, left untouched. Farmers have too much to gain from harvesting the tree’s fruits and seeds.

Best Way to Eat It: Resembling smooth walnuts, Dika seeds are cracked open by harvesters to collect the edible kernel contained inside. These kernals can be eaten raw or roasted, but most are processed and pounded into Dika butter or compacted into bars or pressed to produce cooking oil.

Dika in Action: Each year, thousands of tons of “Dika nuts” are harvested throughout Western Africa, providing a critical income to millions of farmers and harvesters throughout West Africa.

5. Moringa: Serving not only as a reliable source of food, moringa also provides lamp oil, wood, paper, liquid fuel, skin treatments, and the means to help purify water. The moringa tree comprises 4 different edible parts: pods, leaves, seeds, and roots. The green-bean looking pods are the most sought-after parts, not only because of their taste – similar to asparagus – but also because they are highly nutritious. Moringa trees are also used in agroforestry and mixed cropping because the shade can protect other crops from the sun and, while smoke from household fires can pollute the air, the soft, spongy moringa wood burns cleanly with little smoke or odor, making it a cleaner source of fuel.

Best Way to Eat It: People commonly boil the tiny leaflets and eat them like spinach. Like the pods, the leaves contain vitamins A and C as well as more calcium than most other greens. These leaves also contain such high levels of iron that doctors frequently prescribe them for anemic patients.

Moringa in Action: The moringa tree is best known for its endless supply of food, but one of the most innovative uses of the plant has been to treat water and wastewater. Researchers at Leicester University in the United Kingdom, have found that mixing crushed moringa seeds with polluted water help settle silt and other contaminants. This is highly cost effective because the seeds can replace the expensive imported material usually used for water purification in rural areas. The seed filtered water still needs a final filtration before it is completely drinkable, but the seeds make the process easier and help other water filters last longer.

Doctors and medical personnel have become regrettable victims of the uprising taking place in several Arab countries. Attacks on doctors violate the principle of medical neutrality that ensures that doctors and medical personnel should be free to treat those in need –regardless of politics, race or religion. Rule 26 of the List of Customary Rules of International Humanitarian Law states that, “Punishing a person for performing medical duties compatible with medical ethics or compelling a person engaged in medical activities to perform acts contrary to medical ethics is prohibited.”

Violation of this rule has been particularly evident in Bahrain, were doctors, nurses and other medical personnel have been viciously tortured and set on trial in military court. Among the allegations against them is that doctors and nurses stole blood so that protesters could fake serious injury, and also of being part of a militant Shia clique that had taken control of Manama’s biggest hospital and used it as a base for overthrowing the royal government. The Sunni rule a majority-Shia populated country.

Unlike his serious protests against government abuses in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the U.S. government has been extremely cautious in criticizing the government in Bahrain. This reluctance can be explained by the fact that Bahrain is host t the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. As stated by Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, “North American and European Governments, so vocal recently in espousing the cause of human rights in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, also need to speak loudly about what is going on in Bahrain.”

Unlike those governments, human rights organizations such as Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have been extremely vocal in their concern about abuses against doctors and other medical personnel. The Bahraini authorities stated that they were just taking necessary measures to prevent destabilization in the country provoked by foreign forces.

Many convictions of medical personnel are for political reasons such as having participated in unauthorized demonstrations and “incitement of hatred against the regime.” Human Rights Watch has urged the Bahraini government to stop special military court proceedings against those arrested during the country’s antigovernment protests.

In Syria, there is an underground network of medics, who call themselves the “Damascus Doctors” who want not only to save lives but to expose the crimes of the Syrian regime. The group is made up of approximately 60 medical professionals who provide on-the-ground care and help the wounded. The Syrian secret police has ordered doctors and other medical personnel not to treat wounded protesters threatening retribution. It is a sad paradox that doctors are afraid of reprisals by a government ruled by Dr. Bashar al-Assad, a medical colleague.

In Libya, doctors are also in the frontline, in many cases working in extremely hard conditions and under constant threat of government forces. Some of the doctors in the frontline have been trained overseas and have returned to their country to help during the civil war. Last March, government troops attacked the main hospital in Misrata that had at the time 400 patients and medical personnel inside.

In Yemen, medical workers set up a field hospital in a local mosque, providing care as security forces and the regime supporters opened fire on thousands of mostly unarmed civilian protesters.

Across North Africa and the Middle East, medical personnel have been courageously treating the wounded at great personal risk. Legal protections do not seem to work in authoritarian regimes under threat. The international community should continue to exert pressure to ensure that they are safe and able to fulfill what doctors and other medical personnel believe is their professional responsibility.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is an international public health consultant.

On Thursday morning, the health and wellness team, the ag team, and the newest addition to AASD, the photography team, set out at 5:30am for Pampacorral. The road to the rural Lares region of Peru is under construction, and therefore only open for two hours a day, at 6:00am and 6:00pm. Although this doesn’t compare to the 405 shutdown, it does cause for some inconvenience to Team Peru and the many people, trucks, and tourists that utilize the road each day.

Having bought out tickets the night before, Natalie and I had the honor of sitting in the very front of the truck. This little detail was important for two reasons. One, neither of us got car sick, which is a feat in and of itself. Two, we had the best view of the whole bus. Over the past couple of days we have watched a beautiful full moon rise over the mountains, but watching the sun come up from behind the morning fog and glisten off the snow at the top of the pass was something completely different and awe inspiring.

Just prior to arriving in Pampacorral, the bus picked up a few of the numerous children who were walking to school, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. I was amazed to see such small children walking so far, but even more startled when I later found out that most walk upwards of two hours to school everyday.

Pampacorral, one of the first communities that built a greenhouse, is a beautiful, quiet community nestled between the Andes Mountains next to the beautiful river. The streets are lined with indigenous women threading yarn, chickens, cows, laughing children, adobe houses, various rocks left over from a recent land slide.

While waiting for some veggies to be picked from the greenhouse for the nutritional class, the photography team and I made friends with a small group of rosy-cheeked seven year olds. They informed us their teacher was out of town and since the director was running around with ag team, they were left unattended. Without even thinking, we walked straight into the classroom with the kids and asked them to show us what they learning. For the next thirty minutes, we read their workbooks, practiced writing our names, drew on the whiteboard, and practiced adding. Then the director came to retrieve the photo team to teach their class, and I was left alone with a class of first graders.

I passed out some blank paper and asked them each to draw their houses. We did the exercise together, the kids drawing on the papers, while I drew the various objects on the white board. To practice writing and spelling, we also labeled everything in the picture. As I walked around the classroom, asking questions, learning Quechua, and complimenting drawings, I began to realize that many of the pictures looked the same. Sure, there were small differences in the size of the mountains, but the sun was always just peaking the range. Some of the fish were smiling and the cats were in the choclo fields (a local type of corn), but the river always split the page in half. I thought perhaps the children were influenced by my drawing and didn’t question it.

After we had finished drawing and coloring, we sang a few songs in Spanish and Quechua, and the director returned. I told him about the fun drawing that we had collectively decided should be gifts to their parents. He responded by saying, “of course, they can take them home as soon as we grade them.” My original intention had been to constructively occupy their time, but I left having taught my first ever classroom lesson.

I returned to the photo team and was surprised to find that the eighth graders had been drawing as well. With a slightly different prompt, they had each drawn a smiling sun peaking out behind the mountains with a river cutting the page in half. I can only assume they are taught from a very early age “how” to draw their community and surroundings. Seeing that many of the children don’t know anything else for much of their lives, it seems fitting that the school would make sure they had a clear understanding of what’s around them.

My final interaction with the kids was purposefully playful and what I now consider to be my signature gift to the kids: bubbles. The primary school children and I blew and popped bubbles for thirty minutes of uninhibited, purely joyful fun. I’ll never get tired of hearing the laughter and seeing little hands bob up and down as they attempt to pop the vary highest bubbles being carried up by the wind.
When the jar of bubbles was gone and the children had returned to class, a few of us decided to take a beautiful hike down to the town of Lares to catch our bus. That final hour and a half in extremely rural Peru was a wonderful reminder to all of us the importance of being grateful for what we have, enjoying nature, and perhaps to be grateful for what we don’t have.

For more information on the Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development, check out http://blogs.miis.edu/teamperu/

Although I am a Bulgarian, this post has nothing to do with my country - it is US-centric. "Caylee's law" is a draft that would make it a felony not to report to authorities the death or disappearence of a pre-teenage child within a short time. It is named after Caylee Marie Anthony (2005 - 2008) from Florida who disappeared shortly before her third birthday. Her skeleton, with duct tape on the facial skull, was found six months later in a swamp. Caylee's mother, Casey Anthony, did not report her daughter's disappearance, enjoyed endless parties, then lied to investigators that the child had been kidnapped by a nonexistent nanny. At her trial, the defense claimed that Caylee had drowned accidentally. The jurors acquitted Casey of murder, manslaughter and child abuse - of everything they could, so she will be released within days. The purpose of Caylee's law is to prevent similar cases to be solved this way in the future.

Opponents to the proposed bill argue that laws voted emotionally in the aftermath of high-profile cases are known to have undesired consequences and that such a law, if enforced, will harm innocent people. Of course it will; most laws do it all the time. The real question to me is whether the pros outweigh the cons or, to put it more emotionally, whether America can afford not having such a law after Casey’s “not guilty” verdict. I admit I am biased, because I am myself closely related to a murder victim.

Last year, my brother – a naturalized US citizen – was shot dead as he was sitting in his backyard. This is the first and most likely the only time I am writing about this publicly. His obituary notices and my blog posts devoted to him do not specify the cause of his death. Some family members prefer it that way, wishing to avoid the morbid interest and the stigma associated with murder; because, when the victim is adult, people tend to think that he must have been involved in suspicious affairs. There was nothing suspicious in my brother’s life, but it is difficult to convince people that the victim was not guilty – more difficult, it seems, than to convince jurors that the perpetrator was not guilty. The police finally came to an idea who killed him but could not collect solid evidence, so nobody was charged. I do not blame them. It is easy to be wise in hindsight, but in the decisive first hours when the trace was hot, they could not know what they knew later. And it is useless to bring a suspect to court just to see him acquitted and leaving triumphantly on a white horse. Of course I am very unhappy that my brother received no justice and that his killer is free to harm other innocent people, but that’s life, and I know what “beyond reasonable doubt” means.

However, I fail to understand the meaning of reasonable doubt in Casey Anthony’s case. My head just whorls when I read the opinions of jurors and legal experts that the burden of proof was on prosecution and the prosecution did not produce enough evidence that Casey had killed her daughter. It seems that the jurors demanded the same amount of evidence as if the defendant had been a stranger to the victim. My opinion, however, is that there are some situations when the burden of proof is on you to prove that you are innocent, and this is when you have accepted certain responsibility beforehand. If you are appointed to guard some property or person and you fail to protect the guarded object, you will be expected to prove that you have done your best. And if you become a parent and accept your parental responsibility by bringing your child home, instead of giving her for adoption, you are to prove your innocence if something bad happens to her. Even if she suffers an accident, you still have to answer questions, because young children cannot protect themselves from accidents – this is the duty of their caregivers.

I think that any doubt in Casey Anthony’s guilt was unreasonable because I cannot imagine any reasonable hypothesis (except insanity) under which she could be not guilty. Let’s believe the defense that Caylee drowned accidentally and her panicked grandfather put duct tape on her face to make the accident look like murder (?!) and threw the body into the swamp. Well, wasn’t Casey obliged to protect her 2-year-old daughter from accidental drowning? Recently, a 1-year-old boy named Joseph drowned in the bath while his mother Shannon Johnson was facebooking. Although his death was undisputed accident, the mother was sentenced to 10 years. The judge told her, “(Joseph) was a human being that had a right to life. And you, as his mother, had a responsibility to make sure he got that chance. That was your responsibility.” I think this judge was right. I also think there are deep flaws in a system severely punishing a negligent mother who generally acts as a good citizen while allowing a negligent or (more likely) murderous mother to be rewarded with freedom for her lies.

Let me repeat – I agree with the opponents of Caylee’s law that it will be costly and will harm innocent parents. However, I fear that its absence may spell death for many young children, viewed by their parents as unwanted burden rather than joy. Seeing Casey Anthony acquitted and commentators praising the verdict as a victory for the US justice system, other people may be tempted to emulate her. Things are bad enough as they are. Opponents say Caylee’s murder is a single, isolated case. This not only makes me ask how many cases must happen before something is done – it is simply untrue. Unfortunately, when a child is murdered, parents are the first suspects, and in two-thirds of cases there is no need to look elsewhere.

If you disagree with me, I can only apologize for wasting your time. But if you agree with me and live in the USA, you can consider signing a petition for Caylee’s law. I cannot sign it myself because I am not an American. It is difficult even to explain why I still have so much interest in a country which is no longer home to my dearest people. Perhaps because I believe that in a world where nothing can undo the evils of the past, our only hope can be for a better future, and our deeds are the only way to make it come true.

In these times of so much civil strife, internecine wars and racial and political intolerance, it is good to remember an episode involving Turkey, Australia and New Zealand. It shows the power of words to console the grieving, and to bring closure to a painful history.

Last April thousands of people from Australia and New Zealand gathered in northwestern Turkey to render homage to their ancestors, brave young soldiers, who lost their lives on the fields of Çanakkale 96 years ago in what is known as the Gallipoli Campaign during World War I.

The Gallipoli Campaign took place on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey between April 1915 and January 1916. A joint British and French operation had been conducted to capture the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, and secure a sea route to Russia. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or Anzac, formed the foundation of a 200,000 British-led army that landed at Gallipoli. The operation failed with thousands of casualties on both sides.

To each of the ANZAC soldiers one could apply the words of William Butler Yeats,

I dreamed that one had died in a strange place
Near no accustomed hand

Painful as the losses of young soldiers’ lives were, however, this episode fostered the creation of national identities and also laid the foundations of friendly relations among the people from Turkey, Australia and New Zealand. The battle was also a defining moment in the history of the Turkish people, laying the grounds for the Turkish War of Independence.

It was during that campaign that Mustapha Kemal, who would later be known as Kemal Ataturk, counterattacked the heroic Anzac soldiers’ advance and reached unparalleled prestige among his compatriots. Mustapha Kemal, then a 34-year-old Lt.-Col., had been familiar with the Gallipoli Peninsula from his operations against Bulgaria during the Balkan War.

The prestige this military leader gained during the Gallipoli Campaign allowed him to create the Republic of Turkey as a secular nation with Western values, revitalizing it from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. After the Gallipoli campaign he proved to be as generous in peace as he had been daring in war.

Dr. Bülent Atalay, president of the Ataturk Society, recounted last May at the Turkish Embassy in Washington D.C. how in 1930, 14 years after the Gallipoli Campaign, and as president of Turkey, Kemal Ataturk was given a letter by his aid-de-camp. In the letter, the mothers of the Anzacs fallen at Gallipoli were requesting permission to visit the graves of their sons.

Ataturk pondered how to respond. His aid told him, “Warn them if anyone invades us again we’ll break off their legs.” Ataturk responded, “I cannot do that.” Instead he sat down and wrote to the mothers,

“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours... You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”

The words are now inscribed in the Memorial of Anzac Cove, which commemorates the loss of thousands of Ottoman and Anzac soldiers who gave up their lives at Gallipoli. They reveal that Kemal Ataturk wasn’t only an excellent politician. He was a great statesman as well.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.

We were sat on crimson sofas, my friend, G, and I, our eyes drooping slightly as we were giddy-lazy from the incredible Gazan evening that had sprouted out of nowhere. We had gone from Palestinian wedding (where we saw- I’m not going to lie- some thoroughly questionable moves performed in even more questionable outfits) to rainbow-coloured ice cream in Jabalia refugee camp, washed down with hummous, fool and falafel. It couldn’t get more Palestinian.

We were at my friend S’s house. He organises demonstrations against the Israeli-imposed ‘buffer zone’ and I have known him for over six weeks, I see him every week, we discuss politics, drink coffee, I even spent that evening at a pre-party with his beautiful children as they shook what their papa gave them. I guess I thought I knew him well, maybe I do in a way.

But as G and I sat on S’s sofa, our bellies full, as his youngest- who is four years old- played passive aggressive with us, first rejecting my attempts to play with him then immediately begging us to spend the night, S began to tell us the story that I’m always too shy to ask of my Gazan friends: their account of ‘Operation Cast Lead’.

He began by telling us about the initial attack. At around 11am on 27 December, S told me that about 400 policemen were killed country wide attacks in the space of about five minutes. Attack the order, and hope the people turn against one another, right?

“Within five minutes Gaza was ablaze, there was smoke everywhere,” he explained. He told us how the phone network didn’t work, and that, even though he knew something was happening, he had to turn to the television for information. “Then we began to await nightfall, thinking it might just be a one-day attack.” But night fell, and the isolation grew worse. No electricity, no phones, no outside world.

That day was repeated for an entire week, he explained. Driving through the streets in the ambulance he was volunteering for, S told us, “I saw children without heads, people split in two, one half of their body here, the other there. I just couldn’t move!”

On the 3rd of January is when the land invasion began and when white phosphorus was first used. “When a family of about 6 members was hit with white phosphorus, a man tried to help them by putting them in his tractor to carry them to hospital. They shot the man, and then hid the family with sand using a bulldozer.

The Gaza skyline grew white from the phosphorus and the horizon disappeared in the smoke.

S spoke of the carnage in Khan Younis, Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, Rafah…it was everywhere and the Israeli tanks had split each village from the next. In one night, 40 bombs were dropped in Gaza City alone.

And as this story unfolded, S’s eldest son, just eight years old, eagerly showed G and I a video,

“Watch, watch, the man is riding his bicycle and booooom. But he was just riding his bike! Did you see?”

I’m going to leave it there for tonight. S’s account was a long, fascinating one that taught me more about Gaza and politics than I learnt in my four years at university. I saw videos with bones puncturing through shins, people with half-faces. I can’t even imagine what it was like to witness.

Khalas, enough depression. Life is wonderful and incredible; I’m crazy in love with Gaza and can’t imagine leaving.

A new study carried out in Stanford University found that environmental factors may play an even more important role than genetics in causing autism. Autism is a neuro developmental disorder –an impairment of the growth and development of the brain or central nervous system- characterized by defective social interaction and communication, and by restrictive and repetitive behavior. It first appears during infancy or childhood, and generally follows a steady course without remission. Autism is one of three recognized disorders in what is known as autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).

The number of children diagnosed with autism has increased considerably since the early 1980s. Although the explanation for this increase can be improved diagnosis, the rate of increase is so dramatic as to disregard this as the only cause. Although worldwide the prevalence of autism is estimated in about 1-2 per 100,000 children, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that approximately one on 110 children in the U.S. have some form of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Although there is no cure for this condition, there are a few reported cases of children who recovered. Some autistic children have continued to lead highly successful professional lives.

Until a few decades ago, many psychiatrists thought that autism was caused by lack of maternal warmth, a belief that did a lot of harm to the mothers of children affected with this condition. More recently, it was believed that autism had a very strong genetic component. This happened until this new study, that stresses the important of a wide variety of environmental factors.

According to the study, conducted in 192 pairs of twins in California, genetics accounted for approximately 38 percent of autism cases, while different environmental factors were responsible for about 62 percent. The results, which contradict previous studies that suggested that genetic causes were far more important, offer hope for a better control of this condition once specific causes are better defined.

In this new study researchers looked at both identical and fraternal twins drawn form California databases. While identical twins share 100 percent of their genes, fraternal twins share only 50 percent of them. Comparing the rates of autism on both types of twins allowed the researchers to measure the importance of genes versus environment as causing this condition.

The study found that autism or autism spectrum disorders occurred more frequently in identical twins when compared to fraternal twins. Surprisingly, however, a mathematical study of the results strongly suggested that environmental factors were responsible in a greater percentage of cases than genetic ones. This new study confirms similar results reported by University of California scientists in 2009.

Probably dozens if not hundreds of chemicals in the environment are neurodevelopmental toxins, that is, they affect the growth of the brain or central nervous system. Among these environmental toxins are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), brominated flame retardants, pesticides, mercury, lead and several other substances.

In addition to these environmental factors, another recent study has shown a potential association between use of antidepressants during pregnancy and risk of developing autism. The study of more than 1800 children found an adjusted 2-fold increase risk for ASD among mothers who used a type of antidepressant during the year before delivery and a 3-fold increased risk when the antidepressant was taken during the first trimester of pregnancy.

However, as the authors of the study were quick to state, these findings should be taken with extreme caution, since further studies are needed to determine if these studies represent a causal and not a coincidental connection.

These studies on the effect of drugs and environmental factors are extremely important since they show that eliminating those factors can also lead to a dramatic reduction in the number of children affected by autism, a disorder that has serious effects not only on the children but also on the whole family as well.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is an international public health consultant.

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

As the global population increases, so does the number of mouths to feed. The good news is that in addition to providing food, innovations in sustainable agriculture can provide a solution to many of the challenges that a growing population presents. Agriculture is emerging as a solution to mitigating climate change, reducing public health problems and costs, making cities more livable, and creating jobs in a stagnant global economy.

This year, the world’s population will hit 7 billion, according to the United Nations. Reaching this unprecedented level of population density has prompted the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) to launch a “7 Billion Actions” campaign to promote individuals and organizations that are using successful new techniques for tackling global development challenges. By sharing these innovations in an open forum, the campaign aims to foster communication and collaboration as our world becomes more populated and increasingly interdependent.

• As our global population continues to grow, agricultural innovations could provide solutions to some of our most pressing problems. Photo credit: Bernard Pollack. •

Urban agriculture for nutritious food and a cooler climate. The U.N. predicts that 65 percent of the global population will live in cities by 2050. Urban agriculture provides an increasing number of city residents with fruits and vegetables, leading to improved nutrition and food security. Urban farms are already gaining popularity around the world, from the Victory Programs’ ReVision Urban Farm in Boston, to Lufa Farms in Montreal, to the slums of Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya.

Farming for employment and education. Opportunities in agriculture can reduce poverty and empower a growing population. In Los Angeles county, the organization Farmscape Gardens has helped tackle a 16 percent unemployment rate by hiring workers to establish and maintain edible gardens. To teach the local community about food and agriculture, L.A.’s Fremont High School established a school garden of 1.5 acres that is open to students and the greater community. And in Uganda, project DISC (Developing Innovations in School Cultivation) partnered with Slow Food International to develop 17 school gardens that are used to educate students about growing, harvesting, and preparing nutritious local foods.

Agroecology for a healthier environment. Agroecology, which offers numerous benefits to the environment while also feeding people, includes organic agriculture, agroforestry, conservation agriculture, and evergreen agriculture. In Niger, farmers promote the re-greening of dried farmland by allowing spontaneous regeneration of woody species. The restored growth has provided farmers with wind breaks, decreased evaporation, sequestered carbon, and provided non-timber forest products. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency has partnered with representatives from metropolitan Washington, D.C. to create the Chesapeake Bay Program watershed partnership. Through collaboration, the group has developed policies, laws, incentives and best practices for farmers whose production zone lies within the local watershed. These agroecological practices, including cover crops, planting riparian forest butters, and practicing conservation tillage, have helped preserve the Bay.

Innovations in food waste to make the most of what we have. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, industrialized countries waste 222 million tons of food annually, or almost as much as sub-Saharan Africa’s 230 million tons of net food production per year. Decreasing food waste makes it possible to feed people across the planet without increasing agricultural production. In Washington, D.C., the D.C. Central Kitchen Project partners with area restaurants and food suppliers to pick up food that would otherwise go to waste. Volunteers prepare the food and redistribute it as meals to the city’s poor. In central and eastern Africa, a partnership between Bayer Crop Science and the International Potato Center hopes to develop a sweet potato that is resistant to pests and diseases, which are responsible for 50 to 100 percent of crop losses among poor farmers in the region.

To purchase your own copy of State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet, please click HERE. And to watch the one minute book trailer, click HERE.

Statistics in Kenya show that 50 people die every day of different forms of cancer while 80,000 new diagnoses are done each year according to Pact Kenya Cancer Assessment in Africa and Asia 2010.

Diagnosis of cancer or any other disease in the category of the diseases perceived as “dreaded diseases” sparks physical, spiritual and emotional trauma to the sick person, relatives and friends as well.

The stress is even more intense when a disease like cancer is diagnosed at an advanced stage, at level 4 as experts say, when saving the life of the patients becomes increasingly hard.

At such a time, some of the affected and infected; more so those without the financial muscle are left with few options; to frantically fight the disease or simply empathize with each other as the disease, slowly and painfully squeeze life out of the hapless victim.

These are the situations that befell Mrs. Elizabeth Ndung’u and Grace Wanjiku Mwaura both who lost their fathers to prostrate and stomach cancer respectively. As they told their stories, the crowd went dead silent; they narrated their experiences to an audience of different stakeholders in Nakuru town of Rift Valley province, Kenya; called to familiarize themselves with the activities of Nakuru Hospice and Palliative Care Center.

• Grace Wanjiku Mwaura addresses gathering at a Nakuru hotel during a meeting to familiarize with the activities of Nakuru Hospice and Palliative Care Center. •

Wanjiku expressed gratification that her father died a happy man due to the care by the Nakuru Hospice.

“We were so confused; there was so much physical, emotional and spiritual trauma as we watched our dad suffer from cancer before the Hospice health officers came in to ease his pain.” Said Grace as she forced down a lump of pain in her throat.

For Elizabeth the death of her father made her realize that “the end of life care was just as important as care for a new born baby.”

Her father died a painful death and worse still he died having not known what he was suffering from. “His death was a turning point to me because I began thinking on how end of life can be made a bit dignified, this is how Nakuru Hospice and Palliative Care came about,” adds Elizabeth. The hospice’s main role is to alleviate physical and psychosocial suffering associated with progressive incurable illnesses.

She decided to seek assistance from the business community, doctors and the community at large in Nakuru County to set up the hospice. “It is an idea born out of an individual’s suffering,” she says. Elizabeth is the Chief Executive Officer of the Hospice.

There are less than 20 hospices in Kenya, a country that is apparently yet to be equipped with necessary facilities to fight cancer. “Nakuru hospice is a facility that is restoring hope to hopeless people suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases considered ‘deadly’,” notes Elizabeth. Her father was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 but the same was not disclosed to the family until 2005.

She used to buy one doze of medicine at Shs.20, 000 ($250) every two months, besides being the sole breadwinner of the family. “After the financial burden became unbearable, I took my only car to Nairobi Airport for hire hoping to be getting Kshs.25, 000 ($300) a month to buy drugs,” she adds.

The car was involved in an accident barely two weeks after she hired it off and could not bring in the needed cash. “I went through a period of denial to ensure father gets the medicine as prescribed using my salary from my workplace at a Non Governmental Organization,” recalls Elizabeth.

In December 2005 her father happened to see a chemist receipt issued upon buying his drugs and on realizing how expensive they were he refused to take drugs henceforth.

“He started demanding to know what kind of disease he was suffering from that required such expensive drugs, he refused to take the drugs and said the money can be used to help other family members,” she explains.

Her father’s condition worsened thereafter and he died in 2006 February in a painful death after which Elizabeth embarked on a mission to ensure people with incurable diseases die dignified deaths.

Misfortunes piled on; in 2008 her family that lived in Londiani lost everything after their homestead was burnt down during the post election violence. She moved her mother and other relatives to Nairobi where she rented a room for them. She also lost her job in the same year after the NGO she was working for closed down operations.

• Elizabeth Ndung'u, Chief Executive Officer Nakuru Hospice and Palliative Care Center address gathering of different groups and individuals in Nakuru who have have been supporting the center financially to provide management of life threatening illnesses like cancer. •

“Compared to Uganda, treatment of cancer in Kenya is much higher since a patient must be prepared with not less than Shs.300, 000 approximately ($3,500) for therapy alone,” says Elizabeth.

A charitable organization dubbed Hospice Care Kenya helped to start off the Nakuru hospice after donating Shs.1.1 million ($12,000) used in renovating a dilapidated room that is now building housing the hospice.

Dr. Timothy Olweny who is the chairman at the facility says the hospice admits patients who are in critical conditions and health officers also visit patients at their homes to offer holistic home based care to those who cannot reach hospice due to the state of their sickness.

“Since diagnosis of cancer is done when the disease is in its advanced stages, many people do not have financial strength for treatment. Many also don’t have insurance. Treatment is quite expensive, at such a stage managing pain is the most critical aspect to allow patients die in a dignified manner” says Olweny.

Peter Kahare is a freelance journalist based in Nakuru County of Rift Valley province in Kenya, East Africa.

Many things can be said about the U.S. policy towards Cuba except that the long-standing embargo is an intelligent way of solving the problems with that country. After the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 was passed in the U.S. Congress prohibiting aid to Cuba and authorizing the President to create a “total embargo upon all trade” with Cuba, the policy has been a resounding failure. Lifting the embargo and normalizing relations with Cuba is now more imperative than ever if we want to create a more peaceful world.

Paradoxically, the only ones who have benefited from the embargo are the ones it was meant to punish, the Castro brothers. They have intelligently used the embargo to cover their own shortcomings, maintain their grip on power and keep Cubans railing against the U.S.

The embargo on Cuba has been criticized both at the international level and by national political leaders. Last October, the 192-member United Nations General Assembly adopted a draft resolution in favor of lifting the embargo; 187 countries voted in favor, 2 voted against and 3 abstentions. This pattern has been the same for the last 19 years.

As early as 1963, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy referred to the embargo as “inconsistent with traditional American liberties” and difficult to enforce. In 1975, Senator Edward M. Kennedy said, “I believe the idea of isolating Cuba was a mistake. It has been ineffective. Whatever the reasons and justifications may have been at the time, they are now invalid.”

More than hurting the Castro brothers the embargo has hurt the Cuban people’s health and quality of life. Because of the embargo Cubans don’t have easy access to all medications and some food items are in short supply. The lack of essential medicines have led to some medical crises and heightened levels of infectious diseases.

“We must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S. interests,” said in 2009 Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. George P. Schultz, who served as Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan has called the continued embargo “insane.”

Lugar’s words are particularly relevant considering that Cuba has begun exploratory drilling for oil in its territorial waters. According to some estimates Cuba could become a major oil producer, a fact to take into consideration as traditional sources of oil for the US have become less reliable. And while the US continues its policy of antagonism to Cuba, the Chinese government has developed closer relations and vowed to increase its military relations with that country.

Cuba is still on the State Department’s state sponsor of terrorism list along with Syria, Iran and Sudan. However, US counterterrorism experts like Richard Clark, former National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism claims that Cuba is on the list only for political reasons.

Support for the US position on this issue is that Cuba supports groups such as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) the Basque nationalist organization in Spain. However, last April, after talking with the Ambassadors of Spain and Colombia in Havana, former president Jimmy Carter said, “And so, the American allegations, the affirmation of terrorism, is a premise which is completely unfounded, and that is another aspect that the President of the United States could address.”

In June of 2010, 74 Cuban political dissidents signed a letter to the US Congress in support of a bill that would lift the US travel ban for Americans wishing to visit Cuba. “We share the opinion that the isolation of the people of Cuba benefits the most inflexible interests of its government, while any opening serves to inform and empower the Cuban people and helps to further strengthen our civil society,” stated the dissidents.

Normalization of relations with Cuba could also benefit the US which is, even now, Cuba’s largest food supplier. A 2010 Texas A&M University study found that increase trade and travel between the US and Cuba could result in $365 million in increased sales of US goods in Cuba and create 6,000 new jobs in the US. More significantly, though, it would benefit the Cuban people, who have suffered the most from the antagonism between Washington and Havana.

Cesar Chelala, MD, PhD, is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.