Jon Popham
November 16, 2008 | 5:54 pm EST
To mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Every Human Has Rights campaign has announced the winners of their Media Awards. Beginning this past summer, mainstream and citizen journalists were invited to document stories and news reports that illustrate an article from the UDHR. The 30 winners of this years Media Awards include five special prizes, and the one public prize, voted by online viewers, went to Ben Fundis, Clara Long and John Drew for Border Stories. Border Stories documents the experiences of people living along the U.S.-Mexico border to reveal the humanity behind border issues. Here is Ben Fundis talking about the experience of making their film:
Watch and read more about these remarkable stories that thoroughly explore the line between the developed and developing world.
takepart with the Every Human Has Rights campaign to help protect and promote human rights around the world.
Dubai, the land where everything is larger than life, has greenlighted plans to build the world’s largest solar panel manufacturing plant. The photovoltaic production facility, Solar Technologies FZE, will be constructed at Dubai’s Technopark beginning next month and could begin producing cells as early as the last quarter of 2010.
Dilip Rahulan, the Chairman and CEO of Solar Technologies FZE said about solar energy, “The energy from sunlight striking the earth for 40 minutes is equivalent to the global energy consumption for a whole year.” His company has plans to subsequently open plants in Mexico and Bulgaria after the Dubai facility is in operation.
It’s good to see Dubai hopping in full steam on renewable energy. In addition to the abundant natural resources of fossil fuels throughout the Arabian peninsula, the area is also obviously one of the most sunny regions on the planet, making for a potentially easy transition from an economy based on the 20th Century power sources of oil & natural gas to 21st Century solar energy.
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The United States Department of Homeland Security will not complete the US-Mexico Border fence by its deadline this year. The announcement came from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday who said that 370 miles of the planned 670 mile fence had been erected. Mysteriously, Chertoff said he hoped to have 90 - 95% of the fence in place by the time the Bush Administration leaves office in January 2009, a high benchmark to shoot for considering only 55% of the project is finished with 3 months until the inauguration of a new President come next year.
This is one of the more shameful public works projects in the history of this country. In the 1930s the United States used to build bridges and roads to bring people together, under the Bush Administration the biggest project undertaken has been a barrier to keep people out. The fence, and the policies, that surround it have been remarkably successful at least one respect though - dooming Republican fortunes in elections across the country. While in the 2000 and 2004 elections Latin American voters polled much closer parity in their preference of a political party at the voting booth, in the 2008 election Hispanics are more likely to vote for Democrats by a staggering 2-to-1 margin. Meanwhile the Bush Administration and its deregulatory policies have had the unintended consequence of slowing immigration into this country by sinking the US economy to the point where immigrants feel they might just be better off back home.
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Mia Kirshner (of L Word fame) co-authored a uniquely beautiful and devastatingly fascinating “paper documentary” titled I Live Here. This written journey takes us through 4 crises around the world: AIDS in Malawi, globalization and feminicide in Juarez, Mexico, war in Ingushetia, Chechnya and ethnic cleansing in Burma.
This collection is like nothing I have ever seen and every time I look through, I see something new. Below are some photos of the collection and Mia Kirshner at the book signing in Los Angeles.
More pics after the jump!
In today’s “Okay, well, duh” news, we learn that the heavy air pollution in Mexico City has an adverse effect on childrens’ brains. This is probably not good. ScienceNews, which purports to report news about science, tells us that multiple kinds of tests have been conducted, and
Among healthy children aged 7 to 18, lifelong Mexico City residents scored lower than their peers from Polotitlán a Mexican city with low levels of air pollution on tests of memory, flexible thinking, novel problem-solving skill and the ability to monitor and change one’s behavior during challenging tasks, scientists report in an upcoming Brain and Cognition. These tests make up part of standard IQ measures for school children.
That’s not all, either. Brain scans of children in Mexico City have “revealed alterations that can impair the prefrontal cortex, a neural region heavily involved in memory and thinking skills.” Basically, the report states what we probably all kinda figured anyway: high levels of pollution are not just bad for the body, they’re bad for the brain.
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This hurricane season brought an above average number of storms, and Mexico, with storms on both coasts, can attest that it ain’t over yet. Tropical Storm Marco, approaching hurricane strength, touched down in the east, forcing evacuations of schools and oil platforms near Veracruz. Fortunately, no major damage has been reported yet. And in the west, Hurricane Norbert moves northeast growing in strength, and is expected to touchdown around the Baja Peninsula around Saturday.
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Related:
Photo: Washington Post
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Spanish tenor Placido Domingo performed at Mexico’s Chichen Itza Saturday making some last minute program changes to quell a cultural furor over the event. Chichen Itza contains some of the most treasured masterpieces of Mayan architecture in the world and carries enormous cultural significance for the Mayan people, whose population is currently estimated to number around 6 million in the Yucatan Peninsula and surrounding areas in Mexico and Central America. Many of these modern day Mayans were not particularly pleased with one of the shrines of their culture being turned into a concert hall. Protests were being organized and even a legal threat to bring the concert’s promoters up on criminal charges for violating a Mexican law aginst using a National Archaeological Zone for something besides educational purposes was in the works. But at the last minute, Domingo announced he would be joined on stage by famous Mayan singer and musician Armando Manzanero to perform a mixture of both opera and traditional Mayan music. Mayan groups, feeling they were given the respect they deserved backed off and the concert went off without a hitch.
The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!
TakePart Gang:
Chasing the DNC Flame by Fonda Berosini
TakePart at Slow Food Nation by Wendy Cohen
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Nicole Hughes:
State Fair Having Trouble Keeping It Green
TOMS Wrap Boot: Shoe Addicts Saving Lives
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Mexican Gov Spends $16M to Save Endangered Porpoise
Wilco Offers Section on Website for Carpooling to Shows
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Jon Popham:
Portland Gym Utilizes Human Energy
Angkor Wat Threatened by Tourism Boom
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Gina Telaroli:
Last month, the Mexican government planted eight million trees to symbolize its commitment to the environment, and now it’s one-upping itself by providing $16 million to try and save an endangered porpoise.
The vaquita marina - which literally means “little sea cow” - is dwindling at a population of only about 150, down from 500 a decade ago. The porpoise is threatened by fishermen along the Gulf of California, who catch the animals in their nets by the dozens each year. From the Associated Press:
Plans include paying fishermen to avoid the porpoise’s habitat or give up drag nets that drown dozens of the shy, dolphinlike animals each year. Some will even be paid to stop fishing forever.
Working fishermen will be paid $4,500 a day to not fish.
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In a civic event meant to symbolize Mexico’s attempt to undo some of the environmental damage it has done through excessive pollution, Mexicans went out this past Saturday and planted over eight million trees all over the country.
During an event celebrating the plantings, President Felipe Calderon stated, “We are repairing just a little of the enormous damage that we are doing” to the environment.” Though Greenpeace has been quoted as calling the day nothing more than a publicity stunt, the Mexican government is trying to use the event as an awareness-raising campaign for its citizens.
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Andy Kondrat:
