Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley has produced wine for over four thousand years. That winemaking tradition continues today, with Lebanon boasting some world-class reds. But wine making isn’t easy in Lebanon. Vintners have had to deal with fundamentalists, civil war, and invading armies. The struggle has been worth it. Reese Erlich reports from the Bekaa Valley.
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Southern Lebanese farmers are caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, their land has been a battleground and Israeli cluster bombs continue to pollute their fields. On the other hand, they’ve been abandoned by Lebanon’s political elite – many of them merchants – who prefer to see Lebanon import its food. A guy named Rami is helping them out.
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By its very nature, water can only be successfully managed by consensus. It flows from one place to the next, often in a meandering way, blind to human demands and arbitrary boundaries. Conflicts often arise, smart solutions typically the exception, rather than the rule. Nowhere are water issues more a propos than in the landlocked South American nation of Bolivia.
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Of all the conflicts in Latin America, none was more brutal or costly in human lives than the forty-year civil war in Guatemala. Two hundred thousand people died, most of them impoverished peasants of Mayan ancestry. Today, former rebels are presenting their perspective of the struggle–to tourists.
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Three quarters of Earth’s surface is covered in water. Most of this vast mass of water is salty, a mere two percent or so fit to drink. Underground is where the planet’s purest waters lie. You’d think we’d conserve what’s so scarce and valuable. It isn’t always so. Bolivians are working hard to better manage their water – as Jen Moore reports.
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Israeli activist Jeff Halper came to Winnipeg at the end of January to speak about the current situation in Palestine-Israel, and about the work of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions. Temperatures outside plunged to almost minus forty. Inside the atmosphere was congenial — but Jeff had disturbing news to share.
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Farmers and their cash crops … earning a living on the margins of global agriculture. Palestinian farmers face an entirely unique challenge. Israel’s so-called “Security Barrier” has actually walled them off from their olive and vegetable groves. The Annexation Wall – as Palestinians call it – prevents them from farming completely.
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Thirty years have come and gone since the end of the American War – as the Vietnamese call it – and its toxic aftermath lingers on. Between 1961 and the early 1970s, the U.S. drenched Vietnam with almost a hundred million liters of Agent Orange and other herbicides. It wasn’t just rainforests and mangroves that suffered … and the poison continues its dirty work.
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To comprehend the obstacles that need to be overcome if peace and justice are to be achieved in the Middle East, one must spend time in the West Bank and Gaza, listening to Palestinians describe their hardships. The Israeli occupation is particularly egregious for youth, who — like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet — feel seriously misunderstood.
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Few industries provoke as much controversy as mining. When powerful companies seek out concessions in poor countries, communities rally around democratic institutions to defend their land and water. From the Andean mountains of Peru, Jen Moore brings us this story about how a democratic vote saved the day … perhaps.
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