More Than 900 Environmental Advocates Slain In A Decade As Concern For The Planet Grows

The Huffington Post – AP, Denis D. Gray, 15 April 2014

This January 1999 image shows Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari
 Maathai, environmentalist and human rights campaigner, carried to the courts
 after she was beaten by a mob after she confronted private developers that
had illegally taken land in the Karura forest. | EPA / Landov

BANGKOK (AP) — As head of his village, Prajob Naowa-opas battled to save his community in central Thailand from the illegal dumping of toxic waste by filing petitions and leading villagers to block trucks carrying the stuff — until a gunman in broad daylight fired four shots into him.

A year later, his three alleged killers, including a senior government official, are on trial for murder. The dumping has been halted and villagers are erecting a statue to their slain hero.

But the prosecution of Prajob's murder is a rare exception. A survey released Tuesday -- the first comprehensive one of its kind - says that only 10 killers of 908 environmental activists slain around the world over the past decade have been convicted.

The report by the London-based Global Witness, a group that seeks to shed light on the links between environmental exploitation and human rights abuses, says murders of those protecting land rights and the environment have soared dramatically. It noted that its toll of victims in 35 countries is probably far higher since field investigations in a number of African and Asian nations are difficult or impossible.

"Many of those facing threats are ordinary people opposing land grabs, mining operations and the industrial timber trade, often forced from their homes and severely threatened by environmental devastation," the report said. Others have been killed over hydro-electric dams, pollution and wildlife conservation.

The rising deaths, along with non-lethal violence, are attributed to intensifying competition for shrinking resources in a global economy and abetted by authorities and security forces in some countries connected to powerful individuals, companies and others behind the killings.

Three times as many people died in 2012 than the 10 years previously, with the death rate rising in the past four years to an average of two activists a week, according to the non-governmental group. Deaths in 2013 are likely to be higher than the 95 documented to date.

The victims have ranged from 70-year-old farmer Jesus Sebastian Ortiz, one of several people in the Mexican town of Cheran killed in 2012 while opposing illegal logging, to the machine-gunning by Philippine armed forces of indigenous anti-mining activist Juvy Capion and her two sons the same year.

Brig. Gen. Domingo Tutaan Jr., who heads the Philippine military's human rights office, told the Associated Press that a military investigation showed the three died in crossfire as troops clashed with suspected outlaws. "We don't tolerate or condone human rights violations and we hope Global Witness can work with us to pinpoint any soldier or officer involved in those killings," Tutaan said.

Brazil, the report says, is the world's most dangerous place for activists with 448 deaths between 2002 and 2013, followed by 109 in Honduras and Peru with 58. In Asia, the Philippines is the deadliest with 67, followed by Thailand at 16.

"We believe this is the most comprehensive global database on killings of environment and land defenders in existence," said Oliver Courtney, senior campaigner at Global Witness. "It paints a deeply alarming picture, but it's very likely this is just the tip of the iceberg, because information is very hard to find and verify. Far too little attention is being paid to this problem at the global level."

Reports of killings, some of them extensive, from countries like Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, and Myanmar, where civil society groups are weak and the regimes authoritarian, are not included in the Global Witness count.

By contrast, non-governmental organizations in Brazil carefully monitor incidents, many of them occurring in the Amazon as powerful businessmen and companies move deeper into indigenous homelands to turn forests into soya, sugar cane and agro-fuel plantations or cattle ranches. Clashes between agribusiness and the Guarani and Kuranji people in the Amazon's Mato Grosso do Sul province accounted for half of Brazil's killings during 2012, the report said. Human rights groups and news reports say killings are often carried out by gunmen hired by agricultural companies.

In Thailand, Sunai Phasuk of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch echoed the report's assertion that an "endemic culture of impunity" was prevalent, and that governments and their aid donors must address this.

Prosecution of Prajob's suspected killers, Sunai said, was a "welcome rarity" in a country where investigations have been characterized by "half-hearted, inconsistent, and inefficient police work, and an unwillingness to tackle questions of collusion between political influences and interests and these killings of activists."

"The convicted tend to have lowest levels of responsibility, such as the getaway car driver. The level of impunity is glaring," he said.

After Prajob's murder, villagers lived in fear but in the end decided to sue the illegal dumpers and landfill owners, said the victim's brother, Jon Noawa-opas.

"Prajob's death has led us to fight for justice in this town," he said. "We can be disheartened and we were, but we also know that we have to do the right thing for our community."

AP reporters Thanyarat Doksone in Bangkok and Jim Gomez in Manila contributed to this report.

New Taipei lottery winner donates NT$10m to Changhua county

Want China Times, CNA 2013-10-15

Taiwan Lottery chairman Hsueh Hsiang-chuan, left, and Changhua county
 magistrate Cho Po-yuan at the donation ceremony, Oct. 14. (Photo/Wu Min-ching)

The Changhua county government in western Taiwan held a ceremony on Monday to mark the donation of five wheelchair-lift mini buses to the county by a lottery jackpot winner.

At the donation ceremony, Changhua county magistrate Cho Po-yuan thanked the anonymous donor and Taiwan Lottery, which helped complete the donation.

Cho noted that the new vehicles with their high roofs and spacious seats will be used to serve county residents who are physically or mentally challenged. The vehicles will be available for use around the clock at an affordable cost, he said.

The vehicles, worth NT$10 million (US$340,000), were donated by a a civil servant living in New Taipei who won a NT$1.5 billion (US$51 million) jackpot in April with a lottery ticket he purchased in Changhua county, according to the Taiwan Lottery.

The winner decided to donate a total of NT$120 million (US$4 million) to charity, including the NT$10 million (US$340,000) he designated for the county government to upgrade its public bus services for the disabled.

The ceremony was attended by Taiwan Lottery chairman Hsueh Hsiang-chuan and president Huang Chih-yi.

Backed by the Net, Infoladies help rural women

Deutsche Welle, 13 June 2013

They bike hundreds of miles to bring advice and medicine to thousands in remote, impoverished villages. DW has honored the work of Bangladesh's 'Infoladies' with the 2013 Bobs online activism award.

Mahfuza Akter would have rather gone to university, but her family couldn't afford the fees. After finishing high school, the country girl had practically no chance of getting a job in her native district of Gaibandha in northern Bangladesh. But luck stroke in 2010 when she managed to get a job as a so-called "Infolady." For this extraordinary profession, the 25-year-old requires a bicycle, some high-tech devices and plenty of organizational skills.

Warm-hearted welcome

Equipped with a laptop, a digital camera and an Internet-connected mobile phone, Akter rides to towns within her community every day and offers a variety of ICT-based services as well as legal advice to villagers at their very doorstep. For instance, she helps people communicate with relatives via Skype, finds solutions to agricultural and development issues, and even assists young villagers in writing job application letters.

She also helps the elderly measure their daily blood sugar levels and visits pregnant women who want to manage their weight. If required, Akter even accompanies them to the local administration office to apply for financial assistance.

 Infoladies provide a variety of
services to people in remote villages

As few doctors ever travel to the regions InfoLadies regularly visit, the women are often the only form of medical advice available and when they get stuck on a case, they can call a team of experts ready to assist them wherever they may be.

For her services, Akter is often "paid more than the standard rate," she says. Sometimes customers even invite her to stay in for lunch. "I enable people to do things they would otherwise find difficult to do," she explains, adding that villagers often hold Infoladies in higher regard than even teachers or doctors.

Reaching out to women

Only about five percent of the South Asian country's population has access to the Internet. The government has set up rural information centers called "Pallitathya Kendra," but they are not used frequently.

"With the help of the Infoladies people living in remote areas now have the same sort of access to information and services as people living elsewhere," says Hossain Mosharrof, deputy director of Dnet, a Bangladeshi company specializing in social projects.

Dnet is the company that launched the InfoLady initiative in 2007. There are currently around 70 Infoladies working mainly with women and girls as well as with disabled and elderly people, connecting them to the rest of the community.

The fact they are all women is not a coincidence. "The project is about women helping one another and leading self-determined lives," adds Mosharrof, stressing the importance of mutual support, particularly in Muslim communities.

For Akter, becoming an Infolady wasn't easy. She had to undergo a strict assessment process to see if she had the skills required to work with different interest groups in the country side such as farmers and the unemployed. But after completing a 30-day training program she was ready to go. "My mother broke out in tears when I handed over my first pay check," she remembers. Today she makes around 140 US dollars a month, enough to put some money aside.

'A revolutionary project'

The Infoladies project won DW's 2013 The Bobs award for the best in online activism in the Global Media Forum category, which focuses on "the future of growth."

"It is a revolutionary project which closes social, cultural and digital gaps," said jury member Shahidul Alam. "Because of the Infoladies, many people now have access to their fundamental rights."

Dnet aims to have 12,000 Infoladies by 2017

The project founders are convinced of the iniative's potential. "The model is both financially and socially sustainable," says Mosharrof. Since the central Bangladesh Bank acknowledged the project as an innovative and viable model, the Infoladies have received "special conditions" for loans at local banks.

Dnet is seeking expand and increase the number of Infoladies to 12,000 by the year 2017. There are also plans to export the model to other countries such as Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Sri Lanka.

Indian woman ditches corporate world for dirt-poor village

Yahoo – AFP, Penny MacRae, 16 april 2013

A villager collects water from a well beside a drinking water reservoir in Soda,
 India on November 20, 2012. Soda is a byword for backwardness in this remote
 corner of Rajasthan where the houses are made of mud, electricity supplies
are erratic, literacy levels are below 50%

Chhavi Rajawat, an MBA graduate and one-woman whirlwind, is seeking to drag her impoverished ancestral village in the desert state of Rajasthan into the 21st Century.

Rajawat, who spent her family holidays in sun-scorched Soda, became its sarpanch or elected village head three years ago after villagers implored her to take charge with dozens turning up at her home in state capital Jaipur to persuade her.

Chhavi Rajawat talks to villagers in

Soda, a remote village in India's

Rajasthan on November 19, 2012.

"The villagers broke all caste, gender and religious barriers to elect me," said Rajawat, a glamorous 33-year-old whose 10,000 constituents are mostly farmers and labourers largely untouched by India's economic boom.

She ditched her corporate career with one of India's biggest telecom firms to become sarpanch and has been working ever since to bring better water, solar power, paved roads, toilets and a bank to her ancestral village.

Soda is a byword for backwardness in this remote corner of Rajasthan where the houses are made of mud, electricity supplies are erratic, literacy levels are below 50 percent and the fear of drought is never far away.

The villagers said there had been no progress since Rajawat's brigadier grandfather, now in his 90s, had served as sarpanch two decades ago and they wanted someone else in the family to take on the role.

"I didn't have a choice," said a smiling Rajawat, who represented India at a recent UN poverty summit.

Her story reveals the potential of good grassroots leadership in making a difference in a country plagued by corruption and inefficiency. It also shows the limitations.

Chhavi Rajawat (2nd L, back) is pictured

 during a village meeting in Soda, India

on November 20, 2012.

Swarmed by villagers as she walks down the road, Rajawat greets them by name as they share family news and pepper her with questions about progress on various projects.

"Nobody has been able to do what she has done -- no other sarpanch has done as much," said 30-year-old farmer Jai Singh.

Rajawat was visiting a computer centre in a no-frills stone structure that she set up with the help of a corporate sponsor. The spartan interior doesn't bother the youngsters who tap away eagerly on keyboards on long trestle tables.

"It's a huge opportunity for them to get some skills -- there was nothing before," said teacher Mohammed Sadeek, 25.

But Rajawat, who now divides her time between Soda and Jaipur, chafes impatiently at the sluggish pace of change.

"India can't keep advancing at the same slow rate -- it must go faster. Otherwise we won't be able to give people the schools, the electricity, the water and the jobs they need," she said.

She was also checking on the progress of a scheme equipping primitive homes with toilets, which have made a big difference to locals who earlier had to relieve themselves outside -- and the women only after darkness set in.

There are many women sarpanchs in India because a number of these posts are reserved for them. But what sets Rajawat apart -- aside from her iPhone, big-rimmed sunglasses, blue jeans and youth -- is her education.

She holds a master's degree in business administration from the Indian Institute of Modern Management in Pune, rated one of the nation's top 10 business schools, which she says helps her draft funding plans and proposals.

"She's unique. We need her kind of people, they are a breath of fresh air, they have vision," said government district collector Muktanand Agarwal.

Among the achievements is her arrangement for medical checks of villagers by doctors from the state capital Jaipur, a bone-jolting two-hour drive away.

Chhavi Rajawat interacts with villagers in Soda, a remote village in India's 

Rajasthan state on November 19, 2012.

She also organised the opening of the first bank in Soda -- a branch of the state-run State Bank of India -- a significant success as 90 percent of India's 600,000 villages have no banks.

But all that change doesn't come without raising some local hackles.

When she constructed a drinking water reservoir that has created a shimmering blue lake in the middle of the village, she got her first taste of the bureaucratic hurdles that have repeatedly thwarted her.

"I was told we could not use government machinery to clean up reservoirs. Finally, they (the government) told me to do it on my own," she said.

And that's what she did -- raising money from friends, family and companies to fund many of her projects.

Baskar Petshali, secretary of a local welfare charitable trust, say her problems stem from the fact "she's a clean politician" who refuses to give bribes to get jobs done.

A senior state government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called Rajawat's initiatives "praiseworthy" but added she "wants do things very quickly -- she treads on toes and upsets vested interests".

Rajawat is hopeful better leadership will come with the Indian government's new drive to make lists of services and funds available on the Internet.

"If everything is online, people will start demanding accountability from their politicians," she said.

She has not decided whether she will continue in development work once her five-year terms ends, but she is hoping her example will inspire other educated young people to take time out to serve their communities.

"Your roots are your foundation. You have to start at the bottom to make a difference -- and there is so much left to do."

Asia’s ‘Humble’ Candidate for Pope, Cardinal Tagle

Jakarta Globe, Cecil Morella, March 07, 2013

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, right, is greeted by Father Thomas Rosica

 prior to the start of a vespers celebration in St. Peter's Basilica at the

Vatican, Wednesday, March 6, 2013. Photo: Gregorio Borgia

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Manila. Asia’s best hope for the papacy, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, is a young, electric orator who has been outspoken about the need for Catholic Church leaders to be more open and humble.

Born to a working-class couple in a then-rural town two hours’ drive south of the Philippine capital, Tagle rose to become Archbishop of Manila in 2011 at the age of just 54.

He was named a cardinal in November last year, becoming the official chief spiritual leader to the Philippines’ more than 80 million Catholics.

This came shortly after Tagle was summoned to Rome for a synod to map out the way forward for the Church, which has been rocked by scandals over sexual abuse by paedophile priests going back decades.

FILE - This Nov. 24, 2012 file photo shows the
 then newly-elected Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle,
Archbishop of Manila, Philippines, 

“The Church must learn humility from Jesus,” Tagle said in a speech to the synod, arguing that spreading the faith in a secularising world would be more effective if the Church learned to listen to the people.

“[You] may be saying the right things but people will not listen if the manner by which you communicate reminds them of a triumphalistic, know-it-all institution,” he said according to an account of the speech by Vatican Radio.

At another Vatican conference last year, Tagle urged the Church in Asia to tackle the sex abuse issue before it became a full-blown crisis there, and put in place safeguard measures that take into account the region’s cultural norms.

Tagle, 55, is widely regarded as enthralling speaker, eloquent and with a soothing voice.

He has refused to discuss his chances for the papacy but, at a public seminar in Manila last month, said Church leaders needed to do a better job of reaching out to people within their communities, particularly the youth.

“The young want to be connected,” Tagle said at the forum.

“That is the basic of the faith — [to be] connected to God, connected to others, to the Church. We need to go back to that fundamental.”

Tagle showed remarkable empathy, discipline and intellect as a boy, according to one of his mentors, Father Romeo Ner, 72.

“He was always number one in school. He was very interested in helping the poor even at a young age, and he was very close to the Church,” Ner told AFP.

“I was amazed because he knew how to recite the rosary and all of its mysteries when he was just three.”

Tagle is well known in the Philippines for not riding in his official car when he was a bishop, chatting with all comers after mass, and even regularly inviting beggars to dine with him at his residence.

Ner said that as a young priest, Tagle was involved in raising money for parishes that served poor areas, where he developed a taste for braised chicken feet — a staple in the slums.

“Giving the poor their true dignity is his passion. He loves them,” said Ner, who as then vicar general of Tagle’s hometown was instrumental in making him one of the country’s youngest bishops in 2001.

Agence France-Presse

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"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“ … Spirituality (Religions)

Number one: Spirituality. The systems of spiritual design on your planet are starting to change. This is not telling you that certain ones are going to go away. They're simply going to change. Some of the largest spiritual systems, which you would call organized religion on the planet, are shifting. They're going to shift away from that which is authority on the outside to authority on the inside. It will eventually be a different way of worship, slowly changing the rules while keeping the basic doctrine the same.

The doctrine of the Christ has always been to find the God inside. The teachings were clear. The examples of the miracles were given as an example of what humans could do, not to set a man up for worship as a God. So when that has been absorbed, the teaching of the Christ can remain the teaching of the Christ. It simply changes the interpretation. 

The teachings of the great prophets of the Middle East (all related to each other) are about unity and love. So once the holy words are redefined with new wisdom, the Human changes, not the words of the prophets. In fact, the prophets become even more divinely inspired and their wisdom becomes even more profound.

You're going to lose a pope soon. I have no clock. Soon to us can mean anything to you. The one who replaces him may surprise you, for his particular organization will be in survival mode at that point in time. That is to say that fewer and fewer are interested in starting the priesthood. Fewer and fewer young people are interested in the organization, and the new pope must make changes to keep his church alive. That means that his organization will remain, but with a more modern look at what truly is before all of you in a new energy. It is not the fall of the church. It is instead the recalibration of the divinity inside that would match the worship that goes on. It's a win-win situation. The new pope will have a difficult time, since the old guard will still be there. There could even be an assassination attempt, such is the way the old energy dies hard. That is number one. Watch for it. It's a change in the way spiritual systems work. It's a realignment of spiritual systems that resound to a stronger truth that is Human driven, rather than prophet driven.…”

Thai ‘Scavengers Club’ Turns Trash to Treasure

Jakarta Globe, Apilaporn Vechakij, January 02, 2013

This photo taken on December 23, 2012 shows former Thai 'scavenger'
Peerathorn Seniwong selecting used milk cartons at his shop in Bangkok.
By selling to the recycling plants in bulk, a cooperative created by Peerathorn
 gets a better rate than individual scavengers would manage on their own. Profits
 are then paid back in dividends and other benefits to its members such as life
 insurance, interest rates from its "rubbish bank" and help paying medical
fees. (AFP Photo/ Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)     

         

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Bangkok. Thai grandmother Nom Prom-on rummages through rubbish bins looking for bottles, cans and paper to trade for food and other goods at a recycling cooperative providing a lifeline for Bangkok’s poor.

Riding an old motorcycle with a rubbish cart attached, the 61-year-old and her husband Rai rise early to beat rival scavengers to claim the best of the city’s recyclable trash, which they take to a cash-free “zero baht shop.”

The couple have combed bins for decades, but their earnings of less than $10 per day are not always enough to live on, so they turned to the cooperative.

“When we’re starving, we can find rubbish to exchange for rice to eat, detergent, soap and everything,” said Nom, who also has grandchildren to raise and feed.

By selling to the recycling plants in bulk, the cooperative gets a better rate than individual scavengers would manage on their own.

Profits are then paid back in dividends and other benefits to its members such as life insurance, interest rates from its “rubbish bank” and help paying medical fees.

It is the brainchild of former scavenger Peerathorn Seniwong and his wife Buarin.

“We thought of how we could help the poor — then we thought of rubbish — at least every house must have rubbish,” Peerathorn, 45, told AFP.

The scheme’s 800 members include 35 households of scavengers along with other local people who heard about the shop in an area of eastern Bangkok and now bring their recyclables to trade.

A former security guard and motorcycle taxi driver, Peerathorn came up with the idea after six years of living homeless under an elevated road in Bangkok.

“Sometimes we would have to buy things like fish sauce or rice on credit at shops,” said Buarin.

“But people looked down on us as we’re poor and they’d wonder whether they would get their money back — that’s why we started our own shop.”

Fish sauce, rice, eggs, instant noodles, toothpastes and detergent are among the goods most sought by members, about 20-30 of whom visit the shop each day, Buarin added.

There are several hundred thousand scavengers in Thailand earning about 200-300 baht ($6.50-$10) a day, according to Thailand’s Institute of Packaging and Recycling Management for Sustainable Environment, which has provided education schemes for members on issues such as hygiene and sorting rubbish.

An estimate quarter of Thailand’s 15 million tons of garbage of a year is recycled — largely thanks to scavengers rather than efforts by consumers to separate their waste.

The cooperative’s success is inspiring others too, with several similar cash-free shops opening up in the capital and elsewhere.

The institute hopes that 80 cash-free recycling shops will be set up across Thailand by the end of 2013.

The project is also generating interest overseas with visitors from as far afield as Singapore, Japan and Mexico coming to see how it works.

Its success reflects changing attitudes toward rubbish, said Gloyta Nathalang, communications and environment director at Tetra Pak (Thailand) Ltd, which runs the country’s only plant for recycling used beverage cartons.

“Recycling is not an alien word any more — people are aware and want to take more action. But I think what we are lacking now is the system in place,” she said.

Peerathorn is proud of what he has achieved since his years living homeless under what people used to sarcastically call his hundred million baht roof.

Rubbish collecting has provided a good way to supplement his income, he says, and allows him flexible working hours.

“It’s better to work as a scavenger because I don’t have to be anyone’s employee. Nobody tells me what to do,” he said.

Agence France-Presse

India rolls out cash transfer scheme for poor

BBC News, 1 January 2013

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The government says that cash
transfers will be a game-changer

India has rolled out an ambitious plan for a cash payout of subsidies to the poor in 20 districts, officials say.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the scheme would benefit more than 200,000 people initially, and would cover the entire country by the end of 2013.

Authorities say it will bring the country's poorest citizens "into the mainstream".

But opposition parties have accused the government of "bribing the voters" ahead of the 2014 general elections.

The government plans to disburse 3,200bn rupees ($58bn; £36bn) under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme.

Under the scheme, money meant for recipients of 29 welfare programmes - mainly related to scholarships - will be transferred to bank accounts linked to their unique identification numbers in 20 districts from 1 January. It will be extended to 11 more districts from 1 February and 12 districts from 1 March.

"This is indeed a game-changer for governance, the manner in which we govern," Mr Chidambaram told reporters on Monday, a day before the launch of the scheme.

"This is a game-changer in which we account for money. It is a game-changer in the manner in which the benefit reaches the beneficiary without any intermediation by any human being," he added.

The finance minister said that at this stage the scheme would not cover subsidies for food, fertiliser, diesel and kerosene because the government was proceeding with a "great degree of caution".

"We will look at transferring all subsidies and benefit through this scheme but we have to do it slowly. We are not going to rush into anything and then find that the system cannot cope with it," he said.

Under the scheme, those living below the poverty line will receive between 30,000 rupees ($542; £338) and 40,000 rupees ($723; £450) per year in lieu of nearly 30 welfare programmes, including scholarships and pensions.

Officials say it will reduce waste while ensuring federal welfare money reaches those who need it most.

Analysts, however, say implementing the scheme may not be easy as only 222 million people in India have so far enrolled into a biometric identity scheme, most poor families do not have bank accounts and many villages do not have a bank.

Indian authorities say around 360 million people currently live in poverty. But one estimate suggests around three-quarters of India's 1.21 billion people live below the poverty line.

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Thai ‘Scavengers Club’ Turns Trash to Treasure

Party acknowledges unfair treatment of China's farmers

Want China Times, Xinhua 2012-11-10

Farmland in Changchun, Jilin province. (File photo/Xinhua)

After it became the country's only ruling party 63 years ago, the Communist Party of China is now looking back to where it started on its way to the national power: solving land problems for farmers.

In his keynote report to the 18th National Congress on Thursday, Chinese President Hu Jintao has pressed the party to reform the land expropriation system and increase farmers' share of gain in land value. "We should give more to farmers and take less from them," Hu told the party in his speech at the opening of the congress, which was televised nationwide Thursday.

Hu promised the party will ensure equal exchange of factors of production and balance allocation of public resources between urban and rural areas.

The pledge, the first of its kind the party has ever made in its national congress reports, came at a time when massive protests by farmers over land seizures erupted in multiple villages across the country over the past years.

The reform of the land expropriation system, if proceeds as promised, means that the Chinese government will no longer sacrifice the property rights of farmers to reduce the cost of the country's industrialization and urbanization.

According to China's existing land system, rural collectives, usually a rural village committee, rather than farmers themselves, own the land in rural areas, a systematic arrangement that came into being in China after several land reforms initiated by the party lifted it to national power.

Historians believe the widespread support the Communist Party once had from farmers was one of the major factors that helped it become China's ruling party after it confiscated land from landlords and allocated them to peasants for free in the revolutionary era.

Late leader Mao Zedong attributed the party's course to national power to a strategy of "using the rural areas to encircle the cities."

The reform and opening up that catapulted China into its current position of the world's second-largest economy also originated from Xiaogang village in east China's Anhui province, where farmers secretly contracted farmland from the collective in 1978 when most villages in the country were still struggling to make their ends meet in collective farms.

The practice at Xiaogang village was later applied to the rest of the countryside, as rural collectives distributed land-use rights to households through contracts of 30-year "household management."

Yet under the existing rules, the state can nationalize the collective-owned land over reasons like "public interests" and transfer farmland for industrial and construction use.

To build more homes for migrant workers flocking to cities and towns amid the country's rapid urbanization, local governments grabbed a number of land from farmers over the years, then sold them to industrial and housing developers, but offered very little compensation to rural residents.

Moreover, farmers are deprived of any gains in the land value after their farmland is expropriated, thus fueling increasing discontent and complaints from farmers, including those living at Wukan village in the city of Shanwei in south China's Guangdong province.

A year ago, Wukan made international headlines when the village's residents staged three waves of large-scale rallies over four months to protest against village officials' illegal land seizures, corruption and violations of financing and election rules.

"Under the current land expropriation system, farmers are almost excluded from benefits of land price appreciation," said Xu Xiaojing, director of the Research Department of Rural Economy with the Development Research Center, a government thinktank under the State Council, China's cabinet.

He said the current compensation standard for expropriated land is too low, thus limiting farmers from sharing the revenues of increases in land prices.

"In fact, those farmers who lost their land have been unfairly thrown out from China's industrialization and urbanization process," Xu said. "This is absurd."

In many villages, villagers usually get a reimbursement between 450,000 yuan and 750,000 yuan (about US$75,000-$120,000) for each hectare of farmland expropriated, but local governments can cash in millions of yuan in revenue on auctioning a hectare of rural land.

Yang Yuying, a female farmer living in the suburbs of Hefei, the capital of Anhui province, became one of the victims of the unfair land seizure system in the country.

Yang and her family were compensated less than 1 million yuan (US$160,000), along with a 90-square-meter housing unit, when their land was seized by the local government.

"The compensation looks quite a lot of money, but we've lost our land and can't enjoy the same treatment in employment, medicare and education as urban residents do," Yang said. "Our lives have no guarantee, and even my kid has to pay extra fees to go to school in the city."

As China's urbanization has driven over half of the country's population of 1.3 billion into cities and towns, many farmers like Yang are having their land seized by local governments without property compensation, thus sowing the seeds of unrest in the country.

"The unfair treatment farmers face in land seizures are now the primary source of complaints and social unrest in the country," said Wang Kaiyu, a sociologist who has conducted field investigations in rural China for a long time.

"In reforming the land expropriation system, the government should appropriately raise the one-off compensations to farmers, but establishing a mechanism to guarantee their long-term lives is even more important," Wang said.

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Peer-to-peer lending via the internet hits £250m

BBC News, By Simon Gompertz, Personal finance correspondent, 8 June 2012

Savings and Investment 

• Will investment charges become clearer?
• Q&A: Is Santander UK a safe bank?
• Three years of record-low rates
• Families hide wealth to avoid care fees

Lynne Martin's money is spread
 among hundreds of borrowers, thus
reducing risk

Lending via three websites that link savers with borrowers - bypassing the banking system - has topped £250m.

The "new age" finance carries no protection for deposits, but is being tipped as a serious threat to traditional banks.

The peer-to-peer sites are led by Zopa, which has lent more than £200m since it started in 2005.

Funding Circle, specialising in business loans, has topped £34m, and RateSetter has reached £24m.

Last month the government said it would lend these sort of firms £100m to help expand their own lending to businesses.

"It's a marketplace, the eBay for money," says Lynne Martin from Hertfordshire, a foot technician in her late 50s who has been using Zopa to build up a nest egg for retirement.

Higher returns

Lynne was fed up with the returns she was getting from banks and pension plans.

So she has lent a substantial part of her savings via the website, spreading it between hundreds of borrowers and by-passing the banking system.

The interest from the latest £5,000 is 7.4% a year before tax but after taking into account Zopa's 1% charge.

That is substantially more than is available on a typical savings account at a bank.

On the other side of the ledger, Jamie Hirst from Chippenham in Wiltshire has borrowed £4,500 through Zopa to cover the cost of a revamp of his kitchen and bathroom.

The 8.4% APR he is paying is 5% less than he was quoted by his bank.

"I thought it was brilliant," he told the BBC's Your Money.

"The fact that there wasn't some fat cat taking the profits, just some guy investing 50 or a hundred quid to get a little return and doing something good for someone else."

The drawbacks

There is a significant drawback for savers: the lack of any guarantee that you will get your money back.

Peer-to-peer lending, as it is known, does not qualify for protection from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), which provides security up to £85,000 per bank, for each saver.

The peer-to-peer sites put their loan applicants through credit checks and Zopa says it divides people's savings into £10 chunks which are spread between borrowers, to minimise any risk.

On average, so far, its lenders have lost 0.5% of their money as a result of borrowers defaulting.

But Lynne Martin predicts the concept is bound to catch on more widely.

"Necessity is the mother of invention," she says.

"This is a new asset class. It's not a share and it's not a bank account."

Official support?

Lynne has support from a director of the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, who suggested in March that peer-to-peer lenders could replace High Street banks. 

Jamie Hirst has been able to borrow
 money at a cheaper rate than from
his bank

"There is no reason why end-savers and end-investors cannot connect directly," he explained.

"The banking middle men may in time become the surplus links in the chain."

Lynne is hoping the interest she is earning will help pay for her to retire to the West Country, a hope which highlights an interesting feature of peer-to-peer lending.

Much of the money has been moving across generations, from older people looking for a decent income to younger borrowers setting up in life and desperate to keep down the cost of taking a loan.

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