Underheard and overlooked
May 23rd, 2003 | by aobaoill |I’ve mentioned previously the news service from Inter World Radio, and today’s bulletin is as informative as ever. Among the stories you may have missed:
Indonesian troops have massacred a group of boys, according to reports coming out of Aceh province. Witnesses are quoted as saying the soldiers assembled the boys in Bireuen in the north of the province and then shot them individually at close range. One was only 13 years old. Fighting continues in Aceh as government troops try to defeat separatist rebels.
It seems that every time Indonesia drops out of the news, and you think its problems are beginning to be solved, another atrocity happens to bring it right back in. Also
Vietnam is to destroy a fifth of its coffee plantations. The country has been blamed for the worldwide crash in coffee prices which has damaged farmers’ livelihoods in many countries. Vietnam began producing coffee little more than a decade ago and is now the world’s second biggest exporter. It will make the cut over the next two years.
I’d been aware of the controversy over the drop in coffee prices over the last decade, but hadn’t been aware that Vietnam was being blamed – the only comments I had heard were in the context of the Free Trade/Fair Trade debate.
One Response to “Underheard and overlooked”
By Clancy on May 24, 2003 | Reply
Hey, NPR had a spot on (I think) Fresh Air about this coffee controversy. The farmers are producing coffee, but they don’t drink coffee themselves, so they don’t understand what good coffee is…i.e. the Vietnam producers. Everyone is getting shafted when it comes to prices, of course. Consumers are paying a lot, and the farmers are getting next to nothing. 🙁 I definitely will start buying Fair Trade coffee now. I tried to find a link to the story on the NPR site but was unsuccessful.