The Cost of the World's Cheapest Gasoline

By Humberto Marquez
The world's cheapest gasoline is available in Venezuela due to the subsidy program that benefits car owners while keeping investing money from the oil industry. Since 1998, gasoline has cost between three and four cents per liter. A bottle of water costs 25 times that amount. The subsidy is estimated to be $12.5 billion based on the difference between domestic and export prices. Essentially, over $3000 a year in gasoline is being given away to every consumer leaving oil company's without money they could use to help with fuel distribution. Only the middle and upper class can afford private vehicles, which consumer 80 percent of the fuel, leaving the lower class, which makes up 80 percent of the population with 20 percent of the fuel for public transportation. Smuggling of gasoline has become an issue as well since the prices in the countries surrounding Venezuela are significantly higher. The cheap prices have contributed to more cars on the road, and a subsequent increase of traffic jams and decrease of road maintenance.

Nightmare for Civilians Uprooted by Conflict

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Disease, unclean drinking water and lack of electricity are just some of the plights affecting those displaced into camps by the military operation launched by the Pakistani army against Taliban militants. UNICEF and the World Food Program have been working to better the conditions in the camps but relief is still distant. The worst affected are children who have been suffering from scabies, diarrhea, unexplained fever and malaria.



The Secret of the Grain
Jenny Halper

A half hour into Abdel Kechiche’s Cesar winning family drama, The Secret of the Grain, my father leaned over and asked, “What is this movie about?” After all, we were still watching a family cooking, eating, and fighting. And cooking, and eating, and fighting. Writer/Director Kechiche’s domestic rhythms are very familiar and therefore easy, initially, to reject.

But I’d recommend hanging in through all two and a half (plus) hours of the film, which tells the story of Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares), a 60-year-old patriarch trying to segway into a career as a restaurateur with the help of his ex-wife’s fish cous cous. And that’s basically the basis for the story. Although his pipe dream sounds fairly simple – he owns a boat and can simply serve customers on it - government administrators don’t think he has the stamina to run his own business. Determined to prove himself, he plans a huge dinner party and invites the high-level head-shakers who remain skeptical that his floating, couscous-serving restaurant could turn a profit. His family wants to help, but so do his new girlfriend and her daughter.

Meanwhile, the huge extended family squabbles —a two-year-old grandchild won’t use the potty, a husband cheats routinely on his wife, a daughter tries to convince her mother to forget shame – but Kechiche’s wonderful eye and ear for detail make the typical seem anything but. The family, Arabs living in Southern France, works hard to maintain their distinct culture, but the movie implies rather than stresses culture clash.

At the movie’s center is Boufares, who, in his feature film debut, resembles a still, serious Steve Martin with wonderfully expressive eyes. The film is at its most effective when focusing in on his tense silence – he’s usually the calm center of a family dysfunctional in the ways all families are, but their dysfunction could risk him his career. Watching the potential crumble of his dreams is like watching the demise of your own, and the almost unbearable tension Kechiche ultimately creates is the antithesis of his atmospheric but slow start.

Boston's Intellectual Elite Examine the Isreal-Gaza Conflict

By Julia Waterhous
The Palestine Cultural Center for Peace brought together a panel of three speakers last Wednesday, January 21st to address Israel's recent ceasefire in violent attacks on Gaza. Noam Chomsky, professor, linguist and political activist, Assaf Kfoury, professor at Boston University and Ahmed Shawki, editor of the International Socialist Review all shared their opinions on Israel. Chomsky spoke of the legitimacy and reasons for the U.S. Israeli invasion and how the U.S.'s reasons for occupancy are questionable. Kfoury pointed out that through the tragedy people have come together in protest, and Shawki, an Egyptian, described what it means to be Arabic in the U.S. and emphasised that the tragedies must be confronted and talked about.

What Next for Guantanamo?

By Adam Forrest
With hundreds still detained in Guantanamo, the new administration and civil rights groups are looking for ways to deal with the prisoners. Civil rights activists agree that the system of military commissions that allows detainees to be tried outside of international and domestic standards must be put to an end. The remaining prisoners can be tried on federal or military courts. Around 150 prisoners who have already been cleared to leave are refugees and returning to their home countries would put them in danger. Portugal and Albania have accepted a few refugees but no other country has so far. Which leaves one category of detainee left to deal with: those considered too dangerous to release but who lack the evidence against them to be charged. Overall, with the new administration the U.S. is looking to turn around its civil justice system.

The Harvest Food Pantry

By Robert Sondak
The Harvest Food Pantry not only distributes food but offers cooking demonstrations as well. Located at the Cambridgeport Baptist church on Magazine Street, HFP opens its doors two Saturdays a month from 10 am to noon. Families from around Cambridge can come to shop for fresh and canned vegetables, fruit, meats, pasta, bread, pastries, milk and juice. Since January 2007, the Nutrition Outreach Project has sponsored four cooking projects, the last of which was held in October. The demonstration in October showed how to prepare green beans and a kidney bean chili and highlighted the nutritional values of each.

Following Obama, Black Iraquis Run for Office

By: Mohammed Abbas

The Free Iraqi Movement will be the first to put black candidates on the Iraqi ticket for the provincial elections on January 31st. The election will be the first held under Iraqi law since the US overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003. There will be eight black candidates in the running. Obama's election in the US gave many black Iraqis hope for an end to the discrimination they often face.

History of slavery and the issue of ancestry often leave black Iraqis in a position of degradation, and very few have decent jobs. "Abd" is the Arabic word for slave and is still often used, although not always with the intention of being insulting.

The Free Iraqi Movement wishes to ban the word "abd" as it perpetuates the idea of the black as a slave. The movement also is looking to have blacks labeled as aminority which would grant them benefits.

Light skinned Iraqis fail to see the discrimination taking place and believe that blacks are on equal ground.

Time to View Affordable Housing as an Economic Stimulus

By: Paul Boden

Despite promising to instigate the largest public works construction project "since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950's" President Barack Obama has yet to address the issue of homelessness. The plan is speculated to cost between 400 and 700 billion dollars and Obama has so far mentioned working on "schools, sewer systems, mass transit, electical grids, dams and other public utilities as well as green jobs dedicated to creating alternative fuels, windmills and solar panels; building energy efficient appliances or installing fuel-efficient heating or cooling systems." But these words as well as Obama's website fail to give more than a nod to homelessness. Affordable housing should be integrated into the plan and would help to ensure everyone had a roof over their heads.

Nutrition Education Outreach Project

By Robert Sondak

The Nutrition Education Outreach Project began ten years ago with a regional hunger assessment study. The study rated the quality of nutrition programs for children in school based on how well they improved overall health. The project gathered a list of clients from the study and began distributing recipes that utilize all the food groups and provide proper nutrition. Eventually the program grew to include nutrition workshops, cooking classes, and by 2007 were doing demonstrations and taste tests at farmers markets. The program has expanded to five other cities and 15 communities.