Link's latest episode of Latin Pulse/Pulso Latino travels to Toribio, Colombia, symbol of the indigenous resistance movement following a devastating attack by FARC guerillas in 2005. With their land under attack, occupied by guerillas, paramilitaries, and police, the Naza Indians native to this region in Southern Colombia are struggling to pick up the pieces. The dangers for civilians remain high in Colombia's Cauca region, as FARC guerillas, drug traffickers and police continue to do battle, including this recent attack in Buenos Aires, Cauca, Colombia.

This video footage comes from Colombian TV program Contravia, led by investigative journalist Hollman Morris, who was featured in this previous Latin Pulse interview. The Foundation for a New Iberian-American Journalism, an organization founded by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, awarded this episode of Contravia its highest prize in 2007 for journalistic excellence.

The term "Green Revolution" is associated nowadays with the increased level of environmental consciousness: businesses changing their operations to incorporate more environmental practices, and the advent of environmental consumerism. Actually the "Green Revolution" was a 1960's term that referred to new varieties of rice and wheat for developing countries that were more drought and pest resistant, more responsive to advanced fertilization methods, and ultimately produced higher yielding crops. A comprehensive report [PDF] on the Green Revolution by the International Food Policy Research Institute describes the background and history of this movement.
 
This "Revolution" was a great way to increase yields of wheat and rice production, alleviate hunger and provide an income to poverty-stricken farming communities in developing countries. But now, 4 decades later, other problems are arising. The land is no longer arable due to the excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides, polluted waterways, salt build-up and eventual loss of biodiversity on farms. The people forced to leave their land are known as environmental migrants or climate refugees. More details on the environmental impacts of the Green Revolution can be found on Wikipedia.

Developing countries, such as Bangladesh and Ethiopia, that could be considered to be among the least responsible for major climate change, are the ones that are being the hardest hit. A video report created by the U.N. Development Program explains the relationship between human development and climate change.

Rice farmers in Bangladesh have lost their crops due to excessive flooding, while farmers in Ethiopia are praying for rain, all resulting in more poverty, starvation and refugees as land becomes less and less arable.
 
However, Indian farmers have taken matters into their own hands by shunning modern agricultural technologies and going back to their traditional ways of farming. According to this article on NPR’s website, an Indian farmer named Sharma enjoyed 20 years of an increase in crop yields and subsequent income as a result of the Green Revolution. Then his soil began to deteriorate and he needed to buy more and more fertilizers to grow the same amount of crops. He soon realized that the only way to sustain his crops was to go organic. In another article, the Guardian states that "Sustainable agriculture involves hard work and does not guarantee huge profits, but it will not harm the farmers' health, brings personal satisfaction, and involves fewer financial risks."
 
The U.S., as one of the world’s largest consumers, can take a stand in reducing its own unsustainable agricultural practices and become a model for other nations, by increasing the demand for organic farming and native plant propagation. The Slow Food Organization is a great international proponent of eating locally grown and prepared foods. Furthermore, if we as citizens of this country demand more government subsidies for organic farmers, then perhaps sustainable farming will gain significant momentum. Here is an article that points to how little the government supports organic farming. The International Society for Cow Protection talks about how the future lies in organic farming, and industrial farming practices are becoming less and less attractive, especially for small farmers. This video indicates how the future might look if we adopt organic farming practices fully. It seems bright indeed!

And learn more about the current state of the food crisis on our dedicated Issue page.

Countries all over the world continue the push to explore the final frontier: space.  In the post-Cold War era, India, China and Japan have entered the race. Why go to space? Are there not enough expensive problems on Earth? National pride and security seem to be the obvious reasons, and the lure of untapped mineral resources.

In an article on NPR’s website, Roger Launius, the senior curator in Space History at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. says, "The moon was just another place for the Cold War to play out... We really went to the moon because of the geo-political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union -- a competition on a broad front between two superpowers over control of the world."

Now that the Cold War has ended, the need to travel and explore space has grown more complex. The space race is no longer confined to the Moon; it includes establishing space stations, satellites for telecommunications and exploring planets, asteroids and meteors as well. Increasingly, the role of exploring space is driven by a need to augment knowledge about the physical universe in order to support the Earth. India, a developing country that has shown significant advancement in space technology, has been launching satellites that have been playing a supporting role in agriculture, water resources, urban development, mineral prospecting, environment, forestry, drought and flood forecasting, ocean resources and disaster management, according to an article on CNN’s website. India's space program founder, Vikram Sarbhai, said 60 years ago, "We are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society."

On the economical side of things, there are many mineral rich regions on the Moon and possibly other planets that could supplement the Earth's energy needs, therefore leading to a large economic boost for countries that hold rights to these resources. An article on Wikipedia says, "The Moon is thought to be rich in Helium-3, which could one day be used in nuclear fusion power plants to fuel future energy demands in Asia, which harbors over 60 percent of the world's population and is among its fastest-growing economies." As a result, China has been focused on sending its taikonauts to the Moon. Another article on NPR's website reported Ouyang Ziyuan, the lead scientist with China's Lunar Exploration Program, saying that the aim of China's space program is clear: to advance the country's economic and scientific development. Ouyang says, "We could meet the whole world's energy needs with a hundred tons of helium-3 a year. That means we could supply the Earth with enough energy for 10,000 years."  This is a significant finding, in view of the world's current energy crisis, such as the dwindling oil supplies and increasing climate overload.

Considering the reasons above, the quest for newer resources of energy outside our planet might be a justifiable expense. The International Space Station is a good example of cooperation between nations. Here, space travelers from many different countries work together in cooperation, while governments on Earth continue their rivalries and wars. As Carl Sagan, an American astronomer and popular science writer said, "A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet. One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time."

This week, the final episode of the fascinating BBC series African School airs on Tuesday, July 21st at 4:30pm PST and Wednesday at 8:30pm PST. This chapter centers on the diverse ambitions of three Masindi pupils as they enter the most crucial time of the school year: exams. Young Anifa hopes to attend secondary school and has one last chance to pass the exams; Esther struggles to win a government scholarship, her only hope for nursing college; and Patrick, less interested in his school career, focuses on his music. Find out what happens on the final installment of African School.

African School might be out for summer, but school definitely isn't out forever. If you've enjoyed following the daily lives of young Africans and their teachers in the Ugandan town of Masindi, stay tuned for Indian School, beginning next week. Indian School takes us to Kalmadi Shamrao High School and Rewachand Bhojwani Academy in Pune, near Mumbai, into the lives of India's "rising generation." The series gets delves into India's middle class, exploring their dreams and anxieties in a mercurial world.

The first episode of Indian School, The New Boy, airs Tuesday, July 28th at 4:30pm PST.

Check out the conclusion of Super 30, a documentary about the Ramamujan Academy in Bihar, India. Bihar is India’s poorest state. Fewer than half its 90 million inhabitants can sign their own name. Yet this extraordinary academy takes a small number of impoverished Bihari children each year and prepares them to seek admission to one of the toughest universities in the world, the Indian Institutes of Technology.

This program premieres TONIGHT at 11PM Eastern/8PM Pacific, and is available to watch online in its entirety here.

The Mumbai attacks took place within the context of a long struggle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir - an element often overlooked by US news reports. So our sources this week include Times Now, India; South Asia Newsline, India; Dawn TV, Pakistan; and Press TV, Iran.
 
- Global Pulse -

This week, Global Pulse will examine the roots of the Mumbai terror attacks in the long-running conflict between India and Pakistan over the territory of Kashmir.

As more details emerge from South Asia, we discover that the nine Mumbai gunmen were Pakistani men in their 20s with ties to the Lashkar-e-Taiba guerilla group, which Indian government officials claim has helped wage a proxy war for Pakistan in Kashmir.

But Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, writing in a New York Times Op-Ed yesterday, tries to shift the world's attention away from Kashmir and towards his country's border with Afghanistan, where he argues the true source of global terror lies. By focusing on the Pakistani army's fight against al-Qaeda, Zardari attempts to elicit sympathy for his government's role in combating global terror attacks.

Meanwhile in India this week, the ruling Congress Party won an unexpected victory in 3 of 5 state elections, including in Delhi. The results may mean that the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been unsuccessful in claiming the government was ill-prepared to prevent last month's attacks.

This week we have a wonderful film on Cinemondo, called Vanaja. Why am I mentioning this on our world music page? It's because Vanaja has some wonderful music and dance in it. It opens up with an almost extinct art form, called Burra Katha, a kind of storytelling entertainment once common in Andhra Pradesh, where the movie was filmed. As the story progresses, the main character, a 14 year old girl takes up Kuchipudi  dancing, and I personally think this stuff is utterly mesmerizing. The precision of each movement, as it relates to the complexities of the musical accompaniment is a pleasure to watch. There are many different kinds of Indian dance (as demonstrated by the video by Sona Mohapatra "Ishq Nachaya" and Vanaja gives us an opportunity to gain insight into one of them - and it's a great story, too!

What better way to usher in the Summer than with some videos that take us on the road? World Music Block #53 starts out with Spain's Dusminguet packing their instruments for a bucolic outing, then Zdob si Zdub, from Moldova, offer up a retro hommage to state sponsored music. Next we have one of our viewers' favorites, "Manne Ke Manjeere" about the first female lorry driver in India, followed by a rooftop bash in Brazil with Silverio Pessoa. We cap it off with a madcap street chase from Mano Negra, the group that gave Manu Chao his platform to becoming a soloist and superstar.

There you have it - a globetrotting road trip... without using a single drop of fuel!