Volunteering — coming together as a community, and supporting your local needy. As the old saying has it, “charity begins at home”. However, organizing this can be a bit tricky in its own right, and before you know it you don’t have nearly as long left to actually do some good. Of course, if you volunteer as part of a team effort with colleagues, it’s likely to be far more fun.

Companies like Adaptive Marketing LLC, that developed financial and shopping benefits programs like Shopping Essentials (MVQ*SHOPESSNTLS), are forming the organizing points enabling their employees to find the time to pitch in. When you think about company-supported charitable effort, you probably think of blood drives, maybe an annual donation drive, but this is no longer true in today’s world. Athletic shoe recycling initiatives and more energetic campaigns like tree replanting days — these and other activities have been organized by Adaptive Marketing for its workforce. Once all the pertinent information — time, date, location, specifics, et cetera — had been publically announced it became very simple for staff members to work out the actual amount of time they could give and how they’d be using it. There should always be a opportunity to select initiatives, naturally. Firms who provide this kind of service to their community like Adaptive Marketing, allow their staff members to select from a diverse list of projects in their area. Previous and current projects have included work in a wide assortment of areas including aid and assistance for children and young adults, environmental awareness activities, and events helping local arts and culture. A volunteer who has fun is an effective volunteer, so through offering so many programs Adaptive Marketing guarantee that their staff members will make progress on all the initiatives. Typically, when businesses recommend their workforce to think about volunteering at a local school, it tends to be for a specific event or a regular task. Members of staff may well say they have no time to give, though we’d be surprised if they genuinely can’t find enough resources to lend a hand with one instalment of a long term project.

We’re sure you’ve heard a number of tales of companies finding ways of helping the people who live around them. A sense of community goodwill is generated by the volunteer participation of Adaptive Marketing’s members of staff through these company-sponsored initiatives. One thing volunteer work is sure to do is leave your workforce feeling good about themselves, which leads to a motivated firm.

New Orleans Hornets superstar point guard Chris Paul joined forces with global hunger relief group Feed The Children to give 400 Winston-Salem families boxes of provisions and other essential items on Friday, 25th of September 2009 at the Gray Stadium. It is the least that one can do to aid the recession-struck US community in these tough times. Indeed, on that day, former Wake University player Chris Paul made a considerable impact outside the basketball.

The truck distribution was held in concurrence with the yearly Chris Paul’s Winston-Salem Weekend, which is a fundraising occasion for the Hornet’s star guard CP3 Foundation. The foundation persistently supports a wide mixture of programs and associations in the Winston-Salem community. The CP3 Foundation is affiliated with the Feed The Children partner agency and has pre-recognized all 400 families that it will aid. The boxes are intended to supplement the sustenance needs of each family for at least a week.

Feed The Children had nothing except warm gratitude for NBA star. “We are so grateful for Chris Paul and his CP3 Foundation… Four hundred families will receive food because of this generous gift of kindness. We send our most sincere ‘Thank you!’ to Chris and the CP3 Foundation!”

Studies performed on healthy, premenopausal women in the Netherlands established that Yaz, Yasmin, and Ocella (generic Yaz) suffered an increased risk of venous thrombosis as compared to non-users. The risks were increased as high as fivefold with oral contraceptive pills. These studies were published in August 2009. This was solely the beginning of the controversy surrounding Yaz, Yasmin, and Ocella and the resultant lawsuits to come involving Yaz side effects.

Mass Tort is simply civil lawsuit that encompasses a number of complainants. This process is taken against one or more corporate litigants in court. Unlike a class action where a group of people take it upon themselves to bring forth litigation jointly, in mass tort the original plaintiffs and law firms use mass media outlets to reach other possible plaintiffs that they would not ordinarily meet. Those television and websites wondering if you are a loved one have been effected by a particular product are the result of mass tort status.

Lesser know birth control side effects such as SVT (Supraventricular tachycardia) and organ injury or failure (Gallbladder, Pancreas, Liver, Kidney) have also been reported as a result of using Ocella, Yasmin and Yaz. With the clinical studies available on the internet, it is more important than ever to arm yourself with knowledge before deciding if a pharaceutical is right for you. Something as ever-present as ‘the pill’ can cause serious damage or even kill you if you are not mindful.

Conventional industries buy in large quantities item with the intention to resell. Peace T-Shirts A non-profit organization can use the big cost savings afforded by wasted and wholesale commodities to heighten the end solution, and take more money reserves to give easier social services. There are one major forms of non-profit organizations: churches, colleges and universities, social service supplier (e.g. Red Cross, homeless shelter), and issue based systems such as environmental arrangements and governmental activity commissions. All these two grow money in akin ways, they can charge a fee for their functions untold as a university and heighten money from donors, or be funded wholly or part from government funds. In some case, the majority of arrangements are searching for the tallest bang for the money when buying products for the organization’s annual functioning. Wholesale intersections can stretch a non-profit organization’s dollars by catering affordable selections to retail products. These organizations take productions to give functions, to address fund promoting natural actions, and to cope regular trade operations like establishment. Before offering a promiscuous purchasing opportunity to an NPO, a promiscuous good should think of products in his or her stock that will suit an organization’s need. Aim a feel at the coming instances:

For several years the Liberal Democrats have been calling for
proportional representation in the British parliament. As
Britain’s third largest party they would have the most to gain,
leaving people to ask whether first past the post is really the
fairest voting system?

Proportional representation looks at the total amount of votes
cast per party, rather than per candidate. For example, in the
2001 general election the Conservatives gained 31.7% of the
vote, but only 25.2% of the seats in the House of Commons. If
proportional representation had been in place there would have
been more Conservative MPs. So why is it that the Liberal
Democrats are calling for P.R. and the Conservatives aren’t?

P.R. benefits protest groups and single-issue parties. Groups
like the British National Party could pick up MPs even if they
came last in the actual elections. For proportional
representation to work candidates would not be selected for a
constituency, but for an area, similar to the European election
system. Voters would feel further removed from the process and
having the right candidate would have little effect. The
electorate would purely be making a party vote. As a system it
can be said to alienate voters from their elected
representatives and means that a candidate who has done no work
could be selected just because of their placing on a closed
party list.

On the other hand, democratically, it makes the electorate feel
that no vote is wasted. In a seat with a 25,000 Labour majority
for example, Conservative voters might stay at home at a general
election, knowing their candidate has very little chance of
getting in. With P.R. every single vote would count and politics
would be seen much less as a two horse race. The United Kingdom
Independence Party and the Green Party both have MEPs through
P.R., but no MPs through first past the post.

Different electoral systems have their benefits. It would be
unwise for any party to make too sudden a move however for short
term gain. The London mayoral and European elections have shown
how confused the public can be with all this experimenting with
new systems.

Tony Blair has introduced seven different types of P.R. since
Labour came to power in 1997. If a Labour defeat seems likely at
the next general election there is a very good chance that the
Labour Government will push for P.R., in coalition with the
Liberal Democrats. Change for short-term gain is never a good
strategy and serious thought needs to be given to how this would
affect democracy and accountability in the long run.

The market for small arms and light weapons has completely overlapped the cocaine market. Purchases for arms are no longer made with cash but with cocaine, and the same routes used to smuggle cocaine out of South America are used to smuggle guns in. Actors far and wide rush to meet the weapons demand created by continued conflict in Colombia.

What used to be two separate cash-for-product markets has blended into one nearly perfect market.

Due to the conflict in Colombia, perfect elasticity of demand exists for anyone who can smuggle guns into Colombia. And the market there will absorb any and all weapons at the going rate, which in this case is measured not in cash but kilos of pure cocaine for one functioning rifle.

The incentive to smuggle guns into Colombia is doubled because the cocaine received in exchange for guns is consistently in high demand. Trading one product - guns - in high demand for another - cocaine - with even higher demand is good business.

This market is inherently transnational, beyond the control of any single government.

While the word waits for the next terrorist attack in the US or Western Europe, the black market for cocaine and weapons continues to erode democratic institutions in Latin America, breeding corruption, instability, and, ultimately, contempt for elected officials.

The ready availability of small arms and light weapons in both South and Central America coupled with the lack of police presence on borders and in backwater areas makes the market a very fluid one.

What used to be a system of limited purchases for cash - made largely to individual gun smugglers by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the paramilitary United Auto-Defense forces of Colombia (AUC) - has turned in to bulk purchases of weapons paid for with pure cocaine. The suppliers range from Central American street gangs and Mexican mafia to Brazilian organized crime groups and Islamic radicals in Trinidad and Tobago.

Honduran police seized 218 weapons and over 50,000 rounds of ammunition in April last year, uncovering a slick guns-for-cocaine operation while adding evidence to the pile that puts Honduras at the center of Central American black market operations. Police seized 161 M-16 assault rifles, 26 Soviet-era AK-47 rifles, 11 US M-60 machine guns, nine grenade launchers for attachment to the M-16 rifle, and five portable grenade launchers, among other things. These weapons were to be exchanged for one to two metric tons of pure cocaine.

The Honduran government believes that these weapons were destined for the FARC. Police in Honduras claim that a functional M-16 or AK-47 is worth around seven pounds of pure cocaine. Using information gathered from interrogations, Honduran police conclude that cocaine that lands there is worth some US$1,350 a pound, while a rifle is worth over US$9,000.

According to the United Nations Office of Drug Control’s 2005 World Drug Report, US retail prices averaged at US$71 a gram, or US$34,050 a pound, in 2003. While this price has most likely gone down since 2003, it is still possible to conclude that gun smugglers stand to earn tens of thousands of dollars on every rifle traded for cocaine as long as they are able to get that cocaine into the US.

A recent study sponsored by the Small Arms Survey concluded that there may be as many as two million illegal weapons in circulation in Central American countries.

Due to the relative high supply of pure cocaine coming out of Colombia and a stable market for cocaine in the US, anyone with a rifle, a cell phone, and some secure trade routes stands to make good money. Any individual or group busted for smuggling is quickly replaced by another. This cycle will last as long as there is demand for cocaine, a supply of weapons, and individuals willing to move both.

Current estimates place the number of FARC fighters between 13,000 and 17,000. Despite the AUC disarmament process in Colombia, there still remain between 3,000 and 7,000 men at arms; counting those believed to be demobilized, this number jumps to 30,000.

In Brazil, where organized crime has come to control the gun and drug trade, there is an increasing demand for both products. In Rio de Janeiro alone, analysts who study violence in the shantytowns estimated in 2003 that there were at least 10,000 armed gang members. This number has likely grown significantly.

Organized crime actors in Brazil purchase weapons from providers in the tri-border area joining Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. There are so many black market weapons in Brazil that organized crime has been trading weapons for pure cocaine with the FARC since 2000. Some claim this barter system originated in a deal between the Red Command crime faction in Rio de Janeiro, and members of the FARC in southeastern Colombia.

Recent studies conclude that there are some four million illegal weapons in the hands of organized crime in Brazil. Brazil’s demand for cocaine has grown, placing the country at the top of the list of worldwide cocaine markets, behind only the US. Both the CIA and Interpol agree that up to 60 per cent of the cocaine that enters Brazil stays in Brazil, while the rest lands in Europe, Africa, and in some cases the Middle East and Asia.

Venezuela, known as a major cocaine transit country, extends this black market east from Colombia as far as Trinidad and Tobago, where radical Islamic groups are believed to be heavily involved in gun smuggling.

This twin market extends as far north as border towns between the US and Mexico. Nuevo Laredo, just across the border from Laredo, Texas, has recently been the focal point of violence between rival gangs there and local police. Mexican involvement in the region’s black market creates a soft underbelly along a 2,000-mile boundary across which anything of any size can be smuggled.

Tens of thousands of illicit actors propagate a market that proves to be highly lucrative, flexible, and networked. There is no center, no head, no leader to kill.

Counting all the countries involved just in the Americas, there are over 11 governments independently working to improve national security. Plan Colombia, the region’s high-profile arrangement between the US and Colombia to reduce cocaine supply and diminish the FARC’s presence, is a failure. The plan has stimulated markets for guns and cocaine rather than reduce demand in the US or the military capability of the FARC in Colombia.

In fact, the FARC is stronger now than ever. Supply for cocaine has not diminished, nor have prices soared as originally planned. In fact, increased militarization in Colombia has exacerbated the problem, stimulating the demand for black market guns in Colombia. Militarization is the leading policy for Mexico, Brazil, and Central America, where organized crime and street gangs are running amuck.

The escalation of violence is the only outcome for military solutions to what are essentially social problems. More violence demands more guns, more guns means more cocaine, and so on. This cycle has continued for decades, and will only get worse until leaders work together to seek alternative policies to deal with a massive black market that is quite clearly out of control.

Sam Logan (http://www.samuellogan.com) is an investigative journalist who has covered security, energy, politics, economics, organized crime, terrorism, and black markets in Latin America since July 1999. He has reported from Santiago, Caracas, Brasilia, and Buenos Aires. He lives in Rio de Janeiro.