24/02/2013
By Lasse Bruun*, Greenpeace – Over the past couple of weeks the ‘horsemeat scandal’ has topped news headlines, revolted consumers and forced retailers and producers to come clean and revise their supply chains.
This is firstly a story of mislabelling, but mostly another insight into the untrustworthy and opaque food industry that is trying to cater to an ever growing appetite for cheap and abundant meat.
The scandal has once again put the spotlight on a broken food system geared to feed luxury food (meat) to already overfed people in the global North, while disregarding the environmental, biodiversity and socioeconomic problems associated with the livestock industry, let alone the dietary needs of the global South.
Today, the global North – countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and Europe – are eating far too much meat and the so-called BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are rapidly catching up, fuelled by the aspirational status eating meat projects.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
24/02/2013
The education of some 700,000 children in Mali has been disrupted due to the violence in the country, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said*, adding that there is an urgent need to rebuild schools, train teachers and provide learning supplies.
A student writes on a chalkboard at a school in Bamako, Mali. Photo: UNICEF/MLIA2012-00888/Tanya Bindra
Northern Mali has been occupied by radical Islamists after fighting broke out in January 2012 between Government forces and Tuareg rebels.
The conflict uprooted hundreds of thousands of people and prompted the Malian Government to request assistance from France to stop the military advance of extremist groups.
Since the violence began over a year ago, at least 115 schools in the north were closed, destroyed, looted and sometimes contaminated with unexploded ordnance. Of the 700,000 children affected, 200,000 still have no access to school, UNICEF said in a news release.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Market Lords, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
1 Comment »
24/02/2013
Russia Today*, 23 February 2013 – For the first time in Syria, 150 Kurdish women have set up a female-only battalion in the northern province of Aleppo, which has seen some of the heaviest fighting since the start of the Syrian uprising in early 2011.
Source: UN
The news comes from a statement by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Saturday [23 February].
While women have been known to fight alongside men in both pro and anti-regime forces – as well as the Kurdish militia, it is the first time they have formed their own fighting unit. An amateur photograph has been circulating on the internet, showing rows of women in military fatigues during training.
The announcement comes a month after the government set up paramilitary units called the National Defense Forces, which have actively been seeking to recruit women of all ages.
This is testimony to the steady increase of women’s numbers in armed units.
They are also becoming very useful in assisting male fighters, as they arouse less suspicion when transporting supplies and weapons.
“Women are fighting on all the fronts now, though it’s possible the Islamist rebel ranks have the fewest women taking part in them,” says Abdel Rahman of the Observatory.
read more »
Posted in Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
23/02/2013
By Peter Schwarz, 23 February 2013, WSWS* – Italian parliamentary elections will be held on Sunday and Monday [24 and 25 February] with the country facing social disintegration.
**Italian comedian Beppe Grillo, founder of the Five Star Movement | Photo credit: Niccolò Caranti | Wikimedia Commons
Italy’s economic output has shrunk by 7 percent since 2008. The unemployment rate has risen over the same period from 6.5 percent to 11.2 percent. The rate for young people is 37 percent.
Last year alone, half a million people lost their jobs. Average per capita income is at the level of 1993. Consumer spending per family has fallen in the last 12 months by an average of €1,391.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
23/02/2013
Cairo (Shahira Amin for RIA Novosti*) – Even though European leaders have been divided over the policy the EU should adopt toward Egypt after free elections brought an Islamist party to power, the EU Council has pledged the union’s continued support for economic growth in countries that have weathered the Arab Spring.
Egyptians protesting in Cairo in January 2011. Photo: Ramy Raoof | United Nations
EU heads of state met in Brussels earlier this month to coordinate stances and adopt a unified position on “support for the Arab Spring countries.”
After two days of deliberations, focusing mainly on the EU budget for the next six years, the EU Council released a statement saying: “EU support is crucial to the promotion of democratic institutions in the countries undergoing transition… EU support is more urgent than ever to help transitions move in the right direction.”
read more »
Posted in Africa, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
23/02/2013
SPECIAL REPORT, EurActiv* – With more than half of Spain’s and Greece’s young people jobless, those with in-demand digital skills are increasingly seeking work in stabler Austria, Germany and the Netherlands.
Image source: EurActiv
Thousands of young Spanish and Greek professionals are leaving their homeland in search of employment. The result is a mass exodus of young, educated Spaniards – a brain drain, the likes of which has not been seen since the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.
Most worrying from a European perspective, they are not simply leaving for northern Europe.
Although firm figures are difficult to come by, Mexico’s immigration office, the Instituto Nacional de Migracion, reports the number of Spaniards granted work permits in the last quarter of 2012 alone at 7,630.
These job migration trends have not gone unnoticed in the European Union, which is struggling with worst unemployment rates in decades following the 2008 financial and economic meltdown.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
23/02/2013
By Transparency International* – What started as the recall of a few dodgy burgers off supermarket shelves in Ireland in January has since become a Europe-wide scandal where the integrity of the food supply chain has been called into question. Consumers want to know how tons of horse meat came to be labelled as beef and then resold across Europe by some of the biggest names in food, including Nestlé and Findus.
Image source; Transparency International
The problem is secrecy.
Unscrupulous people are able to pass off products that aren’t what they say they are along complex supply chains that use shell companies.
In the case of this equine flesh scandal, although the horse meat started its journey labelled as such from a Romanian abattoir, by the time it ended up in France it was transformed into ‘beef’.
Its physical journey had taken it across Europe to the Netherlands and then to France.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
23/02/2013
More than 20 musicians from across the globe* are joining forces with the United Nations to spotlight the importance of empowering women through a song that will be released on International Women’s Day, celebrated on 8 March*.
The celebration of the launch of UN Women in New York in February 2011 concluded with the performance of the song “One Woman.” Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown
The song, entitled “One Woman: A song for UN Women,” was inspired by the stories of women supported by the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) since it began its work in 2011.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
16/02/2013
Gaza City, (IRIN*) – Ahmed Dweik’s family knows a thing or two about the refugee experience.
**Photo: Ahmed Dalloul/IRIN | Israeli bombing of Gaza in November 2012 caused widespread damage
Theirs started in 1948, when his father fled his Palestinian home town as Israeli forces captured the village of West Batani near Ashdod in present-day Israel.
From there, he settled in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, further south, until the 1967 Arab-Israeli war pushed him to search for an easier life abroad. He went first to Egypt to study, then to Yemen to find work.
That is where Dweik was born. But like his father, he too sought better opportunities, migrating to Syria to look for a better paying job and settling close to Yarmouk, the largest camp for Palestinian refugees in Syria.
“But what happened to my father after the 1967 war happened to me in 2012,” Dweik told IRIN.
read more »
Posted in Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
3 Comments »
16/02/2013
By Transparency International* , 14 February 2013 – Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi turned the fight against corruption on its head when he said in a televised interview (following the arrest of the ex-CEO of an Italian defence company) that “Bribes are a phenomenon that exists and it’s useless to deny the existence of these necessary situations.” He added, “These are not crimes. We’re talking about paying a commission to someone in that country. Why, because those are the rules in that country.”
Berlusconi | Source: Transparency International
Paying bribes is a crime not only in Italy, but it is against the law for Italian companies to use cash to grease the wheels of commerce overseas.
Italian law makes clear that bribery by executives is illegal and adds that companies should establish anti-corruption systems to be in compliance with the law. Public officials have a responsibility to not only obey the law, but also speak in support of existing laws, former premiers included.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 