Archive for November 20th, 2018

20/11/2018

‘Traditional Chinese Medicine Helps to Promote Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, Using Organic and Herbal Products Often Grown by Small-Scale Family Farmers’

Human Wrongs Watch

ROME (FAO)* Traditional Chinese medicine plays an important role in sustainable agriculture and food systems, in that it offers a holistic approach to prevent diseases while making use of organic and herbal products often grown by small-scale family farmers, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva, said on 17 November 2018.

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Graziano da Silva addresses the 15th World Congress of Chinese Medicine, in Rome

Speaking at the 15thWorld Congress of Chinese Medicine held in Rome, the FAO Director-General noted that achieving Zero Hunger is not just about feeding all people in the world by 2030, but it means nourishing people with the necessary nutrients for a healthy lifestyle.

This, he added, also requires tackling the current obesity pandemic, which has resulted from an increased consumption of industrialized and processed food, with high levels of salt, sugar and other additives.

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20/11/2018

Brexit Bankroller Arron Banks, Cambridge Analytica and Steve Bannon – Explosive Emails Reveal Fresh Links

Human Wrongs Watch

By Peter Geoghegan*

Brexit donor asked controversial Trump-linked data firm to ‘come up with strategy’ for fundraising in the US – and gave them access to personal information about British voters, according to new leaked emails

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Arron Banks. Image, BBC, fair use| Image from openDemocracy.

17 November 2018 (openDemocracy)* – Brexit bankroller Arron Banks’s close relationship with the controversial data firm Cambridge Analytica – and the key role played by former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon in the early days of Banks’s Brexit campaign – have been laid bare in explosive new emails obtained by openDemocracy.

Banks, who is currently under investigation by the National Crime Agency over the sources of his £8.4m Brexit donation, told parliament in June that he had “initial discussions” with the controversial data firm Cambridge Analytica but “did not take up their services”.

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20/11/2018

Costs of Post-9/11 U.S. Wars to 2019: $5.9 Trillion

Human Wrongs Watch

By Neta C. Crawford | Watson Institute, Brown University – TRANSCEND Media Service*

The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $5.9 trillion on the war on terror through Fiscal Year 2019, including direct war and war-related spending and obligations for future spending on post-9/11 war veterans.

This number differs substantially from the Pentagon’s estimates of the costs of the post-9/11 wars because it includes not only war appropriations made to the Department of Defense – spending in the war zones of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and in other places the government designates as sites of “overseas contingency operations,” – but also includes spending across the federal government that is a consequence of these wars.

Specifically, this is war-related spending by the Department of State, past and obligated spending for war veterans’ care, interest on the debt incurred to pay for the wars, and the prevention of and response to terrorism by the Department of Homeland Security.

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20/11/2018

Pledging to Plog around Asia

Human Wrongs Watch

20 November 2018 (UN Environment)*When Chakravorty, a 31-year-oldjournalist at the Indian Express, discovered that plastic pollution is so pervasive that it affects our food supply, he was shocked.

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Photo from UN Environment

“I was staggered to say the least,” he explains.

“I felt that writing about the issue was not enough, so I decided to embark on a plogging journey—a combination of jogging with picking up litter.”

India was the global host for the 2018 World Environment Day, and Chakravorty felt it made perfect sense to add more momentum to the global movement against plastic pollution by adding his own inputs to it.

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20/11/2018

Sanctions as Collective Punishment

Human Wrongs Watch

By John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service

We Treat Nations as though They Were Individuals

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, collective punishment is war crime. Article 33 states that “No protected person may be punished for an offense that he or she did not personally commit.”

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Countries sanctioned in some form by the US | JojotoRudess |11 March 2015 | CC BY-SA 4.0

At present, we treat nations as though they were persons: We punish entire nations by sanctions, even when only the leaders are guilty, even though the burdens of the sanctions fall most heavily on the poorest and least guilty of the citizens, and even though sanctions often have the effect of uniting the citizens of a country behind the guilty leaders.

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20/11/2018

Ending Inequality Means Ending ‘Global Pandemic’ of Violence against Women – UN Chief

Human Wrongs Watch

Until women and girls can live free of fear, violence and insecurity, the world cannot pride itself on being fair and equal, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on 19 November 2018, commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, marked annually on 25 November.

UN Women | Graphic illustrating the #HearMeToo campaign

“At its core, violence against women and girls in all its forms is the manifestation of a profound lack of respect­ – a failure by men to recognize the inherent equality and dignity of women,” Guterres said at a special event at UN Headquarters observing the Day, which highlights that violence against women is as serious cause of death and incapacity as cancer, among women of reproductive age.

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