from the May 28, 2009 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0528/p06s04-woap.html
Authorities have effectively disbarred 20 key lawyers who defended Tibetans, Falun Gong members, and other politically sensitive clients.
By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Beijing
Twenty of China's most courageous and outspoken civil rights lawyers face being disbarred next Monday, as judicial authorities reject or delay their applications to renew their professional licenses, according to three of the lawyers affected.
Forbidding them to practice after a May 31 deadline would, at a stroke, decapitate the budding "rights protection movement" that is at the heart of activists' efforts to build a civil society in China.
"If these 20 lose their licenses it would be the biggest step back in legal reform for 20 years," warns Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher with Human Rights Watch based in Hong Kong. "It would be really very dramatic."
The lawyers who have reported problems having their annual licenses renewed have all represented plaintiffs or defendants in politically sensitive cases over the past year, such as members of the banned Falun Gong religious group, parents of children killed at their school desks in the Sichuan earthquake last May, and people arrested in the March 2008 crackdown in Tibet.
What they have in common, says Jiang Tianyong, who recently successfully represented a Tibetan monk charged with concealing weapons, is that "we do not take orders from the [government's] Judicial Affairs Bureau" about which cases to take.
Some, like Wei Liangyue in the northern city of Harbin, who recently served 30 days in prison in connection with the defendant, accused of belonging to Falun Gong, whom he is representing, have already been told by officials that their licences will not be renewed before the deadline.
"They are worried that I will take more Falun Gong cases," says Mr. Wei.
Others, such as Mr. Jiang, have not yet received official notification that they should send their license for renewal. "There is not much time left," he points out, fearful that he will be unable to practice law next week.
Dong Chunjiang, a senior official at the Beijing Judicial Affairs Bureau, refused to answer a reporter's questions about the delay.
Though troublesome lawyers have had problems in the past renewing their licenses, "this year it is more severe," says Patrick Poon, executive secretary of the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group. "These lawyers are taking up a lot of sensitive cases ... and that has touched a nerve in the authorities," he adds.
"More and more lawyers are getting involved in these sorts of cases," says Wen Haibo, who says he fears for his license because of his work on behalf of some of the 50,000-plus children poisoned by Sanlu-brand powdered milk last fall, among other things. "Somebody believes that if this trend continues, the situation will get out of control."
The handful of civil rights lawyers have an impact far beyond their numbers. Of the 120,000 lawyers in China, hardly any take criminal cases, let alone human rights cases. Only a few score lawyers have taken it upon themselves to litigate sensitive cases.
Even if all or most of the controversial group are eventually given new licenses, warns Mr. Bequelin, the affair "will have a chilling effect on lawyers, to deter them from taking sensitive cases.
"You can have all kinds of nice laws, but if people don't dare to take cases to court it defeats the purpose of having rights," he points out. "In China lawyers are walking on thin ice, and we are hearing some cracks that are not very reassuring."
Jiang and other civil rights lawyers say that their firms have come under quiet but strong pressure from the judicial authorities to sack them, or to steer them clear of cases that the government would prefer to see swept under the carpet. Earlier this year a prominent civil rights law firm, Yitong, was closed down for six months on a technicality.
"We are seen as unstable elements in society, and the government wants to maintain superficial harmony and stability," Jiang says.
Silencing lawyers, however, does not resolve the social problems that they bring to court, such as land grabs or other illegal practices by local authorities.
The ranks of civil rights lawyers have swelled in recent years because "they are riding a tectonic shift in the citizenry's view of the law," says Bequelin. "You can shoot the messenger, but that won't change Chinese citizens putting up more of a fight to defend their rights."
Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links
Article;
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0528/p06s04-woap.htm
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Artic Wars; Canada to the World: Hands Off!
May 16, 2009
By DOUG SAUNDERS
As countries scramble to grab a piece of the Arctic, Ottawa is fighting back with an aggressive PR campaign across Europe. The message is simple: This isn't an unclaimed wasteland. It's active, it's a home - and it's ours
LONDON -- dsaunders@globeandmail.com
In London, the lions of Trafalgar Square share space with the towering image of an Inuit woman and her child. In Paris, an inukshuk greets people leaving the Metro. In Oslo, Ottawa is opening an Arctic political office. And in Brussels, officials are fanning out to promote the image of a cold, northern Canada.
The Harper government has launched an aggressive campaign across Europe to brand Canada as an "Arctic power" and the owner of a third of the contested land and resources of the Far North. Ministers and ambassadors have been instructed to deliver a strong message, through every channel available: Canada owns it; hands off.
This new assertiveness has caught European and Russian officials off guard as Ottawa pushes to fend off attempts by other northern powers and the European Union to claim stakes in the Northwest Passage and the open seas of the High Arctic.
While this involves hard diplomacy, such as Canada's leading role in a move to exclude the EU from sitting on the Arctic Council, Mr. Harper's officials have also ordered embassies abroad to mobilize their cultural resources to deliver this policy message, to create a visual image of a fully Arctic Canada.
The stakes are high. Yesterday, Russia released a report arguing that Arctic resources could spark military confrontations, and Canada recently released a major atlas of the Arctic, the result of research intended to back claims of Arctic land ownership under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
"Canada is an Arctic nation and an Arctic power," Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon told European leaders in Tromso, Norway, at the end of April, while directing his diplomats to adopt an assertive new language around Canada's Arctic possessions. Under his instructions, the new phrase "Arctic power" has begun appearing in communiqués and speeches.
The message for Europe's leaders and citizens is simple and abrupt: The Arctic is not up for grabs. "Through our robust Arctic foreign policy," Mr. Cannon said, "we are affirming our leadership, stewardship and ownership in the region."
The word ownership is key. As Arctic jurisdictional disputes make their way through the United Nations, Ottawa wants to assert its claim to be owner of a third of Arctic land, ice and water, as well as any oil and minerals that happen to lie below.
That is by no means a settled matter. The European Parliament recently stated that it is interested in an international treaty on the Arctic, like the one that governs the Antarctic. The United States and Europe both dispute Canada's claim that the Northwest Passage is purely in Canadian territory. France now has a polar ambassador, former prime minister Michel Rocard, even though France's northernmost point is 1,500 kilometres from the Arctic Circle.
And Canadian officials believe that Europeans are hearing a far stronger message from Russia, which has aggressively industrialized and militarized the Far North and claims ownership of the North Pole, than they do from Canada.
Mr. Cannon led the fight to deflect the EU's attempt to become a "permanent observer" on the Arctic Council, which includes the eight Arctic nations: Canada, the United States, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Russia. While Europe's ban on Canadian seal exports was the excuse, officials said there are worries that the 27-nation EU will try to interfere with agreements among the Arctic nations.
Ottawa is also about to open a Canadian International Centre for the Arctic Region in Oslo. This will be an overtly political institution, designed to counter the messages being sent by Europe and Russia. Mr. Cannon announced that the centre, which will also play a research role, will primarily serve to "promote Canadian interests" and "influence key partners" on Arctic-sovereignty issues.
Behind closed doors, Canada's relations with its Arctic neighbours are actually fairly co-operative these days, in large part because all the Arctic nations agreed last year to settle their disputes using the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. While Mr. Harper and Mr. Cannon have used Cold War-style rhetoric to publicly excoriate Russia for its expansionist ambitions, in private Canada's diplomats have begun meeting again with Russia, after a period of silence, albeit to a limited degree. And Nordic and Canadian diplomats say that the Arctic Council members agreed on most important matters last week.
That is partly because the Arctic has become a closed club, and the new threat to its integrity comes from outside.
"Europeans need to learn that the Arctic is not terra incognita, it is not like the Antarctic," said Peter Harrison, who until last year was the senior federal bureaucrat responsible for Arctic affairs, and now holds a position at Queen's University.
"Many people in Europe believe they should take a role in governing areas that are not anyone's territory. Well, the Arctic happens to be owned by the countries around it, and a third of it is in Canadian territory,"
To get that message across, Canada is devoting a sizable share of its European cultural-diplomacy resources on highly visible projects designed to persuade Europeans that Canada is, and always has been, a northern-oriented country with a human presence in the Arctic.
This is partly intended to correct the image of an open and up-for-grabs Arctic that Mr. Cannon believes is held by many European citizens and leaders. But it also helps establish a "use it or lose it" principle under international law: If sovereignty is challenged in parts of the Far North, Canada needs to show that it has had an active state and citizen presence there. By displaying images of Canadians living and working in the Arctic, Canada establishes a "boots on the ground" reality in European minds.
This is the new public face of Mr. Harper's northern strategy, a government-wide campaign to expand and defend Canada's ownership of its share of the Far North. At home, this involves setting up military bases in the Arctic, patrolling the territory with aerial, satellite and human surveillance, and expanding into the thousands the size of the Arctic Rangers, a semi-volunteer force that sends "sovereignty patrols" into the Far North. And overseas, it involves publicizing this human presence on the ice as widely and strongly as possible, making it appear to be established Canadian territory.
At a meeting in Copenhagen last year, the major Canadian embassies in Europe agreed to launch co-ordinated Arctic-oriented cultural campaigns to deliver Canada's message of assertive Arctic proprietorship. Under the rules of the Harper government, cultural programs abroad must be used to advance policy goals, and Arctic sovereignty is considered a top goal at the moment.
This has led Canada to sponsor or organize a bonanza of polar events in Europe, beginning this season. In Trafalgar Square, Canada House has been given over to a widely publicized exhibition devoted to the art, people and general Canadian-ness of Nunavut; similar exhibitions are taking place in France, Belgium, Germany and Norway.
The message isn't subtle. Visitors are told explicitly that the Inuit dancers, sculptures, photographs and tapestries are being shown to "promote Canada's Arctic foreign-policy priorities."
It also means inserting those priorities into museum exhibitions. Later this month, the London high commission is sponsoring a major exhibition at the Royal Maritime Museum in Greenwich devoted to exploration of the Northwest Passage. The sponsorship is meant to deliver the message that the passage is now fully Canadian territory, not international waters.
Paris is one of several cities to play host to Canadian government events commemorating the 10th anniversary of the territory of Nunavut, including art shows and numerous visits to European countries from Inuit leaders. Governor-General Michaëlle Jean has recently completed a tour of Norway, and several other Arctic programs will be under way this summer across Europe.
These projects risk clashing with Canadian tourism and investment campaigns designed to show that Canada is a modern, urban country with close ties to U.S. markets, and with arts organizations that are discovering that non-Arctic projects are not a priority in Europe at the moment.
But the policy goal is considered paramount. The Russians have taken a leading stand in claiming ownership of contested Arctic territory, with President Dmitry Medvedev telling his country's military leaders last fall that Russia's "first and fundamental task" is to "turn the Arctic into a resource base for Russia in the 21st century."
While Russia and Norway have sizable populations living in the Arctic and considerable industrial and military developments, Canada needs to make a more creative claim of its presence there, officials say.
To that end, they have borrowed a strategy from Norway, whose Arctic agenda, beginning in 2002, set out to promote the Nordic country as a predominantly Arctic place. Norway devotes considerable diplomatic energy to promoting its Arctic image, bringing foreign visitors for tours of its highly populated cities above the Arctic Circle, and building institutions to bring Arctic nations together. The reason, Norwegians say, is that there is a worry that if they don't claim the North, other nations will do it instead.
"After the end of the Cold War, the relevance of the Arctic really fell to a minimum with many administrations," said Kristine Offerdal, a fellow with the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies. "That's why Norway really began pushing the Arctic agenda so much: when our allies didn't have eyes on the region, there was a fear in the Norwegian government that our country would be marginalized."
The best way to secure its ownership of its Arctic regions, Norway's government realized, was to broadcast that ownership as widely and loudly as possible. "Norway felt a need to make itself more visible in the North, and to put Norway's High North region on the map in Washington and Brussels and other major cities."
Mr. Cannon's new language is, in some ways, modelled after Norway's. On the other hand, it often takes on aggressive, threatening, even militaristic tones, such as on Thursday, when he rebuffed Russia's study about military confrontation over the Arctic by declaring on a visit to Asia that he would do anything to protect Canada's Arctic sovereignty.
But much more of his money and energy are devoted to fending off possible challengers who don't own a piece of the Arctic.
"Much to my astonishment, there are still among some European member states people who think that there's nobody who inhabits the North, so therefore I've made a point of going to any international meeting, whether it be on Antarctica, the one that we had in Washington not long ago," Mr. Cannon said on Wednesday, in an interview with the Ottawa magazine Embassy. "Everybody previously said, 'Oh yeah, that's nice, it's the North.' Well, we're out there doing something about it, and, personally, this is one of my priorities."
Because they see this international attitude as a problem, the Harper government, and all its ministers, diplomats and officials, have begun a program to send the world a message. In part it is an encouraging, positive message, designed to contrast Canada with Russia and make us sound like a credible voice on Arctic affairs. Canadian officials say they want to project an image of Canada as a responsible, more ecologically careful and aboriginally oriented steward of the Far North.
But at its core is a far more simple and relentless message: It may be empty and cold and inaccessible, but it's got a red-and-white flag on it.
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?clipid=288302908&mode=cnc&tag=3.7441%3Ficx_id%3D%2FLAC.20090516.ARCTIC16ART0005%2FTPStory
By DOUG SAUNDERS
As countries scramble to grab a piece of the Arctic, Ottawa is fighting back with an aggressive PR campaign across Europe. The message is simple: This isn't an unclaimed wasteland. It's active, it's a home - and it's ours
LONDON -- dsaunders@globeandmail.com
In London, the lions of Trafalgar Square share space with the towering image of an Inuit woman and her child. In Paris, an inukshuk greets people leaving the Metro. In Oslo, Ottawa is opening an Arctic political office. And in Brussels, officials are fanning out to promote the image of a cold, northern Canada.
The Harper government has launched an aggressive campaign across Europe to brand Canada as an "Arctic power" and the owner of a third of the contested land and resources of the Far North. Ministers and ambassadors have been instructed to deliver a strong message, through every channel available: Canada owns it; hands off.
This new assertiveness has caught European and Russian officials off guard as Ottawa pushes to fend off attempts by other northern powers and the European Union to claim stakes in the Northwest Passage and the open seas of the High Arctic.
While this involves hard diplomacy, such as Canada's leading role in a move to exclude the EU from sitting on the Arctic Council, Mr. Harper's officials have also ordered embassies abroad to mobilize their cultural resources to deliver this policy message, to create a visual image of a fully Arctic Canada.
The stakes are high. Yesterday, Russia released a report arguing that Arctic resources could spark military confrontations, and Canada recently released a major atlas of the Arctic, the result of research intended to back claims of Arctic land ownership under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
"Canada is an Arctic nation and an Arctic power," Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon told European leaders in Tromso, Norway, at the end of April, while directing his diplomats to adopt an assertive new language around Canada's Arctic possessions. Under his instructions, the new phrase "Arctic power" has begun appearing in communiqués and speeches.
The message for Europe's leaders and citizens is simple and abrupt: The Arctic is not up for grabs. "Through our robust Arctic foreign policy," Mr. Cannon said, "we are affirming our leadership, stewardship and ownership in the region."
The word ownership is key. As Arctic jurisdictional disputes make their way through the United Nations, Ottawa wants to assert its claim to be owner of a third of Arctic land, ice and water, as well as any oil and minerals that happen to lie below.
That is by no means a settled matter. The European Parliament recently stated that it is interested in an international treaty on the Arctic, like the one that governs the Antarctic. The United States and Europe both dispute Canada's claim that the Northwest Passage is purely in Canadian territory. France now has a polar ambassador, former prime minister Michel Rocard, even though France's northernmost point is 1,500 kilometres from the Arctic Circle.
And Canadian officials believe that Europeans are hearing a far stronger message from Russia, which has aggressively industrialized and militarized the Far North and claims ownership of the North Pole, than they do from Canada.
Mr. Cannon led the fight to deflect the EU's attempt to become a "permanent observer" on the Arctic Council, which includes the eight Arctic nations: Canada, the United States, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Russia. While Europe's ban on Canadian seal exports was the excuse, officials said there are worries that the 27-nation EU will try to interfere with agreements among the Arctic nations.
Ottawa is also about to open a Canadian International Centre for the Arctic Region in Oslo. This will be an overtly political institution, designed to counter the messages being sent by Europe and Russia. Mr. Cannon announced that the centre, which will also play a research role, will primarily serve to "promote Canadian interests" and "influence key partners" on Arctic-sovereignty issues.
Behind closed doors, Canada's relations with its Arctic neighbours are actually fairly co-operative these days, in large part because all the Arctic nations agreed last year to settle their disputes using the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. While Mr. Harper and Mr. Cannon have used Cold War-style rhetoric to publicly excoriate Russia for its expansionist ambitions, in private Canada's diplomats have begun meeting again with Russia, after a period of silence, albeit to a limited degree. And Nordic and Canadian diplomats say that the Arctic Council members agreed on most important matters last week.
That is partly because the Arctic has become a closed club, and the new threat to its integrity comes from outside.
"Europeans need to learn that the Arctic is not terra incognita, it is not like the Antarctic," said Peter Harrison, who until last year was the senior federal bureaucrat responsible for Arctic affairs, and now holds a position at Queen's University.
"Many people in Europe believe they should take a role in governing areas that are not anyone's territory. Well, the Arctic happens to be owned by the countries around it, and a third of it is in Canadian territory,"
To get that message across, Canada is devoting a sizable share of its European cultural-diplomacy resources on highly visible projects designed to persuade Europeans that Canada is, and always has been, a northern-oriented country with a human presence in the Arctic.
This is partly intended to correct the image of an open and up-for-grabs Arctic that Mr. Cannon believes is held by many European citizens and leaders. But it also helps establish a "use it or lose it" principle under international law: If sovereignty is challenged in parts of the Far North, Canada needs to show that it has had an active state and citizen presence there. By displaying images of Canadians living and working in the Arctic, Canada establishes a "boots on the ground" reality in European minds.
This is the new public face of Mr. Harper's northern strategy, a government-wide campaign to expand and defend Canada's ownership of its share of the Far North. At home, this involves setting up military bases in the Arctic, patrolling the territory with aerial, satellite and human surveillance, and expanding into the thousands the size of the Arctic Rangers, a semi-volunteer force that sends "sovereignty patrols" into the Far North. And overseas, it involves publicizing this human presence on the ice as widely and strongly as possible, making it appear to be established Canadian territory.
At a meeting in Copenhagen last year, the major Canadian embassies in Europe agreed to launch co-ordinated Arctic-oriented cultural campaigns to deliver Canada's message of assertive Arctic proprietorship. Under the rules of the Harper government, cultural programs abroad must be used to advance policy goals, and Arctic sovereignty is considered a top goal at the moment.
This has led Canada to sponsor or organize a bonanza of polar events in Europe, beginning this season. In Trafalgar Square, Canada House has been given over to a widely publicized exhibition devoted to the art, people and general Canadian-ness of Nunavut; similar exhibitions are taking place in France, Belgium, Germany and Norway.
The message isn't subtle. Visitors are told explicitly that the Inuit dancers, sculptures, photographs and tapestries are being shown to "promote Canada's Arctic foreign-policy priorities."
It also means inserting those priorities into museum exhibitions. Later this month, the London high commission is sponsoring a major exhibition at the Royal Maritime Museum in Greenwich devoted to exploration of the Northwest Passage. The sponsorship is meant to deliver the message that the passage is now fully Canadian territory, not international waters.
Paris is one of several cities to play host to Canadian government events commemorating the 10th anniversary of the territory of Nunavut, including art shows and numerous visits to European countries from Inuit leaders. Governor-General Michaëlle Jean has recently completed a tour of Norway, and several other Arctic programs will be under way this summer across Europe.
These projects risk clashing with Canadian tourism and investment campaigns designed to show that Canada is a modern, urban country with close ties to U.S. markets, and with arts organizations that are discovering that non-Arctic projects are not a priority in Europe at the moment.
But the policy goal is considered paramount. The Russians have taken a leading stand in claiming ownership of contested Arctic territory, with President Dmitry Medvedev telling his country's military leaders last fall that Russia's "first and fundamental task" is to "turn the Arctic into a resource base for Russia in the 21st century."
While Russia and Norway have sizable populations living in the Arctic and considerable industrial and military developments, Canada needs to make a more creative claim of its presence there, officials say.
To that end, they have borrowed a strategy from Norway, whose Arctic agenda, beginning in 2002, set out to promote the Nordic country as a predominantly Arctic place. Norway devotes considerable diplomatic energy to promoting its Arctic image, bringing foreign visitors for tours of its highly populated cities above the Arctic Circle, and building institutions to bring Arctic nations together. The reason, Norwegians say, is that there is a worry that if they don't claim the North, other nations will do it instead.
"After the end of the Cold War, the relevance of the Arctic really fell to a minimum with many administrations," said Kristine Offerdal, a fellow with the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies. "That's why Norway really began pushing the Arctic agenda so much: when our allies didn't have eyes on the region, there was a fear in the Norwegian government that our country would be marginalized."
The best way to secure its ownership of its Arctic regions, Norway's government realized, was to broadcast that ownership as widely and loudly as possible. "Norway felt a need to make itself more visible in the North, and to put Norway's High North region on the map in Washington and Brussels and other major cities."
Mr. Cannon's new language is, in some ways, modelled after Norway's. On the other hand, it often takes on aggressive, threatening, even militaristic tones, such as on Thursday, when he rebuffed Russia's study about military confrontation over the Arctic by declaring on a visit to Asia that he would do anything to protect Canada's Arctic sovereignty.
But much more of his money and energy are devoted to fending off possible challengers who don't own a piece of the Arctic.
"Much to my astonishment, there are still among some European member states people who think that there's nobody who inhabits the North, so therefore I've made a point of going to any international meeting, whether it be on Antarctica, the one that we had in Washington not long ago," Mr. Cannon said on Wednesday, in an interview with the Ottawa magazine Embassy. "Everybody previously said, 'Oh yeah, that's nice, it's the North.' Well, we're out there doing something about it, and, personally, this is one of my priorities."
Because they see this international attitude as a problem, the Harper government, and all its ministers, diplomats and officials, have begun a program to send the world a message. In part it is an encouraging, positive message, designed to contrast Canada with Russia and make us sound like a credible voice on Arctic affairs. Canadian officials say they want to project an image of Canada as a responsible, more ecologically careful and aboriginally oriented steward of the Far North.
But at its core is a far more simple and relentless message: It may be empty and cold and inaccessible, but it's got a red-and-white flag on it.
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?clipid=288302908&mode=cnc&tag=3.7441%3Ficx_id%3D%2FLAC.20090516.ARCTIC16ART0005%2FTPStory
Monday, May 18, 2009
Protesters Picket Opras Studio after "Free Chicken Fiasco"
Even US News & World Report observed that promoting KFC whose chickens are held in "tightly-packed coops where the chickens are often unable to stand up or move," could be viewed as "hypocritical."
Outside Oprah's Harpo Studios in Chicago a day after the coupon offer, protestors held signs saying "KFC Tortures Animals" and "KFC's Secret Recipe: Animal Cruelty" showing pictures of bloody and Godforsaken chickens in a demonstration organized by Mercy For Animals.
"Birds raised and killed for KFC spend their short lives crowded by the tens of thousands in filthy, ammonia-filled sheds," say press materials. "Many of them endure crippling leg disorders and heart and lung problems induced by being genetically manipulated and dosed with massive amounts of growth-promoting antibiotics to grow to an unnatural size and at a dangerous rate."
Nor do any federal laws exist "to protect chickens from cruelty during their lives on factory farms, during transport, or at the slaughterhouse," adds Nathan Runkle, executive director of Mercy For Animals since chickens, turkeys, and other birds are excluded from USDA humane slaughter laws and not considered "animals." Hello?
Slaughterhouse workers confirm the cruelty.
The birds know exactly what is going on, they say, struggling when you take them out of their crates and shackle them upside down to the conveyer and struggling as the conveyer inches them toward the blade. Some birds miss the blade entirely and are boiled alive in defeathering tanks the chicken industry admits--two percent according to Gourmet magazine or180 million a year.
By Martha Rosenberg
Martha is a writer and cartoonist from the Chicago area.
Click on title above for article with videos of protest; http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=20090517_oprah_kfc_martha_rosenberg.htm
Outside Oprah's Harpo Studios in Chicago a day after the coupon offer, protestors held signs saying "KFC Tortures Animals" and "KFC's Secret Recipe: Animal Cruelty" showing pictures of bloody and Godforsaken chickens in a demonstration organized by Mercy For Animals.
"Birds raised and killed for KFC spend their short lives crowded by the tens of thousands in filthy, ammonia-filled sheds," say press materials. "Many of them endure crippling leg disorders and heart and lung problems induced by being genetically manipulated and dosed with massive amounts of growth-promoting antibiotics to grow to an unnatural size and at a dangerous rate."
Nor do any federal laws exist "to protect chickens from cruelty during their lives on factory farms, during transport, or at the slaughterhouse," adds Nathan Runkle, executive director of Mercy For Animals since chickens, turkeys, and other birds are excluded from USDA humane slaughter laws and not considered "animals." Hello?
Slaughterhouse workers confirm the cruelty.
The birds know exactly what is going on, they say, struggling when you take them out of their crates and shackle them upside down to the conveyer and struggling as the conveyer inches them toward the blade. Some birds miss the blade entirely and are boiled alive in defeathering tanks the chicken industry admits--two percent according to Gourmet magazine or180 million a year.
By Martha Rosenberg
Martha is a writer and cartoonist from the Chicago area.
Click on title above for article with videos of protest; http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=20090517_oprah_kfc_martha_rosenberg.htm
Thursday, May 14, 2009
War or Peace in the Middle East?
Subject: Will Obama do as he’s told?
Message from our good Friend Ricken Patel the founder of http://www.facebook.com/l/;Avaaz.org!
Dear friends,
The Middle East is poised between war and peace as Obama prepares to meet Israel's PM Netanyahu. The only hope is for Obama to take a bold lead for peace, but Israel's foreign minister says Obama will do as he’s told. Watch and support the new TV ad calling for an Obama plan for mid-east peace:
Click here to watch
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOqtCU4zYMs
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will face US President Obama for the first time – in a meeting that could make the difference between war and peace in the Middle East.[1]
Ordinary Israelis and Palestinians still want peace, and polls show they want Obama to lead.[2] Experts agree that only such strong leadership from Obama can forge an agreement now, but powerful extremists in the region and the US stand in his way. Israel’s far-right foreign minister is even boasting that Obama will do as he’s told.[3]
On Monday we’ll find out – Netanyahu will ask Obama to take a back seat in a new flawed process designed to fail. We urgently need to show Obama that ordinary people in the region and around the world will back him to exercise a strong and fair leadership role – click below to watch the new TV ad campaign and help saturate the US airwaves with it in the next 72 hours:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;https://secure.avaaz.org/en/obama_for_peace
The situation in the Middle East is dire – the King of Jordan warned yesterday that there are only two choices now – war or peace.[4] Israel’s new governing coalition has extremists in the driving seat and is seeking war with Iran and Hamas, while promoting illegal settlement (a euphemism for colonization) and de facto annexation of Palestinian land – corralling Palestinians into small pockets and subjecting them to constant harassment. Gaza remains under crippling blockade, unable even to get the materials to rebuild from the destruction of the war. Palestinians have flawed and divided leadership and are caught between the corruption of the secular Fatah leadership and extremism among the religious Hamas, and small numbers of rockets continue to be fired at Israel. Ordinary people on both sides are losing hope in a peaceful two-state solution to end the 40 year occupation and conflict.
But there is hope. New polls show clear majorities of support for Obama to lead a new peace effort, and a recent extensive consultation by the Avaaz team in the region confirmed that on all sides people want Obama to rescue the situation with a fair peace proposal and pressure on both sides to agree to it. Powerful extremists in Israel and the US are determined to block this last chance at peace. Their new strategy: avoid directly opposing Obama, but feign a new interest in peace and bog him down in endless talks that are designed to fail.
We can’t let that happen. There has never been a powerful worldwide movement for peace in Israel-Palestine that can challenge the extremists and back leaders like Obama to do the right thing. Let’s get this ad on the air, and let Obama and everyone else know that this movement is coming:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;https://secure.avaaz.org/en/obama_for_peace
With hope and determination,
Ricken, Paul, Raluca, Brett, Raj, Alice, Pascal, Graziela, Luis, Ben, Paula, Iain and the rest of the Avaaz team.
1. Bloomberg, “Obama to Confront Israeli Settlement Surge in Netanyahu Meeting”:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=abPE7AMWQTWQ&refer=home
2. Avaaz’s own polls on this are about to be released – also see e.g. Yediot Aharonot poll, May 2009:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3715759,00.html
Hebrew University of Jerusalem polls:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.forward.com/articles/105046/
3. Lieberman’s statement that the US will follow Israel’s lead was made to Russia’s Moskovskiy Komsomolets – see The Forward, 22 April 2009:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;https://secure.avaaz.org/en/Middle_East_Obama_Plan
4. “King Abdullah of Jordan's ultimatum: peace now or it’s war next year", The Times of London, 11 May 2009:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6262080.ece
-------
Message from our good Friend Ricken Patel the founder of http://www.facebook.com/l/;Avaaz.org!
Dear friends,
The Middle East is poised between war and peace as Obama prepares to meet Israel's PM Netanyahu. The only hope is for Obama to take a bold lead for peace, but Israel's foreign minister says Obama will do as he’s told. Watch and support the new TV ad calling for an Obama plan for mid-east peace:
Click here to watch
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOqtCU4zYMs
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will face US President Obama for the first time – in a meeting that could make the difference between war and peace in the Middle East.[1]
Ordinary Israelis and Palestinians still want peace, and polls show they want Obama to lead.[2] Experts agree that only such strong leadership from Obama can forge an agreement now, but powerful extremists in the region and the US stand in his way. Israel’s far-right foreign minister is even boasting that Obama will do as he’s told.[3]
On Monday we’ll find out – Netanyahu will ask Obama to take a back seat in a new flawed process designed to fail. We urgently need to show Obama that ordinary people in the region and around the world will back him to exercise a strong and fair leadership role – click below to watch the new TV ad campaign and help saturate the US airwaves with it in the next 72 hours:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;https://secure.avaaz.org/en/obama_for_peace
The situation in the Middle East is dire – the King of Jordan warned yesterday that there are only two choices now – war or peace.[4] Israel’s new governing coalition has extremists in the driving seat and is seeking war with Iran and Hamas, while promoting illegal settlement (a euphemism for colonization) and de facto annexation of Palestinian land – corralling Palestinians into small pockets and subjecting them to constant harassment. Gaza remains under crippling blockade, unable even to get the materials to rebuild from the destruction of the war. Palestinians have flawed and divided leadership and are caught between the corruption of the secular Fatah leadership and extremism among the religious Hamas, and small numbers of rockets continue to be fired at Israel. Ordinary people on both sides are losing hope in a peaceful two-state solution to end the 40 year occupation and conflict.
But there is hope. New polls show clear majorities of support for Obama to lead a new peace effort, and a recent extensive consultation by the Avaaz team in the region confirmed that on all sides people want Obama to rescue the situation with a fair peace proposal and pressure on both sides to agree to it. Powerful extremists in Israel and the US are determined to block this last chance at peace. Their new strategy: avoid directly opposing Obama, but feign a new interest in peace and bog him down in endless talks that are designed to fail.
We can’t let that happen. There has never been a powerful worldwide movement for peace in Israel-Palestine that can challenge the extremists and back leaders like Obama to do the right thing. Let’s get this ad on the air, and let Obama and everyone else know that this movement is coming:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;https://secure.avaaz.org/en/obama_for_peace
With hope and determination,
Ricken, Paul, Raluca, Brett, Raj, Alice, Pascal, Graziela, Luis, Ben, Paula, Iain and the rest of the Avaaz team.
1. Bloomberg, “Obama to Confront Israeli Settlement Surge in Netanyahu Meeting”:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=abPE7AMWQTWQ&refer=home
2. Avaaz’s own polls on this are about to be released – also see e.g. Yediot Aharonot poll, May 2009:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3715759,00.html
Hebrew University of Jerusalem polls:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.forward.com/articles/105046/
3. Lieberman’s statement that the US will follow Israel’s lead was made to Russia’s Moskovskiy Komsomolets – see The Forward, 22 April 2009:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;https://secure.avaaz.org/en/Middle_East_Obama_Plan
4. “King Abdullah of Jordan's ultimatum: peace now or it’s war next year", The Times of London, 11 May 2009:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6262080.ece
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
USDA FY2010 budget would cut land stewardship work
Tue May 12, 2009 6:24pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration would cut nearly $700 million from land stewardship programs at the Agriculture Department, a small-farm and an environmental group said on Tuesday after examining budget proposals.
Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said the proposals would cut "a very healthy chunk out of the $5 billion increase" provided for stewardship programs in the 2008 farm law.
The Environmental Working Group, which favors more money for stewardship, said the cuts "undermine the administration's goals of reducing global warming, cleaning up waterways and restoring balance and integrity to environmental programs."
In separate statements, the groups listed the proposed cuts as:
-- $250 million from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which helps control field and feedlot runoff.
-- lowering enrollment in the Wetlands Reserve by 138,000 acres, which should save $350 million over the life of the farm law.
-- $43 million from the Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program.
-- $30 million from the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, which helps buy easements to keep land in farms.
-- $5 million from the Agricultural Management Assistance Program.
(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by David Gregorio)
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE54B7AS20090512
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration would cut nearly $700 million from land stewardship programs at the Agriculture Department, a small-farm and an environmental group said on Tuesday after examining budget proposals.
Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said the proposals would cut "a very healthy chunk out of the $5 billion increase" provided for stewardship programs in the 2008 farm law.
The Environmental Working Group, which favors more money for stewardship, said the cuts "undermine the administration's goals of reducing global warming, cleaning up waterways and restoring balance and integrity to environmental programs."
In separate statements, the groups listed the proposed cuts as:
-- $250 million from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which helps control field and feedlot runoff.
-- lowering enrollment in the Wetlands Reserve by 138,000 acres, which should save $350 million over the life of the farm law.
-- $43 million from the Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program.
-- $30 million from the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, which helps buy easements to keep land in farms.
-- $5 million from the Agricultural Management Assistance Program.
(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by David Gregorio)
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE54B7AS20090512
Katz on Dogs
by Jonah Goldberg
Harry Truman famously said of D.C.: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." It turns out that Truman was wrong, at least if you go by the experts.
I'm not talking about Washington, but of dogs. And I'm not referring to the First Dog, Bo, who has received a ton of attention that should have gone to a shelter dog as the president promised. No, this is about dogs as dogs.
And love.
As traditional arrangements dissolve in the heat of the present age, or perhaps just under the hot studio lights of "Oprah," we are constantly told that there are many "kinds of love." Actually, this isn't a new insight. But we can leave that -- and the debate over this observation's meaning and utility -- for another day. What rankles is not where the line is being extended but where it is being withdrawn.
Until the day before yesterday, figuratively speaking, everyone understood that among the most honorable expressions of love -- a kind of love -- is the relationship between man and dog. Canines were lovers of learning for being able to distinguish friend from foe, according to Plato. Sigmund Freud observed that "dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate."
Charles Darwin, a true secular saint of the modern age if ever there was one, loved dogs unreservedly. And, in "The Descent of Man," he marveled at the ability of dogs to love back. He noted how even "in the agony of death, a dog has been known to caress his master."
But even Darwin was a sucker, apparently. Eric Zorn, a writer for the Chicago Tribune, recently mocked a local woman, Jess Craigie, who dove into near-freezing waters to save her dog from drowning. Zorn wrote, "Note to Jess Craigie: Your dog still doesn't love you."
Zorn's source for this dog slander is Jon Katz, who despite his name has written mostly wonderful stuff about dogs. Zorn uses an unfortunate quote from Katz to peddle the fashionable notion that dogs are, in the words of science writer Stephen Budiansky and others, "social parasites." According to this theory, canines are evolutionary grifters that have fooled humans into believing they are our friends. "Dogs develop very strong, instinctive attachments to the people who feed and care for them," Katz told Zorn. "Over 15,000 years of domestication, they've learned to trick us into thinking that they love us." (In his book "Soul of a Dog," Katz is far more nuanced about the nature of canine affection, suggesting a quid pro quo of food for love. Here, Katz is out of the bag.)
Look, few would dispute that dogs are complicated creatures with internal lives that fall far short of humanlike consciousness or self-awareness. And anyone who's spent more than five minutes with dogs knows their priorities and our own differ dramatically. That's part of the magic of doggy goodness. Dogs don't care whether you're rich or famous or popular. They care about you. Or, in the case of my dog, Cosmo (a shelter dog), he cares about me and about maintaining an orderly and secure perimeter on our block, as free of mail carriers, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, cheetahs and wildebeests as possible. His biggest successes have been with the cheetahs and wildebeests -- so far.
Here's the question reductionists like Zorn don't answer: Why does canine affection have to be a trick or a con? After all, according to the very same logic, I love my wife and daughter because I have strong instinctive attachments for them grounded in my genes. But even if the genetic explanation is absolutely true, it doesn't change the fact that I love my family.
Why should it be different with dogs? It's not as if dogs have a Terminator-like computer screen inside their heads that says "run fake-love subroutine now" when their masters come home from work. Dogs don't pose in front of the mirror practicing their tail-wags like lines from a script so they can make it convincing. If it is true of any living thing, it is true of dogs: They are what they are. A happy dog can no more be faking his joy than a hungry lion could be faking his appetite.
Do we really want to live in a society in which love is a genetically mandated confidence game? Where will that argument take us?
Indeed, if embracing modernity means I have to accept such unlovely idiocy, count me out. I'll be elsewhere. If you need me, just follow the sound of the barking.
http://townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2009/05/13/katz_and_dogs
Harry Truman famously said of D.C.: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." It turns out that Truman was wrong, at least if you go by the experts.
I'm not talking about Washington, but of dogs. And I'm not referring to the First Dog, Bo, who has received a ton of attention that should have gone to a shelter dog as the president promised. No, this is about dogs as dogs.
And love.
As traditional arrangements dissolve in the heat of the present age, or perhaps just under the hot studio lights of "Oprah," we are constantly told that there are many "kinds of love." Actually, this isn't a new insight. But we can leave that -- and the debate over this observation's meaning and utility -- for another day. What rankles is not where the line is being extended but where it is being withdrawn.
Until the day before yesterday, figuratively speaking, everyone understood that among the most honorable expressions of love -- a kind of love -- is the relationship between man and dog. Canines were lovers of learning for being able to distinguish friend from foe, according to Plato. Sigmund Freud observed that "dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate."
Charles Darwin, a true secular saint of the modern age if ever there was one, loved dogs unreservedly. And, in "The Descent of Man," he marveled at the ability of dogs to love back. He noted how even "in the agony of death, a dog has been known to caress his master."
But even Darwin was a sucker, apparently. Eric Zorn, a writer for the Chicago Tribune, recently mocked a local woman, Jess Craigie, who dove into near-freezing waters to save her dog from drowning. Zorn wrote, "Note to Jess Craigie: Your dog still doesn't love you."
Zorn's source for this dog slander is Jon Katz, who despite his name has written mostly wonderful stuff about dogs. Zorn uses an unfortunate quote from Katz to peddle the fashionable notion that dogs are, in the words of science writer Stephen Budiansky and others, "social parasites." According to this theory, canines are evolutionary grifters that have fooled humans into believing they are our friends. "Dogs develop very strong, instinctive attachments to the people who feed and care for them," Katz told Zorn. "Over 15,000 years of domestication, they've learned to trick us into thinking that they love us." (In his book "Soul of a Dog," Katz is far more nuanced about the nature of canine affection, suggesting a quid pro quo of food for love. Here, Katz is out of the bag.)
Look, few would dispute that dogs are complicated creatures with internal lives that fall far short of humanlike consciousness or self-awareness. And anyone who's spent more than five minutes with dogs knows their priorities and our own differ dramatically. That's part of the magic of doggy goodness. Dogs don't care whether you're rich or famous or popular. They care about you. Or, in the case of my dog, Cosmo (a shelter dog), he cares about me and about maintaining an orderly and secure perimeter on our block, as free of mail carriers, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, cheetahs and wildebeests as possible. His biggest successes have been with the cheetahs and wildebeests -- so far.
Here's the question reductionists like Zorn don't answer: Why does canine affection have to be a trick or a con? After all, according to the very same logic, I love my wife and daughter because I have strong instinctive attachments for them grounded in my genes. But even if the genetic explanation is absolutely true, it doesn't change the fact that I love my family.
Why should it be different with dogs? It's not as if dogs have a Terminator-like computer screen inside their heads that says "run fake-love subroutine now" when their masters come home from work. Dogs don't pose in front of the mirror practicing their tail-wags like lines from a script so they can make it convincing. If it is true of any living thing, it is true of dogs: They are what they are. A happy dog can no more be faking his joy than a hungry lion could be faking his appetite.
Do we really want to live in a society in which love is a genetically mandated confidence game? Where will that argument take us?
Indeed, if embracing modernity means I have to accept such unlovely idiocy, count me out. I'll be elsewhere. If you need me, just follow the sound of the barking.
http://townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2009/05/13/katz_and_dogs
AU Fires Claim Animals Lovers & Their Animals
Funeral honours fire victims' love of animals
Geoff Strong
May 13, 2009
Horse-drawn hearses marked Sue Evans' and Robert O'Sullivan's kindness to animals. Photo: Pat Scala
There was always room for animals in the lives of Sue Evans and Robert O'Sullivan. Family friend Karen Crabtree reminisced: "They loved all species, equine, canine, reptile or human."
Yesterday, while friends of the human kind gathered to remember the couple killed in the February 7 fires, four of the equine variety delivered their remains to the tiny Church of St Margaret's in Eltham.
Ms Evans and Mr O'Sullivan were among five people who died when the Black Saturday inferno roared over a ridge and across their Strathewen property about 6pm. It also claimed the lives of Ms Evans' son Jon LeGassick and his friends Haydn McMahon and Kaya Mehmedoff.
At yesterday's funeral, to honour the couple's love of animals, their bodies were taken to and from the church in a pair of 19th century horse-drawn hearses.
The couple's own horses all perished in the fire, along with the family's dogs and chickens.
Ms Evans' brother Paul said two of the horses were found and buried by Grocon, the company that has volunteered to clear all the bushfire-destroyed properties.
The couple had bought their 16 hectares high in the Strathewen hills, near the boundary of the Kinglake National Park about four years ago. They did not just care about animals in the abstract, they nursed injured wildlife and ran a pet shop in Diamond Valley.
Through tears, Ms Evans' mother, Vicky, described her daughter as a compassionate person with a love for family, friends and animals.
Mr O'Sullivan's sister Leonie Moody described a shy young man who left his native Perth to make a home in Melbourne.
"But I find I have spent more intense time with my brother over the last three months, than during his life," she said. "The main consolation I have is that I know he would have been a happy man before his death."
http://www.theage.com.au/national/funeral-honours-fire-victims-love-of-animals-20090512-b1w7.h
Geoff Strong
May 13, 2009
Horse-drawn hearses marked Sue Evans' and Robert O'Sullivan's kindness to animals. Photo: Pat Scala
There was always room for animals in the lives of Sue Evans and Robert O'Sullivan. Family friend Karen Crabtree reminisced: "They loved all species, equine, canine, reptile or human."
Yesterday, while friends of the human kind gathered to remember the couple killed in the February 7 fires, four of the equine variety delivered their remains to the tiny Church of St Margaret's in Eltham.
Ms Evans and Mr O'Sullivan were among five people who died when the Black Saturday inferno roared over a ridge and across their Strathewen property about 6pm. It also claimed the lives of Ms Evans' son Jon LeGassick and his friends Haydn McMahon and Kaya Mehmedoff.
At yesterday's funeral, to honour the couple's love of animals, their bodies were taken to and from the church in a pair of 19th century horse-drawn hearses.
The couple's own horses all perished in the fire, along with the family's dogs and chickens.
Ms Evans' brother Paul said two of the horses were found and buried by Grocon, the company that has volunteered to clear all the bushfire-destroyed properties.
The couple had bought their 16 hectares high in the Strathewen hills, near the boundary of the Kinglake National Park about four years ago. They did not just care about animals in the abstract, they nursed injured wildlife and ran a pet shop in Diamond Valley.
Through tears, Ms Evans' mother, Vicky, described her daughter as a compassionate person with a love for family, friends and animals.
Mr O'Sullivan's sister Leonie Moody described a shy young man who left his native Perth to make a home in Melbourne.
"But I find I have spent more intense time with my brother over the last three months, than during his life," she said. "The main consolation I have is that I know he would have been a happy man before his death."
http://www.theage.com.au/national/funeral-honours-fire-victims-love-of-animals-20090512-b1w7.h
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