Bee-harming pesticides banned in Europe | | guardian.co.uk

Bee-harming pesticides banned in Europe | Environment | guardian.co.uk

A bee collects pollen from a sunflower in Utrecht, the Netherlands. EU states have voted in favour of a proposal to restrict the use of pesticides linked to serious harm in bees. Photograph: Michael Kooren/Reuters

Europe will enforce the world's first continent-wide ban on widely used insecticides linked to serious harm in bees, after a European commission vote on Monday.
The landmark suspension is a victory for millions of environment campaigners concerned about dramatic declines in bees who were backed by experts at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). But it is a serious defeat for the chemical companies who make billions a year from the products and also UK ministers - who voted against the ban. Both had argued the ban will harm food production.
The vote by the 27 member states of the European Union to suspend the insect nerve agents was supported by 15 nations, but did not reach the required majority under EU voting rules. The hung vote hands the final decision to the European commission (EC) who will implement the ban. "It's done," said an EC source.

Take Action | International Labor Rights Forum, Bangladesh garment factories

Take Action | International Labor Rights Forum

Join us in calling on Walmart, H&M and Gap, the largest buyers of clothing made in Bangladesh, to make immediate safety improvements in their supplier factories by joining the legally-binding Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement. All three retailers have been involved in the scourge of factory disasters in Bangladesh.
Right now, scores of garment workers are still trapped under the rubble of a building in Bangladesh which housed six factories making clothes for dozens of US and European brands. These workers were denied their right to refuse dangerous work: they were told they would lose a month’s pay if they didn’t report to work the day after cracks appeared in the walls. Over 370 people have perished as a result of Wednesday’s tragedy, and it remains unclear how many more victims will lose their lives as the rescue operation continues.
The disaster at Rana Plaza is now the deadliest incident in the garment industry in known history. It is but one in a series of disasters that could have been preventable, had the largest apparel buyers learned from earlier tragedies and adopted the safety measures urged by unions and labor rights groups. In April 2005, 64 workers died when their warnings were ignored and Spectrum factory collapsed. In February 2010, 21 workers were killed in the fire at Garib & Garib, a factory that supplied H&M. In December 2010, 29 workers perished in the That’s It Sportswear factory fire, where burned remnants of Old Navy clothing (a Gap Inc. brand) was found. Then, just last fall disaster struck again. The fire at Tazreen, a supplier to Walmart and Sears, took the lives of 112 garment workers. These are only four of the dozens of preventable incidents that have taken garment workers’ lives in Bangladesh. This pattern of fires and building collapses will not end unless retailers make real change in their sourcing practices.

Protect Canadians' Health: Ban BPA! | Environmental Defence

Protect Canadians' Health: Ban BPA! | Environmental Defence  
Follow link above for petition:

To the Honourable Peter Kent, Minister of the Environment and the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health
I am writing to you today about the recent Canada Health Measures Survey that found bisphenol A (BPA) in 95% of Canadians.
While I applaud the government's decision to get rid of bisphenol A in baby bottles, I'm concerned that children and adults are still being exposed to this harmful chemical. International organizations, expert panels and more than 150 peer-reviewed studies have associated bisphenol A with a variety of health problems -- obesity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, breast cancer and a wide range of developmental problems -- often at low levels of exposure.
I urge you to show the world, once again, that Canada is a leader when it comes to protecting our children's health from harmful chemicals: develop full-fledged regulatory measures that will get rid of bisphenol A from all food and beverage containers and from other sources, such as cash register receipts.

From Texas to Dhaka, economic exploitation continues to spill blood

From Texas to Dhaka, economic exploitation continues to spill blood | Deborah Orr | Comment is free | The Guardian
"...An individual carrying out a mass shooting or planting a bomb – that's news, that's blameworthy, that's deserving of justice for the victims. But when business is the culprit, fingerpointing is deemed less important. Which is odd, in a way. Humanity may never quite be fully able to say which disturbed and angry people are truly dangerous. .."
But good management of industrial risk is eminently achievable. An explosion at the West Fertilizer Company in Texas earlier this month killed 14 people and injured many others. Just a terrible accident that could not have been foreseen? Perhaps. But the factory had been fined by US regulators last year for its sloppy safety arrangements, eventually coughing up just $5,250 (£3,400).
In 2006, the factory was investigated after an "odour complaint". It was found to have been using controlled materials without authorisation. The filing of an application to use the dangerous substances legally instead of illegally resolved the issue. In retrospect, these interventions by regulators seem pretty paltry, although the reasons for the accident have not yet been ascertained.
Nevertheless, the factory's parent company, Adair Grain Inc, has been sued by insurance companies on behalf of a number of individuals, in a lawsuit that claims the company "was negligent in the operation of its facility, creating an unreasonably dangerous condition, which led to the fire and explosion".
The collapse of an eight-storey clothing factory in Dhaka this week is a much greater disaster. On Friday, as many as 2,000 bodies had been pulled from the rubble, nearly 300 of them dead. Estimates suggest that there may have been as many as 5,000 workers in the building. Witnesses say they had been told to return to work after reporting that a crack had appeared in one of the walls. One can't help wondering whether the building had simply never been built to withstand the weight of 5,000 people and their machinery.
Clearly, no heed had been paid by management to the deaths of 112 workers in a garment factory fire in a nearby suburb, Ashulia, last November. A day of mourning for the dead was declared in Dhaka, but a few months on, a bigger disaster with greater casualties has occurred. This time, a day of mourning was declared for the entire country.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out what's going on in Bangladesh. It's the second-largest exporter of clothing in the world after China. The secret of success in both countries is that cheap, skilled labour turns out clothes that are of excellent quality, yet retail at sums that are peanuts in the west. Monthly pay in the Bangladesh garment industry can be as little as £25 a month, while £25 can buy two or three nice outfits on the high street in Britain. Primark has confirmed that one of its suppliers worked from the building, while Matalan says it had used companies in the building in the recent past. Again, no surprise. Pressure groups have been trying to name and shame western suppliers into driving up health and safety standards among workers in the developing world for decades now, with some success, but not as much as they'd like to see.

Fracking Debris Ten Times Too Radioactive for Hazardous Waste Landfill | Common Dreams

Fracking Debris Ten Times Too Radioactive for Hazardous Waste Landfill | Common Dreams
The scariest thing here: Pennsylvania, which is currently studying radiation contamination associated with fracking wells, claims to be the only state that even requires landfills to monitor radiation levels.

A truck carrying cuttings from a Pennsylvania fracking site was quarantined at a hazardous-waste landfill and sent back after its contents triggered a radiation alarm showing the load was emitting 96 microrem of radiation per hour; the landfill rejects waste with levels above 10 microrems. The radioactive material from a site in the Marcellus Shale formation was radium 226, a common contaminant from the decay of uranium-238 that tends to accumulate in bone and can get into water. Officials said “everything was by the book in this case" because the alarm went off as designed; the fracking operators can now either re-apply at that landfill or take their deadly waste to an out-of-state facility that accepts it - and yes, they exist.

Maude Barlow in Toronto April 27, Water Forum

NOW Magazine is calling this one of the city's "can't miss" events!

Last year at this time, the Council launched its Great Lakes Need Great Friends speaking tour right here in Toronto. This marks the return of the tour, and an opportunity for us to build on the great momentum that has been generated to protect water in our communities.

What: 2013 Great Lakes Commons Water Forum
When: Saturday, April 27 from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Where: Harbourfront Centre (235 Queens Quay W, Toronto)
Admission: $10 (or pay what you can)
Guest speaker: Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and others

Harper government presses Obama to approve Keystone XL pipeline

Harper government presses Obama to approve Keystone XL pipeline | rabble.ca

Today, on this Presidents Day weekend, tens of thousands are set to converge on the White House in what organizers are promoting as "the largest climate rally in U.S. history." The protesters will be calling on Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. For the first time in its 120 year history, the million member Sierra Club has endorsed civil disobedience actions on that day.
Alongside one of this country's biggest corporations, Stephen Harper's government has entangled Canada in one of the most controversial decisions of Obama's presidency. The Conservatives have lobbied vigorously in support of Calgary-based TransCanada's plan to build a $7 billion pipeline to take up to 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
The prime minister has pressed Obama to approve Keystone XL while his ministers have visited Washington to pursue the matter with the Secretary of State. During two visits to Washington in recent weeks foreign minister John Baird said Keystone XL was his main priority.
Canada's ambassador in Washington, Gary Doer, has also spent a large amount of his time pushing the pipeline, prompting TransCanada to send him a "thank you" note on August 30, 2011. "Gary," reads an email from the pipeline firm, "I just wanted to send a quick note to thank you and your team for all of the hard work and perseverance in helping get us this far, I know it has made a big difference."
The ambassador responded to critical media commentary and pressed state officials to support the pipeline. When Nebraska's Republican governor Dave Heineman initially came out against the project Doer visited him in Omaha. Similarly, the 28 members of Congress who urged the State Department to consider the "major environmental and health hazards" posed by Keystone XL received an immediate letter from Canada’s ambassador and Alberta's minister of intergovernmental relations. "I believe it necessary to address several points in your letter," Doer wrote. The ambassador's letter trumpeted Canada's plan to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. "[This is] a benchmark we intend to meet," Doer wrote, even though planned tar sands expansion will make this objective impossible to reach.
Canada's 22 consular offices in the US have also been ordered to take up the cause. When the New York Times ran an editorial titled "Say No to the Keystone XL" Canada's consul general in New York wrote a letter supporting the project.

Environmental Activists Pose Security Threat: Canadian Government |

Environmental Activists Pose Security Threat: Canadian Government | Common Dreams

Canadians going to Keystone XL protest 'better take precautions'

The environmental activist movement in Canada has been targeted by the Canadian government as a threat to national security, according to documents recently released under a freedom of information law, the Guardian reports.
(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) According to Jeffrey Monaghan of the Surveillance Studies Center at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, who obtained the previously unreleased government documents, security and police forces have been closely surveilling peaceful environmental activists, including many who are planning to attend the Washington DC Keystone XL Pipeline protest on Sunday.
"Any Canadians going to protest the Keystone XL pipeline in Washington DC on Sunday had better take precautions," Monaghan told the Guardian.
"It's the new normal now for Canada's security agencies to watch the activities of environmental organizations," he added.
"Security and police agencies have been increasingly conflating terrorism and extremism with peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights to organize petitions, protest and question government policies," Steven Leahy reports at the Guardian.
Canada's national police force and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) say activists engage in "forms of attack" through acts of civil disobedience such as blocking access to roads or buildings.
Monaghan added that in particular, protests in opposition to Canada's oil and gas industry are viewed as threats by Canadian authorities.

Malian women raped, stoned, lashed and forced to marry amid intense fighting - AlertNet

Malian women raped, stoned, lashed and forced to marry amid intense fighting - AlertNet
By Kate Thomas   (this is from Trustlaw, a very credible source)

Despite the taboo associated with rape in northern Mali, some women are pursuing justice against their aggressors. Dozens have agreed to document their stories with Toure and have lodged official complaints with police in Bamako. In the midst of the French intervention, there has not yet been any response.
“We hope that will change when things are calmer,” Toure said. “Still, these women are brave. Launching an official complaint carries high stakes. If the community finds out you've been raped, you risk being alone for the rest of your life.”

BAMAKO, Mali (AlertNet) – When armed Islamist fighters arrived in the northeastern Malian village of Haribomo near Timbuktu, one of the first things they did was sip sweet tea with the local imam. They then told him how they expected the village women to behave.
“The Islamists met with the imam and they said, ‘Let us tell you our rules’,” said Adane Djiffiey Djallo, a coordinator at Aide et Developpement au Mali, a Timbuktu-based non-governmental organisation. “They said women would no longer be allowed to go to work, to the market or wash in the river.”
But the imam turned to the Islamists and said: “‘Let me tell you my rules’”.
He explained many women headed up households or had jobs of their own while their husbands worked on farms. ‘“I can't stop you forcing them to cover their heads – but I won't allow you to ban them from carrying out their daily activities’,” the imam said, according to Djallo.
At first, the women of Haribomo were relieved.
Tuareg fighters from the Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) had seized Haribomo and other parts of northern Mali following a March 2012 military coup that plunged the previously stable West African state into chaos. But better-armed and wealthier Islamist groups had chased Tuareg fighters out of town.
Under the Tuareg occupation, there were cases of gang rape and an increase in forced marriage. The Haribomo women hoped things would improve.
But the Islamists brought Sharia law, with its brutal punishments such as lashing and stoning. They forced the women of Haribomo to cover up from head to toe and they outlawed sex before marriage – only to commit acts of sexual violence against the women themselves.
REPORT CITES HUNDREDS OF CASES
Fatoumata Cisse, a teacher from Gao, said the daughter of a friend was forced into marriage with a member of Mujao – the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, an Al-Qaida splinter and one of the five groups of Islamist fighters present in northern Mali.
“He forced her to have sex with him, and when she became pregnant, he told her she must name the baby Mujao,” Cisse told AlertNet. “Fortunately, he was gone before the baby was born.”
Cisse's story is one of hundreds of accounts of sexual violence emerging in the wake of the French and African intervention to liberate northern Mali.
There have been at least 200 cases of forced marriage and sexual violence – including against men – since March 2012, according to the Gao-based non-government organisation GREFFA, citing a report by the U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. GREFFA saw the report but it has not been made public.
Meanwhile, a joint initiative by U.N. Women and GREFFA has collected the testimonies of 52 girls and women who suffered gender-based violence in the towns of Gao and Menaka since April last year.
TUAREGS ARE MAIN AGGRESSORS
But while there are credible accounts of violence carried out by Islamist fighters, most of the testimonies cite Tuareg rebels as the aggressors, said GREFFA director Fatimata Toure, who has been hearing from victims and documenting cases of sexual abuse.
“In Gao, members of the MNLA took girls as they walked along the streets, or lifted them from their own homes and drove them to the abandoned barracks of the Malian army,” said Toure.
“We heard how they were sometimes handcuffed and locked inside rooms there – for 48 or 72 hours – and raped collectively by as many as four men at a time,” she added.
Toure said the worst atrocities were committed in Menaka, a dusty town in the shadow of the Ader Douchi hills in northeastern Mali.
“We heard how a daughter was raped together with her mother, while her father was tied down and forced to watch. Girls under 12 years old were attacked, as were women over 60. One woman lost an eye when the rapist beat her,” said Toure.
Sexual violence carried out by members of the MNLA mostly targeted women and girls from the noble Songhai and slave caste Bella ethnic groups. Although wealthy Tuaregs use Bella women and girls as slaves and servants, Toure said there were few acts of sexual violence against them before March.
After the Malian army fled from the Gao area, the MNLA no longer had an enemy to fight so they turned on the local population, Toure explained....

Despite the taboo associated with rape in northern Mali, some women are pursuing justice against their aggressors. Dozens have agreed to document their stories with Toure and have lodged official complaints with police in Bamako. In the midst of the French intervention, there has not yet been any response.
“We hope that will change when things are calmer,” Toure said. “Still, these women are brave. Launching an official complaint carries high stakes. If the community finds out you've been raped, you risk being alone for the rest of your life.”

Four Essential Steps to End Female Genital Mutilation

Yasmeen Hassan: Four Essential Steps to End Female Genital Mutilation
In the last few decades, tireless efforts by activists around the world to end female genital mutilation (FGM) have slowly but surely borne fruit.
The recent United Nations Global Ban, an African-led resolution calling on all member states to criminalize FGM, signals the aspiration for international consensus on ending FGM at the highest level. This was preceded by the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, a regional treaty currently ratified by 36 African States that calls for governments to ban FGM. Nineteen out of 28 countries in Africa where FGM is practiced have banned it in addition to South Africa and Zimbabwe. Laws against the practice also exist in at least 12 countries with immigrant populations from countries that practice FGM. Very recently, the United States passed a federal law making it illegal for girls to be taken out of the United States for the purpose of performing FGM. Funding for efforts to end FGM has also increased--from less than one percent of UNICEF's budget in 1993, when Equality Now started a campaign calling on UN agencies to address this serious violation of human rights--to millions of dollars today.
While recognition of FGM as a violation of human rights at the highest levels is a big step in the right direction, much more is needed to make positive change in the lives of girls. At least three million girls continue to be at risk of undergoing FGM every year in Africa alone.
To make lasting change for girls, first, governments need the political will to match their words with action. Enactment of laws against FGM is only the first step. Too many governments are failing to properly implement their laws or to educate their citizens about the laws. Kenya's lack of enforcement of its anti-FGM law led to the death of 12 year old Sasiano, a Maasai girl who bled to death as a result of FGM in 2008. It was only due to persistent advocacy from Kenyan organization the Tasaru Ntomonok Initiative and Equality Now that law enforcement pursued the case. On April 1, 2010, the accused--the circumciser and Sasiano's father--both pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years' imprisonment each. Similarly, the government of Niger has failed to follow the minimum sentencing requirements in its FGM law, and in several cases, perpetrators have been let off with a suspended sentence, sending the message that FGM will be tolerated.
Second, the efforts of grassroots activists fighting against FGM must be supported. Activists know the change that is needed within their communities and the ways to achieve the change. Agnes Pareyio, who heads the Tasaru Ntomonok Initiative, Equality Now's partner in Kenya, campaigns widely against FGM in the Maasai community and has established a safe house for girls that run away from home to avoid FGM. Agnes was forced to undergo circumcision as a girl in Kenya and resolved that she would not let her daughters go through the same experience. She supports the implementation of the anti-FGM law, including through training local police and other community leaders.
There is a dangerous trend, including among international organizations, towards cultural relativism that threatens to impede true activism against FGM as human rights violation. In 2010, the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a policy statement on FGM that appeared to endorse a ritual nicking of the clitoris by pediatricians to satisfy "cultural" requirements of parents and reversed the AAP's previous unconditional condemnation of this harmful practice. It was only through concerted pressure by Equality Now and our partners that the AAP reversed its policy position.
Third, efforts to end FGM must be rooted in the recognition that FGM arises due to gender inequality and the lower status of women in society. As such, anti-FGM efforts must include work to create equality between men and women, girls and boys. Efforts to medicalize FGM in order make it safer, as seen recently in Indonesia, show a lack of understanding of the complexity of the issue and its ties to gender inequality.
Lastly, and most importantly, greater donor resources have to be committed to the work to end FGM and a major share of these resources must be invested in those at risk--adolescent girls. To help prevent FGM, there must be investment in building the assets of girls, so that they themselves become agents of change.
On this International Day of Zero Tolerance to FGM, we must stand steadfast in our collective duty to make ending FGM a reality for girls who continue to be at risk. We have reached key agreements both at the international and African regional levels. We must now work on making sure that these agreements influence the lives of girls, so that no girl is subjected to this practice and FGM becomes something to be read about in history books.

 

Council of Canadians opposes west-to-east oil pipeline plan

[08-Feb-13] Council of Canadians opposes west-to-east oil pipeline plan
OTTAWA – The Council of Canadians is opposed to a west-to-east oil pipeline plan being proposed by TransCanada Corp., which is supported in principle by the Harper government, and enthusiastically backed by the Alberta and New Brunswick provincial governments. The pipeline – which could move upwards of one million barrels of oil from Alberta per day – would run to the Irving refinery in Saint John, as well as to the deep water port in that city.
While TransCanada – the builders behind the Keystone XL pipeline to be decided on by US President Barack Obama in the coming months –- has not formally submitted a proposal to the National Energy Board, the energy industry is showing “almost unprecedented interest” in proceeding with the pipeline, according to Alberta premier Alison Redford. TransCanada’s plan also does not involve a massive construction project, but rather conversion of an existing, but underused natural gas line.
“This pipeline would pose serious threats to local water supplies and communities along the route,” says Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow. “The option then to export to the much larger and more profitable markets of India, China and Europe with massive tankers from the deep water port is also a major concern of ours.”
Analysts have noted that it is a shorter route to reach India's west coast refining hub from the Atlantic coast than from British Columbia. It is also possible to reach China from Atlantic Canada by moving oil tankers through the Straight of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia and then north through the South China Sea. Shipping oil to major refineries in Europe would also be possible. Just this week Premier Redford emphasized that Alberta oil reaching world markets is crucial.
“Export tankers would pose a real threat to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy,” says Atlantic regional organizer Angela Giles. “The water bodies must be protected as part of the commons and a public trust, not as a highway for oil exports.”
Redford has also framed moving Alberta oil east to New Brunswick as part of a Canadian Energy Strategy. But this is not a strategy that ensures stability of supply, protection of the environment, and that sets out a plan to wean the country off its dependence on non-renewable fuel sources.
“We have the capacity, to come up with better solutions for our energy needs,” says energy campaigner Maryam Adrangi. “We can create sustainable, local, and permanent jobs while respecting the health and safety of communities. To do this, we need to transition off of fossil fuels.”

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Tunisia: Urgent need for investigation into Chokri Belaid’s killing | Amnesty International

Tunisia: Urgent need for investigation into Chokri Belaid’s killing | Amnesty International
The killing today of Tunisian opposition politician Chokri Belaid, outside his home must prompt a thorough, independent and impartial investigation by the Tunisian authorities, Amnesty International has said.

Chokri Belaid, a leading figure of the leftist opposition in Tunisia, was shot in the neck and head as he was leaving his home in Tunis this morning. He was the Secretary General of the Democratic Patriots party, and a vocal critic of the government. He denounced political violence and called for democratic values to be upheld in Tunisia. It is the first time that such a killing has taken place in Tunisia. So far, no one has claimed responsibility.

Chokri Belaid’s death has occurred in a context of increasing polarization between political parties in Tunisia. Members of the opposition have reported they are targeted in attacks by individuals and that the authorities are not doing enough to protect them.

In recent months, there have been a number of incidents of violence against political activists, premises of political parties and gatherings, including a meeting which Chokri Belaid attended as recently as last Saturday. He had reportedly been receiving threats.

“The Tunisian authorities should be under no illusion that they can condemn the killing and move on. Only a fully independent and transparent investigation can help shed light on the circumstances of the killing of Chokri Belaid. There is a need, today more than ever, for justice to be done and to be seen to be done”, said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International.