Tony Blair: mealy-mouthed non-apology for old slavery; doing nothing against new slavery

From British daily The Morning Star:

Slaves to the racists

(Friday 01 December 2006)

PRIME Minister Tony Blair‘s mealy-mouthed non-apology for Britain’s role in the slave trade on Monday drew a somewhat cynical response, from a wider range of subjects than his normal critics.

This was due partly to the fact that more people are waking up to the fact that one can trust Mr Blair and his statements about as far as one can comfortably spit out a rat, but also due to the fact that his “deep sorrow” for the slave trade did not extend so far as to suggest any form of restitution for the countries and people still affected by the poisonous legacy of imperialism.

With the publication of the Council of Europe’s damning verdict on 25 EU countries – including Britain – on Friday, it appears that there is still less reason to believe that our Prime Minister is serious about tackling slavery.

The human rights watchdog’s secretary-general, former Labour MP Terry Davis, has warned that slavery has returned to Europe, with barely a handful of states apparently bothered.

“Every year hundreds of thousands of human beings, mostly women and young girls, are bought and sold in Europe,” said Mr Davis.

“The politically correct terminology for this outrage is trafficking in human beings, but the fact is that slavery is back in Europe and that our governments are not doing enough to fight it.”

Slavery in Latin America today: here.

New Zealand: longline fishing kills rare albatrosses

From BirdLife:

Albatross deaths prompt action from New Zealand

01-12-2006

The New Zealand government is considering imposing a temporary ban on surface longline fishing in the Kermadec Islands after a fishing vessel was reported to have killed 51 albatrosses in a single trip.

Conservationists hope the ban will give the government time to implement mitigation techniques in the fishery, to reduce levels of seabird bycatch.

Most of the birds killed by the fishing vessel were thought to be Antipodean Albatross, a Vulnerable species that only breeds in New Zealand waters.

“I don’t want another incident like this occurring, so I am proposing immediate action under emergency provisions in the Fisheries Act.” said Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton. …

Last month, a report by CCAMLR (Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources) highlighted the positive effect that international regulation can have on reducing levels of seabird bycatch.

After a range of mitigation measures were put in place in the legal Antarctic toothfish longline fishery, seabird deaths went from several thousand in the mid-1990s to zero albatross deaths in the 2005/06 season.

This success was attributed to a number of actions put in place: closing fisheries during the breeding season, setting lines at night (because albatrosses feed by day), using line weighting and 100% observer coverage.

Update: here.

And here.

Deap-sea creatures photographed off New Zealand: here.

Albatrosses of Prince Edward and Marion islands: here.

Sooty albatross: here.

Indian yellow-nosed albatross: here.

Wandering albatross: here.

More on albatrosses here.

40% rise in New Zealand sea lion bycatch quota condemned by Forest & Bird: here.

Fishery observers in New Zealand surprised by amount of bycatch: here.

Vast reserve to protect remote Prince Edward Islands in the Southern Ocean: here.

Brazil’s cherry-throated tanager

From BirdLife:

Cherry-picked for conservation award

01-12-2006

A study developed by SAVE Brasil (BirdLife in Brazil) on one of the rarest birds in the world, the Critically Endangered Cherry-throated Tanager, was awarded first place in the regional prize for environmental advancement, the ‘Prêmio Ecologia 2006’. …

The Cherry-throated Tanager is one of Brazil’s most enigmatic birds.

First described at the end of the 19th century from the State of Minas Gerais, it was not seen again until a single sighting in 1941. Since then many researchers considered it extinct when, more than forty years later in 1998, it was rediscovered in small numbers at Fazenda Pindobas IV by researchers Ana Cristina Venturini, Claudia Bauer, Fernando Pacheco and Pedro Paz.

In September 2003, small numbers were also discovered in the Caetés region.

The species is classified by BirdLife as Critically Endangered.

The Cherry-throated Tanager, Nemosia rourei, is listed as ‘Critically Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM. Previously feared to be extinct, this Atlantic Forest endemic was rediscovered in Espírito Santo State, Brazil, in 1998, a lapse of 47 years after the previous sighting: here.

Related articles

• Capturing The Moment – Hepatic Tanager (kenneturner.com)
• Clinton birdwatchers have spotted about 7,700 species — and they’re still counting (knoxnews.com)
• Thraupis sayaca – Sanhaço cinzento by Margareth Perfoncio (500px.com)
• Blue Jay (27thstreet.wordpress.com)
• The Blue-throated Macaw (Ara glaucogularis) (kaieteurnewsonline.com)
• Capturing The Moment – Mallard Ducks (kenneturner.com)
• Endangered species: what makes the list? (theconversation.edu.au)
• Reserve is haven for study of Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest (dawn.com)
• Joint fight (fijitimes.com)

Persecution of gay people in ‘new’ Poland

From British daily The Independent:

Poles apart: how gay people suffer under the new regime

By Jerome Taylor in Warsaw

Published: 01 December 2006

Twenty-five years ago, two identical twins, once childhood stars in Poland during the Sixties, were on the run from the Communist regime’s secret police.

Today, they are the President and Prime Minister of their country, and fiercely proud of Poland’s feisty role in Europe and its close friendship with the United States.

One of the brothers, President Lech Kaczynski, flew to Britain this month to meet the Queen and Tony Blair, part of an official visit during which the two countries celebrated their close alliance, built on a mild mutual Euroscepticism and a firm belief in pursuing the “war on terror“.

Lech’s brother, Jaroslaw, remained in Warsaw running the country as Prime Minister.

But the journey they have made from being on the run to running the country has come at an unacceptably high price for many Poles.

The country’s gay community today feels the cold blast of exclusion, just as the twins did 25 years ago.

Homosexuals in Poland are under siege, as right-wing youth groups carrying banners proclaiming “zakaz pedalowania” (“ban paedophilia”) hurl stones at gay pride marches, and mainstream politicians mutter dark threats of sacking homosexual teachers to “protect the nation’s children”.

For young gay Poles like Dominik Piotrovski, a student from Warsaw, homophobic attacks are on the rise, especially against those gay men and women brave enough to be publicly open about their sexuality.

Members of government party League of Polish Families LPR shout ‘Sieg Heil’ at swastika.

Update: here.

And here.

Secret CIA gulag in Poland: here.

Gay bashing in Britain: here.

Homophobia in Australia: here.

Homophobes attack gay pride march in Hungary: here.

Gay pride ban in Moscow: here.