Nine-year-old food blog girl’s victory over censorship

This is a Spanish video on Marha Payne’s blog.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Council has egg on face after blog ban

Friday 15 June 2012 by Rory MacKinnon

A Scottish council is eating humble pie after its crackdown on a nine-year-old food blogger sparked an international uproar.

Health-conscious Lochgilphead student Martha Payne began posting photos and breakdowns of her school dinners online in April as a lark.

But her Never Seconds blog soon became an internet sensation, with hundreds of thousands of views and students around the world sending in their own submissions.

The dubious nutritional value of some lunches saw the school promoting a policy of unlimited salad, fruit and bread within weeks, while Martha’s blog has funnelled thousands of pounds in donations to Mary’s Meals which provides food to children in the developing world.

But Martha’s story went truly viral today after Argyll & Bute Council tried to stop Martha’s food photography entirely.

In a blog post titled “Goodbye” she wrote: “This morning in maths I got taken out of class by my headteacher and taken to her office.

“I was told that I could not take any more photos of my school dinners because of a headline in a newspaper today.

“I only write my blog, not newspapers, and I am sad I am no longer allowed to take photos.”

Her father confirmed the news with Argyll Council.

The story was soon trending worldwide on Twitter, with support from celebrity chef and campaigner Jamie Oliver.

Meanwhile donations to Mary’s Meals have rocketed to nearly £20,000.

Within hours Council leader Roddy McCuish told reporters he had told his officials to drop the ban.

“It is a good thing to do, to change your mind, and I have certainly done that,” he said.

Euro crisis, workers fight back

This video is called Mining protests in Spain; June 2012.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

EU chiefs turn to panic measures

Friday 15 June 2012

by Bill Benfield

All across Europe there were signs that the financial crisis was accelerating today as embattled governments tried desperately to appease the speculators that are wringing them dry.

The weekend elections in Greece have driven the speculators into a frenzy of fear over their cash in the event of a destablilisation of the monetary union.

The anti-democratic bankers’ government in Italy announced cuts and sell-offs worth €80 billion (£65bn) which it claimed would spur economic growth and lower debt but are likely to do exactly the reverse.

Unelected Premier Mario Monti‘s Cabinet authorised a firesale of government property.

It plans to raise €10bn (£8bn) through the sale of companies controlled by the Treasury and use the money to reduce public debt.

It is also cutting controls on bankrupt companies so they can relaunch themselves quickly.

In Spain the vultures were circling, with 10-year bond yields teetering on the edge of the 7 per cent which would drive the country towards a bailout.

The government was frantically signalling that its economy was secure, but working people are not convinced and the fight against austerity is growing fast.

Seven people were injured in clashes between striking miners and police.

Four police officers and three journalists were hurt when police tried to remove roadblocks of flaming tyres set up by miners in northern Spain, and were met with a barrage of missiles fired from homemade rocket launchers and slingshots.

Police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Miners are fighting cuts – including a reduction in mining subsidies from €300 million (£244m) to €110m (£89m) which will devastate their industry.

In Cyprus a government spokesman warned that the nation faces a choice of EU bailout money or a loan from another country – said to be Russia – in order to have “flexibility to deal with the issue.”

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel remained unmoved, vowing to resist pressure.

“Germany will not be convinced by all the quick solutions like eurobonds, stability funds, European deposit insurance funds,” she insisted.

And against all the available evidence, European Central Bank head Mario Draghi kept up the pressure for a European superstate, warning EU leaders that they should not wait for help from the central bank and instead make political choices which he said “imply greater transfer of powers to a supra-national level.”

Every picture tells a story, the old saying goes, and the story revealed by banking shares shooting up by 6 per cent is unmistakable: here.

Hawfinches, and robin on a tombstone

Today, to the cemetery.

Near the entrance, a hawfinch.

This is a hawfinch video.

Minutes later, the same, or another, hawfinch on the top of a coniferous tree.

Seeing these birds here now, in mid June, not in winter or early spring like I saw them before, means that very probably hawfinches nest in the cemetery, They keep calling. Many birds are noisy when the young generation has just fledged. Hawfinches are usually quiet shy birds.Their noise here now may point that there was a successful nest.

The cemetery is close to the western border of where hawfinches nest in the Netherlands.

I hear great spotted woodpecker, chaffinch, blackbird, nuthatch.

A robin on a tombstone.

Glow-worms in England

This video is called Glow worm(s) (Lampyris noctiluca) part 3. Southern Finland.

From Wildlife Extra:

Where to see Glow worms in the UK

Female glow-worms produce a soft light in their tails during early summer nights to attract males.

But the romance is a rushed one – adult beetles survive for just a few weeks and in that time they need to mate and lay eggs to ensure the survival of the next generation.

Once far more widespread than they are today, glow-worms have cast a spell over humans for centuries. Shakespeare mentions them in Hamlet and their soft glow on mid-summer nights must have seemed like a scene from a magical world.

Where & when to see glow worms in the UK

Glow worms are nature’s nightlights and are at their best in July. Some of the UK’s best spots to see them are:

Ilam Park in Derbyshire
Cotswold Water Park
Chambers Farm Wood Nature Reserve in Lincolnshire
Arnside Knott in Cumbria

Fireflies in the USA: here.

14 fun facts about fireflies: here.

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (June 25, 2012) – The twinkling of fireflies heralds summer romance for these magical insects. While courting on-the-wing, male fireflies attract females’ attention with bioluminescent flashes: here.

BBC on Houla massacre

By Chris Marsden in Britain:

BBC world news editor: Houla massacre coverage based on opposition propaganda

15 June 2012

As quietly as possible, BBC world news editor Jon Williams has admitted that the coverage of last month’s Houla massacre in Syria by the world’s media and his own employers was a compendium of lies.

Datelined 16:23, June 7, Williams chose a personal blog to make a series of fairly frank statements explaining that there was no evidence whatsoever to identify either the Syrian Army or Alawite militias as the perpetrators of the May 25 massacre of 100 people.

By implication, Williams also suggests strongly that such allegations are the product of the propaganda department of the Sunni insurgents seeking to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

After preparatory statements of self-justification noting the “complexity of the situation on the ground in Syria, and the need to try to separate fact from fiction,” and Syria’s long “history of rumours passing for fact,” Williams writes:

“In the aftermath of the massacre at Houla last month, initial reports said some of the 49 children and 34 women killed had their throats cut. In Damascus, Western officials told me the subsequent investigation revealed none of those found dead had been killed in such a brutal manner. Moreover, while Syrian forces had shelled the area shortly before the massacre, the details of exactly who carried out the attacks, how and why were still unclear.”

For this reason, he concludes somewhat belatedly, “In such circumstances, it’s more important than ever that we report what we don’t know, not merely what we do.”

“In Houla, and now in Qubair, the finger has been pointed at the Shabiha, pro-government militia. But tragic death toll aside, the facts are few: it’s not clear who ordered the killings—or why.”

No trace of such a restrained approach can be found at the time on the BBC, or most anywhere else.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung confirms: Houla massacre committed by Syrian “rebels”: here.

Related articles

• The ‘Syria massacre in Houla’ photo which was taken in Al Musayyib, Iraq, in 2003 (nextlevelofnews.com)

Egyptian military coup

This is called Shocking Video: ‘Blue bra’ girl brutally beaten by Egypt military.

By Johannes Stern:

Egyptian junta stages coup against parliament

15 June 2012

The US-backed Egyptian military junta dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament yesterday in a military coup. This came only two days before the run-offs of in Egypt’s presidential elections—the first since the ouster of dictator Hosni Mubarak amid mass working class protests last year.

The decision by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) junta to dissolve parliament was preceded by a ruling of the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC). It suddenly declared the electoral law under which the parliament was elected in November-January unconstitutional.

The SCC, a court composed of judges appointed by Mubarak, ruled that one third of the seats in parliament were invalid because candidates of political parties were elected for seats exclusively reserved for independents.

The junta’s preparations for the ruling made clear that its main political target is the Egyptian working class, and that its main fear is the renewal of the working class struggles that brought down Mubarak last year. Before the court ruling, the junta tightened security in Cairo. Tanks were deployed in front of the heavily guarded courthouse.

See also here.

CROWDS marched to Cairo’s Tahrir Square again yesterday after the April 6 movement called for a protest starting at 5.00pm (1500 GMT) ‘against the soft military coup’: here.

Over 23,000 textile workers in the Egyptian town of Mahalla al-Kobra went on strike for higher wages at the weekend: here.

Conservatives bring Britain back to Dickens’ times

This video is called UK Poverty – John and Donna’s story.

From daily News Line in Britain:

Friday, 15 June 2012

UK back to Victorian times

OXFAM warned yesterday that the ‘UK could return to inequality levels not seen since Victorian times’.

Government rhetoric about ‘making work pay’ – used to justify sweeping welfare reforms – is sounding increasingly hollow, according to a new report by Oxfam, which details how getting a job in modern Britain is no guarantee of escaping poverty.

Oxfam’s report, The Perfect Storm, documents how the government’s deficit reduction strategy, which has targeted £99 billion of budget cuts against just £29 billion of tax increases each year by the end of this parliament, is disproportionately impacting on those on the lowest incomes.

It describes a ‘perfect storm’ of factors – from increasing unemployment and lack of decent jobs, to rising living costs and falling incomes and the proposed deep cuts to welfare and public services – that are buffeting the UK’s most vulnerable citizens, both those in and out of work.

Oxfam’s Director of UK Poverty, Chris Johnes, said: ‘Despite the government’s rhetoric about making work pay, having a job is no longer necessarily enough to lift someone out of poverty; more working age adults in poverty now live in working households than in workless ones.

‘The government is justifying huge cuts to welfare support for people on low incomes by saying this will incentivise work, but there simply aren’t enough decent jobs available.’

The Perfect Storm reveals that since the start of the recession in 2008, 830,000 permanent full-time jobs have been lost while half a million part-time jobs have been created.

The number of people in temporary work because they can’t find a permanent job has risen across that period by 73 per cent, meaning there are now 1.4 million ‘frustrated part-timers’ in the UK.

There are also an estimated two million ‘vulnerable workers’; people whose work is characterised by insecurity, uncertainty over hours and low pay.

For instance, the UK has the highest number of zero hours contracts in Europe, meaning people can arrive for a day’s work only to be turned away by their employer.

One knock-on effect is that the number of people in work but having to claim Housing Benefit has more than doubled over the period to nearly 900,000.

A tightening of the eligibility rules for working tax credits also means that the average qualifying family is expected to lose £2,000 per year.

See also here.

Charles Dickens’s lost jottings to be uncovered: here.

Dickens’ Christmas Carol: here.

Stop European bird crime

This video is called Birds at Birdlife Malta’s Reserves.

From BirdLife:

European BirdLife Partners take action against European bird crime

Thu, Jun 14, 2012

Across Europe, birds suffer from a wide range of persecution: illegal poisoning, shooting, trapping, and the theft of chicks for the bird trade are common practices. Recently, five European countries were confronted with cases of illegal killing. The common, even if illegal, practice of using poison baits to eradicate carnivores and rodents causes huge damage to wildlife as well as to livestock and crops. In some cases it can explain the decline of specific bird populations in Europe. Moreover, the poisons used are usually unnecessarily strong and often illegal.

The BirdLife Partners in Hungary, Greece, Cyprus, France and Malta have taken different types of measures to halt illegal killing of bird practices and to limit their damages on biodiversity.

In Hungary, illegal killing of birds threatens rare majestic birds

Over the last decade in Hungary, more than a thousand protected birds have been poisoned including White-tailed Eagles, Saker Falcons, and Common Buzzards. More birds have been, and are still, the victims of other illegal practices such as trapping or shooting.

MME (BirdLife in Hungary) has just begun the coordination of a new Life+ project (co-financed by the EU) in cooperation with eight other organisations, aimed at supporting the slow growth of the Eastern Imperial Eagle population in Hungary, and more widely, at finding solutions to control illegal hunting of birds.

In Greece and Cyprus, poisoned bait targeting wild animals is killing rare birds

In Greece and Cyprus, poisoned baits against carnivores are a very common practice. However, it causes huge damageable to wildlife and especially birds. For example, it has been a key factor in the Griffon Vulture population decline in Cyprus, now on the brink of local extinction.

Since the beginning of the year, in Greece, several Griffon Vultures, Golden Eagles, Common Buzzards and European Vultures, were found poisoned because people targeting wolves, bears and other carnivores had put out dead horses, foxes and dogs laced with Carbofuran, a very toxic insecticide that is illegal in most of the European countries.

Both organisations strongly advocate for their governments and the EU to take effective measures.

Read HOS (BirdLife in Greece) and other environmental NGOs’ letter to Commissioner Potočnik here.

Also, they are active on the ground. For example, BirdLife Cyprus together with three partners in Cyprus and Greece will implement the “Cross Border Cooperation Programme Greece-Cyprus” (co-funded by the European Commission and Greek national funds), launched in 2011, with the ambition of restoring the Griffon Vulture population in Cyprus.

BirdLife Cyprus has also just published a new report on winter trapping s highlighting the 2.8 million birds illegally trapped in the country in 2011. See here.

The French fashion of ‘chemical treatment campaigns’ endangers birds

Despite the alarm sounded by LPO (BirdLife in France) about the damage they cause to wildlife in the French region of Auvergne, ten new French regions have asked the French Ministry of Agriculture to implement, in their territories, chemical treatment campaigns targeting rodents like the vole and wild carnivores such as foxes, ferrets and … weasels.

However, since November 2011, 44 raptors (28 of which were Red Kites) have been discovered dead by poisoning in Auvergne, indirect victims of the treatment campaign targeting wild animals.

Red Kite is the species hit most by this in the country (58% of birds). The French population of this species is the second largest in Europe. Consequently, France has a responsibility in its conservation at a European level.

Moreover, the “treatment substances” commonly used are strong toxins like bromadiolone but also forbidden substances such as anticoagulants or pesticides like Lindane.

LPO is activelly advocating for the French government to stop the treatment campaigns and to implement measures ensuring the protection of Red Kite.

In Malta, hunting of endangered birds during the migratory season remains an issue

In Malta, carcasses of protected birds, including gulls, Ospreys, Western Marsh-harriers, Common Kestrels, Common Swifts and European Bee-eaters, can be discovered throurough the island. Illegal hunting of birds is a tradition in the country that seems difficult to end.

BirdLife Malta has been leading a campaign for several years against illegal hunting and trapping activities. Actions include the coordination of two annual conservation camps: Spring Watch in April and Raptor Camp in September. Spring Watch 2012 has just ended: More than 50 volunteers from across Europe joined Maltese conservationists on the ground to record data on migratory species from Africa passing through Malta on their way to Europe, and to report illegal hunting incidents to the police.

This year’s spring hunting season BirdLife Malta recorded more than 730 hunting illegalities (751 in 2011), including hunters targeting protected species, exceeding quotas, hunting outside legal hours and not wearing the legally required armbands.

BirdLife Malta is actively advocating for the Maltese government to take action against these uncountable illegal practices in the country, and on the other hand, to put an end to the hunting derogation existing in the country, decreed illegal by the EU and that dangerously threatens the wildlife.

BirdLife in Hungary (MME), in Greece (HOS), Cyprus, France (LPO) and Malta hope that their action will permit the recovery of threatened species populations that are suffering from uncontrolled illegal killing in their countries, and also, that it will contribute to the halt of illegal hunting in Europe.

For more information please contact Elodie Cantaloube, Media and Communication Assistant at BirdLife Europe.

European governments heading for biodiversity disaster: here.

Britain: Ex-police officer pleads guilty to stealing wild bird eggs: here.

Bahrain dictatorship jails mentally disabled boy

By Tine Danckaers, of Mondiaal Magazine in Belgium:

Bahrain Revolt: ‘He Keeps Asking Why We Won’t Take Him Home’

Posted: 06/14/2012 6:37 pm Updated: 06/14/2012 6:43 pm

In February 2011, tens of thousands of Bahrainis took to the streets to protest against the tiny country’s ruling al-Khalifa family. Protesters camped out on the capital’s Pearl Roundabout for a month, until security forces violently put an end to the protests. Demonstrators were arrested, activists persecuted, doctors who helped the wounded terrorized. Belgian journalist Tine Danckaers traveled to the Gulf state in November 2011. HuffPost World has published the testimonies of some of the Bahrainis she interviewed.

Twenty-two-year-old Mohammed Abdulhadi al-Shakar has been confined to a Bahraini prison since September 16, 2011. He doesn’t understand why. Nor does he understand why his brother hasn’t come yet to pick him up. Al-Shaker is mentally disabled. We talked to his brother and aunt in October.

Al-Shaker had been arrested once before, in September. He had joined some guys who went demonstrating and was picked up when the riot police entered the village.

“The next day, we got a phone call from the police explaining where he was imprisoned,” Mohammed’s aunt says. She describes her nephew as an unstoppable boy, who loves to join boys meeting outside. “We can’t control him,” she says. “Mohammed is unable to act independent, which has been established in a medical report issued by the Ministry of Health.”

That first time, Mohammed was released after spending two days in a police prison. “He clearly had been beaten, his eye was red and swollen,” his brother says.

Two weeks later, the scenario was repeated. “Mohammed went to the funeral of a martyr in Sitra (a nearby village) on September 16,” his aunt remembers. “The last thing we heard before he disappeared, was that he had run into a house. For three days, we didn’t know where he was, whether he was arrested or was hiding somewhere. Then we got a phone call from the police saying that Mohammed had been arrested again. Two weeks later he received permission to call us. It was a very short call, enough to know he was so scared.”

“We went to the prison to see him every day after this call. They refused us every time. His medical report was not accepted.”

FEAR

Al-Shaker’s family received permission to see him one week later.

“Mohammed only looked at the policeman, not at me,” his brother says. “We got to see him for 10 minutes. He wouldn’t talk. His mental state had deteriorated enormously. Mohammed is very afraid when he is alone. So he keeps asking us why we can’t take him home. We can’t even give him an answer he would understand.”

“Are they targeting a mentally disabled boy because he is an easy victim?” his aunt asks. “We really don’t get it. Of course Mohammed is not politically active, that is absurd. He follows everyone around and does what people ask him to do.”

“Despite all this suffering, we support the revolution,” Mohammed’s aunt adds when we ask her whether she wants the protests to continue. “We don’t want to repeat the silence of our mothers and fathers. I understand that every generation has to deal with its own time spirit and the will linked to it. But enough is enough. We can’t stop protesting, we have to stay strong and continue, demanding our rights.”

Bahrain Convicts Doctors For Treating Injured Protesters: here.

Irish government urged to take action over jailed Bahraini doctors who trained in Ireland: here. And here.

Finian Cunningham: The Hypocrisy of the U.S. on Bahrain and Syria, interviewed by Tim Gatto: here.

Bahrain urged to quash convictions of protest medics: here.