Washington, DC – Tomorrow, July 4, another 28 Bahraini medics are expected to hear verdicts in their cases with decisions that could carry sentences of up to three years in jail. The medics were prosecuted for treating injured protestors last year. Some of them spoke to the international media, giving details of the violent government crackdown.
“These medics have been targeted for doing their job, telling the world what was happening, or just for being perceived as associated with the protests,” said Human Rights First’s Brian Dooley, who attended a March 11, 2012, trial session in this case. “The charge sheets include ‘crimes’ such as inciting hatred against the regime and taking part in an illegal gathering. They were just doing their jobs as medics.”
Prominent members of civil society groups in Bahrain continue to be targets of harassment and abuseas the regime shows little sign of delivering human rights reforms.
This week, leading journalist Reem Khalifa was apparently targeted by the security forces. An activist told Human Rights First that on June 29 three Bahraini police cars stopped suddenly, positively identified her, and threw a stun grenade directly at her. Last year she received death threats because of her reporting.
11-year-old ‘protester’ on trial in Bahrain: here.
Light fireworks well after dusk when birds are less active.
Avoid lighting fireworks near feeders or bird houses.
Clean up all firework debris so it does not tempt foraging birds.
With just a few simple precautions, you can enjoy fireworks without endangering your local birds. Learn more fireworks safety tips and keep yourself safe as well!
A small black rock between a pile of shells on the beach of Texel. The 7-year-old Marit IJmker thought it was special and took it. Once home, she was still curious what it was. In a letter she sent her little rock to Ecomare curator Arthur Oosterbaan. It was a small fossil sea urchin. A very nice and special find!
Ice Age
The fossil is pentaradially symmetrical. That is a feature of starfish and sea urchins. The spines are gone. On the beach quite often fossil sea urchins are found, but this is a different species. The fossil that Marit has found is more than 65 million years old, and dates from the Cretaceous period, the time of the dinosaurs. In the Ice Age the glaciers of southern Sweden or Denmark carried it to the North Sea. Because, a few weeks ago, the beaches of Texel were raised with sand from the North Sea, the fossil ended up here.
Oil giant Shell and the world’s largest chemical company BASF must pay $382 million (£243m) into a compensation fund for over 1,000 workers, a Brazilian judge has ruled.
Shell originally owned it but sold the operation to American Cyanamid in 1995, which was bought by BASF in 2000; they took over the plant in Paulinia.
In its 2011 annual report, BASF acknowledged the site was “significantly contaminated by the production of crop protection products.”
But it denies responsibility, claiming that the site was contaminated before it bought the plant. Last year, BASF filed a lawsuit in Brazil asking a court to hold Shell fully responsible for any damages.
BASF said on Monday it would appeal against the ruling by judge Maria Ines Correa Targa and Shell said it would abide by the decision pending a higher court’s ruling on the workers’ class-action lawsuit.
Prosecutors said that any money actually paid into the fund would be frozen until the workers’ damage suit is finalised – but they wanted it in the fund as a guarantee.
BASF and Shell were earlier ordered to make payments by two courts but the companies forced the case to appeal in a higher court.
Targa said in her ruling on Thursday that Shell and BASF had engaged in “reprehensible conduct” seeking to “circumvent their obligation.”
Prosecutors have said that former workers at the plant and people who live near it have many health problems, including prostate cancer, problems with short-term memory and issues with their thyroid glands.
At least 61 former workers at the plant have died in recent years.
Others have seen various health issues arise in children born since they worked at the site.
The class-action lawsuit before the court in Brasilia includes 782 former workers but the judges separate ruling on the compensation fund payment is for 1,142 people, including outsourced workers who are ill along with the children of former workers at the plant.
The Chinese city of Sifuang said today that it has scrapped plans for a copper plant after thousands of people protested about the project’s possible public health risks: here.
A group of 30 fishermen from China has sued ConocoPhillips in a US court over two oil spills from the company’s offshore drilling operations in north-eastern China last year: here.
US regulators proposed a $3.7 million (£2.36m) fine today against the Canadian owner of a pipeline that ruptured in 2010, dumping more than 800,000 gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo river: here.
NR said no executives will receive a bonus this year and no decision had been taken about any future payments.
Any long-term arrangements, covering 2012-15, will be voted on by members at its AGM, it added.
The firm also said a letter had been sent to members from the chairman of the remuneration committee, proposing to increase the base salary of executive directors in line with the outcome of an internal management pay review.
Suggested performance-related payments will be put to the AGM for approval.
TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes said: “NR is in all but name a public company receiving £4 billion a year in direct subsidy.
“Passengers want to see that money go into producing a better and cheaper railway, not into the wallets of directors who are already handsomely rewarded.”
Bus workers in London were set to strike again on Thursday of this week to demand that bosses award them an Olympic payment: here.
This is a music-video of OFWs picketing the US and Philippine consulates in Hong Kong to protest the trafficking and forced labor of 51 Filipinos to build the US embassy in Iraq.
From Bob Fertik in the USA:
In Iraq and Afghanistan, private contractors working for the U.S. government pocketed billions of dollars while filling jobs with slave labor. Almost 70,000 people have signed the petition calling on the U.S. Senate to pass the End Trafficking in Government Contracting Act – can you take a moment to add your name?
According to evidence before the US Congress, government contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan pocketed billions while filling jobs for government contracts with slave labor1.
Vinnie Tuivaga, a hairdresser from Fiji2, was one of their victims. Vinnie was recruited for a hair-cutting job in a luxury hotel in Dubai – but instead she was sent to a war zone. She was forced to live in a shipping container and paid only a fraction of what she was promised. And although she was not in chains, she was held against her will, unable to leave without her passport. This is modern slavery.
But right now, we have an opportunity to stop this! The End Trafficking in Government Contracting Act (S. 2234), a bill that would stop U.S.-sponsored slavery, is still pending in Congress3. Almost 70,000 people have already signed Walk Free’s petition to get it passed – can you take a moment to add your name?
U.S. contractors have made billions of dollars supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But over the last eight years many of them, including KBR (formerly part of Halliburton), have reportedly filled outsourced jobs with slave labor to fatten their wallets.
People like Vinnie were recruited with the promise of good-paying jobs, only to end up victims of slavery, deceived and exploited by unaccountable subcontractors. Yet even as reports exposed stories like Vinnie’s and others living in modern slavery4, the U.S. government continued giving contracts worth billions to the same companies who’d been repeatedly accused of deceiving and exploiting hundreds of thousands of people.
The Pentagon has turned a blind eye to its contractors’ practice of modern slavery. But together, we can end it. The End Trafficking in Government Contracting Act (S. 2234) would take important measures to hold contractors accountable if their subcontractors traffic workers into slavery by creating real consequences5.
Grupo Jaragua’s first land purchase initiative saves 100 ha of threatened Caribbean forest
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Grupo Jaragua (BirdLife in the Dominican Republic) has successfully purchased a 100 ha corridor of transitional, previously unprotected and highly threatened forest within the Jaragua-Bahoruco-Enriquillo Biosphere Reserve. The initiative, a first in terms of land purchase for Grupo Jaragua, is an important step towards halting the conversion of Caribbean forest with high conservation value to low yield cattle or crop farming. …
The Jaragua-Bahoruco-Enriquillo Biosphere Reserve is located in the south-west of the Dominican Republic, connecting lowland dry forest at sea level in the Barahona Peninsula (Jaragua National Park IBA) to tropical montane forest in the highlands of Sierra de Bahoruco IBA. These forests are located outside the country’s current protected area network and are vital for the maintenance of habitat connectivity to ensure the survival of ecologically-isolated species populations. They also provide an important buffer against the additional stress that climate change is likely to place on the protected areas.
Until about two months ago, the xenophobic PVV party of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands propped up the Rightist minority government coalition of the CDA and VVD parties.
Recently, local councillors and provincial councillors had resigned in disgust from the PVV.
So had Member of Parliament Hero Brinkman, starting his own small breakaway party.
Now, there are signs of further collapse of the PVV (like its sister party, the Lega Nord in Italy).
Today, the two MPs Wim Kortenoeven (foreign affairs specialist) and Marcial Hernandez (“defence” spokesman, retired major of Dutch occupation troops in Afghanistan) announced at a press conference in The Hague that they resigned from the PVV parliamentary caucus (they could not resign as party members; the PVV has only one member, Wilders, who decides everything).
They said that Wilders is a worse dictator than Kim Jong-un in North Korea (strong language indeed in the fiercely anti-communist PVV).
Wilders reacted by saying that these two men broke away because they were afraid that Wilders would decide that they would lose their MP jobs after the 12 September general election.
They’re short, shy and fierce, but for the tamaraws (Bubalus mindorensis) of Mindoro – time is fast running out.
Rinderpest, habitat destruction & hunting
Just over a century ago, an estimated 10,000 tamaraws grazed and bred throughout the island of Mindoro. But the population has taken severe blows – ranging from a crippling outbreak of Rinderpest in the 1930s to incessant land clearing and trophy hunting. Only about 300 of the wild dwarf buffalo remain – holding out atop the grassy slopes and forest patches of Mts. Iglit, Baco, Aruyan and Calavite in Mindoro.
Endemic to 1 island
Though considered incredibly tough, the tamaraw (like the Komodo dragon) is a narrow-distribution species, wholly endemic to Mindoro. This Philippine dwarf buffalo is now classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as critically endangered – the highest risk rating for any animal species.
Many Mindoro groups have taken up the cudgels for tamaraw conservation. Now, further help is on the way. To support the conservation of both the tamaraw and its productive mountain habitats, leading environmental-solutions provider World Wide Fund for Nature Philippines (WWF-Philippines) partnered with top academic institution Far Eastern University (FEU) with an ambitious goal – to double wild tamaraw numbers from 300 to 600 by 2020.
Ridge to Reef Conservation
As the oldest island in the Philippine archipelago, Mindoro is one of the seven distinct bio-geographical zones of the country. Occidental Mindoro alone hosts two extremely productive natural zones – the Iglit-Baco mountain range and Apo Reef.
WWF and FEU’s Western Mindoro Integrated Conservation program ties in tamaraw research and improved park management initiatives with current efforts to conserve Apo Reef and the rich marine habitats off the Sablayan coast.
WWF has supported the management and conservation of Apo Reef for over 10 years. This effort has revolved around a partnership with the municipality of Sablayan to better manage its fisheries and municipal waters. A crowning achievement was the declaration of all of Apo Reef a ‘no-take’ zone in 2007 – echoing the standards set by Tubbataha Reef in Palawan. Both marine parks now form the core of WWF’s Great Reefs Project in the Philippines. WWF also works with the municipalities of Mamburao, Sablayan and Sta. Cruz in a conservation-led fisheries improvement scheme aimed at improving the traceability and supply chains of handline-caught yellow-fin tuna.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) through its Tamaraw Conservation Program (TCP) has been studying and conserving the species since 1979. Among its initiatives are the establishment of a 280-hectare Gene Pool farm coupled with continued research and habitat protection.
Says FEU Chief Financial Officer Juan Miguel Montinola, “The tamaraw is no mere FEU mascot – it is a charismatic Filipino icon. We partnered with WWF because its holistic and people-oriented outlook transcends mere conservation. Our alliance is not just about the tamaraw. It is about connecting people with the environment.”
Through its ‘Save-the-Tamaraws’ project, the students and faculty of FEU have since 2005 provided support for a year-round tamaraw management and research-oriented program by participating in annual tamaraw counts each April. FEU has additionally extended health and livelihood services for communities residing in and around the Iglit-Baco Range.
“This new tamaraw research effort raises the stakes for WWF, FEU and the DENR in Mindoro Occidental,” quips WWF-Philippines Vice-Chair and CEO Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan. “Ultimately, our engagement will revitalize key mountain habitats in Occidental Mindoro, with the tamaraw as its conservation icon. Healthy peaks and forests translate to a better-managed source of water so essential for the vast ricelands of this island’s western floodplains, while healthy reefs generate vast amounts of protein. Our goal is two-fold – to double the number of wild tamaraw by 2020 – and to ensure that the ridges and reefs of Mindoro remain productive to adequately provide for its people in a climate-defined future.”
World’s rarest buffalo, the Mindoro dwarf buffalo, reaches highest level for many years in the Philippines: here.
An attempt by the board to save his position by accepting the resignation of the chairman, Marcus Agius, on Monday has failed. Instead Agius will now become full-time chairman and lead the search for a new chief executive.
In a stunning turnaround – only on Monday the 60-year old chief executive was vowing to stay – Diamond is to go immediately after a 15-year career with the bank and only 18 months as chief executive.
Latest developments as Barclays chief executive steps down: here.
The move comes after Barclays was fined £290 million by UK and US regulators for manipulating the Libor, the rate at which banks lend to each other: here.
