My previous update said that the condition of the humpback whale, stranded in the Netherlands, was bad. People thought the animal would probably not survive. It cried, and an Ecomare museum employee standing next to it, cried as well.
However, as the tide rose today, the whale seemed to get livelier.
Ecomare museum on Texel and four lifeboats are digging a fairway and using nets at the moment to enable the whale to swim away.
This happens in darkness, in cold weather.
The humpback whale is nicknamed Johannes (John in English).
I hope he will swim again. But I can’t be sure.
UPDATE: a coast guard helicopter is at the scene, for lighting, so the rescuers will be able to see what they are doing.
Independent forensic fiber tests commissioned by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), showed that some of HarperCollins’ children’s books were printed with rainforest fiber.
Indonesia has some of the world’s most biologically diverse forests and is home to endangered species such as the Sumatran tiger.
“No child or parent should become an unwitting participant in rainforest destruction this holiday season,” said Robin Averbeck, a forest campaigner at RAN.
Averbeck called on HarperCollins not to do business with Indonesian paper firms Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL) and Asia Pulp and Paper Co Ltd (APP). APP has been accused by other green groups of destroying rainforests.
Officials at APP declined to comment. Officials at HarperCollins and APRIL did not respond to multiple telephone calls and emails from Reuters seeking comment.
APP and APRIL “are indeed the main culprits here and it’s good to be clear about that, but as they have not proven very responsive to direct pressure, we are forced to go after their customers to get them to take rainforest destruction seriously and HarperCollins is the sole major U.S. publisher remaining who has not made a firm commitment to stop doing business with them,” RAN spokesman Laurel Sutherlin said.
“Most people have never heard of these companies and do not realize they are buying products produced by them, but they do recognize companies like Disney and HarperCollins who are supporting their destructive business practices by purchasing from them.”
APP operates under the Sinar Mas brand, as does palm oil giant Sinar Mas Agro Resources & Technology, which has in the past been accused by Greenpeace of bulldozing high conservation value forests and damaging carbon-rich peatlands.
APRIL in October disputed many of the accusations against it said it does not source illegally harvested wood and does not source wood from high conservation value forests.
The Rainforest Action Network said HarperCollins lagged other U.S. publishers like Walt Disney Co, the world’s biggest publisher of children’s books, when it came to instituting corporate programs to help protect the world’s rainforests.
In October, Disney changed its purchasing policies to reduce paper use and avoid paper harvested from endangered forests.
Indonesia is seen as a key player in the fight against climate change and is under intense international pressure to curb deforestation and the destruction of carbon-rich peatlands.
Forests in the archipelago have also come under threat from the expanding palm oil industry in recent years, which green groups also blame for deforestation, speeding up climate change and destroying wildlife.
Indonesia is the world’s top producer of palm oil, used mainly as an ingredient in food such as biscuits and ice cream and as a biofuel.
To improve its green credentials, Indonesia signed a two-year forest moratorium in May last year, although critics say breaches still occur.
(Editing by Matt Driskill)
February 2013. Greenpeace has hailed the new commitment from Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) to end deforestation as a major breakthrough in efforts to save Indonesia’s rainforests, after a decade of public pressure and recent negotiations with Greenpeace: here.
Attention Holiday Shoppers: HarperCollins is Grinding up Rainforests to Make its Kids’ Books: here.
Some of the Roborovski hamsters that Critter Camp Exotic Pet Sanctuary took in from the raid on US Global Exotics due to horrific conditions. It was the largest seizure of animals in US history.
Texas SPCA confiscated 27,000 exotic animals in December after the exotic animal distribution center was raided for numerous violations. Once the SPCA was awarded permanent custody of the animals they placed them with only 30 select sanctuaries and zoos throughout the country.
Critter Camp is proud and honored to have received 75 of these precious animals. They are receiving the finest of care here at their new home! Learn more here.
December 2012. Perceived by organized criminals to be high profit and low risk, the illicit trade in wildlife is worth at least US$ 19 billion per year, making it the fourth largest illegal global trade after narcotics, counterfeiting, and human trafficking, according to a new report commissioned by WWF.
Danger to wildlife, health and national security
Besides driving many endangered species towards extinction, illegal wildlife trade strengthens criminal networks, undermines national security, and poses increasing risks to global health, according to the report, Fighting illicit wildlife trafficking: A consultation with governments, which will be unveiled today at a briefing for United Nations ambassadors in New York.
“Wildlife crime has escalated alarmingly in the past decade. It is driven by global crime syndicates, and so we need a concentrated global response,” says Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International.
Corruption
“It is communities, often the world’s poorest, that lose the most from this illicit trade, while criminal gangs and corrupt officials profit. Frontline rangers are losing their lives and families that depend on natural resources are losing their livelihoods,” he said.
Terrorism and gun running
Much of the trade in illegal wildlife products is run by sophisticated criminal networks with broad international reach. The profits from wildlife trafficking are used to purchase weapons, finance civil conflicts and underwrite terrorist-related activities, the report finds.
The involvement of organized crime syndicates and rebel groups in wildlife crimes is increasing, according to interviews with governments and international organizations conducted by global advisory group Dalberg on behalf of WWF.
Report respondents agree that the absence of credible law enforcement, prosecution, penalties and other deterrents to wildlife trafficking reduces the perceived risks for criminal groups. They also say that consumer demand is exacerbated by the increased accessibility of illegal wildlife products through the internet.
“The demand for illegal wildlife products has risen in step with economic growth in consumer countries, and with the ‘easy money’ and high profits to be made from trafficking, organized criminals have seized the opportunity to profit,” said Steven Broad, Executive Director of TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.
Report interviewees stressed that illegal wildlife trade is almost always seen by governments as exclusively an environmental problem and is not treated as a transnational crime and justice issue.
“Governments need to address wildlife crime as a matter of urgency,” Leape said. “It is not just a matter of environmental protection, but also of national security. It is time to put a stop to this profound threat to the rule of law.”
Government officials say that a systematic approach is needed to fight illicit wildlife trafficking including greater resourcing, inter-ministerial cooperation, and the use of modern intelligence-led investigative techniques to identify and prosecute wildlife criminals.
Finally, governments and non-governmental organizations have an important role in holding countries publicly accountable for delivering on their international commitments, the report says. The Elephant Trade Information System, executed by TRAFFIC, and the recent WWF Wildlife Crime Scorecard provide examples of reporting initiatives that highlight countries failing to uphold their commitments.
December 2012-Consumers buying pets should be aware of a new phenomenon, whereby the animals on sale are actually illegally sourced from the wild rather than legally captive bred: here.
Australia: WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has confirmed his intention to run as a Senate candidate in the 2013 federal election and will announce the formation of a WikiLeaks political party early next year: here.
Remember how berserk neo-conservative or “liberal hawkish” supporters of George W Bush’s and Tony Blair’s Iraq war became, whenever someone mentioned the word “oil” in an Iraq context?
This video says about itself:
Stop the theft of Iraqi oil! Hassan Jumaa, Greg Muttitt and Nadia Idle talk about the Iraqi oil law.
When someone dared to say “No blood for oil“, the Bushite and Blairite apologists for the Iraq war went hysterical. Their lovely baby, their lovely Iraq war, could never ever be about something as prosaic as oil corporations’ profits (or arms dealers’ profits … oil was and is a major factor in a complex of causes, not the sole 100% cause).
Empire Pays For Corporatist US Diplomats in Kosovo
December 12, 2012
The New York Times published an article yesterday detailing how top former US officials who helped spearhead the Clinton administration’s bombing of Serbia in 1999 are now deeply embedded in lucrative rent-seeking activities with Kosovo’s corrupt semi-government.
Beneficiaries include: former Secretary of State Madeline Albright; General Wesley Clark, who led the NATO bombing campaign; James W. Pardew, the Clinton-era special envoy to the Balkans; Mark Tavlarides, legislative director at the Clinton White House’s National Security Council; and countless others not specifically named in the article.
These crafters of US foreign policy now benefit off the unscrupulous state structure their discretionary war helped establish. US aid since the war has been cultivating a “thugocracy.”
Clark “is chairman of Envidity, a Canadian energy company seeking to explore Kosovo’s lignite coal deposits and produce synthetic fuel,” the Times reports.
Albright founded Albright Capital Management, which “has been shortlisted in the bidding for a 75 percent share in the state telecommunications company, PTK,” a venture that “is expected to bring in between $400 million and $800 million.”
Pardew has had his eyes on PTK too, though, and has “lobbied top Kosovo officials on behalf of a competing consortium, Twelve Hornbeams S.a.r.l /Avicenna Capital LLC.”
So many former American officials have returned to Kosovo for business — in coal and telecommunications, or for lobbying and other lucrative government contracts — that it is hard to keep them from colliding.
Foreign policy experts say the practice of former officials’ returning for business is more common than acknowledged publicly. Privately, former officials concede the possibility of conflicts of interest and even the potential to influence American foreign policy as diplomats who traditionally made careers in public service now rotate more frequently to lucrative jobs in the private sector.
Indeed, it goes beyond the telecom company:
The biggest infrastructure project in Kosovo’s post-Yugoslav history, a 63-mile stretch of highway connecting Pristina to the Albanian border, was awarded in 2010 to Bechtel of San Francisco in a joint venture with a Turkish company, Enka.
At the time, the prime minister estimated the deal at $1 billion.
Bechtel had help getting the contract from Mr. Tavlarides, the legislative director at the National Security Council during the 1999 Kosovo intervention. According to a lobbying report filed with the United States government, Mr. Tavlarides lobbied on behalf of Bechtel in Kosovo on “highway-related issues” while working for Van Scoyoc Associates, a Washington-based lobbying firm.
Mr. Tavlarides now works at the Podesta Group, which signed a $50,000 monthly contract with the Kosovo government on Jan. 1, advising it on communications and strengthening Kosovo’s ties to the United States government. The Podesta Group was co-founded by John Podesta, White House chief of staff in Mr. Clinton’s second term. Mr. Podesta left the firm in 1993. It is still owned by his brother, Anthony.
In an interview with the Times, Clark said it was “insulting” to suggest there’s any conflict of interest. “My business is aboveboard, transparent and helps the Kosovar people,” he said. His business ventures are benefiting from the thuggish administrators in Kosovo as they “privatize” state-corporate entities – and he thinks he’s still doing the humanitarian thing? The Kosovo government, according to the Times, also denies that any of these former US officials are getting special treatment.
But a leaked memo from a meeting between Pardew and Kosovo’s prime minister tells a different story:
The choice of Mr. Pardew as their emissary was “vitally important,” the memo noted, because Kosovo’s elite “know and love him for his role on the ground during the war.”
After the memo became public, Mr. Pardew withdrew from lobbying for the consortium, and he declined to comment.
It’s quite a set up these American statists have: launch a war to become heroes in a secessionist province of Serbia, and then reap endless financial benefits via crony corporatism going on 13 years hence.
