This week: • Mauritania • KFC • Avian Flu •
• Exxon • Commercials • Marijuana • Stuff •

 

The path to the tragedy in Darfur was well trodden yet totally missed by the international community. Will we ever learn from our mistakes and react in time to avert African disasters?

One nation that mirrors the suffering in Sudan is Mauritania where the ethnic cleansing of black tribes sanctioned by the ruling Arab elite has been ongoing since 1989, when in a two-month period up to 75,000 people were booted out of the Saharan country forcefully across the border to Senegal. Land grabs had been happening since 1983.

Those kicked out, like in Darfur, were of different ethnicity and language to those who ruled the state and were in effect declared ‘non-citizens’, their villages razed by Arab militias and their livelihoods shot to pieces, all with the blessing of the government, not dissimilar to the Nazis treatment of the Jews back in the 1930s.

With no international condemnation against Mauritania leaders similar incidents have fuelled genocide in the intervening years in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and now Sudan.

The treatment of the blacks in Mauritania has not improved and comparisons are arising with the situation in Darfur — will anyone listen before the situation spirals out of control or will energy priorities once again blind human rights concerns?

Abdarahmane Wone is the spokesman in North America for the African Liberation Forces of Mauritania, a political group devoted to democracy and federalism. He told Voice of America reporter William Eagle that under a government order issued nearly 20 years ago, the government is able to redistribute lands that are not being farmed. In reality, he says the government uses the policy to redistribute lands from the mostly black south to Arabicised northerners. He says the government has used a series of financial institutions, such as the Central Bank of Mauritania, the Mauritian and Islamic Arab Bank, and the Arabo-Libyan Bank of Mauritania to finance land acquisitions.

Overseeing the brutal campaign is President Maaouya Ould Sid’Hamed Taya, who has been in power for about 22 years who Wone blames for the deportation of around 120,000 blacks to both Mali and Senegal.

Wone calls the crisis the “other apartheid” — but one that has been ignored.

Why? Clue: It’s black, liquid and is going for around $60 a barrel right now. Yep, that’s right; oil is once again dictating US foreign policy. The discovery of significant oil reserves last year led to the US State Department claiming the Tava regime was making firm improvements on the human rights front all of a sudden and gushing about its excellent relations with Mauritania.

Oil revenues are expected to bring in $300 million annually in foreign exchange earnings, which translates as approximately a third of Mauritania’s current national gross domestic product or more precisely yet another fattening Swiss bank account for a corrupt African leader.

Trying to create some truth for American diplomats, more than two hundred expatriate protesters rallied at the US State Department on April 4 this year, calling for the Bush administration to break ties with the Mauritanian regime, which they accused of human rights abuses against its non-Arab Muslim population.

“(President) Ould Taya’s hands are dirty with the blood of thousands of non-Arab black people in Mauritania,” said Mansour Kane, president of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Mauritania. “This is no different from what’s happening in Darfur right now.”

“The Arabs enslaved blacks in my country hundreds of years ago,” he said.

“Today they still have Black Muslim slaves by the tens of thousands, and they are pushing the free blacks off our land in the south,” he said.

SOS Esclaves, an anti-slavery human rights organization based in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, estimates that 40 percent of people in Mauritania are slaves or former slaves.

The oil discovery ensures their slavery will continue, not chained necessarily but ringed by heavily guarded pipelines with all profits funnelled out of the country.

 

 

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is running an innovative campaign against Kentucky Fried Cruelty that should make you think twice before opting for the finger lickin’, waist expandin’ option.

Bound to a wheelchair and repeatedly crossing the road in front of a local KFC, an activist in a giant chicken costume will lead a protest today (Monday) in Connecticut against KFC suppliers’ abusive treatment of chickens. Activists will pass out leaflets and hold signs that proclaim, “KFC Tortures Chickens.” One activist will wear a body screen TV showing shocking undercover video footage of chickens in factory farms and slaughterhouses.

“What is done to chickens would be illegal if it were done to dogs, cats, cows, or pigs. However, chickens are excluded from the only federal law that protects farmed animals, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act,” PETA notes.

An undercover investigation at a Moorefield, Virginia, slaughterhouse that supplies chickens to KFC revealed workers kicking, throwing, and stomping on live birds. Recently, PETA released the findings of an undercover investigation of a slaughterhouse operated by KFC’s number one supplier, Tyson Foods, and found workers ripping conscious chickens’ heads off, slaughter machinery systematically mutilating chickens, and thousands of birds being scalded to death after entering the scalding tank while completely conscious.

PETA attempted to work with KFC parent Yum! Brands (who also own Taco Bell and Pizza Hut) executives prior to launching its “Kentucky Fried Cruelty” Campaign, but despite assurances made long ago by Senior Vice President Jonathan Blum that KFC would “raise the bar” on animal welfare, the company refuses to eliminate the worst abuses.

We note with some amusement that after 14 years of using an acronym to get away from the unhealthy fried nature of its food, KFC is re-branding back to its original name at many new American flagship stores opening this year. Are they re-branding back to Kentucky Fried Chicken in order to assure people that the curious foodstuff found inside the glutinous batter is indeed chicken? We suspect so.

Aside from the animal torture, the reason the already chubby little red email does not head for the Colonel’s poultry at all can be found in the following stat: Five pieces Original Recipe Chicken with coleslaw and potato wedges from KFC — calories: 1,820; fat: 109 grams. To burn off, lift weights for seven hours, 25 minutes. Phew!

Check out PETA’s excellent website www.KentuckyFriedCruelty.com and also see what else we have done on Colonel Sanders’ very battered hens by clicking here.

 

 

Over the last few years the incidence of avian flu has been steadily rising throughout Asia. First discovered in Italy in 1990, it is now appearing worldwide. Our readers will no doubt remember the outbreaks in Vietnam earlier this year. The scary reality is there is a serious possibility of the virus jumping species to humans and causing a global pandemic. It has already caused deaths in humans. Hong Kong was hit in 1997 when 8 people died and a further 18 were hospitalised. Fortunately this outbreak was contained. There is no guarantee we will be so lucky next time.

The Washington Post has recently published an article that gives us all cause for concern. It alleges that the Ministry of Agriculture in China has been providing stocks of an antiviral drug intended for human use, to prevent avian flu in its poultry stocks. This has almost single-handedly led to the evolution of the virus allowing it to be resistant to the drug Amantadine. This drug was to be our first line of defence against widespread human infection.

The report claims that Chinese farmers have been using Amantadine since 1990 to protect their livestock against disease. This in part was funded and sanctioned by the government of China. They strongly deny these claims. Sources inside China paint a different picture.

Amantadine is widely used in the entire country. Many pharmaceutical factories around China produce Amantadine and farmers can easily buy it in veterinary medicine stores,” Zhang Libin, head of the veterinary medicine division of the Northeast General Pharmaceutical Factory in Shenyang, was reported as saying.

The report also cited a popular manual written by a professor at the People’s Liberation Army Agriculture and Husbandry University, Medicine for Animals and Poultry, which gives specific prescriptions of Amantadine for treatment of respiratory infections in chickens.

Despite these claims, the excuses are flying thick and fast! “The Ministry of Agriculture has told us that they never approved the use of Amantadine in poultry and that they are fully aware of the consequences [of using it], but it seems that some farmers have misused the drugs,” said Noureddin Mona, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s representative to China, Mongolia, and North Korea.

This “misuse” explains why scientists have seen growing resistance to the drug. Resistance by the avian flu virus to Amantadine was detected in Vietnam, Thailand, and Hong Kong, and was noted in research published in 2004. Levels in China are not surprisingly well above average.

The virus is now resistant to both Amantadine and its sister drug Rimantadine. The remaining treatments are Oseltamivir and Zanamivir. If these are abused we will all be at risk. Fortunately, the prohibitively high cost of these two drugs should prevent their use in poultry. The fact that the remaining treatments do not feature in Chinese government literature, and are not for sale over the counter either, may buy some time. The little red email suspects this will change when the updated versions come to print!

 

 

Last week a major boycott of leading American oil giant ExxonMobil kicked off across the US — the largest national boycott for more than a decade. The conglomerate was targeted for its ongoing denial of global warming as well as its determination to drill in Alaska’s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It appears one denial is leading to another.

“For years, ExxonMobil has intentionally put its own profits above a clean environment and the health of America’s families,” according to a letter sent by the groups to ExxonMobil’s controversial chief, Lee Raymond.

“As a result, we are asking Americans not to accept a new job at ExxonMobil, invest in the company, or buy ExxonMobil’s gas and products,” stated the letter, which was signed by, among others, the leaders of Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defence Council, the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife.

ExxonMobil’s latest recruit just shows what a farce the White House’s climate control polices are. Philip Cooney, a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute and chief of staff of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, was hired by ExxonMobil immediately after resigning from his administration post just last month when it emerged he routinely edited government reports to cast doubt on the link between fossil fuel emission and global warming — i.e. perfect ExxonMobil denial material.

In a recent interview, Exxon top dog Raymond, whom Greenpeace refers to as the “No. 1 climate criminal,” told the Wall Street Journal that “it’s yet to be shown how much of (global warming) is really related to the activities of man.”

In campaigning against Kyoto and other schemes to limit emissions, Exxon-Mobil has funded more than three dozen organisations and coalitions that have tried to undermine the consensus on global warming, including 26 groups that collectively received $1.9 million in 2004. Between 1998 and 2004, the company gave more than $15 million to groups that worked to influence global warming policy, according to the report.

Finally, we have a chance to make this filthy company pay for its lies which are accelerating the death of the planet we live on.

Check out the boycott site www.exxposeexxon.com to get onboard this movement. Boycotts can work; every corporation is beholden to its bottom line first and foremost — hit Exxon where it hurts.

CorpWatch has a bevy of interesting items on ExxonMobil, click here, to see them. Greenpeace also is hardly a fan of the American oil giant as evidenced here.

 

 

We had always suspected it. Eardrums ringing one moment, then craning forward to make out what the characters on television are saying the next. Still, it was reassuring to see that our hearing was not as bad as we had wondered on reading that a British television channel was busted last week for deliberately turning up the volume during its ads breaks.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint from a viewer who said the commercial breaks shown on Channel Five during the film Groundhog Day were much louder than the actual movie.

In its ruling, the ASA said: “The film contained several scenes of quiet dialogue, some of which immediately preceded advertising breaks.”

However, there was “almost constant loudness” when the adverts came on, with all of them sounding “subjectively louder than the main content of the surrounding film”.

As if this blatant commercial deafening wasn’t bad enough British television watchdogs are being beseeched to lift product placement restrictions. Watch quality programming get traded in for gratuitous promotions when this happens. (The last four James Bond movies have been in profit before anyone has sat down at a cinema thanks to product placement, and with all the BMWs and Smirnoff on display, they have all been rubbish.) In the meantime, do what we do when the ads come on: locate your mute button fast — it’ll save your ears as well as your wallet.

 

 

It is often said that had British rascal and explorer Walter Raleigh returned from his travels with marijuana leaves rather than tobacco, then the former would have been legal and the latter sold by shady characters in eighths and quarters in plastic bags. Hypothetical? Sure but cancer and crime rates would not be what they are today we reckon if this historical if had gone the way of the wacky baccy. Anyway, we snickered at the following tale, which strikes us as just plain silly involving the banning of the pot equivalent of chocolate cigarettes.

Pot Suckers and Chronic Candy, marijuana-flavoured green lollipops, made with hemp flavouring, but containing no actual marijuana are likely to be banned in many states across the puritan US. Why are they not banning those rather delicious two pence Beer Bottle sweets we wonder? Anyway, the weed related sweets, which cost $2 each and carry labels that say, “Tastes like the real deal,” and “Every lick is like taking a hit” are completely harmless but nevertheless have caused a storm all of a sudden among the American conservative elite.

The manufacturer of Pot Suckers describes itself as “serving the drinking and debauched masses for over 7 years,” and boasts products that “would shock and horrify your mother and have you removed from most church and social organizations.” Under pressure, the manufacturer has pledged to stop making the sweets anymore — another blow to free choice, buy up the last few while you can. Chronic Candy is still available.

 

• In other weed-related news; the last few collectors’ item t-shirts for the ‘Free The Lamma Three’ campaign mentioned in last week’s email are up for grabs at a paltry HK$75 each. Contact info@cannedrevolution.com if you want one. All profits go to the pot crusading lawyer representing the Lamma Three.