FSP-Microcosm News-Global Community Report

Monday, July 29, 2013

Israel freezes co-operation with EU in Palestinian territories

Israel blocks EU projects in West Bank

Houses are seen in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ofra, north of Ramallah July 18, 2013. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan

JERUSALEM | Fri Jul 26, 2013 3:27pm EDT

(Reuters) - Israel has blocked the European Union from aiding tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank, in retaliation for an EU ban on financial assistance to Israeli organizations in the occupied territories.
The EU imposed its restrictions last week, citing its frustration over the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in territory captured by Israeli forces in the 1967 Middle East War. The new guidelines render Israeli entities operating there ineligible for EU grants, prizes or loans, beginning next year.
An Israeli official said on Friday the Jewish state was compelled to respond to the EU's decision "to sanction or boycott the settlements".
"From our standpoint we cannot just ignore this or treat spitting in our face as though it is rain," the official said.
Settler leaders say the aid they receive from Europe is minimal. But many in Israel worry about knock-on effects the EU steps may have on individuals or companies based in Israel that might be involved in business in the settlements, deemed illegal by the international community.

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Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 July 2013 07.07 EDT

Construction work at the Ariel settlement in the West Bank. Photograph: Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Israel has frozen co-operation with the European Union on work in the Palestinian territories in retaliation for an EU directive banning funding or grants for bodies with links to Israeli settlements.
The move, authorised by the defence minister, Moshe Ya'alon, affects all projects requiring permits from the Civil Administration, which governs Area C, the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control; access of EU diplomats and representatives to Area C and Gaza; and joint meetings.
No permits have been issued to EU humanitarian aid workers to enter Gaza for several days, according to a western diplomatic source.
"We are freezing the relationship on everything," said an Israeli official. "We did this as soon as we heard [about the directive]. We can't act like nothing happened."
The EU provides aid and equipment to Palestinian communities in Area C, many of whom are threatened with displacement and the demolition of their homes, animal shelters and other structures. The EU also helps train Palestinian security forces.

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Sunday, July 28, 2013

11-Year Old Yemeni Nada Al-Ahdal Flees Home to Avoid Forced Marriage

11-Year-Old Yemeni Girl Nada Al-Ahdal Flees Home to Avoid Forced Marriage: I'd Rather Kill Myself

The Hunger Site Greater Good.com

11-Year Old Yemeni Nada Al-Ahdal Flees Home to Avoid Forced Marriage

Jul 25, 2013 by Katherine A. Thichava In some parts of the world, young girls are forced into marriages by their family. The reasons may be cultural, economic, or something else entirely, but the abrupt end to their childhoods is a devastating experience for many. When 11 year-old Nada Al-Ahdal was informed that she was to be married, she took matters into her own hands. She fled to her uncle's home for protection and safety. She says she'd rather kill herself than return to her family and go through with the marriage her family had arranged against her will. Click to watch the video of this brave and strong girl explaining her situation and detailing why she finally decided to run away from home. She delivers a power appeal to all the girls who find themselves in situations like Nada's but have no voice to speak against their plight.

Visit The Hunger Site and help feed the hungry with just a click of your mouse today!

Seizure of 1,148 ivory tusks underscores Hong Kong's transit role in illicit trade

Wildlife Extra

More than 2 tonnes of ivory seized in Hong Kong

world/Asia/2013/Hong-Kong-ivory-July-2013

The ivory tusks were packed in 30 sacks and covered by wooden boards in the innermost part of the container. © Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department

Seizure of 1,148 ivory tusks underscores Hong Kong's transit role in illicit trade
July 2013-Hong Kong Customs have seized 1,148 ivory tusks weighing 2.183 tonnes. The tusks were declared as timber and concealed in a 20 foot (6 m) container that arrived on a vessel from the West African country of Togo.
Repeated large scale seizures
It was the ninth large-scale ivory seizure made in Hong Kong since 2010, with a combined weight of just over 14 tonnes. CITES has defined large-scale seizures as 500 kg or more, and typically are indicative of organized criminal activity.
Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines and Viet Nam
Hong Kong, together with Malaysia, the Philippines and Viet Nam, were identified through analysis of the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) database as the main transit points for ivory arriving in Asia from Africa before onward distribution to the major markets in Thailand and China. Collectively, they have made or been implicated in 21 (62%) of the 34 large-scale ivory seizures made between 2009 and 2011, totalling 41.1 tonnes of ivory.
ETIS is the world's foremost collection of ivory and other elephant product seizures containing nearly 20,000 records from some 90 countries or territories worldwide since 1989. It is managed by TRAFFIC on behalf of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), who met this March in Bangkok, Thailand.

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Self-Seeding Crops You’ll Never Need to Replant

MOTHER EARTH NEWS

Manage these vigorous self-seeders so you’ll never have to buy seeds again.

By Barbara Pleasant
August/September 2010

Letting crops flower and go to seed also supports beneficial insects!
ILLUSTRATION: ELAYNE SEARS

One of the characteristics of a truly sustainable garden is that it produces at least some of its own seed. This is most often done when gardeners select, harvest and store seeds until the proper time for planting the following year. But some self-seeding crops produce seeds so readily that as long as you give them time to flower and mature, and set seed, you will always have free plants growing in your garden. You can simply let the seeds fall where they are, or toss pieces of the seed heads into the corners of your garden, or whichever area you want them in — no harvesting, storing or replanting required. With most self-seeding vegetables, herbs and annual flowers, you’ll just need to learn to recognize the seedlings so you don’t hoe them down. Should seedlings require relocation, you can simply lift and move them — after all, they are sturdy field-grown seedlings.
In addition to getting all the free garden plants you need (and some to share with family and friends), nurturing self-seeders is also a great way to provide a diversity of flowers that supply pollen and nectar for beneficial insects. Self-seeding flowers, herbs and vegetables that show up in early spring include arugula, calendula, chamomile, cilantro, dill, breadseed poppies and brilliant red orach (mountain spinach). Nasturtiums, amaranth, New Zealand spinach, and even basil or zinnias appear later, after the soil has warmed.
Starting a new colony of any of these annuals is usually a simple matter of lopping off armloads of brittle, seedbearing stems in the fall, and dumping them where you want the plants to appear the next season. It’s that easy. Most of the seedlings will appear in the first year after you let seed-bearing plants drop their seeds, with lower numbers popping up in subsequent seasons.
Working with reseeding, or self-sowing, crops saves time and trouble and often gives excellent results, but a few special techniques and precautions are in order. Some plants that self-sow too freely — especially perennials such as garlic chives or horseradish — will cross the line into weediness if not handled with care.

Spring Seeds for Fall Crops

The first group of plants to try as self-sown crops — both because they’re the easiest and they’ll be ready the same year — are those that tend to bolt in late spring. If allowed to bloom and set seed, dill, radishes, arugula, cilantro, broccoli raab, turnips and any kind of mustard will produce ripe seeds in time for fall reseeding in most climates. Lettuce will take a little longer, but often gives good results in Zone 5 or warmer.
One way to encourage self-seeders is to select vigorous plants from a larger planting, and let these plants grow unharvested until they bloom and produce seeds. This will work well enough, but it’s often bothersome to have one lone turnip holding up the renovation of a planting bed. To get around this problem, use a Noah’s ark approach: Set aside a bed or row and transplant pairs of plants being grown for seed into the ark bed. As the weeks pass, weed, water and stake up seed-bearing branches to keep them clean, but don’t pick from the “seed ark” bed.

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Saturday, July 27, 2013

Czech customs and police have arrested a rhino horn smuggling gang.

Image: Princess. Tilly, Wikimedia Commons

Wildlife Extra

Czech rhino horn smuggling gang arrested

24 rhino horns seized
July 2013. 16 people were arrested and charged with smuggling, and 24 rhino horns were seized.
It appears that the gang members posed as hunters in South Africa, where they shot the rhinos on game farms; the horns were then imported to Europe, sometimes using fake documents. The gang planned to export the rhinos to Asia but it appears that they have been seized before they could complete the shipment.
This is not the first time rhinos have been shot, supposedly by ‘big game hunters' who turned out to be working for smuggling syndicates. South Africa changed their rules after discovering that rhino hunting licences had been awarded to Thai prostitutes posing as hunters. Possibly as many as dozens of rhino were shot, not by the Thai girls who thought they were on safari, but by ‘professional hunters. The horns were then given export licences before being shipped to the gang leaders in Asia.

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Halliburton Admits Destroying Evidence in Gulf Spill Blame

PBSNewsHour

Published on Jul 26, 2013

Who's to blame for the disaster caused by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion? The battle over liability continues to play out in court. Bloomberg Businessweek's Paul Barrett sits down with Hari Sreenivasan to discuss contractor Halliburton's guilty plea for destroying evidence.

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Gulf oil spill: Halliburton to plead guilty to destroying evidence

Contractor to plead guilty over deleted computer simulations testing methods used to cement Deepwater Horizon well

Reuters
guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 July 2013 02.20 EDT

Halliburton has admitted ordering employees to delete computer simulations about cementing of the Deepwater Horizon oil well. Photograph: Richard Carson/Reuters

Halliburton has agreed to plead guilty to destroying evidence related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the US department of justice said on Thursday.

The government said Halliburton's guilty plea was the third by a company over the spill and would require the world's second-largest oilfield services company to pay a maximum US$200,000 statutory fine.

Halliburton also agreed to three years' probation and to continue co-operating with the criminal probe into the 20 April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

Court approval of the deal is required. Houston-based Halliburton also made a separate, voluntary $55m payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the justice department said.