If you’ve eaten a burger and fries recently, there’s a chance that the potatoes were picked by middle schoolers, working through the school day in a field in Idaho [or New Brunswick]. The steer that became the beef patty may well have been killed at a slaughterhouse where teenagers work, and the bone saws used to process the meat could easily have been cleaned by a 13-year-old, wearing a bulky hard hat and oversized gloves. It’s also quite possible that the burger was grilled, flipped and assembled by a child working at McDonald’s on a school night, far later than federal law allows.
Category: Human Rights (Page 12 of 12)
Armenian Gevorg Margarian, 27, was nearing the end of a prison term in Russia when his family was informed by text message that he had died in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Human rights groups say migrants in Russian jails are deliberately targeted to fight in Ukraine.
Thank you sir. Rest in peace.
More » DW / NY Times / The Guardian /
Moscow is rattling the nuclear saber, NATO just added 830 miles of territory on the Russian border, and tensions are higher than ever. Russia now sees NATO as its enemy and vice versa. But does that mean war is inevitable?
Marty Branagan, University of New England
Many people think Nazi Germany was beaten only through military violence, and mainly by men. As Barack Obama said in 2009: “Nonviolence could not have halted Hitler’s armies”. In fact, non-violent action was widely used in resisting Nazism. Brave women often led it. They later got little recognition, though this is now changing.
Women in nations such as France, Germany and Holland gathered intelligence, founded resistance groups, published underground media and coordinated people-smuggling operations. Some engaged in sabotage. Their networking and people skills were invaluable, and their lack of visibility under a sexist regime was an asset. Some of these brave women sacrificed their lives for the cause.
Held for the first time last year, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands came together for the inaugural North Sea Summit in the Danish harbor town of Esbjerg, setting historic goals for offshore wind with the Esbjerg Declaration. It paved the way for making the North Seas a green power plant for Europe, as well as a major contributor to climate neutrality and strengthening energy security.
This Monday, nine countries will meet for the next North Sea Summit — this time in the Belgian town of Ostend — where France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway and the United Kingdom will also put their political weight behind developing green energy in the North Seas, including the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish and Celtic Seas. Together, we will combine and coordinate our ambitions for deploying offshore wind and developing an offshore electricity grid, putting Europe on the path toward a green economy fueled by offshore green power plants.
The Brussels Times » UK, Netherlands Announce Plans for Joint Power Cable
The reasons for these disparities go beyond modern policy differences and extend back to events that predate not only the American party system but the advent of shotguns, revolvers, ammunition cartridges, breach-loaded rifles and the American republic itself. The geography of gun violence — and public and elite ideas about how it should be addressed — is the result of differences at once regional, cultural and historical. Once you understand how the country was colonized — and by whom — a number of insights into the problem are revealed.
India will overtake China to become the most populous country in the world by the end of this week, the United Nations has said.
India’s population is expected to reach 1,425,775,850 people by the end of April, the new data shows.
Elsewhere » UN News / The Guardian / FlowingData / The Japan Times /
BBC »
A different UN body last week predicted that India would overtake China by the middle of this year.
The Asian nations have accounted for more than a third of the global population for over 70 years.
Previously » Reuters / The Guardian / Al Jazeera /
Shortly after the United Nations said Wednesday India remains on track to become the world’s most populous nation – surpassing China by mid-2023 – Beijing hit back boasting of a better trained workforce with nearly 900 million people working towards the development of the country. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson was quoted by news agency PTI as stressing on skilled labour and said: “I want to tell you that population dividend does not depend on quantity but also quality.”India became the world’s most populous country with 2.9 million more people than China.
“China’s population is over 1.4 billion. Those in the working age is close to 900 million and that group of populations is 10.5 years of education on average… our population dividend has not disappeared and our talent dividend is booming and the impetus is strong for development,” Wang Wenbin said.
India is expected to be the most populous country in the world by the middle of this year and overtake China, according to the latest data from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Also » The most populated countries in the world » Adventure Trend
There were 619, 000 malaria deaths in the world in 2021.
Africa’s most populous nation [Nigeria] is also the world’s most affected by malaria, accounting for 32% of global deaths, according to the 2021 World Health Organization (WHO) report (pdf). The country records 95,000 malaria deaths in children aged under five every year, largely due to the high cost of treating the disease.
It’s estimated that the disease costs Nigeria’s economy, Africa’s biggest, $1.1 billion a year.
The Ferrari great has not been seen in public since he suffered a serious brain injury in a skiing accident on a family holiday in the French Alps in December 2013.
The family has guarded his privacy since, with access limited to those closest to him and little information given about his condition.
The latest edition of Die Aktuelle ran a front cover with a picture of a smiling Schumacher and the headline promising ‘Michael Schumacher, the first interview’.
Benedict Cumberbatch reads a letter from Kurt Vonnegut to a headmaster who had just burned all the copies of a particular book by Kurt in the school’s furnace
Benedict Cumberbatch reads a letter from Kurt Vonnegut at Hay Festival, 2014
Better Choices » Community / Being connected / Social safety nets
Max Fawcett, writing for the National Observer »
After peaking at fifth in 2015, the latest World Happiness Report ranked us 13th. “Not good!” the right-wing meme factory tweeted.
That ranking still puts Canada ahead of places like the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany and France. More importantly, the countries ahead of us on the list aren’t exactly the sort of libertarian small-government paradises you’d think the folks at Canada Proud would gravitate towards. Number 1? Finland. Number 2? Denmark. Also in the top 10: Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand.
…
According to John Helliwell, one of the authors of the World Happiness Report and a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver School of Economics, it’s really about being connected with other people. Not surprisingly, the countries where the social safety net is most robust — and where governments are most involved in helping people build and maintain their communities — are the ones where people are happiest.
Elsewhere » Adventure Trend
Check out the following for Spring 2023 events at local Fjallraven stores »
- How to Prepare for Long Distance Trekking – Toronto – April 5
- How to Prepare for Long Distance Trekking – Ottawa – April 15
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Repair with Fjällräven Victoria – April 21
- Earth Day with Fjällräven Vancouver Broadway – April 22
- Ocean Clean Up with Fjällräven Victoria – April 22
- Earth Day with Fjällräven Kitsilano – April 29
They promise to looking into it. You know, with vigour.
David Conn, Aamna Mohdin and Maya Wolfe-Robinson, writing in The Guardian »
A spokesperson for the palace said: “This is an issue that His Majesty takes profoundly seriously. As His Majesty told the Commonwealth heads of government reception in Rwanda last year: ‘I cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of so many, as I continue to deepen my own understanding of slavery’s enduring impact.’
“That process has continued with vigour and determination since His Majesty’s accession. Historic Royal Palaces is a partner in an independent research project, which began in October last year, that is exploring, among other issues, the links between the British monarchy and the transatlantic slave trade during the late 17th and 18th centuries.”
IQAir‘s 5th Annual World Air Quality Report reveals alarming details of the world’s most polluted countries, territories, and regions in 2022.
For this year’s report, data from more than 30,000 air quality monitoring stations across 7,323 locations in 131 countries, territories, and regions was analyzed by IQAir’s air quality scientists.
Key findings from the 2022 World Air Quality Report (Download the full report):
- Six countries met the World Health Organization PM2.5 guideline (annual average of 5 µg/m3 or less): Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, and New Zealand.
- The top five most polluted countries in 2022 were:
- Chad (89.7 µg/m3) more than 17 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline
- Iraq (80.1 µg/m3) more than 16 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline
- Pakistan (70.9 µg/m3) more than 14 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline
- Bahrain (66.6 µg/m3) more than 13 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline
- Bangladesh (65.8 µg/m3) more than 13 times higher than the WHO PM2.5 annual guideline
- A total of 118 (90%) out of 131 countries and regions exceeded the WHO annual PM2.5 guideline value of 5 µg/m3
- While the African continent saw an increase from 13 countries represented in 2021 to 19 countries included in this year’s report, Africa remains the most underrepresented continent. Only 19 countries out of 54 countries have sufficient air quality data
- The region of Central and South Asia was home to eight of the world’s ten cities with the worst air pollution
- Lahore is the most polluted metropolitan area of 2022. It ranked #15 in 2021
- Chile became home to eight of the region’s top 15 most polluted cities
- The most polluted city in the U.S. was Coffeyville, Kansas. The most polluted major U.S. city was Columbus, Ohio
- California was home to 10 of the 15 most polluted cities in the U.S.
- Las Vegas, Nevada was deemed the cleanest major city in the U.S.
- Canada’s cleanest city in 2022 was Schefferville, Quebec
- Canada most polluted city in 2022 was Clearwater, British Columbia
Vanessa Chiasson provides us with a “small sample of the incredible shops that are hard at work supporting local authors, hosting wonderful events, preserving heritage, giving cats a home, and setting the hearts of book lovers aflutter across the country.”
They include »
- Abraxas Books And Gifts » Denman Island, British Columbia
- Bookmark » Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
- Huckleberry Books » Cranbrook, BC
- Mac’s Fireweed Books » Whitehorse, Yukon
- Maktaba Bookstore » Old Montréal, Quebec
- McNally Robinson » Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
- Venus Envy » Halifax, Nova Scotia
- Yellowknife Book Cellar » Yellowknife, Northwest Territories