Our first gothic compilation ‘NONstopVIOLENCE’ is available for free download at GOthFAIR.

The package includes 12 tracks, a .pdf file with some information about the artists and a cover and back side for print (preferably to be printed on recycled paper).

Once again, we want to thank the artists very much for their generous contributions.

We hope you enjoy the compilation and are curious about your feedback.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Unser GOthFAIR-Promo-Sampler ‘NONstopVIOLENCE’ steht zum kostenfreien Download auf GOthFAIR.de.

Der Download beinhaltet 12 Songs, ein .pdf mit Infos zu den Künstlern, sowie CD-Cover und Rückseite zum Ausdrucken (bevorzugt auf Recyclingpapier).

Noch einmal einen ganz herzlichen Dank an alle mitwirkenden Künstler.

Wir wünschen Euch viel Spaß beim Hören und freuen uns über Feedback.

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He Survived 5-Story Drop: Keeping Birds Alive After Window Crashes

In today’s story brought to you by The Great Animal Rescue Chase, we’ll share a little something about the survival mechanisms that come into play when birds strike windows.  We’re hopeful that by sharing this information, perhaps another life may be saved.

Written by Paula Lopes of Aveiro, Portugal

A while ago, I was exercising at the local gym, as I did regularly. A lot of birds live in the surrounding building and I used to enjoy looking out the window as I exercised and enjoying the beautiful dances the birds performed while flying close to the mirrored-glasses.

One day, after watching the birds for a while, I started to do some crunches, when I heard a loud THUD on the window. I was startled and a thought immediately crossed my mind: a bird, confused with the mirrored window. If it had happened, it was certain the poor animal had died, the impact was too strong, it must have broken its neck.

But I couldn’t shake the thought: what if it didn’t? I ran towards the window. We were on the 5th floor — quite a fall for such a little creature. And sure enough, I saw him, lying on the road, between two parked cars. He wouldn’t have survived the fall.

But what if it had? I ran out on my exercise, afraid a car would park where the bird was lying. I approached him, his head was on the ground, his little back in the air. I picked him up, very carefully, certain that there was nothing to be done.

He Turned His Head and Looked at Me

But then he looked at me. He turned his little head and looked at me. I was in shock that he could have survived such an impact (both the window and the fall) and brought him home with me. He was very still and could barely stay up. I placed him in a little towel, trying to give him some comfort and some balance. I offered him water, but he didn’t want any. I called the vet to ask what I could do for the birdie. She told me that if he didn’t have any internal injuries, I should place him in a dark box with holes, and leave him there for a couple of hours. I did just that and researched more about cases like this online, while the bird rested.

That day I learned that, when the birds don’t break their necks at impact and don’t get internal injuries, what happens is that the blood rushes to their heads and they are unable to move or react for a good while and many times, people think they are dead. But if you place them in a dark place (with holes, always) they stay in a sleep-like mode, allowing the blood to slowly go back to the rest of the body. It’s usually better not to offer water or food.

The happy ending: I live in an apartment building, and when it came time to set him free, I didn’t want to do it from my floor, because if he was not able to fly properly he would fall to his death. So I took him to an open field, with a lot of nice trees and opened the box. And he flew happily into a tree. It was a brief encounter, but I am forever grateful for having been able to help that little bird.

For more great rescue stories from everyday heroes, please visit The Great Animal Rescue Chase.

Source: Care2, by Laura Simpson, February 3, 2012

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DAVID McNEILL in Tokyo

RESEARCHERS WORKING in the irradiated zone around the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant say bird populations there have begun to dwindle, in what may be a chilling harbinger of the impact of radioactive fallout on local life.

In the first major study on the impact of the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years, the researchers from Japan, the US and Denmark say that analysis of 14 species of birds common to Fukushima and Chernobyl shows the effect on numbers is worse in the Japanese disaster zone.

Published next week in the journal Environmental Pollution, the paper says its findings demonstrate “an immediate negative consequence of radiation for birds during the main breeding season March-July”.

Two of the study’s authors have spent years working in the irradiated 2,850sq m zone around the Chernobyl plant, which exploded in 1986. A quarter of a century later, the zone is almost devoid of people.

Timothy Mousseau and Anders Pape Moller say their research there uncovered major negative effects among the local bird population, including reductions in longevity, male fertility and birds with smaller brains.

Many species show “dramatically” elevated DNA mutation rates, developmental abnormalities and extinctions, they add, while insect life has been significantly reduced.

Some scientists have challenged the findings, arguing that animal and insect species have thrived around Chernobyl’s almost uninhabited shadow.

Prof Mousseau, a biological scientist, at the University of South Carolina in the US, says however that there is “no data to support that thesis”.

Prof Mousseau says the fresh findings are of “profound” interest because Fukushima presents the first opportunity to monitor the impact of a large-scale nuclear disaster “from day one”.

In a 2003 judgment by a Danish academic body, Prof Pape Moller was found to have been guilty of “a falsification of the scientific message”.

Source: The Irish Times, February 3, 2012

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Movement is calling for protests to support 60 family farmers, small seed businesses, organizations challenging Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seed

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Our meat consumption habits take a serious toll on the environment. According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), the production, processing and distribution of meat requires huge outlays of pesticides, fertilizer, fuel, feed and water while releasing greenhouse gases, manure and a range of toxic chemicals into our air and water. A lifecycle analysis conducted by EWG that took into account the production and distribution of 20 common agricultural products found that red meat such as beef and lamb is responsible for 10 to 40 times as many greenhouse gas emissions as common vegetables and grains.

Livestock are typically fed corn, soybean meal and other grains which have to first be grown using large amounts of fertilizer, fuel, pesticides, water and land. EWG estimates that growing livestock feed in the U.S. alone requires 167 million pounds of pesticides and 17 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer each year across some 149 million acres of cropland. The process generates copious amounts of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, while the output of methane—another potent greenhouse gas—from cattle is estimated to generate some 20 percent of overall U.S. methane emissions.

“If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million,” reports ecologist David Pimentel of Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He adds that the seven billion livestock in the U.S. consume five times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire U.S. population.

Our meat consumption habits also cause other environmental problems. A 2009 study found that four-fifths of the deforestation across the Amazon rainforest could be linked to cattle ranching. And the water pollution from factory farms (also called concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs)—whereby pigs and other livestock are contained in tight quarters—can produce as much sewage waste as a small city, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Further, the widespread use of antibiotics to keep livestock healthy on those overcrowded CAFOs has led to the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that threaten human health and the environment in their own right.

Eating too much meat is no good for our health, with overindulgence linked to increasing rates of heart disease, cancer and obesity. Worldwide, between 1971 and 2010, production of meat tripled to around 600 billion pounds while global population grew by 81 percent, meaning that we are eating a lot more meat than our grandparents. Researchers extrapolate that global meat production will double by 2050 to about 1.2 trillion pounds a year, putting further pressure on the environment and human health.

For those who can’t give up meat fully, cutting back goes a long way toward helping the environment, as does choosing meat and dairy products from organic, pasture-raised, grass-fed animals. “Ultimately, we need better policies and stronger regulations to reduce the environmental impacts of livestock production,” says EWG’s Kari Hammerschlag “But personal shifting of diets is an important step.”

CONTACTS: EWG, www.ewg.org; David Pimentel, www.vivo.cornell.edu/entity?home=1&id=5774; NRDC, www.nrdc.org.

Source: Scientific American, December 28, 2011

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Advances in our knowledge and understanding of animal sentience are compelling us to reconsider our prejudices toward animals

Ring-tailed Lemur, Madagascar. The sun is the energy foundation for practically all life on Earth. And, as any sunbather knows, it feels good. © Steve Mandel

In a freshwater spring in Kenya, hippopotami drift blissfully, splaying their toes, spreading their legs, and opening their mouths as fishes of various species provide a spa treatment by nibbling away bits of food, sloughing skin and parasites…

Chances are that you’ve witnessed expressions of animal pleasure. If you’ve lived with dogs or cats you may have noticed how most of them enjoy being stroked, scratched, or rubbed. Indeed, that we refer to them as pets attests to their love of touch as well as our pleasure in touching them.

One of our cats, Megan, adores a belly rub, which she solicits by making a distinctive chirruping sound and flopping onto her side or back. It’s a cat billboard that says: “Here is my belly. Please start rubbing.” How can one resist an invitation like that? As I rub, she stretches out to her full length, flopping from one side to the other and purring loudly. If I pick up the cat brush and thump it on the floor, Megan doesn’t just walk over, she comes running.

As yet, there are few scientific studies on animal pleasure. Some of these, however, are very good and today, evidence is rapidly accumulating that life for animals holds great potential for joy.

I argue throughout my new book, The Exultant Ark: a Pictorial Tour of Animal Pleasure, that pleasure is central to animal existence. Believe it or not, this is a controversial claim. There has been very little discussion of animal pleasure by biologists. Indeed, there is little serious discussion of pleasure in humans, let alone nonhumans. Curiously, animals’ capacity for pain – while no less physically private than their capacity for pleasure – has been extensively studied and is uncontroversial.

Why do we shun pleasure? Part of the reason is that science, by and large, has held and continues to hold a narrow perspective in its scholarly interpretation of animal existence. Published studies of animal behaviour are presented almost exclusively in an ultimate, evolutionary context, without discussion of the animals’ more immediate mental and emotional experiences.

Scientists who study positive experiences in animals are still few and far between, but one of them is the physiologist Michel Cabanac, at Laval University in Quebec. Cabanac coined the term alliesthesia (from the Greek for “other-perception”) to describe the phenomenon whereby an identical stimulus may be perceived as pleasant or unpleasant depending on the physiological state of the subject.

For example, when Cabanac had people dip their hand in a container of cold water, they reported the experience as pleasant if they were feeling hot and unpleasant if they were feeling cold. Animals too show alliesthesia, which also applies to tastes (pleasant when hungry, unpleasant when full).

As Darwin showed, we humans are just one of many wonderful and unique expressions of nature: our differences from other mammals (at least) are in degree, not kind. Crucially, when it comes to sentience, humans may not always be the most endowed.

Some scientists, such as the American neuroscientists Jeffrey Burgdorf and Jaak Panksepp, believe that other lifeforms may experience certain feelings more intensely than humans do.

When my cat Megan receives her belly rubs, she seems totally absorbed in the moment – enwrapped in a pleasure whose pureness may be more difficult to attain for us whose minds become easily preoccupied with our thoughts.

We already know that many animals have keener senses than our own. Owls have better night vision and hearing, sharks have stronger chemical perception, and dogs have a better sense of smell.

In some cases, animals experience physical sensations that are unknown to us. What might it feel like to orient in flight or to identify different types of insect by listening to one’s echoes, as bats do? Or to communicate by means of vibrations, as many burrowing animals do, or to sense the earth’s magnetic field?

Not just a struggle for survival

Advances in our knowledge and understanding of animal sentience are compelling us to reconsider our prejudices toward animals. One such prejudice is the notion that life in the wild is a relentless, earnest struggle. Popular phrases such as “nature red in tooth and claw,” “eat or be eaten,” and “the struggle for survival” reinforce the impression that life for wild creatures is harsh and grim. This is a biased and inaccurate perspective.

Consider that survival behaviours in themselves can be rewarding: just because reindeer have to migrate 1,000 miles to find seasonably available food, or prairie dogs need to dig burrows to avoid predation, doesn’t mean they can’t take pleasure in these tasks. Goal-directed activities, such as important survival behaviours, are desirable for animals, who need to exert some control over their lives.

Finding food is one of the major projects of an animal’s life, and many with the misfortune of being confined have been shown to engage in what is called ‘contrafreeloading’ – given the opportunity, caged rats will pull a lever to obtain food that is otherwise freely available without having to engage in these activities. Take away life’s significance, and you may be taking away a lot of what pleasure derives from.

Also, animals do in fact have leisure time. Many animals meet their survival needs in a fraction of the time available to them. The primatologist Robert Sapolsky estimates that savannah baboons on the Serengeti plains of Kenya take about four hours to feed themselves in a given day. Flight affords many birds the luxury of meeting their energy needs in a fraction of their waking time. Animals may spend part of the remaining time engaged in such activities as grooming and preening, playing, singing (birds), or resting.

Another common prejudice is that animals raised for food are less worthy of our consideration than wild animals. Pigs are often perceived as filthy, chickens as cowardly and stupid, and sheep as passive followers.

In fact, farmed animals have been well studied, and none of the biases we hold against them stand up to scrutiny. Chickens, for example, have a vocabulary of at least thirty different calls. Some are referential, meaning that the signaller is referring to a specific object in the environment. Studies by Chris Evans and his colleagues at Macquarie University, in Australia, show that a chicken on the receiving end of these calls understands their meaning.

Studies at Cambridge University show that a sheep can remember the faces of fifty of her original flock-mates from single photographs, two years after she was moved into a different flock. Sheep also read emotions on the faces of other sheep: they prefer to access food through a door with a photo of a just-fed (contented) sheep than a door with a hungry (stressed) sheep.

Animals have experiences

The real world runs on experience. For instance, when adding spices to our food I’m not aware that anyone reaches for the oregano or the curry powder with the conscious intent of warding off intestinal microbes. We spice our food because it enhances the taste. Similarly, animals are not mechanical slaves to evolutionary adaptations; they too have experiences.

Happy, healthy animals are beautiful to behold. They make us smile, and there’s value in that. But pleasure has deeper meaning and significant implications for humankind’s relationship with other animals. Pleasure adds intrinsic value to life – that is, value to the individual who feels it regardless of any perceived worth to anyone else. Pleasure seekers have wants, needs, desires, and lives worth living. They can have a good quality of life. If we let them.

As you look at the pictures on these pages, enjoy the pleasure they bring you. Bathe in their beauty and soak in their grace. Reflect on the significance of the fact that animals also experience good feelings. And the next time you see a crow or a cat or a lizard, stop and watch. Try to imagine their experience.

The Exultant Ark: A Pictorial Tour of Animal Pleasure is available now in hardback, published by University of California Press.

Source: Positive News, Jonathan Balcombe, 06 Dec 2011

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The shit hit the fan in the trans blogosphere last night, when it came to light that there is a disturbing new section in the Identity Screening Regulations used in airports throughout Canada. Simply put, Transgender People are Completely Banned From Boarding Airplanes in Canada.

The offending section of the regulations reads:

5.2 (1) An air carrier shall not transport a passenger if …
(c) the passenger does not appear to be of the gender indicated on the identification he or she presents;

Although this obviously discriminatory smear of regulation did not come to significant public attention until very recently, it apparently came into effect on July 27th, 2011.

It is important to note that these regulations are not actually a piece of legislation, which would have had to pass through readings and votes in the House and Senate (which is probably why it went unnoticed until now). Rather, the Identity Screening Regulations are a set of rules implemented unilaterally by the Ministry of Transportation, as part of Canada’s so-called Passenger Protect, which is essentially the Canadian Federal Government’s equivalent to the U.S.’s “no-fly” list.

Minister of Transportation Denis Lebel is, of course, a federal Conservative MP appointed to the cabinet position by Stephen Harper.

So what does this mean? Well, in order to change the ‘sex’ designation on a Canadian Passport, the federal government requires proof that surgery has taken place, or will take place within one year. So for non-operative transgender persons, for gender nonconforming (genderqueer) persons, and for the vast majority of pre-operative transsexual persons, it is literally impossible to obtain proper travel documentation marked with the sex designation which “matches” the gender identity in which they live.

In the eyes of the honourable Minister of Transportation, that makes trans people unfit to fly in Canada.

It is interesting to note that this regulatory adjustment occurred immediately following the federal election in 2011. In the previous parliament, Bill C-389, a bill to amend the Human Rights Code to explicitly enshrine protections against discrimination for transgender people, had successfully passed in the House of Commons, only to die on the Senate floor when Harper declared a Federal Election (thereby dissolving parliament).

Is the timing of this disturbing and blatantly discriminatory regulatory adjustment merely a coincidence? That is up to you to decide. However, the negative impact on trans people is crystal clear, and we need to take action now.

Source: Christin Scarlett Milloy, January 30, 2012

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US among countries that have already signed ACTA

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Predicted percentage of ecological landscape being driven toward changes in plant species as a result of projected human-induced climate change by 2100. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

PASADENA, Calif. – By 2100, global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half of Earth’s land surface and will drive the conversion of nearly 40 percent of land-based ecosystems from one major ecological community type – such as forest, grassland or tundra – toward another, according to a new NASA and university computer modeling study.

Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., investigated how Earth’s plant life is likely to react over the next three centuries as Earth’s climate changes in response to rising levels of human-produced greenhouse gases. Study results are published in the journal Climatic Change.

The model projections paint a portrait of increasing ecological change and stress in Earth’s biosphere, with many plant and animal species facing increasing competition for survival, as well as significant species turnover, as some species invade areas occupied by other species. Most of Earth’s land that is not covered by ice or desert is projected to undergo at least a 30 percent change in plant cover – changes that will require humans and animals to adapt and often relocate.

In addition to altering plant communities, the study predicts climate change will disrupt the ecological balance between interdependent and often endangered plant and animal species, reduce biodiversity and adversely affect Earth’s water, energy, carbon and other element cycles.

“For more than 25 years, scientists have warned of the dangers of human-induced climate change,” said Jon Bergengren, a scientist who led the study while a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. “Our study introduces a new view of climate change, exploring the ecological implications of a few degrees of global warming. While warnings of melting glaciers, rising sea levels and other environmental changes are illustrative and important, ultimately, it’s the ecological consequences that matter most.”

When faced with climate change, plant species often must “migrate” over multiple generations, as they can only survive, compete and reproduce within the range of climates to which they are evolutionarily and physiologically adapted. While Earth’s plants and animals have evolved to migrate in response to seasonal environmental changes and to even larger transitions, such as the end of the last ice age, they often are not equipped to keep up with the rapidity of modern climate changes that are currently taking place. Human activities, such as agriculture and urbanization, are increasingly destroying Earth’s natural habitats, and frequently block plants and animals from successfully migrating.

To study the sensitivity of Earth’s ecological systems to climate change, the scientists used a computer model that predicts the type of plant community that is uniquely adapted to any climate on Earth. This model was used to simulate the future state of Earth’s natural vegetation in harmony with climate projections from 10 different global climate simulations. These simulations are based on the intermediate greenhouse gas scenario in the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. That scenario assumes greenhouse gas levels will double by 2100 and then level off. The U.N. report’s climate simulations predict a warmer and wetter Earth, with global temperature increases of 3.6 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (2 to 4 degrees Celsius) by 2100, about the same warming that occurred following the Last Glacial Maximum almost 20,000 years ago, except about 100 times faster. Under the scenario, some regions become wetter because of enhanced evaporation, while others become drier due to changes in atmospheric circulation.

The researchers found a shift of biomes, or major ecological community types, toward Earth’s poles – most dramatically in temperate grasslands and boreal forests – and toward higher elevations. Ecologically sensitive “hotspots” – areas projected to undergo the greatest degree of species turnover – that were identified by the study include regions in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, eastern equatorial Africa, Madagascar, the Mediterranean region, southern South America, and North America’s Great Lakes and Great Plains areas. The largest areas of ecological sensitivity and biome changes predicted for this century are, not surprisingly, found in areas with the most dramatic climate change: in the Northern Hemisphere high latitudes, particularly along the northern and southern boundaries of boreal forests.

“Our study developed a simple, consistent and quantitative way to characterize the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, while assessing and comparing the implications of climate model projections,” said JPL co-author Duane Waliser. “This new tool enables scientists to explore and understand interrelationships between Earth’s ecosystems and climate and to identify regions projected to have the greatest degree of ecological sensitivity.”

“In this study, we have developed and applied two new ecological sensitivity metrics – analogs of climate sensitivity – to investigate the potential degree of plant community changes over the next three centuries,” said Bergengren. “The surprising degree of ecological sensitivity of Earth’s ecosystems predicted by our research highlights the global imperative to accelerate progress toward preserving biodiversity by stabilizing Earth’s climate.”

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Science: Jet Propuklion Laboratory (NASA,) December 14, 2011

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Here’s the other difference between the one percent and the rest of us –

The crimes of the one percent inflict far more damage on society than those of the 99 percent.

And they tend to get away with their crimes.

While we tend to get nailed.

The big multinational corporations, which are the primary delivery systems of wealth to the 99 percent, have rigged the justice system so that when they get in trouble with the law, they either aren’t prosecuted for their crimes, of if they are, they get special treatment – non prosecution or deferred prosecution agreements.

If they end up in the civil courts, they also get special deals – like neither admit nor deny consent decrees.

True, they pay fines, often in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, but this is pocket change to them – the equivalent of a parking ticket for serious wrongdoing.

They marinate the halls of power with campaign cash, flood them with lobbyists, and lubricate the revolving door – all to undermine our system of justice.

Out of the more than 500 stories we’ve written for Corporate Crime Reporter this year, here are the Top 100 – selected by our crack editorial team.

Just scan the the headlines, and you’ll get a sense of the enormity of the corporate crime wave.

And remember – Corporate Crime Reporter is only a weekly newsletter. We publish 48 times a year.

We’re considering making it a daily – just to keep up.

Top 100 Corporate Crime Stories of 2011

100. SEC Delivers First Non Pros Baby
99. Simon Johnson: Break Up the Big Banks
98. Grassley Asks: Why are Health Care Fraud Cases Stagnating?
97. Guidant to Pay $296 Million for FDA Crimes
96. Former Chase Bank Official Convicted of Taking Bribes
95. Oregon Sues Johnson & Johnson for Phatom Recall of Motrin
94. Grain Elevator Deaths Due to Lax OSHA Enforcement
93. Insider Trading Defendants Avoid Jail in 44 Percent of Cases
92. Lockheed to Pay $2 Million to Resolve False Claims Charge
91. Grossman Drafts Legislation to Criminalize the Corporate Form

90. Pentagon Spent Billions on Companies that Committed Fraud
89. Legal Challenge to Blanket Immunity in BAE Settlement
88. Maxwell Gets FCPA Prosecution Deferred, Pays $8 Million Criminal Fine
87. Nader Calls Jeep Grand Cherokee Modern Day Pinto for Soccer Moms
86. Oracle to Pay $46 Million To Settle False Claims Charge
85. Coalition: Negligent Doctors and Big Pharma Should Not Be Shielded
84. Chevron Found Guilty in Ecuador, Fined $9 Billion
83. Tyson Foods Gets Prosecution Deferred, Pays $4 Million FCPA Fine
82. Rolling Stone: Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?
81. Criminal Investigation Against Mozilo Closed

80. Horizon Lines to Plead Guilty, Pay $45 Million Criminal Fine
79. Walmart State and Local Tax Avoidance Exceeds $400 Million Annually
78. Wheelchair Fraud Results in $6 Million Fine
77. Feds Intervene in False Claims Case against KBR
76. Jack Abramoff, Whipping Boy
75. HHS Fines Cignet Health $4.3 Million
74. Arch Coal to Pay $4 Million
73. Forest Pharma Hit with $145 in Criminal Penalties
72. Goldman Sachs Board Member Charged with Insider Trading
71. CSPI Urges Feds to Ban Caramel Color from Sodas

70. Avaya and CIT Group Pay over $16.5 Million To Settle False Claims Case
69. Two NY York Lawmakers, Albany Lobbyist, Hospital CEOs Busted in Corruption Probe
68. USA Today: Fines Not Being Collected
67. The Dark Side of the Cruise Ship Industry and the Silence of The Nation Magazine
66. Audit Firms: Too Few to Fail?
65. Astrazeneca to Pay $68.5 to Settle Anti-Psychotic Drug Case
64. Japan Nuclear Reactor Design Caused GE Scientist to Quit in Protest
63. Chamber Hires Mukasey to Weaken FCPA
62. Consol to Pay $5.5 Pollution Fine
61. French Judge Charges Airbus with Manslaughter

60. Heart Association Endorses Stomach Surgery after $100K Gift from Lap-Band Maker
59. IBM to Pay $10 Million to Settle FCPA Action
58. Samsung SDI to Pay $32 Million Criminal Fine
57. PG&E to Pay $6 Million Criminal Fine
56. Occidental Oil to Pay $2 Million in False Claims Case
55. HHS Launches Health Care Fraud Fugitive List
54. How Milton Friedman and Chicago Economics Undermined America
53. Rakoff Rips Neither Admit Nor Deny SEC Settlements
52. Insider Trading Scandal Hits Congress
51. Antitrust Institute: T Mobile/AT&T Merger Anti-Competitive

50. Cell Phones, Brain Cancer and Devra Davis
49. JGC Gets FCPA Prosecution Deferred, Will Pay $218.8 Million Criminal Penalty
48. Verizon Pays $93.5 Million To Resolve False Claim Charge
47. Comverse Technology Gets Non Prosecution FCPA Agreement
46. Johnson & Johnson Gets FCPA Prosecution Deferred, to Pay $21.4 Million Criminal Penalty
45. Spitzer Calls on Holder to Prosecute Goldman Sachs or Resign
44. Stokes Sours on Obama’s Antitrust Effort
43. Honeywell Pleads Guilty, to Pay $11.8 Million
42. NPR, Electric Trolleys and Corporate Crime
41. Warren: Banks Want to Knife Consumer Bureau in the Ribs

40. DynCorp to Pay $8.7 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
39. Serono Pays $44 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
38. UBS Gets Non Pros Agreement, to Pay $160 Million
37. 29 Coal Miners Dead and Alpha Gets Non Prosecution Agreement
36. FedEx to Pay $8 Million to Settle False Claims Probe
35. Andy Cochran and the Coming War Between Constitutionalists and Corporatists
34. Quest Diagnostics in $241 Settlement
33. Wall Street Analyst: Goldman Too Big to Prosecute
32. Fresenius Ordered To Pay $82.6 Million
31. Friedrichs Baffled by NYT’s Claim That Major Crimes are in Decline (Answer: NYT Didn’t Look at Corporate Crime)

30. Novo Nordisk to Pay $25 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
29. Still No Criminal Charge in 2007 Utah Mine Disaster
28. Whistleblowers Call on Public Interest Groups to Rescind Obama Transparency Award
29. Fluor Corporation to Pay $4 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
28. Anadarko, Kerr-McGee To Pay $17 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
27. JP Morgan to Pay $153.6 Million To Settle SEC Probe
26. 60 Minutes: Why No Wall Street Prosecutions?
25. Boeing Overcharged Army Millions for Spare Helicopter Parts
24. MHSA: Massey Kept Two Sets of Books
23. State AGs Settle with Glaxo for $40 Million
22. Antitrust Activists Feel Sucker Punched as Varney Leaves to Cravath
21. JP Morgan Chase to Pay $92 Million in Bid Rigging Case

20. Armor Holdings Gets Non Pros FCPA Agreement, to Pay $10 Million Criminal Penalty
19. Kentucky Nursing Home Accused in Deaths of Five Residents
18. Richard Grossman 1943-2011
17. Dickie Scruggs, Huey Long and the Politics of Crime in Mississippi
16. SEC Charges Liquor Giant Diego with FCPA Violations
15. Pew Report Hits Water Pollution from Chicken Plants
14. Wachovia Gets Non Pros Agreement, to Pay $148 Million
13. Taibbi: Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?
12. Jane Barrett on the Need for a Federal Workplace Homicide Statute
11. Gary Aguirre Says Shut Down the SEC, Start Over

10. Chevron to Pay $24 Million to Settle SEC Lawsuit
9. Maxim Healthcare Gets Prosecution Deferred, to Pay $150 Million
8. Accenture to Pay $68 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
7. Amoco to Pay $20 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
6. Oracle to Pay $199 Million to Resolve False Claims Charge
5. Activists Draft Law to Criminalize Fracking
4. Judge Rakoff Throws Out SEC/Citigroup Settlement
3. Pfizer to Pay $14 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
2. UMW Says UBB Mine Disaster Was Industrial Homicide
1. Glaxo to Pay $3 Billion to Settle False Claims Charge

Source:  Corporate Crime Reporter, December 16, 2011

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© Skytruth

Things just keep getting worse for Chevron. First, a deepwater drilling mishap off the coast of Brazil last month caused thousands of barrels of oil to spill into the Atlantic, which only after some dodging did Chevron take responsibility for, followed by Brazil’s petroleum agency deciding to suspend the company’s drilling rights altogether. And then there are the fines which could end up costing Chevron close to $100 million. But lo, it gets worst yet. Today, the oil giant admitted that the situation is far from resolved as many had assumed. That’s right, the leak continues, and Chevron’s not sure when it can be stopped.

Weeks after the spill began in early November, loosing an estimated 110,000 gallons in the waters 230 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Chevron moved to plug it with cement. Still, several hundreds of gallons continued to trickle up from the sea floor.

And now, nearly a month after their initial fix was put in place, Chevron Brazil’s environmental supervisor Luiz Alberto Pimenta Borges told leaders that oil is still leaking, and that his company isn’t sure quite how or when it can be capped.

“The amount of oil is becoming gradually smaller,” Borges said at a hearing today. “We expect to have total control of the matter some time in the future. I cannot tell when because we are still evaluating the amount of oil to know how exactly it reached the surface.”

This ongoing spill is Brazil’s worst in recent memory, though many fear that it will hardly be the last. Allowing companies like Chevron rights to drill in the region’s oil-rich Frade field was just one element of the nation’s ambitious energy ambitions directed at becoming one of the world’s leading exporters of petroleum over the course of the next decade. The latest incident serves as a unwelcome reminder of the dangers of offshore drilling; evidence of just how easily things can go wrong, and just how difficult they can be to right.

Source: Treehugger.com, Stephen Messenger, 2011-12-13

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By Michelle Chen

A farmer visits a cocoa field on July 13, 2011, in Cote D’Ivoire.   (Photo by Sia Kambou/AFP/Getty Images)

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The prosecution of the whistleblower and alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning is an exercise in intimidation, not justice

Bradley Manning supporters demonstrate outside FBI headquarters in Washington. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

After 17 months of pre-trial imprisonment, Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old US army private and accused WikiLeaks source, is finally going to see the inside of a courtroom. This Friday, on an army base in Maryland, the preliminary stage of his military trial will start.

He is accused of leaking to the whistleblowing site hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, war reports, and the now infamous 2007 video showing a US Apache helicopter in Baghdad gunning down civilians and a Reuters journalist. Though it is Manning who is nominally on trial, these proceedings reveal the US government’s fixation with extreme secrecy, covering up its own crimes, and intimidating future whistleblowers.

Since his arrest last May in Iraq, Manning has been treated as one of America’s most dastardly traitors. He faces more than 30 charges, including one – “aiding the enemy” – that carries the death penalty (prosecutors will recommend life in prison, but military judges retain discretion to sentence him to die).

The sadistic conditions to which he was subjected for 10 months – intense solitary confinement, at one point having his clothing seized and being forced to stand nude for inspection – became an international scandal for a US president who flamboyantly vowed to end detainee abuse. Amnesty International condemned these conditions as “inhumane”; PJ Crowley, a US state department spokesman, was forced to resign after denouncing Manning’s treatment. Such conduct has been repeatedly cited by the US as human rights violations when engaged in by other countries.

The UN’s special rapporteur on torture has complained that his investigation is being obstructed by the refusal of Obama officials to permit unmonitored visits with Manning. (Even the Bush administration granted access to the International Red Cross at Guantánamo.) Such treatment is all the more remarkable in light of what Manning actually did, and did not do, if the charges are true. For these leaks have achieved enormous good and little harm.

From the start, US claims about the damage done have been wildly exaggerated, even outright false. After the release of the Afghanistan war logs, officials accused WikiLeaks of having “blood on their hands”, only to admit weeks later that they were unaware of a single case of anyone being harmed. That remains true today.

Even Robert Gates, the Pentagon chief, mocked alarmism over the diplomatic cables leak as “significantly overwrought”, dismissing its impact as “fairly modest”. Manning’s lawyer is seeking internal government documents that, he insists, concluded there was no meaningful harm to US diplomatic relations from the release of any documents. None of the leaked documents were classified at the highest level of secrecy – top secret – but rather bore only low-level classification.

By contrast, the leaks Manning allegedly engineered have generated enormous benefits: precisely the benefits Manning, if the allegations against him are true, sought to achieve. According to chat logs purportedly between Manning and the informant who turned him in, the private decided to leak these documents after he became disillusioned with the Iraq war. He described how reading classified documents made him, for the first time, aware of the breadth of the corruption and violence committed by his country and allies.

He explained that he wanted the world to know what he had learned: “I want people to see the truth … regardless of who they are … because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.” When asked by the informant why he did not sell the documents to a foreign government for profit, Manning replied that he wanted the information to be publicly known in order to trigger “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms”.

There can be no doubt that these vital goals have been achieved. When WikiLeaks was awarded Australia’s most prestigious journalism award last month, the awarding foundation described how these disclosures created “more scoops in a year than most journalists could imagine in a lifetime”.

By exposing some of the worst atrocities committed by US forces in Iraq, the documents prevented the Iraqi government from agreeing to ongoing legal immunity for US forces, and thus helped bring about the end of the war. Even Bill Keller, the former New York Times executive editor and a harsh WikiLeaks critic, credits the release of the cables with shedding light on the corruption of Tunisia’s ruling family and thus helping spark the Arab spring.

In sum, the documentsManning is alleged to have released revealed overwhelming deceit, corruption and illegality by the world’s most powerful political actors. And this is why he has been so harshly treated and punished.

Despite pledging to usher in “the most transparent administration in history”, President Obama has been obsessed with prosecuting whistleblowers; his justice department has prosecuted more of them for “espionage” than all prior administrations combined.

The oppressive treatment of Manning is designed to create a climate of fear, to send a signal to those who in the future discover serious wrongdoing committed in secret by the US: if you’re thinking about exposing what you’ve learned, look at what we did to Manning and think twice. The real crimes exposed by this episode are those committed by the prosecuting parties, not the accused. For what he is alleged to have given the world, Manning deserves gratitude and a medal, not a life in prison.

Source: The Guardian/UK, Glenn Greenwald, 14 December 2011

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High exposure to radiation possible before officials acted

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Still image taken from the Amnesty International film Stuff Of Life, a film about waterboarding, the practice of torturing prisoners by partially drowning them

Consider that during the recent Senate debate over the Defense Authorization Bill — the one that passed provisions on indefinite detention that drew cries of outrage from a number of law professors, and stoked fear among government opponents — Senator Dianne Feinstein, while speaking against provisions of the bill that would subject U.S. citizens to indefinite detention also made some serious points concerning the torture-interrogation amendment offered by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire). (See PDF link of her remarks – h/t Marcy Wheeler.)

Feinstein announced that the much-heralded, and much forgotten review of CIA torture undertaken by the Senate Intelligence Committee, first reported by Jason Leopold back in April 2010, is wrapping up its investigation. But her comments went unregarded and unreported, as patience for such things as fighting torture is not the strong suit of American political discourse, nor is much expected anymore from a Congress that has so clearly lost its bearings.

But, nevertheless, the announcement is not without interest, as Feinstein told her colleagues:

As chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, I can say that we are nearing the completion [of] a comprehensive review of the CIA’s former interrogation and detention program, and I can assure the Senate and the Nation that coercive and abusive treatment of detainees in U.S. custody was far more systematic and widespread than we thought.

Moreover, the abuse stemmed not from the isolated acts of a few bad apples but from fact that the line was blurred between what is permissible and impermissible conduct, putting U.S. personnel in an untenable position with their superiors and the law.

That is why Congress and the executive branch subsequently acted to provide our intelligence and military professionals with the clarity and guidance they need to effectively carry out their missions. And that is where the Army Field Manual comes in.

It is not surprising to hear the torture was worse than already known. After all, the purpose of secrecy and the cult of classification, so assiduously courted by the current Administration, is to hide crimes. So one can only hope the Intelligence Committee will, when the review is truly and finally complete (and let’s hope it’s not another 18 months), that its findings will be released publicly. In fact, in a decent world, it would be demanded.

Lies that facilitate torture – Case-in-point: the Army Field Manual

One reason for the lulled non-murmur over torture is the outrageous lie that Obama, after coming into office, “ended torture.” He enshrined the Army Field Manual as the supposedly humane alternative to the Bush torture regime of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Feinstein, who certainly knows better, is an exemplary model for such myth-making — “myth” because the Army Field Manual actually uses torture of various sorts, and even though about half-a-dozen human rights and legal organizations, and a number of prominent government interrogators have said so (see this Nov. 2010 letter signed by 14 well-known interrogators to then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates) — as her following comments on the Army Field Manual (AFM) demonstrate.

Here, Sen. Feinstein is polemicizing against the Ayotte amendment, which was ignominiously dismissed via a parliamentary maneuver, along with a few dozen other amendments, after an ostentatious Senate “colloquy” on the matter by Senators Ayotte and Lieberman (with Lindsay Graham chiming in at the very end). The amendment awaits its resurrection, seeking passage attached like an obligate parasite to another bill some months down the line. (The authorization bill is currently “in conference,” as a final version is worked out that reconciles both House and Senate versions. It is not unknown for provisions to be slipped in under such circumstances, and I wouldn’t count out yet Ayotte/Lieberman/Graham’s attempt to insert a new secret annex to the AFM, not until, like the undead, a stake is driven through its heart.)

Feinstein:

However, Senator Ayotte’s amendment would require the executive branch to adopt a classified interrogation annex to the Army Field Manual, a concept that even the Bush administration rejected outright in 2006.

Senator Ayotte argued that the United States needs secret and undisclosed interrogation measures to successfully interrogate terrorists and gain actionable intelligence. However, our intelligence, military, and law enforcement professionals, who actually interrogate terrorists as part of their jobs, universally disagree. They believe that with the Army Field Manual as it currently is written, they have the tools needed to obtain actionable intelligence from U.S. detainees.

As an example, in 2009, after an extensive review, the intelligence community unanimously asserted that it had all the guidance and tools it needed to conduct effective interrogations. The Special Task Force on Interrogations–which included representatives from the CIA, Defense Department, the Office of the Director of Intelligence, and others–concluded that “no additional or different guidance was necessary.”

Since 2009, the interagency High Value Detainee Interrogation Group has briefed the Select Committee on Intelligence numerous times. The group has repeatedly assured the committee that they have all authority they need to effectively gain actionable intelligence. As a consummate consumer of the intelligence products they produce, I agree.

Unfortunately, Sen. Feinstein is oddly correct. Between standard interrogation methods and CIA-derived interrogation techniques meant to break down a prisoner psychologically, they do really have all they “need.”

Feinstein never mentions the years-long protests about certain provisions of the AFM, many of them gathered in the document’s Appendix M, that have been found tantamount to torture — the use of drugs (so long as they don’t “induce lasting or permanent mental alteration or damage,” the harsh manipulation of fears and phobias, the elimination of wording from the previous version of the AFM that would ban stress positions, the use of isolation, sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation techniques. All of these are mingled in with a number of other basic interrogation techniques, but that doesn’t diminish the cruel irony of Feinstein’s IC-based assurance that that government interrogators “had all the guidance and tools it needed to conduct effective interrogations.” Guidance and tools, indeed.

Perhaps she could have quoted the letter to Gates, signed by Ali Soufan, Steven Kleinman, Jack Cloonan, Robert Baer, Mark Fallon, Malcolm Nance and others, which noted “the use of potentially abusive questioning tactics” in the Army Field Manual. Of course, these government interrogators softened their language (“potentially”?) and couched their opposition in terms of what hurts the national interest, versus what is wrong or illegal.

But when it comes to protecting the massive military-intelligence complex, such awkward facts as the use of cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of prisoners, as well as outright torture enshrined in the Army Field Manual are not worthy of note. Even the many human rights groups who opposed the Ayotte amendment all buried any past critique of the AFM or its Appendix M in their polemics against Ayotte’s “classified annex” proposal. This is not the way to win a battle!

Honoring “our values”?

Feinstein concluded:

We cannot have it both ways. Either we make clear to the world that the United States will honor our values and treat prisoners humanely or we let the world believe that we have secret interrogation methods to terrorize and torture our prisoners.

But what about interrogation methods that are not secret, Sen. Feinstein?

I don’t seriously expect her to respond. Instead I ask readers, what kind of a country is it that has torture written into its public documents, and no one raises a fuss (or practically no one)?

The failure to take on the AFM and its Appendix M abuses in a serious fashion has led in a straight line to the political pornography of watching torture debated in Congress and among Presidential candidates, as well as a surge of political effort being made in some circles to make sure all such abuse is hidden forever behind a veil of classification. This failure is directly the responsibility of the human rights groups, who have not made it clear to their constituencies and the public at large how serious the problem currently is. While most of them are on the record of opposing the abuses described above, they repeatedly have pulled their punches for political reasons (as during the recent debate on the Ayotte amendment), and as a result, they must take the hard criticism when it comes, until, or unless they turn this around.

Jeffrey Kaye, a psychologist living in Northern California and a regular contributor to Truthout and The Public Record, blogs about civil liberties and issues revolving around the US government’s torture program at The Dissenter. He can be reached at sfpsych at gmail dot com.

Source: The Public Record, Dec 8th, 2011

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Source: Care2, by Kristina Chew, December 12, 2011

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) — Women must make their voices heard in climate negotiations. The role of women as agents of change in their homes, places of work and communities is often underplayed. Yet their role is critical: Women understand the inter-generational aspects of climate change and sustainable development. We women think in time horizons that span the lives of our children and grandchildren. We need to use this understanding to influence the political process and to inject a much needed sense of urgency into the climate change negotiations.

Time is not on our side; report after report has shown this. This is not a trade discussion and we cannot wait until the next meeting or the meeting after that to take action. Time is running out for the planet. 2020 is too late to put a legally binding agreement in place. A legal framework with clear and common rules to which all countries are committed is critically important. It is the only assurance we have that action will be taken to protect the most vulnerable. This COP (U.N. Climate Change Conference in Durban) must agree to initiate negotiations towards this end — with a view to concluding a new legal instrument by 2015 at the latest.

Climate change is a matter of justice. The richest countries caused the problem, but it is the world’s poorest who are already suffering from its effects. The international community must commit to righting that wrong.

More: In austere times, world needs a climate change ‘Plan B’

For me, a high point of the Durban Conference was that it demonstrated once again the value of women’s leadership in global efforts to deal with climate change. The outgoing COP President who did an excellent job in Cancun last year is a woman, Minister Patricia Espinosa. The COP President at Durban is a woman, Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane from South Africa and the Executive Secretary of the Convention is also a woman, Ms Christiana Figueres. Collectively these and other women leaders are playing a vital role in highlighting the gender dimensions of climate change.

Awareness of the differential impacts of climate change on men and women is increasing. We know that in continents like Africa, where women are responsible for 60-80% of food production, unpredictable growing seasons and increased incidence of droughts and floods place women, their families and their livelihoods at risk. All over the world women are adapting to these changes, showing incredible resilience in the face of crop failures, water shortages and increases in environment-related diseases such as malaria. They are growing different crops, planting trees, harvesting rainwater and growing fodder for livestock to minimize the impacts of climate change. We need to continue to support women to be innovative, creative and resilient in a climate-constrained world as we strive to ensure equitable solutions to the climate problem. Investing in climate smart agriculture and capacity building for vulnerable rural communities will not be sustainable without the inclusion of women in the decision-making process.

But we also need to see the value of women as drivers of economic growth — as educators, carers, farmers, entrepreneurs and above all, as leaders. A recent World Bank report found that “women now represent 40% of the global labor force, 43% of the world’s agricultural labor force, and more than half the world’s university students. Productivity will be raised if their skills and talents are used more fully.” The report also found that eliminating the barriers that discriminate against women could increase labor productivity by as much as 25% in some countries.

Clearly we need to harness the contribution of women if we want to find our way out of the current economic recession and if we want to embrace inclusive, sustainable green growth. Last month, in remarks made at the International Forum on Women and Sustainable Development in Beijing, Sha Zuhang, Secretary General of the 2012 U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development, said “in many countries women are the champions of the green economy, practicing sustainable agriculture, nurturing our natural resources, and promoting renewable energy.”

More: Carbon footprint of the world’s biggest cities

Around the world women are showing leadership and championing change, often due to more progressive policies and a greater social inclusion. Their voice and leadership on climate change can result in a low-carbon revolution for the 21st century that is sustainable and equitable.

We can have a future where economic growth is not proportional to greenhouse gas emissions and where, for example, off-grid energy solutions could enable the 1.3 billion people without access to electricity to reach their full potential by providing access to affordable and sustainable energy technologies. At present burning kerosene for light and cooking over open fires damages women’s health and limits their ability to engage in other work or education because they spend hours collecting wood.

It also costs them a lot of money — up to 20% of their weekly expenditure. Solar panels, improved cooking stoves and LED lights can transform lives, create jobs and contribute to our collective low-carbon future and are clear examples how intelligent climate change policies do not lead to a gray and dull existence but the opposite: They lead to a brighter future.

I encourage all leaders to highlight the importance of gender throughout COP17 and at Rio+20 next year. We need to secure stronger references to the gender dimensions of climate change in the texts, institutions and mechanisms agreed by Parties to the Convention. Leaders informed by the experiences of grassroots women from around the world can and must make a difference.

I call on women to speak out and lead the way. We cannot wait, we have to act. Our children’s and grandchildren’s future is at stake.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mary Robinson.

Editor’s note: Mary Robinson is President of the Mary Robinson Foundation — Climate Justice. She served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She is a member of the Elders and the Club of Madrid and serves as Honorary President of Oxfam International.

Source: CNN, 2011-12-13

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By Lauren Orneleas: Founder/Director, Food Empowerment Project

For many holidays, vegan groups from around the globe promote buying cruelty-free candies, with vegan chocolate often at the top of the list. However, just because chocolate is vegan does not mean it is cruelty-free.

The majority of cacao beans (or cocoa beans) come from either the Ivory Coast or Ghana in West Africa, and, unfortunately, child labor, human trafficking and slavery have been documented on cacao farms in these countries. Besides workers on cocoa farms being exposed to toxic chemicals (with children as young as 12 spraying the pods without using protective clothing), children as young as seven have been found working in the fields – using machetes to cut down the cacao pods. It is not uncommon for these children to have scars on their bodies from being injured by the sharp blades. In addition, the large bags filled with pods are very heavy and difficult to carry, and yet children have reported being beaten if they do not move fast enough while transporting these pod-filled bags. There are also stories of workers who have been locked in at night to keep them from running off, and when these workers attempted to escape, they were beaten or even killed. These abuses are more than enough to indict those who source their cocoa from the Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Large companies, such as Hershey’s and Mars, are culpable for what is happening in the Ivory Coast and Ghana. These corporations make millions of dollars while knowing what is happening on cocoa farms in these countries. They set up committees and discuss the issue of child labor and slavery when the truth of the matter is all they really care about is making a profit– but they need to pay more to the people who are making them rich. Many of these areas in West Africa are extremely poor and farmers need to be paid a fair wage for the beans they provide to large chocolate manufacturers so they can pay their workers a living wage.

Trying to find out what is truly going on in these countries is often a challenge. Journalists who have tried to investigate child labor, human trafficking and slavery in the cocoa industry have found it difficult and dangerous. One reporter even disappeared while working on a story. The issues are indeed complicated, but Food Empowerment Project works to help those interested in just and compassionate food choices by making available a list of companies selling vegan chocolates that do not source their cocoa from the Ivory Coast or Ghana.

Please note we’re not even saying the vegan chocolate must be fair trade.

In 2010, child labor was found at several fair trade farms in Ghana that belonged to a cooperative, so at this time we do not feel comfortable recommending any cocoa sourced from Ghana or the Ivory Coast, regardless if it is certified fair trade. We know the fair trade organizations are doing their best and did take immediate action to remove the children from the farms in question, but at the present time, we are not able to make a blanket recommendation approving the use of cocoa from Ghana since it is difficult to police the thousands of fair trade farms that belong to the cooperative.

Vegan companies that make products with chocolate can make an effort to source their chocolate from areas that are not steeped in slavery. We know many have already, but more need to make the switch.

As advocates, we definitely encourage people to promote vegan products, but in order to call a product cruelty-free, be sure it truly is—that means only buying vegan chocolate that is not tainted with child labor or human slavery.

To learn more about the issue, click here.

If you aren’t vegan and are choosing to eat milk chocolate, you should become familiar with the suffering of cows on dairy farms.

Lastly, check out and use our chocolate list before you go on your next shopping excursion

Your dollars and your voice can help put an end to these atrocities.

Image Source: Mattie Hagerdorn/Flickr

Source: One Green Planet, 2011-12-12

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Liberator of caged birds, vegetarian … whatever the myths or realities about Leonardo, one thing is certain: he was ahead of his time in questioning the superiority of humans to animals

Animal strokes … Leonardo da Vinci’s Studies of a dog’s paw, about 1485. Photograph: The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

The greatness of an artist has never been more overwhelmingly demonstrated. The exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan at the National Gallery reveals, in an intimate, sensitive way, the stupendous quality of Leonardo as a painter and draughtsman. I got another chance to see it this week, and was more impressed still with the insightful and imaginative way it has been curated.

Yet Leonardo was not just a wondrous artist. He was also a wonderful man. Anyway this is what his first biographers claimed in the 16th century, and this week in our interactive series on Leonardo’s drawings we present evidence that he was admirable, not just in the terms of his own time, but according to our attitudes today. Long before such ideas were widespread, let alone fashionable, he defended the rights of animals.

As a child in the 1970s I had a Ladybird book about the lives of great artists. The artist who fascinated me in it was Leonardo – I cannot even remember who the others were. What I most vividly remember is a picture in the Ladybird book of Leonardo releasing a bird he had just bought at market from its cage, while amazed bystanders look on. This illustrates a claim in Giorgio Vasari’s life of Leonardo, first published in 1550. Vasari says the genius so loved animals that he bought caged birds – sold in Italy at that time as food, as well as pets – simply to let them go.

It sounds like a wild bit of hagiography. It obviously associates Leonardo with the image of Saint Francis of Assisi, who preached a sermon to the birds and – as shown by the painter Sassetta in the National Gallery collection – negotiated peace between the people of Gubbio and a wolf.

But – as the quotations from Leonardo’s notebooks in our interactive guide to his drawings of a dog’s paw show – Vasari was not making this one up. Whether or not Leonardo really set birds free, he definitely did question the superiority of humans to the rest of the animal kingdom. It is a repeated theme in his notebooks. He writes in them that humanity is not “king of the animals” but merely “king of the beasts”, that is, a more powerful beast than the rest: and he goes on to rage that we use our power to raise animals for slaughter. Warming to his theme, he points out that none of the other animals do what some humans do, and eat their own species – he was writing this at a time when the Florentine explorer Vespucci (or someone using his name) published sensational stories of cannibalism in the New World.

Leonardo da Vinci‘s assertion that we are animals, and do not have any God-given right to eat our fellow creatures, was totally at odds with the culture of his age. As the historian Keith Thomas has narrated, interpretations of Genesis in his time aggressively declared that animals are created for human use. Only in the 18th century did more sensitive attitudes become widespread.

Leonardo is an exception – in this as in so many other fields. It would be wrong to reduce him just to a predecessor of modern ecology – in my book about him I show that his relationship with nature looks backward as well as forward, relating him to shamanism in the world of medieval peasants. Yet his incomparable imagination let him anticipate our own debates today. A letter to his patron Giuliano de’ Medici actually refers to “our Leonardo da Vinci” as someone who refused to eat meat. It is further evidence that Vasari’s saintly image of Leonardo the liberator of animals is rooted in reality. We are dazed by the paintings. If we explore his notes and the early stories of his life, we are equally amazed by the man.

Source: The Guardian/UK, by Jonathan Jones, 2011-11-30

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