Criminal

"Pfizer signed a $75 million agreement Thursday with Nigerian authorities to settle criminal and civil charges that the pharmaceutical company illegally tested an experimental drug on children during a 1996 meningitis epidemic.

Nigerian authorities say Pfizer's test of the antibiotic Trovan killed 11 children and disabled scores more. Pfizer says the deaths and injuries were the result of meningitis." (Thanks Toufic)

Badael-Alternatives

In Badael this week: my editorial "In the eye of storm". Climate change or no change, there is hunger, inequality and environmental degradation. Better start working on these now. Rameh Hamiyyeh: Grapevines for wine in the Bekaa: an excellent investment for small farmers, and Assaf Abu Rahhal, on the sweet and sour grape molasses.

Focus

"And some felt that the focus on health benefits missed the point altogether.

"People tend to forget that the reason for going organic was initially not human health, it was ecosystem health, and so it should remain," explained Rami Zurayk at Land and People."

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1305/food-and-health-top-blogs-twitter-focuses-on-iran

Hunger in the middle classes

"In this recession-racked town, the lack of food is a serious problem. It's a theme that comes up again and again in conversations in Detroit. There isn't a single major chain supermarket in the city, forcing residents to buy food from corner stores. Often less healthy and more expensive food.

As the area's economy worsens --unemployment was over 16% in July -- food stamp applications and pantry visits have surged.

Detroiters have responded to this crisis. Huge amounts of vacant land has led to a resurgence in urban farming. Volunteers at local food pantries have also increased.

But the food crunch is intensifying, and spreading to people not used to dealing with hunger. As middle class workers lose their jobs, the same folks that used to donate to soup kitchens and pantries have become their fastest growing set of recipients." (Thanks Toufic)

Poor thing

"Despite all the hard work America has done to bring security to Iraq, it appears that other nations are reaping the financial rewards, former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said in a recent interview at The Washington Times."

Le frik, c'est chik

"ROASTED green wheat has many aliases: frik, freek, frieka, freekeh and firik, among them. They are all variations of an Arabic word.

...Shanna Pacifico learned about frik two years ago when she was a sous chef at Savoy. Mr. Hoffman had used the grain on his menus and told her about it. She found a package of frik at Kalustyan’s, an Indian food store on lower Lexington Avenue, and started experimenting."

The best freekeh is of course made in Jabal `Amel, in Lebanon, from the local (!) Tuliani wheat variety. It is now a Slow Food Presidium product: "Freekeh of Jabal `Amel".

How sweet

"Research carried out in the run up to this year’s Sweets Middle East expo in Dubai has identified the region as one of the world’s top 10 markets for confectionery products.

According to the study by TNS Media Intelligence, the total Middle East confectionery market is valued at US $113 billion, having grown by 15% over the last three years, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar experiencing the largest growth at around 24%.

The report attributed this growth to a greater disposable income per capita, the influence of the region’s enormous population of young consumers and the traditional role of sweets in Arab culture"

Follow the lead

"Some stories are out there suggesting -- incorrectly, according to the office of First Lady Michelle Obama -- that the food grown in the White House garden on the South Lawn is tainted because there was lead found in the soil"

Italian aid to Lebanon

"The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Directorate General for Development Cooperation), in the frame of its cooperation activities in Lebanon and for Lebanon, approved around 5.700.000 million Euros as grant and 1.5 Million of Euros as soft loan, on the bilateral and multilateral channel, for twelve new projects. This is what the Iralian embassy announced in a press release last week.

The new projects include the support to decentralization process; Technical assistance to justice reform in Lebanon; support to the entrepreneurial training; support to the System of the national qualification; the improvement of the infrastructures in the Chouf Municipalities; the contribution of starting up of the Bone Marrow high specialized Transplant Centre inside the R. Hariri Public Hospital; the support to National Policies related to Forest Fire Prevention; the enlargement and reinforcement of the irrigation system of the Baalbeck plain; the strengthening of the Lebanese forest fire fighting national mechanism; the preservation of the artistic heritage: restoration works for Roman fresco paint hosted by the Beirut National Museum; the improvement of hospital services for Palestinian Refugees; additional soft loan for the Zahle wastewater treatment plant project. "

Can't hear the twitting

"Young people who want to receive phone calls but don't want their teachers or parents to catch on can download high-frequency "mosquito" ringtones. After a certain age, the older set loses its ability to hear these higher frequency tones. In this way, older people literally become tone deaf to the way younger people communicate. Talk about resonant metaphors.

The world is a-twitter over the revolutionary implications of new technologies that young people almost instinctively understand and older people just don't get. Several revolutions and half-revolutions have been ascribed to Twitter and Facebook, much as the Protestant Reformation has been linked to Gutenberg's presses and the political ferment in the former Soviet bloc partly to mimeographs, copy machines, and faxes. Early adopters of these technologies tend to be on the younger side. So we are facing yet again a confluence of youth and technology heralding large-scale political and social change.

Few analysts, of course, argue that Twitter and Facebook cause social transformation. They're only tools. But we would be foolish to ignore how these tools are shaping consciousness.Twitter both reflects our attention-deficit culture and reinforces our increasing preference for smaller and smaller niblets of information. Facebook, meanwhile, is the logical offspring of the Internet and reality television, since it facilitates communication among multiple “friends” and also allows users to expose their lives to an audience."

http://www.fpif.org/fpifzines/wb/6325

Tobaco industry, food industry

"A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that the direct medical costs of obesity total about $147 billion a year. That amounts to nine percent of all US medical costs. It’s also over $50 billion more than the annual spending on cancer. In the midst of this national focus on obesity, today we’ll speak to David Kessler, who has spent the last seven years trying to understand how the food industry has changed American eating habits, made certain foods difficult to resist, and helped create the country’s number one public health issue." (Thanks Mariana)

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/3/former_fda_commissioner_david_kessler_the

Palestinian lands in Zionist hands

"Israel’s late 1947-1948 “War of Independence” took six months to create a new Jewish state, excluding Arabs to the greatest extent possible. To accomplish it, widespread war crimes and atrocities were committed as about 800,000 people were brutally uprooted, ethnically cleansed, or murdered in cold blood. In addition, 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and other cities were destroyed and erased except in the collective memories of their inhabitants and descendants who’ll always consider them their rightful homes.

Shortly after, laws were passed to legitimize the seizure and exclusive Jewish use of Palestinian land. The June 1948 Abandoned Areas Ordinance referred to “any area or place conquered by or surrendered to armed forces or deserted by all or part of its inhabitants.” It gave the Israeli government exclusive jurisdiction rights, including “expropriation and confiscation (authority over) movable and immovable property, within any abandoned area.” It meant displaced Palestinians were prohibited from returning and claiming their property that by law was no longer theirs."

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/07/israels-discriminatory-land-policies/

Freedom with equality, balance of forces and the excluded: a leftist agenda

"Once aims are set, policy follows. My socialist premises would include:

1) Politics expresses, condenses and mediates social and economic conflict. Antagonism is the life of politics.

2) A leftwing politics aims to reverse the existing balance of forces. The enemy is not the greedy banker, corrupt politician or careless journalist but a power structure based on exploitation and domination.

3) Today, domination takes the form of tension between the structured social body with its political representation and excluded parts which demand to be included and must change the rules of inclusion to succeed.

4) Socialism aims to bring about freedom with equality. Freedom cannot flourish without equality and equality does not exist without freedom."

Costas Douzinas

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/24/open-left-ideas

Is land reform allowed in the flat world?

"For those who haven’t been to Pakistan, you should know that in remote areas you periodically run into vast estates — comparable to medieval Europe — in which the landowner runs the town, perhaps operates a private prison in which enemies are placed, and sometimes pretty much enslaves local people through debt bondage, generation after generation. This feudal elite has migrated into politics, where it exerts huge influence. And just as the heartlessness of feudal and capitalist barons in the 19th century created space for Communists, so in Pakistan this same lack of compassion for ordinary people seems to create space for Islamic extremists. There are other answers, of course, such as education, civil society, and the lawyers’ movement. But I wonder if land reform wouldn’t be a big help." (Thanks D.)

Kristof is right here, although the explanation about inequalities creating space "for communists and islamic fundamentalism" is to say the least conveniently simplistic. But he is discovering what the Left has known for a long long time. The question is of course how to implement land reforms with minimal corruption and cronyism. Other issues arise, such as the political use of land reforms to undermine regimes that seeks to redistribute wealth. The rich control much of the land...and the media, and their story is the one that will be mainstreamed. Leftist regimes are not always interested in being puppets, so they will also have to bear the pressure of the global political bullies. Venezuela?

Decaf French Press black no sugar

"Some iced coffees being sold on the high street contain as many calories as a hot dinner, a cancer charity warns.

The chief offender had 561 calories, others contained more than 450, and the majority had in excess of 200.

It is the combination of sugar, full-fat milk and cream which appears to push some of the cool coffees into the upper echelons of the calorie scale.

The World Cancer Research Fund, which identified the drinks' calories, noted healthier versions were available.

The "venti" or largest version of Starbucks' Dark Berry Mocha Frappuccino, a limited offer for the summer, contains 561 calories - more than a quarter, WCRF notes, of a woman's daily calorie intake." (Thanks Muna)

The Amazon without fish

"To make do without fish, Kamayurá children are eating ants on their traditional spongy flatbread, made from tropical cassava flour. “There aren’t as many around because the kids have eaten them,” Chief Kotok said of the ants. Sometimes members of the tribe kill monkeys for their meat, but, the chief said, “You have to eat 30 monkeys to fill your stomach.”" (Thanks Annie)

Fascinating

"For people who want to know where their food comes from, Google Maps offers a profound passport to the landscape you choose to view, in place of the pastoral image that an interested party wants you to view. For most of these locations, you can explore even more using the street view feature." (Thanks Leila).

http://usfoodpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/07/10-us-food-policy-destinations.html

Touffar, rap from Baalbak and Hermel not to be missed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeEw3RfNuCU

Hybrid research

"In India Monsanto has started country-wide campaign to attract research talent into the development of hybrid rice and wheat. For this, it has linked with some of the country’s premier universities and research institutes. In 2009 Monsanto announced $10 million grant to establish Monsanto’s Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program (MBBISP) to improve research on breeding techniques for rice and wheat. The program will be administered by Texas AgriLife Research, and agency of the Texas A&M University system, for the next five years. What is alarming is not that agribusiness giant Monsanto is seeking answers from the Indian public funded universities and research institutions. It is that Monsanto is the one asking the questions at Indian public funded institutions. As Andrew Neighbour, former administrator at Washington University in St. Louis, who managed the university’s multiyear and multimillion dollar relationship with Monsanto, admits, “There’s no question that industry money comes with strings. It limits what you can do, when you can do it, who it has to be approved by.”7 This raises the question: if Agribusiness giant Monsanto is funding the research, will Indian agricultural researchers pursue such lines of scientific inquiry as “How will this new rice or wheat variety impact the Indian farmer, or health of Indian public?” The reality is, Monsanto is funding the research not for the benefit of either Indian farmer or public, but for its profit. It is paying researchers to ask questions that it is most interested in having answered." (Thanks Marcy)

It's a conspiracy!

Sarko interferes with the Syrian government to allow a shipment of French wheat that does not meet quality requirement to be unloaded in the Tartous port.