A commercial that's been on television so many times that I've lost count begins by showing a cheeseburger that is a leading product of a fast food chain. Then it focuses on the cheeseburger of a rival chain, boasting that the latter has more meat and more cheese.
A wave of horror spread among the assembled delegates at the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva as news of the September 28 shootings of unarmed participants in a political meeting in Conakry was known. It was the last days of the Council session which was then in its final stage of negotiating and voting resolutions. Was there anything that the UN human rights body could do? Captain Moussa Dadis Camara
If conventional media wisdom is to be believed, President Obama's top climate and energy adviser Carol Browner's admission in early October that there will be no climate legislation coming out of Congress this year pretty much dooms the upcoming UN climate talks in Copenhagen.
Two years ago singer-songwriter and activist Bob Geldof was so excited about biofuels he even became the special advisor to biomass company Helius. At the time, Geldof visited jatropha curcas plantations in Swaziland run by UK biodiesel producer D1 Oils. Geldof was quoted as saying that these plantations had 'life changing potential'. Since then, D1 Oils dropped out and Mr Geldof silenced.
In the last month, following the announcement of the death of Norman Borlaug, we have been reminded of the sweeping claims that have been made about the successes of the green revolution. Borlaug was an agricultural scientist who, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation, developed dwarf varieties of wheat and rice that are widely reported to have produced miraculous yields, and which "saved the lives of millions of people" in the developing world who would otherwise have starved.Norman Borlaug
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was said to symbolize the end of an era. The world was no longer a bipolar battlefield of superpowers. And without the constant threat of a red invasion, the U.S. would undoubtedly halt its "democracy" promotion and harsh policies toward Latin America, or at least it was assumed. Unfortunately, although the Berlin Wall collapsed two decades ago the U.S. government continues not only to uphold relics of the era, but to promote new laws that force U.S. ideologies upon sovereign Latin American nations.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019