The indigenous seeds are bred by farmers for renewability, diversity, nutrition, taste and resilience. Wherever farmers have reclaimed native seeds as a commons, they have reduced costs, increased incomes, become debt-free and are not driven to suicide.
Source: The Guardian Unlimited
Most of our mainstream political discourse on “fighting inequality” has revolved – for years now – around the more narrow goal of eliminating extreme poverty. Few of our elected leaders ever dare suggest that maybe we ought to think about eliminating extreme wealth as well. Even the mere idea seems a laughing matter.
Congressman Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, knows all this from personal experience. Earlier this year, in a talk to the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Ellison suggested that the time has come to start contemplating the notion of a “maximum wage”.
Source: In These Times
As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ net worth topped $150 billion last week, making him the richest man in modern history, thousands of Amazon workers across Europe went on strike.
The work stoppage, which lasted three days at some facilities, was one of the largest labor actions against Amazon to date, and the first to receive widespread coverage in the U.S. media. But the strikes and protests in Spain, Germany and Poland were just the latest in an escalating series of actions against Amazon in Europe, where workers belonging to both conventional unions and militant workers’ organizations are forging a transnational movement against the internet juggernaut.
Each of us might, sooner or later, be thought of as a kind of failed experiment that ends in the ultimate failure: death. And in some ways, the same thing might be said of states and empires.
If Trump's aggressive style and populist impulses have encouraged his political soulmates abroad, they've also provoked a backlash in defense of democratic norms.
Source: Common Dreams
In May, the government of Ecuador came to the World Health Organization (WHO) assembly with a resolution on breastfeeding. What worried the government of Ecuador, and many other governments of the Global South, is the behavior of large corporations—Nestlé in the lead. These corporations that sell infant formula have wanted to promote the use of substitutes to breast milk, especially in places such as Ecuador.
The month before—in April 2018—the WHO and UNICEF jointly put out guidelines to support breastfeeding in health facilities. These “Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding” assist health care workers to encourage breastfeeding rather than to encourage the use of infant formulas. Breastfeeding babies in their first two years, say these UN agencies, would save the lives of more than 820,000 children under the age of five. “Breastfeeding saves lives. Its benefits help keep babies healthy in their first days and last well into adulthood,” said UNICEF’s executive director Henrietta H. Fore.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019