Common Dreams:
"Germany on Monday became the latest country in the European Union to take a stand against genetically modified (GMO) crops in its food supply.
German Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt told government officials that he will seek to implement the European Union's 'opt-out' rule to stop GMO crop cultivation in the country, including those varieties which may be approved by the EU, according to documents seen by Reuters this week. ...
As agriculture ministry spokesperson Christian Fronczak told Bloomberg, 'The German government is clear in that it seeks a nationwide cultivation ban.
There’s resistance from all sides, from the public to the farmers,' Fronczak said."
-->The NYT didn't cover this story. Our newspaper of record is in bed with Monsanto on this issue. Why remind Americans that the rest of the world is rejecting GMO crops?
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The Ecologist:
"As World Water Week kicks off in Stockholm today with a theme of 'Water for Development', the drought being deliberately inflicted on Palestinians is firmly off the agenda, writes Laith Shakir. While Israelis water their lawns, irrigate crops and swim in Olympic-sized pools, Palestinian communities a few kilometers away are literally dying of thirst. ...
Despite its location in a region thought to be perennially dry, the Holy Land actually has ample natural freshwater resources - namely in the form of underwater aquifers and the Jordan River. Palestinians in the West Bank and Israeli settlers live in roughly equal proximity to these resources, which theoretically would allow for equal consumption. Israeli water policy, however, has made this prospect virtually impossible. In fact, there's a shocking disparity.
A report from the United Nations found that the average Israeli settler consumes 300 liters of water per day - a figure surpassing even the average Californian's 290. But thanks to Israeli military action and legal restrictions on access, the average Palestinian in the occupied West Bank only gets about 70.
And for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who live off the water grid altogether, daily consumption hovers at around 30. That's just 10% of the Israeli figure."
-->The NYT doesn't like to put Israel in a bad light. It never covered this story.
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Aljazeera:
"A United Nations-backed carbon-trading scheme in Europe, originally meant to combat global warming, has instead resulted in the release of more than half a billion additional tons of greenhouse gases, according to a new report.
The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) report released Monday found significant problems with the efficacy of carbon offsets. The researchers found issues with 75 percent of 872 million offsets, and point to a lack of oversight as the main problem.
'We know what rules are needed and then we need the political will to implement them,' Anja Kollmuss, one of the authors of the study, told Al Jazeera. 'And so far this has been lacking.'
The Joint Implementation (JI) carbon-trading scheme, established under the Kyoto Protocol, may have 'seriously undermined global climate action,' researchers said. Faults in JI have released 600 million tons of carbon dioxide more than if the scheme wasn’t in place, the report said."
-->Our mainstream media, including The NYT, has never acknowledged what a fraud Bill Clinton's carbon-trading scheme really was. Maybe that is because the US position on climate change continues to be filled with half truths and little real improvement. Our media helps by not questioning US obfuscation.
