“The State must police distribution companies”

From La libération

While the French National Federation of Farmers' Unions plans to block supermarket supply entrances in order to protest the profit margins of mass distributors (particularly on milk and dairy products), an interview with Dominique Barrau, assistant secretary general of the agricultural labor association, aids in our analysis of the motives of the opposition.

What is the shape that you’re going to give to your protest?

There will be between one and two blocked sites per region for 48 hours.  The Grand-Ouest

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Sex Sells: A Tiny Nonprofit Uses Mass Media to Encourage Family Planning

By Jason Mark

Fikrite is a girl in trouble. Her grandfather has just died and now a neighbor, a man named Damte, has taken over the house and is trying to turn the place into a bar and brothel. Fikrite says she won’t allow it, so Damte starts spreading rumors about the girl and soon everyone, including her boyfriend, thinks that she is hiding a child born out of wedlock. Damte then seduces Fikrite’s stepsister, Lamrot, gets her hooked on booze and drugs, and knocks her up. When Lamrot tries to abort the pregnancy, she almost bleeds to death and lands in the hospital, where she finds out that she is HIV-positive.

If this sounds like overcooked melodrama – well, that’s the point. The story comes from “Yeken Kignit” (“Looking Over One’s Life”), a radio soap opera that gripped much of Ethiopia for 257 episodes beginning in 2002. The show had all of the elements that make serial dramas popular: sex, romance, mischief, betrayal,

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by Zach Carter, TMC MediaWire Blogger

The banking lobby still holds enough sway inside the Beltway to torpedo sensible consumer protection rules, even after releasing a flood of predatory mortgages that kicked off the current economic crisis. On issues ranging from payday loans to subprime mortgages, the banking industry continues to successfully defend itself against new regulations that would protect the consumer. As if that weren't outrage enough, the finance lobby has also joined other corporate interest groups to fund misinformation campaigns that smear unions and block wage growth.

As Mary Kane explains for The Colorado Independent, the push to rein in predatory mortgage lending appears to be losing steam on Capitol Hill. An extremely complex mortgage reform bill that is conciliatory to the finance lobby passed the House last month, angering consumer advocacy groups. Among the problems: the bill pre-empts many stronger state predatory lending laws and protects the Wall Street investment banks that gorged themselves on mortgage-backed securities.

Consumer protection shortfalls are not limited to messy mortgages. [...]More

Are windmills environmentally friendly?

From Le progrés

Clean energy: while energy windmills have their detractors, the possible benefits have most of France debating the pros and cons of this national interest.

While farmers used to use wind energy to grind their grain, today windmills provide enormous amounts of clean electricity. France currently counts over 2300 energy windmills spread throughout the nation, with a combined energy output of 3400 megawatts. In 2008, the windmills produced 5.6 billion kilowatt hours of energy, just over 1% of the nation’s total electrical production. The Rhône-Alpes region, located in eastern France, counts 88 windmills in the Drôme-Ardèche department, with 30 more recently obtaining construction permits and a hundred more new-built windmills that will soon begin turning. According to recent polls, 79% of the French have a “favorable” attitude towards the construction of windmills in their area, and 62% have one or more windmills less than a kilometer from their homes. However, this popular source of clean, renewable energy has its critics, who cite in opposition noise and visual

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by Gemma Ware

A specially-developed new grain is helping farmers earn more money than they do from growing maize,and it is beginning to drive a revolution in smallholder farming

Sprouting up amid fields of matoke, maize and coffee which carpet the hills of eastern Uganda is a new cash crop.  Rice, which is also fast becoming the food of choice for a young generation reluctant to spend time preparing the traditional maize-porridge ugali, has helped spark a revolution in smallholder farming. 

A sea change came with the energetic dissemination of the New Rice for Africa (NERICA), which was developed in West Africa in 1992. A hybrid of African and Asian rice varieties, it is high-yielding, diseaseresistant and well-suited to both Uganda’s rain-fed upland areas and its swampy dambo or wet areas. 

Smallholder rice farming in Uganda has doubled as farmers have seen the advantages of growing rice as a cash crop. The area cultivated for upland rice grew from 1,500 ha in 2002 to 40,000 ha in 2008. Rice farmers are [...]More