Politics & Globalization
International trade agreements force the U.S. and other participting countries to "harmonize" food and envrironmental safety standards to the lowest common denominator. Often these agreements are negotiated behind closed doors, shutting out Congress and the public, while granting corporations and trade associations a seat at the table. It's no surprise that these agreements give transnational corporations "special rights", allowing companies to challenge individual countries' environmental, worker and food safety laws and regulations.
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Rose and Ronnie· Joe volunteer© 2008
The government of New Normal Germany is contemplating forcing everyone to wear medical-looking masks in public from October to Easter on a permanent basis. They're discussing revising the “Infection Protection Act” in order to grant themselves the authority to continue to rule the country by decree, thus instituting a “permanent state of emergency” that overrides the German constitution, indefinitely.
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Bilderberg is back with a vengeance. After a pandemic gap of two years, the elite global summit is being rebooted in a security-drenched hotel in Washington DC, with a high-powered guest list that includes the heads of Nato, the CIA, GCHQ, the U.S. national security council, two European prime ministers, a healthy sprinkle of tech billionaires, and Henry Kissinger.
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U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was murdered in June 1968. Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of the crime, but many - including Kennedy's friend Paul Schrade - suspect another gunman was involved. Schrade was also shot that night and has been telling Witness History why he’s campaigning for the case to be reopened.
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In an Oxford-style debate with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Bernie Sanders argued that progressive policy goals such as Medicare for All, Social Security expansion, and a higher minimum wage are "what the American people want" and blasted the political establishment—including his GOP colleague—for ignoring the most important crises facing the U.S.
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The eleven-year persecution of Julian Assange was extended and escalated on Friday morning. Assange will be extradited to Virginia to stand trial on eighteen felony charges in connection with the 2010 publication by WikiLeaks of thousands of documents showing widespread corruption, deceit, and war crimes by American and British authorities along with their close dictatorial allies in the Middle East.
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The U.K. government on Friday formally approved the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the U.S. to face espionage charges, a decision that human rights groups condemned as a dire threat to journalism worldwide. Julian Assange's wife slammed the U.K. government for moving to send the WikiLeaks publisher "to the country that plotted his assassination."
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A USDA spokesperson said the agency does not have projections for how many summer meals will be served this summer, but No Kid Hungry estimates that one in five sites that served meals in summer of 2021 will be ineligible to do so this year, and that nearly 7 million children could lose access to meals this summer.
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Back in April, a few in the mainstream media began noticing a startling trend: Food-processing facilities all across America have been catching fire over the past several months, a trend that has included several eye-catching episodes such as small plane crashes and massive explosions.
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‘Animal-free dairy’ startups have hit back at what they claim are attempts by the Non GMO Project and others to discredit the emerging technology by mischaracterizing it as dangerous, unregulated and bad for the environment.
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Since March 2020, school nutrition directors have been able to adapt their meal programs to meet the ongoing pandemic-driven challenges of getting healthy meals to the nearly 30 million children who depend on them. But none of it would have been possible without USDA waivers that were authorized by Congress—and those are now set to expire on June 30.
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