Tag Archives: Thomas Jefferson
Flowing Across Borders
The practice of granting asylum to people fleeing persecution in foreign lands is one of the earliest hallmarks of civilization. References to it have been found in texts written 3,500 years ago, during the blossoming of the great early empires in the Middle East such as the Hittites, Babylonians, Assyrians and ancient Egyptians.
Over three millennia later, protecting refugees was made the core mandate of the UN refugee agency, which was set up to look after refugees, specifically those waiting to return home at the end of World War II.
The 1951 Refugee Convention spells out that a refugee is someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”
Since then, UNHCR has offered protection and assistance to tens of millions of refugees, finding durable solutions for many of them. Global migration patterns have become increasingly complex in modern times, involving not just refugees, but also millions of economic migrants. But refugees and migrants, even if they often travel in the same way, are fundamentally different, and for that reason are treated very differently under modern international law.
Migrants, especially economic migrants, choose to move in order to improve the future prospects of themselves and their families. Refugees have to move if they are to save their lives or preserve their freedom. They have no protection from their own state – indeed it is often their own government that is threatening to persecute them. If other countries do not let them in, and do not help them once they are in, then they may be condemning them to death – or to an intolerable life in the shadows, without sustenance and without rights.
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The people’s plan for Syria ~ Alice Jay – Avaaz
Russia just started airstrikes in Syria, escalating the conflict. It’s time to launch a People’s plan for Syria to end the suffering:
1) Stop the indiscriminate bombing with an aerial exclusion zone,
2) Devise a global refugee plan, and
3) Get governments that are fuelling and funding the war to talk. It is viable and it is urgent. Sign up now, and tell everyone:
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Syria
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Demand Tyson Foods transform industrial meat production
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Raise your voice! Demand change at Tyson Foods! Tyson Foods and its global subsidiaries are one of the world’s largest producers of chicken, beef, pork as well as prepared foods containing Conflict Palm Oil. It’s leading brands include Tyson®, Jimmy Dean®, Hillshire Farm®, Sara Lee® Frozen Bakery, Ball Park®, Wright®, Aidells® and State Fair®. The food giant has unprecedented control over the nation’s meat supply and is the biggest poultry producer in the world. The system of chicken production that Tyson has built keeps farmers in a state of indebted servitude, living on the edge of bankruptcy, and takes a huge toll on the climate. Altogether, our industrial system of agriculture is driving roughly one third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, largely from tropical deforestation/land conversion for livestock and commodity feed crops, methane emissions from the prevalent industrial/factory farming model of animal production, and food sector emissions like manufacturing processed foods. Corporations like Tyson Foods, through its factory farm industrial model of production, are driving runaway climate change, increased levels of corporate control, high levels of food waste, forest loss and fragmentation, soil erosion, water scarcity and pollution, loss of biodiversity—both genetic diversity of crops and threatened extinction of key species, food insecurity, and racial inequity. Please take action today to demand that the biggest and most destructive global meat producers, starting with Tyson Foods, adopt a comprehensive policy that includes strict environmental and social safeguards for palm oil and meat production that will break its link to the destruction of rainforests, peatlands and the abuse of communities, workers and animals. This policy should include data on rainforest conversion, GHG emissions, biodiversity, and water impacts for its palm oil, meat and feed businesses. For a Responsible Food System,
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