Weekend Gun Report: June 21-23, 2013 – NYTimes.com

Three people were shot at a house party in Amityville, Long Island, N.Y., Saturday. A 24-year-old man was shot and wounded at the Hyannis Youth and Community Center parking lot in Barnstable, Mass., Saturday night. Shootings across Chicago, Ill., left a man dead and at least 14 others wounded late Saturday into early Sunday.

via Weekend Gun Report: June 21-23, 2013 – NYTimes.com.

Europe Firm on GM Food Stance

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Europe will defend its restrictions on genetically modified food in talks on a new free trade agreement with the United States.

Negotiations on the proposed trade deal are set to start in July. They will focus on lowering tariffs and rules that hinder trade in goods and services, and the deal is seen as a way of promoting new economic growth.

Potentially tricky areas include agricultural issues, such as EU restrictions on the use of genetically modified foods and pesticides.

Asked in her weekly video appearance Saturday whether the idea is to align European standards on genetic engineering with America’s, Merkel replied: “No. Above all, we do not want to simply minimize standards now — that is a concern many have.”

via Europe Firm on GM Food Stance.

Small Farmers Get Creative to Survive

For the Masumotos, who have worked California’s fields for four generations, it took time to figure out how to best sustain their operation as giant agribusinesses swallowed other family farms.

The corporations that produce millions upon millions of pounds of fruit in the San Joaquin Valley take up massive tracts of land. Gerawan Farming, for example, controls 9,000 acres. And nearby Wawona Packing Co. grows stone fruit on 6,000 acres.

via Small Farmers Get Creative to Survive.

For the Masumotos, who have worked California’s fields for four generations, it took time to figure out how to best sustain their operation as giant agribusinesses swallowed other family farms.

The corporations that produce millions upon millions of pounds of fruit in the San Joaquin Valley take up massive tracts of land. Gerawan Farming, for example, controls 9,000 acres. And nearby Wawona Packing Co. grows stone fruit on 6,000 acres.

The Masumotos, by comparison, produce stone fruit on just 25 acres.

David Mas Masumoto switched to organics in the 1980s, but found that selling sustainably-farmed fruit proved challenging in an era of perfectly uniform supermarket peaches.

He wrote a book, “Epitaph for a Peach,” about the struggle to save his heirloom peaches and way of life. And over the years, the family turned that unlikely crop and uncommon lifestyle into a hip, profitable business by involving consumers in the farm through stories.

Each year, people from Los Angeles, San Francisco and beyond come to the farm to pick their own ripe fruit and spend the day interacting with the farmers. Masumoto writes a farming column for the local paper, and Nikiko Masumoto uses Twitter and Facebook to update the public about the harvest.

The family hopes the cookbook adds to those efforts.

In addition to recipes ranging from peach gazpacho to peach shortcake, the book includes essays that provide glimpses into a small farm’s life and vulnerabilities — the sweat, the mistakes, even death. It’s an intentional effort, says Masumoto, because artisanal agriculture is highly personal and transparent when compared with the anonymity and homogeneity of corporate farming.

“The new agriculture is about story-based farming. It cares about the community, the farmworkers and the environment,” Masumoto says. “The more we can differentiate from corporate farms, the more we can gain a new identity and be financially successful.”

Afghan Women’s Writing Project | Stronger Than You Think

I want to tell you – and I mean you

Afghan men:

I know there are many obstacles in my life,

But that doesn’t mean I will give up.

You look at me as a weak, low-spirited girl.

You anticipate a dark future for me.

You all should know that I am a girl,

But I am not weak.

It has been a long time

That you have abused me for being a girl.

You don’t respect me because I want to break with bad tradition,

Because I want to bring changes – freedom – to my life.

You hate me.

My existence disturbs you.

You insult me in the road, at university, on the job.

If I achieve my dreams

You will look at me as a bad person.

But you should know – no one can stop me!

I will make possible

What you made impossible!

I will be the one

Who gets from you my rights as a human!

Even if I lose my life

I will not let you take my dreams.

I will show you:

I am stronger than you think!

 By Maliha

via Afghan Women's Writing Project | Stronger Than You Think.

Lebanese forces close in after all-night battle linked to Syria conflict | News | DW.DE | 24.06.2013

Cares more for outcome in Syria than democracy and loyalty to his nation…?

The cleric, Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, supports rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad. He also has strong criticism for the militant Shiite group Hezbollah, which has intervened in the civil war on al-Assad’s behalf.

‘All noble people’

Witnesses have told news agencies that the violence apparently started when al-Assir supporters surrounded a checkpoint in Abra, where the army had stopped a vehicle transporting other supporters of the cleric. The military announced that it would try to arrest al-Assir, who, for his part, has called on people across Lebanon to join him – and on soldiers to defect.

“To all noble people in the army, Sunni or not Sunni,” he said in a YouTube video, wearing a bulletproof vest and holding a gun, “you must leave the army.”

Other al-Assir backers have attacked security forces in Sidrn in retaliation for the siege of the mosque and called on their supporters to take to the streets nationwide.

The fighting has trapped hundreds of civilians in their homes, with some making appeals on local television stations for the army to secure a safe passage for them to leave the area. The noncombatant civilian death toll remains unknown.

via Lebanese forces close in after all-night battle linked to Syria conflict | News | DW.DE | 24.06.2013.

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