Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)

Read our full detailed post at:

https://worldanimalsvoice.com/2020/02/02/england-snapshot-part-2-to-our-recent-post/ 

Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »

Canada faces the largest tar sand mine ever. For them, 292 km² of forest and wetlands would be cleared or polluted. The extraction of oil would destroy the habitat of caribou and bears, and the Wood Buffalo National Park is in danger. Prime Minister Trudeau makes decisions at all times – he must stop the catastrophe now!

In parts of Alberta it already looks like Mordor. Open-cast mines are excavated in open-cast mines; previously forest and nature were destroyed. In artificial lakes there is water contaminated with heavy metals. Reservoirs and refineries emit toxic fumes.

The Canadian company Suncor operates a huge process plant for oil from tar sands near Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada. © Todd Korol / Reuters

The new project called Frontier Tar Sand Mine is an ecological monster, bigger than all previous ones. It hardly spares an environmental mess. Teck Resources plans to invest 13 billion euros.
From 2026, 260,000 barrels of oil are to be extracted every day – for 40 years!!

The forest must give way: bulldozers prepare an area for tar sand mining. © Todd Korol / Reuters

Far larger amounts of energy are needed for extraction and processing than for conventional petroleum. To protect the climate, the oil must remain in the ground – the billion-dollar project would make the phasing out of fossil fuels an illusion.

Excavated and driven away: A large area is developed for tar sand mining. © Todd Korol / Reuters

Pipelines are under construction to export the viscous oil – they contain ecological explosives. The Trans Mountain Pipeline leads over the Rocky Mountains on British Columbia’s Pacific coast. Leaks are likely, if an oil tanker breaks down, threatens to contaminate the coast and the habitat of rare orcas.

The mine project also alerts Unesco. The guardians of the World Heritage Sites see Wood Buffalo National Park at the mouth of the Athabasca River in danger. The river is already polluted; now his condition could get worse.

Canada is planning several large pipelines for the transportation of the crude oil.

The Trans Mountain Expansion Project has already been approved and is supported by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He even bought the pipeline connecting Alberta’s oil fields to the Pacific coast to drive expansion.
However, the provincial government of British Columbia is trying to prevent the construction from being imposed by environmental regulations.

Oil flows into a pond where it has to settle. © Todd Korol / Reuters

The Enbridge Line 3 pipeline has also already been approved. It leads south to the United States. The KeystoneXL pipeline, which also connects Canada’s tar sand fields to the United States, is intended to pump oil to refineries in Texas over a distance of 2,700 kilometers.

The petroleum economy also requires a pipeline to the east – for the export of tar sand oil to Europe. However, the TransCanada group buried its Energy East project on the Atlantic coast at the end of 2017.

The company has thus bowed to public pressure.

Aerial view of Suncor Millennium tar sands mining operations north of Fort McMurray.

https://www.regenwald.org/petitionen/1128/umweltverbrechen-teersand-stoppen

My comment: The Canadian province of Alberta is de facto an oil state: After Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, the world’s third largest crude oil reserves are stored here.

Canada already produces today as much oil as Kuwait. Soon it will be twice as much. And Canada is already the largest crude oil supplier in the USA.

The oil companies get everything they want from politics. The free market and oil income outweigh all other factors.

The oil has to be extracted from the tar sands in an energy-intensive manner and with great interventions in nature. This makes extraction complicated and expensive.

But Canada still thinks the effort is worth it: It is estimated that the government and the provinces will generate revenues of just under $ 80 billion between 2012 and 2035.

What does that have to do with Germany and the EU?
A lot of!

In January 2017, the European Union voted for the trade agreement with Canada and allowed more Canadian oil (tar sands, oil sands) to be imported from Canada.

CETA: Dirty oil has been given a clean label.
Since December 2014, the energy source, which comes mainly from Alberta in Canada, has no longer been classified as environmentally harmful by the European Union.

‘”Why don’t everyone protest today? The potential health effects of ecoterrorism for profit and money are enormous and threaten all of us – from water and soil poisoning to the effects of a warming global climate on public health -The effects will soon be devastating. “

That was what an older protester told me at a demo against Glyphosate years ago.
And he was right.

My best regards to all, Venus

Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »

Summary: We request from Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, AUVK, and Kosovo Police to stop this cruel act once and for ever and to instruct all police forces to take action against the offenders and the abuse of dogs for fights.

Personal story: I am starting this petition to stop the sick blood sport of dog fighting in Kosovo and to close all the dog breeding kennels where dogs are bred especially for dog fights.

Dogfights are taking place every day in Kosovo.

11. Mai 2019 — This is done by teenagers!

In Rahovec Kosovo just recently in January 2019 two dogs were forced to fight each other until one of the dogs died from bleeding injuries. I have also come across people who have made dog fighting an online business.

They breed dogs especially for dogfighting and they advertise them and sell them via Facebook.

The biggest one is in Prizren Kosovo Fighting dogs are kept isolated from other dogs and most people, so they spend most of their lives on short, heavy chains.

The conditioning of fighting dogs may make use of a variety of legal and illegal drugs, including anabolic steroids to enhance muscle mass and encourage aggressiveness. Narcotic drugs may also be used to increase the dogs’ aggression, increase reactivity and mask pain or fear during a fight. Sparring comes into play:

Sparring consists of using a dog as practice for a fighter dog.

Many of the dogs used in sparring are stolen from dog kennels and shelters or even from the same street.

Fighting dogs may have their ears cropped and tails docked close to their bodies. Fighters usually perform this cropping/docking themselves using crude and inhumane techniques.

Dogs forced into fighting suffer terrible injuries, both from the fights and at the hands of their vicious ‘owners’. Most will ultimately be killed in the ring or die soon after from their injuries.

Those who can no longer fight are often brutally dispatched.

This barbaric practice must be stopped. Those that take place in dog fighting are generally involved in other illegal behaviors.

Dog fighting is barbaric and cannot be allowed to be part of a modern society. Instead of tolerating such cruel acts which have impacts on human minds and their willingness to accept killings of living existences, we demand the Prime Minister to adapt a law for animal protection, putting every cruelty against animals and every offence under severe punishment.

Will you join me today by signin this petition to help bring dog fighters to justice? 

The issue: Dog fighting is barbaric and we cannot allow it to be part of modern society.

Take action! Dogfighting is the worst thing to happen to dogs. It’s brutal. The people who do this are disgusting and should be ashamed of what they’re doing. Dogs are supposed to be loved not killed. I care about all dogs and they deserve to be treated with love and respect.

Please join me by signing my petition so that all dogs in Kosova are treated with love and respect they deserve.

Thank you. A.D.F.C Kosovo Manager

https://www.change.org/p/to-the-prime-minister-of-kosova-ramush-haradinaj-ban-the-cruel-dog-fighting-blood-sport-in-kosovo-and-close-all-the-dog-fighting-breeders

My comment: Kosovo is a republic in south-eastern Europe on the western part of the Balkan Peninsula. It was formerly part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and has been a part of the Republic of Serbia since 2003.

The Republic of Kosovo is considered a stabilized de facto – regime.

On February 17, 2008, the Parliament proclaimed the independence of the territory. The country’s status under international law is controversial, 114 of the 193 member states of the United Nations recognize the Republic of Kosovo as independent.

And now I want to further explain the sentence of the article… “Those that take place in dog fighting are generally involved in other illegal behaviors”:

– According to the corruption index, Kosovo is at the top with Cambodia and Cameroon, and the mafia washes its dirty money there – all under the eyes of the UN, which wanted to build the mini-state according to its ideas.

– According to the U.S. Department of State, Kosovo and its neighboring regions are one of the most important European drug transit routes for heroin from Afghanistan to Western Europe. In the meantime, up to 80 percent of the heroin smuggled into Western Europe comes from Kosovo.

– In particular, the country’s prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, has been accused of being linked to the drug trade. Because the governing members of the government generally maintain a closeness to organized crime, mafia-like structures form the basis of the leadership areas in the political landscape.

A high-ranking BND employee spoke of Kosovo as a country in which “organized crime is the form of government” (BND = Bundesnachrichtendienst, one of the three German intelligence agencies).

– Terrible crimes against the civilian population of Kosovo remain unsolved years later. Kidnappings, murders and barbaric removal of organs in the late 1990s and early 2000s to an extent unprecedented for Europe were practically everyday.

– Freedom of the press has even deteriorated in recent years, according to the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX). This puts Kosovo behind all of its neighboring countries except Albania.

 Of course there are dog fights all over the world; in Germany they are forbidden but they still take place illegally here.

I have described the political situation in Kosovo in order to emphasize the courage and strength of animal rights activists if they still want to fight against this mafia under such prevailing conditions.

We will help them and sign the petition, which now has almost 200,000 signatures.

In addition to political measures as well as petitions, demos … the commitment of everyone is important:

keep an eye out, it could be a dogfighting cartel in an inner-city warehouse next to your office or on a rural farm in your quiet village.

Show civil courage, keep your eyes and ears open and inform the police or the veterinary office, even if something seems suspicious to you.

The criminals act because the inactive enable them.

https://de.sputniknews.com/politik/20190305324207638-kosovo-organhandel-interview/

https://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/kosovo-mafia-staat-von-un-gnaden-3082322.html

My best regards to all, Venus

Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »

The current Federal Agriculture Minister of Germany, (the worst for animal welfare but the best farmer lobbyist as she only does what they want), Julia Klöckner wants to legalize the too narrow individual cages for sows that have been banned for decades.

A draft regulation by the conservative politician removes the requirement that the animals must be able to stretch their legs.

Only after the possible transition period of up to 17 years would the times be reduced for keeping animals in them, and the length of the boxes will increase to 220 cm instead of 200 as they are now!!

Pigs stands with a width of 65 cm (gilts) or 70 cm (sows) and a length of 200 cm are currently common practice, although a fully-grown pig has a body height of 90 cm.

There must be room for the legs to extend full length.

But if the farmers had to widen the box stands, it could be expensive.

That is why the Ministry of Agriculture wants to lift the regulation, which is annoying for many animal owners.

After a tough fight by animal rights activists, the decision of the Federal Council has been postponed to February 14, 2020.

In order to influence this decision positively, there is a letter and a petition to the new head of the EU Commission (Eurogroup knows that) and another petition addressed to the Federal Council of Germany.

“Whatever the Federal Council decides on February 14th can no longer be changed by Minister Klöckner”, the petition explains fairly naively, thereby proving that the initiators know neither Klöckner nor the Federal Council.

The maximum result that could come from the second petition would be that Klöckner shortens the transition period.

Because something else is not to be expected from the Federal Council.

The Federal Council has as Members only conservative factory farming lobbyists, self-operating farm owners, hunting fans and mostly disinterested heads of state.

One of them, the green Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg Winfried Kretschmann, is ceremoniously received by the hunting association in a castle!!

Back to the 1^st comment – Klöcker herself is the WORST for animal welfare and the BEST for the farmers – a real friend of the meat industry.

So.. why one petition after another?
Didn’t reach the 1.5 million?
Is that what the initiators of the “end the cage age” campaign actually do?

The animal rights movement has turned into a petition shop.

We feel abandoned and cheated by these initiators.
The crime in Midia remains unpunished to this day, the 1.5 million vision (Ban live exports and break the cage) remains unfulfilled.

With petitions you can of course keep your post and secure your existence.
Nothing else will come of it.
Even if you started a thousand new petitions.

And it is precisely these new petitions against the pig cages that make us feel uneasy.
The fear that Eurogroup knows more than we do and that is a bad thing.
Namely that the EU Commission will again consciously, knowingly, deliberately betray the animals.

And the Eurogroupe can’t help it because it doesn’t decide anything anyway.
It (Eurogroup) can only work with MEP’s, while we know the Commissioners only have the final say, and not the MEP’s or the EU citizens.

Those who can decide for changes to improve welfare don’t want to, and those who want (the EU citizens) can’t.

Federal Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner with her Chinese counterpart Han Changfu after signing the bilateral agreement, source: BMEL

In any case, the Agriculture Minister of Germany Julia Klöckner made a decision in advance and acted against the will of 1.5 million citizens with the extension of the pig cages for 17 years! – the advanced decision says little about democracy in what is called a ‘democratic member state of the EU’.

And she does it, even before the EU Commission makes a judgment about the boxes. She is a poodle of the farmers; nothing else. They command and she barks support.

Germany is the most influential country within the European Union and holds the EU Council Presidency from July 2020.

So … if Germany, then the whole of Europe remains in the age of the cage.
The wishes of over 1 million EU citizens has been ignored, as is usually the case.

And by the way, the crimes against animals and the environment go on UNDIMINISHED!

Client: EU Commission and everyone who works for them.

As we always say, the EU is run by lobbyists, not citizens. They get what they want – the common man does not!

Mark Johnson and Venus Reichenbach (WAV)

Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | 1 Comment »

Polish lawmaker shares image likening meat industry to Holocaust.
Sylwia Spurek pushes back against criticism with Isaac Bashevis Singer quote: ‘In their behavior toward animals, all people are Nazis’.

A drawing of cows wearing concentration camp uniforms and a yellow star, meant to compare the meat industry to the Holocaust. (Sylwia Spurek/Jo Frederiks/via JTA)

JTA — A Polish lawmaker at the European Parliament shared on social media a drawing showing cows at a slaughterhouse wearing striped uniforms with yellow stars like the ones the Nazis made Jews wear at concentration camps.

Sylwia Spurek, a 43-year-old Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats representative, shared the drawing by Jo Frederiks, an artist who focuses on animal welfare.

Sylwia Spurek (Screen capture: YouTube)

Amid criticism of her actions on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Spurek defended them by quoting “the Jewish Nobel laurate Isaac Bashevis Singer,” as she described him, who once wrote that: “In their behavior toward creatures, all people are Nazis.”

She added about the painting: “Does this art delight me? No, it scares me how people treat other animals and I think that every intelligent person should understand the message of this artist.”

Spurek’s critics charged that the comparison she endorsed is offensive to Holocaust victims.

People involved in Holocaust commemoration and animal welfare activists often have clashed over the drawing of parallels between the genocide and the meat industry.

Image: PETA

From the Depths, a commemoration group in Poland, on Wednesday wrote to complain about Spurek to European Parliament President David Sassoli.

The group’s founder, Jonny Daniels, called it a “hateful post” and asked Sassoli to take “disciplinary actions” against Spurek and to urge her to apologize to survivors and their families.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/polish-lawmaker-shares-image-likening-meat-industry-to-holocaust/

And then… we want to criticize China for not having freedom of expression …

Thanks to the enlightened and progressive MP, Sylwia Spurek!!

My best regards to all, Venus

Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | 1 Comment »

Check out with pictures at:

https://worldanimalsvoice.com/2020/01/31/member-of-the-eu-then-you-have-to-abide-by-these-crazy-regulations-any-wonder-why-brits-want-out-get-real-eu-what-about-important-things/

Friday 31^st January 2020. Brexit Day, when the UK leaves the European Union.

Ever wondered why the Brits want to get out of this shambles ? – in celebration of the historic event, Express.co.uk has uncovered some of the European Union’s most bizarre laws that the UK has had to abide by (because it was a member state).

We are not even touching animal welfare issues here. Animal welfare is a story book of its own. So here are a few other EU rules which we have (until tonight) had to adhere top as members of the EU:

·         Bananas cannot be too bendy

In a widely ridiculed ruling, Brussels bosses banned rogue bananas with “malformations and abnormal curvature”.

·         Illegal to make Stilton in the village of Stilton

The small Cambridgeshire town named after the famous blue-veined cheese for being the first place to sell it is banned from producing Stilton under EU law.

The European law was put in place after officials ruled the cheese originated in another part of England.

·         Water does not hydrate you

In 2011 the EU banned drink manufactures from claiming that water can prevent dehydration.

EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove drinking water prevents dehydration.

·         Tampon tax

WAV Comment – it is not a ‘luxury non essential’, it IS an essential that should be provided without any tax to ALL girls and women ! – especially when women living on the street have to use dirty old rags, socks, woolen hats and anything else they can get their hands on to help them. Give them some respect and dignity – we say feminine sanitary products should be available free of tax to anyone that needs them.. Deprive female EU MEP’s of any use and see what the result is after 6 months ! – Jesus, they are dumb.

Currently, all sanitary protection in the UK is charged a VAT of five percent, the lowest rate permissible under EU VAT rules.

The UK Government has indicated willingness to scrap the controversial tampon tax, but existing EU laws prevent member countries from introducing a zero percent rate on products.

Britain will be free to scrap the tax, which treats sanitary products as a luxury non-essentials item, from January 1, 2021 – the end of the transition period.

It should be implemented fairly quickly, as David Cameron’s Government included a provision in the 2016 Finance Bill to allow for sanitary protection to be zero-rated, once the UK had discretion to do this.

The European Commission did agree to abolish the tax in 2018 after extensive lobbying from the UK, but it will not come into effect until January 2022.

·         Strict fishing quotas

The Common Fisheries Policy sets annual fishing quotas on each type of fish and mandated that if fish of the wrong species were caught accidentally, they had to be thrown overboard.

As a result, thousands of dead fish ended up being chucked back into the sea as fishermen attempt to reach the right quotas of the required species.

This practice was heavily condemned as tonnes of dead fish were being discarded.

In 2019 the EU outlawed the controversial practice and obliged skippers to land unwanted fish.

·         Halogen light bulbs banned

The EU banned member states from selling halogen light bulbs, replacing them with LEDs.

The final stage of the EU energy regulations was put in place in September 2018.

LED lights are more efficient and require significantly less power to operate but are more expensive than its predecessor.

Earlier versions of LEDs were criticised for being slow to light up, but newer versions of the light bulb instantly light up.

But since the halogen ban was introduced, scientific studies have found LED lights can permanently damage eyesight and disturb natural sleep rhythms.

Last year the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety warned the “blue light” emitted from LEDs can lead to “irreversible loss of retinal cells and diminished sharpness of vision”.

.

Yes, it is all true ! – fortunately we will leave highly paid MEP’s and Commissioners to come up with even more absurd rulings in the future.

Breaking News from the EU !! – a new animal welfare unit on its way ! Here is what the Eurogroup for Animals have to say about it on their site:

One small step from the Commission, or one giant leap for animal welfare? – new Animal Welfare Unit on the way

https://www.eurogroupforanimals.org/one-small-step-from-the-commission-or-one-giant-leap-for-animal-welfare-new-animal-welfare-unit-on-the-way

According to Politico, the European Commission is poised to establish a new animal welfare unit this March as part of a restructuring of its department on Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE).

Eurogroup for Animals welcomes the news, which comes as DG SANTE embarks on a reorganisation so that it can lead on the Commission’s Farm-to-Fork Strategy, which is the agricultural and food policy component of the new von der Leyen Commission’s European Green Deal.

Such a unit existed previously, but was merged with a much larger team dealing with animal health under the previous Juncker Commission.

“This is welcome news indeed, and bodes well for a prominent role for animal welfare actions within the Commission’s Farm-to-Fork Strategy. After all, animal welfare must be an integral component of any transition to a sustainable form of agriculture,” said Reineke Hameleers, Director at Eurogroup for Animals. “Citizens, MEPs and Member States have all now called for stronger animal welfare provisions at EU level, and Eurogroup for Animals wholeheartedly commends the von der Leyen Commission for this development.” 

Since they took office six weeks ago, we have heard several encouraging statements on animal welfare, and now we are seeing the first signs of action.

“Of course, what any unit is tasked with doing is even more important than its creation. The list of actions that it could be tasked with is very long indeed, and it will need to be adequately resourced too,” added Reineke Hameleers. “Only when we know this will we be able to sufficiently judge whether this development amounts to one small step from the Commission, or one giant leap for animal welfare.” 

Being involved with live animal transport investigation work for a long time; we have a bit to say about this.

See Part 2 which we will be publishing soon to experience some of our experiences. We hope to publish very soon.

Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »

This Brewery Is Putting Shelter Dogs on Beer Cans to Help Them Find Forever Homes

Posted by Katie Valentine | January 27, 2020

Motorworks Brewing in Bradenton, Fla., is labeling beer cans with dogs available for adoption in a unique promotion of animal rescues.

In partnership with Shelter Manatee, the brewery is selling cans of Kölsch lager featuring dogs in need of forever homes at the Manatee County adoption center. Each label contains a story about the featured dog, as well as information about Shelter Manatee’s plans to build a new shelter.

Since the project’s purpose is to advocate for adoption, there is no guarantee that the dogs on the cans will still be available at the time of purchase, but the rescue has plenty of equally adorable, loving dogs awaiting new families.

Brewery customers who aren’t currently looking to adopt a dog will still be helping animals in need, as a portion of the proceeds are donated to Shelter Manatee and will go towards the construction of its new facility.

“Money is going directly to the shelter for that,” the brewery’s director of sales and marketing, Barry Elwonger told Fox 13 News, “and we want to make sure that the people know about the different dogs that are looking for homes.”

The custom cans debuted last Sunday at an event featuring silent auctions, drink specials, and food trucks. Thus far, the campaign has received an overwhelming amount of support.

The beer is available in four-packs and cases of 24 at Motorworks Brewing in downtown Bradenton until it sells out. For more information, visit the brewery’s website.

Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »