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Says Harper is standing with mining companies, against human rights.

from the Council of Canadians

Stephen Harper’s executive decision that Canada should try to join the Pacific Alliance political and trading bloc should be as controversial as his taking a trip to Peru and Colombia to dodge questions about overspending and lack of accountability in the Senate, says the Council of Canadians.

“It’s highly symbolic that the first people Harper met when he got off the plane were mining company executives,” says Council of Canadians national chairperson Maude Barlow. “The Pacific Alliance, like Canada’s existing trade and investment deals in Latin America, puts the profits of those companies above anything else. The deals, like the Alliance, have nothing to say about the environmental and human rights impact of mining in the region, which is more and more controversial, with growing resistance to Canadian mines in particular.”

The Pacific Alliance is a political grouping of right-wing, market fundamentalist governments in Peru, Chile, Colombia and Mexico that is widely regarded as a counterweight to more positive regional integration efforts on the continent. As Harper seeks to enhance “rights” for mining companies through closer ties with Pacific Alliance countries, for example, other countries, including Ecuador and Bolivia, are cancelling investment treaties and looking to set up new regional trade and investment rules that give equal space to the protection of human rights, water and the environment.

“As starkly set out in a leaked 2012 confidential government document, trade and economic opportunities for corporations have become the driving forces behind Stephen Harper’s foreign policy,” says Council of Canadians trade campaigner Stuart Trew. “Harper is using foreign policy to promote corporate interests and help his board room friends undermine movements in Latin America against Canadian mining and toward a more fair and balanced trade and investment system.”

Canada has had observer status with the Pacific Alliance since November 2012.
 

Scientists at Columbia conclude a warmer climate will increase the number of temperature-related deaths.

from New Scientist

"The Big Apple is cooking: climate change will increase the number of temperature-related deaths within decades.

"A warmer climate means more extremely hot days in summer, and fewer extremely cold days in winter, meaning people are more likely to die in summer than they used to be, and less so in winter.

"Radley Horton of Columbia University in New York and colleagues have now calculated the net effect. They matched daily temperature data for Manhattan with death rates between 1982 and 1999 to estimate how sensitive the city's population is to temperatures, then used future temperature forecasts to estimate future death rates. In all their 16 models, temperature-related deaths increased almost immediately (Nature Climate Change). …"

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In eight years, Israel exported $4.6 billion worth of UAVs to countries including Britain, India and Uganda

from Haaretz

"Israel is the world's largest exporter of unmanned aircraft, in terms of the number of systems sold, a study has found.

"Over the last eight years Israel has exported $4.6 billion worth of unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a study by the business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

"UAVs, or drones, constitute nearly 10 percent of Israel's total military exports. …"

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UBC study finds rising temperatures are driving fish towards cooler waters.

from the University of British Columbia

Climate change has been impacting global fisheries for the past four decades by driving species towards cooler, deeper waters, according to University of British Columbia scientists.

In a Nature study published this week, UBC researchers used temperature preferences of fish and other marine species as a sort of “thermometer” to assess effects of climate change on the worlds oceans between 1970 and 2006.

They found that global fisheries catches were increasingly dominated by warm-water species as a result of fish migrating towards the poles in response to rising ocean temperatures.

NB: An infographic illustrating fish distribution worldwide as a result of climate change is available at http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/?p=91009. Members of the media may download a copy of the graphic at http://ow.ly/kL4NN.

“One way for marine animals to respond to ocean warming is by moving to cooler regions,” says the study’s lead author William Cheung, an assistant professor at UBC’s Fisheries Centre. “As a result, places like New England on the northeast coast of the U.S. saw new species typically found in warmer waters, closer to the tropics.

“Meanwhile in the tropics, climate change meant fewer marine species and reduced catches, with serious implications for food security.”

“We’ve been talking about climate change as if it’s something that’s going to happen in the distant future – our study shows that it has been affecting our fisheries and oceans for decades,” says Daniel Pauly, principal investigator with UBC’s Sea Around Us Project and the study’s co-author. “These global changes have implications for everyone in every part of the planet.”

A summary of the study is available here.

In survey of 500 workers, 84 percent report their employer committed wage theft within the past year.

from The Nation

"At an 11 am.press conference outside a Brooklyn KFC restaurant, fast food workers and activists will release a new report alleging rampant wage theft in their industry, one of the fastest-growing in the United States. The report includes results from an Anzalone Liszt Grove research survey of 500 of the city’s fast food workers, in which 84 percent reported that their employer had committed some form of wage theft over the previous year.

"Today’s press conference follows strikes by fast food workers in five major cities within six weeks, all demanding raises to $15 an hour and the chance to form unions without intimidation. The report, 'New York’s Hidden Crime Wave: Wage Theft and NYC’s Fast Food Workers,' is being published by Fast Food Forward, the campaign behind the strikes in New York. It lands on the same day as a New York Times article reporting that New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman 'is investigating whether the owners of several fast-food restaurants and a fast-food parent corporation have cheated their workers out of wages, according to a person familiar with the cases.' …"

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