With the latest bill amending the Local Councils Act, which lays down the schedule of elections for local councils, I have been deprived of my democratic right to vote for a new representation at the local council in Qormi next year.
The mandate of the currently voted councillors has been undemocratically extended by two years by the members of the electoral committee consisting of members of the two main parties. This is absolutely not acceptable in a democratic society.
News of possible health threats associated with plastic bothered Jeanne Haegele of Chicago so much that she has quit using plastic. The 28-year-old marketing coordinator chronicles her efforts online at www.lifelessplastic.blogspot.com. “Plastic is absolutely everywhere–our food is packaged in it, our clothes are often made out of it, and even baby toys are made of plastic,” Haegele says. “It was scary that something that was such a big part of my life might be dangerous.”
Scientists are mostly worried about bisphenol-A or BPA. “It’s an endocrine disruptor and in numerous animal studies it’s been linked to cancer, infertility, obesity and early puberty,” says Anila Jacob, M.D., M.P.H., a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit research and advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. “The CDC has found this chemical in 93 percent of people they have tested,” she says.
BPA is a chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic or items marked with the number 7 on the bottom. Some plastic dishes, cups, reusable water bottles and baby bottles are made out of polycarbonate. Heating foods in polycarbonate plastic increases the amount of BPA that leaches into food, Jacob says. Frances Beinecke, president of the National Resources Defense Council, an environmental action group, worries about BPA’s possible role in breast cancer. Beinecke, a breast cancer survivor, says BPA is a synthetic form of estrogen, and doctors know estrogen feeds breast cancer. “It ramps up cell division in pre-cancerous cells and it can prompt tumors to metastasize,” she says. “In animal studies, BPA has been found to cause the early onset of puberty and stimulate mammary gland development in females. The estrogen-like properties in BPA are so strong that even when male rodents were exposed to it, they had an increased risk of mammary tumors.” The studies done to date have all been on animals, Jacob says, because it’s difficult to study in humans as we have already been exposed via multiple routes. “We think the animal data is convincing enough that it warrants concern,” Jacob says.
BPA also is used to line the inside of metal food and soda cans and can leach from the can liner into the food. Acidic foods like tomato sauces and soda absorb more BPA. Other plastic containers–like those made with polyvinyl chloride or PVC and marked with the number 3 concern scientists for health and environmental reasons. PVC contains phthalates, softeners need to make the plastic bend and they have been found to interfere with hormonal development. The production of and burning of PVC plastic releases dioxin, a known carcinogen, into the atmosphere.
All food plastic wraps used to be made with PVC, but many large name brands have quit using PVC. However, the cling wrap used for commercial purposes, such as the meat department of your grocery store, often contain phthalates. Gina Solomon, M.D., M.P.H., a senior scientist with the NRDC, suggests checking the date when you buy food wrapped in cling wrap. Buying something recently wrapped is your safest bet, she says.
For its part, the FDA agrees that substances used to make plastics can leach into food. But the agency says it has studied them and found “the levels to be well within the margin of safety based on information available to the agency.”
Safer Plastics
#1 PETE or PET (polyethylene terephthalate)–used for most clear beverage bottles, such as 2-liter soda, cooking oil bottles and peanut butter jars. One of the most commonly recycled plastics on the planet.
#2 HDPE (high-density polyethylene)–used to make most milk jugs.
#4 LDPE (low-density polyethylene)–used in food storage bags, some cling wraps and some squeeze bottles.
#5 PP (polypropylene)–used in opaque, hard containers, including some baby bottles and some cups and bowls. Drinking straws and yogurt containers are sometimes made with this.
Avoid These
#3 PVC (polyvinyl chloride)–used in commercial plastic wraps and salad dressing bottles.
#6 PS (polystyrene)–used in Styrofoam cups, meat trays and “clam-shell”-type containers.
#7 Other (these contain any plastic other than those used in #1-6. Most are polycarbonate which contain BPA)–used in some water bottles, Nalgene water bottles, some baby bottles, and some metal can linings.
Easy Tips
• Using plastic water bottles? Go for a metal or stainless steel container instead.
• Using a plastic spatula? Try using a wooden spoon instead.
• Using Tupperware? Try pyrex glass containers that go straight from the fridge to the oven.
• Buying ready-to-drink juices? Frozen concentrate stores longer and is typically packaged in paper.
• Using plastic cutting boards? How about a bamboo cutting board?
• Using a plastic lunch box? A stainless steel laptop lunchbox provides a sturdy, elegant alternative.
By Martha Miller Johnson, Positively Green
The European Greens last weekend (28-29 March) adopted their election manifesto for the 2009 European elections, calling for a ‘Green New Deal’ which they argue will offer generations to come “a future based on stability, sufficiency and sustainability”.
The Greens were the first European party to hold a pan-European campaign. At the 2004 elections, Green parties across the EU ran on a coordinated common platform, based on written materials and posters.
For the 2009 elections, the Greens are continuing in the same vein, and will be running candidates under a pan-European campaign in a number of new countries: the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia, Latvia and Estonia.
Like most European parties, the financial and economic crisis has played a large part in framing the Greens’ common manifesto. Green leaders believe the crisis gives them an opportunity to show voters that they are not just campaigning “to save trees, but people too” (EurActiv 26/11/08).
The Greens are currently the European Parliament’s fifth largest group
, with a total of 43 MEPs.
LinksDossier: European Elections: Outlook for 2009Arguing that “the financial crisis and credit crunch have brought the failings of current economic and social policies sharply into focus,” the European Green Manifesto for 2009, entitled a ‘Green New Deal for Europe’, calls for a wholesale transformation of economic and social systems.
Stimulus package for ‘green collar jobs’
To tackle the financial and economic crisis, the Greens advocate a massive EU-wide stimulus package along the lines of the Obama recovery plan in the US.
Irish Green Déirdre de Búrca, who was elected one of the party’s five pan-European ‘Green Leaders’ for the 2009 campaign, told EurActiv: “We’re pushing very strongly for an EU-wide economic stimulus package that member states have so far been very reluctant to agree to. We’ve criticised the European Commission’s recovery package as being little more than a series of member-state packages – there’s nothing new or different or truly European about it.”
Indeed, like Obama in the US, the Greens want any EU-wide stimulus plan to push for investment in green research and technology, making Europe a world leader in “shifting to a greener economy”.
In this respect, the Greens are tying their long-standing climate change and energy policies to their economic prescriptions. The manifesto argues that “com bating climate change will boost employment and make us more self-sufficient, reducing our damaging reliance on energy imports”.
The party calls for a 500 billion euro package, with a view to creating five million new, largely green jobs. Many of these so-called “green collar jobs” would be in the area of clean technologies and green enterprise.
“We believe institutions such as the European Investment Bank should play a much stronger role in providing public financing” for these green tech jobs, De Búrca explained, saying the bank should also provide guarantees for matching private funding.
The manifesto concludes that “these ‘crises’ should be seen as an opportunity to transform our economic and social system into one that will offer generations-to-come a future based on stability, sufficiency and sustainability”.
A pan-European, multi-ethnic campaign
Building on their experience of 2004, when they ran the most pan-European campaign in European electoral history, the Greens are now seeking to disseminate a centralised campaign message across EU member states.
Their 2004 experience, by their own admission, produced mixed results. Despite the fact that all members agreed on a common campaign message and themes, not all member parties chose to use the common material in 2004.
Monica Frassoni, co-president of the Greens in the European Parliament, said national parties that decided to use this European dimension for the 2004 elections “really gained from it, for example the French and the Germans”. “Those who did not – like the Italians – made a mistake. I think that was a stupid thing to do” (EurActiv 25/07/08).
This time, the Greens say they will go even further. As well as campaigning in new member states, where there are currently no elected Green MEPs, some candidates will campaign in several countries, most notably Green co-president Daniel Cohn-Bendit of France.
As well as this, a number of candidates of non-European origins will feature on Green lists. “I see it as a very multi-ethnic campaign,” said party spokesperson Philippe Lamberts, who will run in the European elections in Belgium this June.
In order to create interest in their campaign and generate a buzz around the EU, the party nominated five ‘Green Leaders’ and 11 ambassadors to sell the ‘Green New Deal’ to European voters. “I think it’s a good idea for a European campaign,” said de Búrca. “What you need are faces, names and personalities that people can relate to and identify with. This is an attempt to give a more public image to the grouping.”
Other eye-catching events include a cycle ride along the route of the old Iron Curtain and a train journey across the EU. “Going beyond campaign literature and engaging in EU-wide actions proves that we are the party that’s most advanced in terms of organising itself as a pan-European grouping,” De Búrca concluded.
check out http://www.eudebate2009.eu/eng/european-elections-2009.html
Prices of mobile phone calls made between EU countries will be further lowered as of July this year, according to an agreement sealed yesterday (24 March) over the EU’s so-called ‘roaming regulation’. As part of the deal, however, telecoms companies will still be able to subject users to an initial charging period of 30 seconds, which should enable operators to maintain some revenue.
of the final agreement, mobile phone calls passed from one EU country to another will be capped at €43 cents per minute from July 2009, down from the current limit of €46 cents. This cap should be further decreased to €39 cents from July 2010, and to €35 cents from July 2011. All prices exclude VAT.The compromise stems from an initial European Commission proposal to limit roaming calls to €34 cents per minute by 2012. During the first votein Parliament at the beginning of March, MEPs proposed a cap of €40 cents per minute, to be applied from July 2010 to mid-2012.
Mobile users will also benefit from lower charges for phone calls received while abroad. These fees will be capped from the current €22 cents per minute to €11 cents per minute from July 2011 (VAT excluded). Moreover, a new cap has been introduced for roamed text messages, which should cost a maximum of €11 cents (VAT excluded) from July 2009.
Operators are of course allowed to offer much lower prices than the maximum charges identified by the EU, although this was seldom the case under the first roaming regulation.
No more bill shocks
More good news for consumers came with an agreement on a new system to prevent so-called ‘bill shocks’ for data roaming, which frequently hit mobile Internet users when abroad. The new regulation sets a €50 limit for data roaming per month (excluding VAT). Once a customer reaches 80% of this amount, the mobile operator will send a warning message, giving details of a procedure to continue data roaming. Should the user fail to respond, the operator must automatically cut the service once the cap is reached.
Negotiators rejected suggestions from the Parliament to consider a specific volume of data as a limit for data roaming, which MEPs proposed capping at 20 megabytes per month. “This would have discouraged companies from offering lower tariffs for mobile Web traffic,” a Commission official explained.
Compromise on billing system
The Parliament also had to give up its proposal to apply per-second tariffs as of the first second of a roamed phone conversation. Currently, most operators impose per-minute tariffs for roamed calls, a practice which ends up billing customers for 24% more time than they actually spend on the phone, according to the European telecom regulators group (ERG). “It’s like taking the train from Brussels to Paris and being charged to go to Rome,” explained Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva.
The compromise will allow operators to impose an initial charging period of 30 seconds, after which the per-second system will be applied. This means that if an operator wants to exploit this advantage, a roamed phone call lasting 15, three or 27 seconds will always be charged as though it had lasted 30 seconds.
Since a week, we are out of internet at the office in Sliema. As we are using the wireless internet provided by Vanilla, we climbed on our roof to check the connection of our antenna just to realize that as a new building has been finished in Tower Road/Bisazza street, we have lost our connection to the emitting antenna. I wonder if there is some sort of regulation, it is not correct that with the erection of buildings, one looses the wireless services one used to enjoy in the past…
The European Commission is investigating the privacy policy applied by YouTube to the channel dedicated to European Union activities, EU Tube.
“We are checking with Google what they do with the information they obtain from users accessing EU content through YouTube services,” Joseph Hennon, the Commission’s spokesperson on communication policy, told EurActiv, making clear that the problem might also arise for YouTube videos embedded in the websites of the EU institutions, in addition to EU Tube .
Brussels refused to rule out drastic action. “The outcome of our talks might be a new arrangement with Google, or the appearance of a prominent privacy statement in all EU videos,” said Hennon. Asked whether the Commission could leave YouTube, the spokesman replied: “It is theoretically possible. We are certainly considering other channels, such as Daily Motion ,” the French alternative to YouTube, which is much less popular.
The EU executive has so far ruled out a presence in other widely used web services, such as Second Life or MySpace. Nevertheless, three commissioners have Facebook pages (Meglena Kuneva , Louis Michel and Margot Wallström ), while Brussels is “examining an official presence on Twitter,” Hennon said.
The main issue with YouTube stems from the divergent policies of Google and the EU institutions regarding the use of Web cookies, pieces of data stored on the computers of users when they access a website or an Internet service.
The EU’s official website uses so-called session cookies, which only remember users’ choices for the period that they are connected to the website. “As soon as they leave ‘Europa’, the cookies are deleted,” explained Hennon.
Google, and thus YouTube, have a completely different approach to cookies. The US company holds cookies related to its users for months and uses them to track Internet surfers, identifying their interests as potential consumers. This information is then sold to advertisers to provide tailored advertising, as acknowledged in the YouTube privacy notice .
According to official figures, around 14 million videos have been downloaded from the EU Tube channel since it was activated 18 months ago. Google carries in its databases the surfing histories of all EU Tube users, drawing up personal profiles for those who are registered in YouTube and electronic profiles for the others.
The Europa website has an average of 500,000 visitors per day, who might also be identified by Google once they watch a YouTube video on the EU’s official portal.
The issue has also caused concern in the United States, where the new Obama administration recently stopped using embedded YouTube videos on the official White House website. But they denied having done so for privacy reasons.
Peter Fleischer, Google’s privacy counsel, told EurActiv: “YouTube has strong, robust privacy policies protecting users. We are confident that the Commission will be satisfied with them.”
The employment of Dr Ing. Patrick Attard has been terminated after he commented on The Times online with reference to a Gozo News item. Attard was critical of the manner in which
the Church in Gozo is effecting Nadur farmers through contamination of a water source which is vital for their livelihood.
The Malta Resources Authority has terminated the employment of Attard on the pretext on an inexistent breach of professional secrecy. Attard has himself declared that his service to the MRA was in no way connected to water matters. It follows clearly that the dismissal of Patrick Attard is an attack on the right of freedom of expression : a throwback to the dark 70s and 80s when human rights in Malta were more observed in the breach.
We appeal to the Malta Resources Authority to undo the damage done immediately by reinstating Patrick Attard. An employee cannot be dismissed without prior warning and without being given the chance to defend himself. This goes against basic ethics.
The commissioner of Data Protection is asked to investigate the matter to find out how the information about the electronic activities of Patrick Attard have been transmitted to third parties without his consent.
I wonder what happened to the stand of Smartcity at the fair this Friday…
Alternattiva Demokratika- The Green Party disagrees with Government in treating biodegradable bags at par with non-biodegradable ones.
Arnold Cassola, Alternattiva Demokratika Chairperson, stated: “Whilst we agree that plastic bags are charged an ecotax, the proceeds of which should be used for the betterment of the environment in Malta, we disagree that the said tax should also be charged on biodegradable bags, since these bags are of no harm to the environment, being produced from harmless and naturally biodegradable vegetable sources”.
Carmel Cacopardo, Alternattiva Demokratika Spokesperson on Sustainable
Development and Local Government , added: “Not only should biodegradable bags not be taxed, but their re-use as carrier bags for household waste should be strongly encouraged”. Cacopardo added: “We are noting a considerable increase in plastics in the waste stream which is originating from supermarket packaging. Instead of taxing biodegradable bags government should address this packaging problem through the eco-contribution mechanism, thereby reducing a substantial amount of non-biodegradable plastics which according to government’s plans will now end in the Delimara incinerator.”
Ralph Cassar
PRO
News: 