The Changing Face of Urban Farming in London

The presence of Spitalfields and other farms not only demonstrates ways in which Londoners are attempting to remain connected to how food is sourced and produced (as evidenced by the rise of boutique markets such as Borough and Brixton), but also serves as a means to maintain a multicultural identity and re-establish communal urbanism in a city that increasingly isolates its citizens.

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Source : Polis

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Fairtrade: Is it really fair?

“My local group of 80 members signed up to Fairtrade at an important time. It was at the point when farmers here were thinking of stopping producing bananas; we just couldn’t compete. Farmers here get almost double the rate for a box of bananas under Fairtrade and also a $1 premium per box. This has given me some stability to borrow from the bank and I set up a preschool for 34 children in my area.

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Source : Independent  

The Health-Care Mandate Is Clearly a Tax—and Therefore Constitutional

And yet the tax argument is remarkably simple. Start with the Constitution’s text. Congress’s enumerated powers in Article I, section 8 begin with the General Welfare Clause, which gives the federal government the power “[t]o lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States.”

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Source : The Atlantic 

Coca-Cola and Nestlé target new markets in Africa

“I have heard cocoa beans are used to make a kind of food young children love. People say the taste is sweet,” the 25-year-old said, standing in an orchard full of yellow cocoa pods.

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Source : Guardian

Al Jazeera to relaunch citizen media platform Sharek

Last year Al Jazeera’s head of social media Riyaad Minty told the media140 conference in Barcelona that during the Arab Spring Sharek was receiving up to 1,600 videos a day at its peak, which he said prompted the broadcaster to work on building its resources to be able to deal with and verify this material.

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Source : www.journalism.co.uk

Crisis doctors fastfood deals ban

“Doctors think it’s inherently unlikely that huge companies that make money from selling high-calorie foods and drinks, like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, are going to persuade their customers [to eat more healthily]. It’s like asking the petrol companies to say to people, ‘why not go on your bicycle?’. It just does not seem likely that’s going to happen.”

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Source : The Guardian 

The One Thing CEOs Need to Learn from Apple

Jobs said in an interview with Betsy Morris in 2008, “People think focus means saying ‘yes’ to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying ‘no’ to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.”

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Source : HBR

Anti-abortion climate ‘will deter new generation of doctors’

A spokesperson for the BPAS said: “Abortion is a vital yet stigmatised area of women’s healthcare which few doctors train in. The current politicisation of abortion provision is likely to make it even harder to recruit a future generation of abortion doctors who are prepared to provide the care that a third of women will need in the course of their lifetimes.”

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Source : The Guardian

Redefining Development through Innovative Governance

by referendum — of a new Constitution that approaches development not as an end, but as a means of achieving a collective state of “Buen Vivir” (Good Living), or “Sumak Kausay” in Kichwa. The concept is rooted in aboriginal philosophy, emphasizing environmental conservation and social organization based on mutual solidarity. It is evident in Ecuador’s constitutional support for human rights and nature’s “right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate.”

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Source : Polis

Europes lost generation

It’s not just Italy, of course. Eurozone unemployment is at a record. According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, 16.3 million people are out of work in the 17 countries that joined the euro. The story of a lost generation is becoming the scandal of a continent. In Spain, 51.4% of those aged 16-24 are jobless. In Greece, the figure is 43%.

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Source : The Guardian