PORTUGAL: Easing Food Safety Standards for Traditional Products
By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON - As the only alternative for preventing the disappearance of small-scale farming, farmers’ markets, rural slaughterhouses, taverns and traditional food products, Portugal has decided to interpret the strict European Union regulations on food safety with a domestic slant.
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POLITICS: Kosovo Casts Shadow on South Ossetian Standoff
By Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON - With the conflict between Georgia and Russia lowered to a simmer after the signing of a ceasefire agreement, questions still remain about the U.S. role and positions on the start of the conflict as well as where it stands moving forward towards a resolution.
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Q&A: 'If You Feed the Land, It Will Feed You Back'
Interview with UNCCD Executive Secretary Luc Gnacadja
BONN - Luc Gnacadja, who took over as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) last October, is a man with a mission -- a mission that goes beyond explaining that his job is not to battle deserts.
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EQUATORIAL GUINEA: Human Rights Drowning in Oil
By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON - The oil interests of Angola, Brazil and Portugal could pave the way for former Spanish colony Equatorial Guinea to become the ninth member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) two years from now, despite the country’s poor human rights record.
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TRADE-AFRICA: ‘‘An Injury To One Market Is an Injury to All’’
By Stanley Kwenda
JOHANNESBURG - Southern African non-governmental organisations have put forward demands to their governments in resistance to the continuing talks on economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states.
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US-GEORGIA: Expats Unite Against Russia
By Sam Cassanos
NEW YORK - When the Russian military launched a military invasion of its small neighbour Georgia -- operating at will in Georgia’s secessionist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as Georgia proper -- New York’s Georgian-American community responded almost immediately by gathering outside United Nations Headquarters here to protest the invasion of their homeland.
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ENVIRONMENT-GERMANY: Fleeing Famine, Bees Seek Asylum in Cities
By Julio Godoy
BERLIN - For German bees, the countryside is no longer what it used to be. They are fleeing insecticides and genetically modified crops to take refuge in cities.
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BULGARIA: Small Farmers Strike for Survival
By Claudia Ciobanu
BUCHAREST - Thousands of Bulgarian milk and meat producers have been protesting for more than a week in various regions around the country, warning the government that life for small farmers has become impossible in Bulgaria.
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Q&A: Women Do Most, With Least Assistance
Interview with Lennart Båge, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development
ROME - The international debate on effective aid that is shaped by developing countries' needs rather than donors' priorities will be resumed when ministers from over 100 countries, and members of development agencies, donor organisations and civil society gather for the Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra Sep. 2-4.
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GEORGIA: 'Provoked Into Aggression'
By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvilli has become an uncertain sort of leader. At first, he won praise after successfully leading the popular 'Rose Revolution' in 2003 that catapulted him into power. Now he has received global condemnation for the military attack that he ordered in the breakaway republic of South Ossetia.
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