https://vimeo.com/120458793
https://worldanimalsvoice.com/2020/02/01/an-open-letter-to-the-eurogroup-for-animals/
Month: February 2020
According to the UN, around 15,000 children under the age of five die every day.
According to a report by Unicef, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, 5.6 million children died last year.
These children who die of hunger are practically murdered.
From whom?
From those who finance the dirty business of factory farming, from the Carnivores. Because the countries of Third World sell their grain harves (500,000 tons per year) to the West, they feed the cattle of the Rich World, while their own children die of hunger in their parents’ arms.
15,000 children die every day. It’s about daily mass murder.
But nobody cares. All follow the media propaganda of the coronavirus!
The WHO is now calling for an international emergency because of 364 people who died of coronavirus in China!!!
The humanity is infested with the conscience – virus, but we have not yet found a remedy.
What a hideous animal is the human being!
My best regards to all, Venus
As we said in our recent post – 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/ – ‘Being involved ourselves with live animal transport investigation work for a long time; we have a bit to say about this’.
Hmm; below is a tiny little snapshot of some of the articles we have produced re live animal transport on our WAV and SAV sites over the 30+ years we have been investigating the live animal transport business. As you must be able to tell by now (yes really !); we have no faith in the EU or those involved within EU ‘political elite’ areas it to try and stop live animal transport. We hear now smooth talk of a ‘farm to fork’ strategy only just being recognised by the EU; and we ask ourselves; potential reality or another EU pipe dream ? – pipe dreams look good when they take the form of ‘EU Regulations’; it’s the enforcing of them that is the ‘no go’.
Let us turn to 2 issues that we personally have in depth experience of. Whilst I (Mark) was running SAV in the early days – https://serbiananimalsvoice.com/ and https://serbiananimalsvoice.com/about-us/ – I was also the EU Correspondent for KAALE- Kent Action Against Live Exports; a Kent group which is now still fighting the live animal trade. We then worked with Kent Trading Standards, an official body, to bring about a (successful) prosecution of Mr Onderwater; a Dutch livestock haulier, who had been illegally shipping British sheep to mainland EU, whilst declaring on the formal export paperwork that they were cartons of ‘boxed meat’ and not actual live animals. At a resulting court trial here at Folkestone Magistrates Court, Kent, England; on 5th July 2010 Mr Onderwater pleaded guilty to no less than 6 offences (under the Animal Health Act) of causing animal suffering of sheep in contravention of the Welfare of Animals (Transport) (England) Order 2006 and EU Council Regulation (EC) 1/2005 (Protection of animals during transport).. He was also fined £10,370 and by being convicted under UK law, effectively became a convicted criminal.
More reading on the issue from a Kent newspaper::
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/deal/news/meat-firm-onderwater-agnueax-fin-a83202/
It involved a lot of work on our part. We presented all of our evidence relating to the Onderwater offences / prosecutions to both the EU and Dutch authorities; and guess what, the Dutch simply gave him a ‘ticking off’, but allowing him to continue operations in the live animal transport business, whilst the EU simply and totally ignored all of our evidence which simply allowed him to continue with his operations; which he does to this day regardless of his convictions in the UK under a court trial; now shipping live calves and sheep out of (Ramsgate) England to the mainland EU. And the EU thinks it is more important to have legislation about bent bananas that taking action here ! ? !!! – we disagree rather strongly !
For the ‘boxed meat’ shipments, Onderwater was using a ‘sealed type box trailer’ (see photos below), which carried live animals, but from the outside looked like a normal refrigerated trailer. We have always had issues with this type of trailer being used to transport live animals and have been doing running battles with the EU about it for many years !
Both these box trailers are full of live sheep – would you know ?
– where is the signage we ask ?
We were always very concerned that despite what the EU Reg 1/2005 says; about clear identification that live animals are being transported; trailers that we witnessed on the road (as shown above); and there were many times; they hardly ever carried any hint of signage to say that live animals were being carried within. We had specific concerns that should the trailer be involved in a road accident; local emergency rescue crews would not open access doors as they had no information written on the trailer that live animals were being carried. As a result; many animals could have suffocated or endured serious injuries without rescue teams having any idea that live beings were inside. In our reports, we even proposed signage which should be fitted to All areas of the trailer – top / underside, both sides, the rear – making it utterly clear to any emergency rescue crews that live animals were on board. This was nothing new, it should have been automatically undertaken to comply with EU Regulation 1/2005 anyway; but as with most, if not all animal welfare transport regulations in the EU, the hauliers largely ignore them; knowing that there is not really anyone around to enforce !
Here below is a copy of the label which we suggested to the EU that should be fitted on all panels to all box trailers carrying live animals. We suggested about A3 size; with colours of back, red and yellow – a yellow background, wording in red and the animal pictures in black.
In this example we did English and German wording; but suggested that maybe 4 ‘prime’ EU languages should be shown on the warning label. As you can see at the bottom we made it clear to help emergency services – “LIVE ANIMALS – In the event of an emergency; open the trailer doors to provide ventilation immediately”.
The EU never came back to us about this; what, some 10 years ago. Un identified box trailers are still hauling live animals in un-identified configurations on a daily basis !
Have a look at some previous posts we have published on this, and the box type sealed trailers:
Onderwater
Mr Bernard Van Goethem is an EU official very involved with live animal transport; but in our opinion; he does the animals in transport no favours at all. If you look at the EU (DG SANTE) structure chart for ‘Health and Food Safety’, which includes G” – animal health and WELFARE; there is a so called ‘Crisis Management Team’ which is headed by Mr Van Goethem. Sorry, but we have been pointing out a ‘crisis’ with unidentified animal carrying sealed box trailers to him for probably the last 10 years or more – and like all crisis managers; he has decided to ignore the evidence we give, and remedies to correct we propose. When does a crisis become a real crisis we ask ?
In our opinion this man represents everything which is so pathetic about the EU – nice job title; well paid, nice office no doubt; nice suit; but utterly ineffective at taking very important animal welfare issues and decisions on board; and even more seriously; doing anything about rectifying them !
Our section leader at G3; Mr Gavinelli; we have found in our correspondence, is much better than his boss; always willing to listen to our case and being very supportive of animal welfare, for which we thank him. Sadly, Van Goethem is at the top; so in compliance with much of the important things at the EU; nothing really ever gets done.
Here are some posts we have published in the past; many from our ‘SAV’ site – including our requests for him to resign; such is our personal experiences of his animal welfare ‘crisis management’.
WAV – Mr Van Goethem
SAV – Mr Van Goethem
https://serbiananimalsvoice.com/2016/06/29/mr-van-goethem-resign-now/
So; just a very short snapshot of how to do a lot (from our side); gather information; present the evidence; and then be completely ignored by the EU or anyone who can actually make proper, effective changes.
Do we get angry with this attitude to what we say ? – yes; a bit; but we are kind of used to it after all these years, but on the flip side, it just gives us additional conviction to fight those like both the above, and the animal transport industry in general.
We do this for nobody but the animals who suffer – for them it is an ‘Eternal Treblinka’.
Photo – Eyes on Animals (NL)
You can run but you cannot hide !
Regards Mark.
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
The oil from tar sand is the most climate-damaging in the world. It is not normal crude oil, but tar sand, also known as oil sand, a mixture of sand, water and heavy crude oil.
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.
A lake of oil near the Suncor site at Fort McMurray © Todd Korol / Reuters
After a public hearing, an expert report warned of the environmental consequences. 3,000 hectares of old, original forests and 14,000 hectares of wetlands would be completely destroyed.
The population also suffers from environmental degradation. But the rights of the indigenous people are violated.
Before (right) and after: The top layers of moss and earth have to give way for tar sand mining. © Todd Korol / Reuters
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.
Oil flows into a pond where it has to settle. © Todd Korol / Reuters
A lake of oil near the Suncor site at Fort McMurray © Todd Korol / Reuters
Tar sand must stay in the ground! Please sign and share the Petition:
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
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
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
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 1st 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)
World Animals Voice 