tagged w/ Suicides
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India's Bt cotton dream is going terribly wrong.
For the first time, farmer suicides, including those in 2011-12, have been linked to the declining performance of the much hyped genetically modified (GM) variety adopted by 90% of the country's cotton-growers since being allowed a decade ago.
Policymakers have hailed Bt cotton as a success story but a January 9 internal advisory, a copy of which is with HT, sent out to cotton-growing states by the agriculture ministry presents a grim scenario.
“Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton. The spate of farmer suicides in 2011-12 has been particularly severe among Bt cotDREAM CROP OR A YARN?
`Bollgard Bt cotton' is a GM variety first developed by biotech firm Monsanto Monsanto commercialised the Bt cotton technology in 1996 in the US Mahyco (Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company, India) entered into agreement with Monsanto to import the technology into India and commercial approval was given on April 5, 2002 ton farmers,“ says the advisory.
Bt cotton's success, it appears, lasted merely five years. Since then, yields have been falling and pest attacks going up. India's only GM crop has been genetically altered to destroy cottoneating pests.
For farmers, rising costs -in the form of pesticides -have not matched returns, pushing many to the brink, financially and otherwise. Simply put, Bt cotton is no more as profitable as it used to be.
“In fact cost of cotton cultivation has jumped...due to rising costs of pesticides. Total Bt cotton production in the last five years has reduced,“ says the advisory.
This could have larger implications for Asia's third-largest economy where rural prosperity has been a key driver of overall growth.
The note is based on observations from the Indian Council of Agricultural Sciences, which administers farm science, and the Central Cotton Research Institute, the country's top cotton research facility.
Yet, officials HT spoke to either denied or downplayed the advisory. Swapan Kumar Dutta, India's deputy director-general of crop science, said he had no knowledge of the note and that Bt cotton continued to drive India's cotton production.
He could neither “confirm nor deny“ that such a note had been sent, said Prabeer Kumar Basu, the agriculture secretary.
Of the nine cotton-growing states, Maharashtra has seen the largest number of farmer suicides. In the state's Vidarbha region, a cottongrowing belt comprising six districts, 209 farmers committed suicides in 2011 due to “agrarian causes“.
In February 2010, the environment ministry put an indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal, India's first GM food crop, days after the country's biotech regulator cleared it for cultivation.
Among many reasons, the ministry said it was “necessary to review“ the performance of Bt cotton first.India's Bt cotton dream is going terribly wrong.
For the first time, farmer... more
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Monsanto has closed its facility in Davis after 150 occupiers from throughout the state blocked the entrances to Monsanto’s Davis facility on 1910 5th Street.
The occupiers reported they have “shut down” the corporate giant, which produces genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and is notorious for its inordinate influence over the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Obama administration. Police are now on the scene.
You can see the protest live at sacmedia.tv.
The protest is part of a “Global Days of Action to Shut Down Monsanto” in dozens of U.S. cities and several countries. Occupy groups from Sacramento, Davis, Woodland and even Los Angeles are expected to participate, as well as labor, environmental, veterans and social justice groups.
“We are calling for a ‘global class-action’ against Monsanto,” said Steven Payan, one of the Davis protest organizers. “We are joining the world in solidarity to demand a ban on all GMO foods and hold Monsanto accountable for its actions throughout history from Agent Orange to Deforestation to current and past deaths to preying on small farmers through a broken court system and also through International Free Trade Agreements.”
Payan said Monsanto has been linked to massive pollution, including the poisoning of drinking water, genetically modified crops and seeds, chopping down rain forests and other types of social justice and environmental destruction.
Several countries, including Brazil, India, Haiti, Peru, France and others in Europe, have enacted recent bans or restrictions on Monsanto and its GMO foods. People worldwide are demanding restitution for hundreds of thousands of deaths, birth defects, suicides and ailments linked to Monsanto. 300,000 organic farmers recently sued Monsanto, according to Payan.
Among the endorsers of the Monsanto protest are The Anti-Monsanto Project, Occupy Woodland & Occupy UC Davis (Occupy Yolo County), Occupy Sacramento, Occupy Yuba-Sutter, Occupy Redding, Occupy Chico, Peace & Freedom Party, PSL Sacramento, Native People Association, Sierra Club, Rebuild the Dream, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement AFLCIO, MEChA de Woodland Community College, SEIU-Justice for Janitors, Revolutionary Hip-Hop Report, SoL Communications, Battle Creek Alliance, Sierraforest.org, Geo-Engineering Watch, Northbay Uprising, West Sacramento LULAC, SmallWorldRadio.net, United Native Americans and more.
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Also today, Occupy Monsanto’s agents of change with the Genetic Crimes Unit (GCU), a group designed to protect America from genetically modified foods, will wear bio-hazmat suits when they visit Congress. The group will gather at Capitol South Metro station in Washington D.C. at noon to highlight how chemical company Monsanto is contaminating our political process.
The GCU opposes Monsanto’s bid to increase spraying of food with toxic weed killers like 2,4 D (the main ingredient in Agent Orange), genetic contamination of the organic food supply, and other risks associated with genetically modified food (GMOs).
The GCU will arrive at the metro station wearing bio-hazmat suits to assess whether Members of Congress and their staff have been victims of genetic crimes. The GCU will hold a banner that reads, “Congress is Genetically Modified,” as they circulate on Capitol Hill sidewalks.
This day of action is part of a larger international call to ‘Occupy Monsanto’ taking place all over the globe including Spain, Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and at least 28 cities throughout the US.
More at the link
http://www.occupymonsanto360.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/monsanto-touch-of-genius.jpgMonsanto has closed its facility in Davis after 150 occupiers from throughout the... more
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The Guardian UK...
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Father who set up anti-gay-bullying campaign after son's suicide found dead
Roger Crouch's 15-year-old son Dominic leapt off a roof amid rumours he was gay after apparently kissing a boy for a dare
Steven Morris
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 December 2011 15.43 EST
PHOTO: Roger Crouch with his son Dominic, taken from the Facebook anti-bullying website.
Photograph: SWNS.com
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A father who campaigned against homophobic bullying after his son killed himself amid rumours that he was gay has been found dead.
Earlier this month Roger Crouch, 55, who launched a Facebook campaign after 15-year-old Dominic leapt off a roof after apparently kissing a boy for a dare, was named "hero of the year" by the lesbian, gay and bisexual charity Stonewall, beating the likes of Lady Gaga and Joan Armatrading.
He was pronounced dead after Gloucestershire police went to his home in Gretton, near Cheltenham, on Monday following "concerns for the welfare of a man at the address".
A police spokesperson said on Thursday that they were not treating his death as suspicious and that the coroner had been informed.
Crouch, who was clerk of Stow-on-the-Wold town council in the Cotswolds, was also a patron for Diversity Role Models, a charity campaigning against homophobic bullying. He lobbied schools to ensure anti-bullying policies are used and argued young people should be taught coping strategies, and visited the House of Commons to tell MPs what they could do about bullying.
Crouch's wife, Paola, wrote of her and daughter Giulia's heartbreak on the Facebook group she and Crouch created. She posted: "The changes you have started for young people everywhere, the work you have done against bullying, will remain as a towering monument to you."
Dominic leapt from the roof of a six-storey building near his private school, St Edwards in Cheltenham, in May last year. The inquest into his death heard that there had been rumours he might be gay after he was said to have kissed a boy during a spin-the-bottle game.
The inquest recorded a verdict of suicide, and his son's death prompted Crouch to begin his campaign against bullying.
Crouch said at the time: "It is clear that the banter and rumours were based on Dom's alleged sexuality. Some maintain that mystery still surrounds Dominic's death. There's no real mystery around why Dom was driven to take his own life.
"He was desperate that his happiness after the residential trip was punctured by rumours and being the butt of jokes. Over a single morning he felt he went from hero to zero. The real tragedy is not just that he died. It's that his death was preventable."
After receiving the Stonewall award last month, Crouch said: "I see this as an award for Dom. By choosing us for this award you've also chosen to take a stand alongside all the young people whose lives have been ended by bullying.
"We are parents who loved our son. We stood by him in life and we stand by him in death."
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A spokesman for Stonewall said: "His tireless campaigning against bullying following the death of his son was an inspiration."
Joanne Dunning, of the Lesbian and Gay Foundation, said: "It seemed like he was only just getting the recognition he deserved for his anti-bullying work."
.The Guardian UK...
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Father who set up anti-gay-bullying campaign after... more
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These suicide notes were gathered at the coroners' offices by a suicidologist/psychiatrist who asked to be anonymous. He edited identifying details out of the compiled manuscript, and we changed the names. But the text of each letter plus the age and sex given are real. All these people did kill themselves. Were they ambivalent about it? About half the hundred or so letters we saw seemed to have some element of doubt. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/42960-how-not-to-commit-suicideThese suicide notes were gathered at the coroners' offices by a... more
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worrg
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added this
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1 year ago
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For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than... more
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The 24-year-old man, who has not been named, was found dead in his apartment in the city of Sendai early on Tuesday morning. Police had been alerted by viewers of the Ustream web page and were able to locate the man's apartment.
By the time they arrived at 8am, however, the man was already dead.
The man had announced his intention to kill himself in online chat rooms last week, according to the Yomiuri newspaper, after complaining for some weeks about problems he had been experiencing at work.
Employed by a bank, the man had been suspended from his duties since August.
The man, who lived alone, started a live stream on Sunday evening, repeating his plans to commit suicide.
While some people posted messages attempting to talk him out of going through with his plans, others encouraged him to kill himself. Apparently believing they were watching a hoax, some viewers even suggested that he hurry up and get it over with.
Police told local media that the man initially tried to hang himself on the balcony of his flat shortly before 4am on Tuesday. When that attempt failed, the footage showed the man repeating the attempt elsewhere at 5:30am.
People watching online debated whether the footage was genuine until Ustream halted the broadcast and the police were informed.
Some 32,845 Japanese people killed themselves in 2009 and the rate is likely to remain above the 30,000 threshold for the 13th straight year when the statistics for 2010 are released.The 24-year-old man, who has not been named, was found dead in his apartment in the... more
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This is a memorial for Tyler Clementi, who was an 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman when he jumped from the George Washington Bridge in an apparent suicide in September 2010, days after he had been secretly filmed during an intimate encounter which was then broadcast on the Internet.
This piece includes a color photograph, a video message from Ellen DeGeneres and a music video, “The Gorecki Symphony No. 3: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs."
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/in-memoriam-tyler-clementi-1992-2010/This is a memorial for Tyler Clementi, who was an 18-year-old Rutgers University... more
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Sai Kumar Meegada, a 20-year-old straight-A chemical engineering student at a prestigious university here, came home from breakfast one morning early this month, slipped a length of clothesline around his neck, tied it to the ceiling fan in his dorm room and hanged himself.
link : http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/asia/31india.html?ref=worldSai Kumar Meegada, a 20-year-old straight-A chemical engineering student at a... more
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suzane
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2 years ago
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The Army Times is reporting as many as 14 active duty soldiers killed themselves during the month of Februay. When I was in the Army during the Korean war, we had two guys in our platoon try and fail to commit suicide. One guy was in my squad. He drank a can of bore cleaner.
http://corksphere.blogspot.com/2010/03/14-active-duty-soldiers-killed.htmlThe Army Times is reporting as many as 14 active duty soldiers killed themselves... more
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In recent days, Wilhelm's family has watched as unconfirmed reports of the abuse leaked out in the media. Adrian Wilhelm says he's read that his son was forced to crawl in the dirt until his legs bled, and that he was harassed about his weight.
By MEGHAN BARR, AP
http://news.aol.com/article/us-soldier-keiffer-wilhelm-commits/638820In recent days, Wilhelm's family has watched as unconfirmed reports of the abuse... more
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A second US soldier's plea of guilty to the gang rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killing of her and her family has been accepted by a judge.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6384781.stmA second US soldier's plea of guilty to the gang rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl... more
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http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.veteranstoday.com/story_images/prison_bars1_400.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php%3Fname%3DNews%26file%3Darticle%26sid%3D6872&usg=__QLuYHiflECgtY4OCZatrWarbx9Y=&h=300&w=400&sz=37&hl=en&start=6&tbnid=RACc5LmPzXytFM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Du.s.%2Bveterans%2Bin%2Bprison%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1&um=1http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.veteranstoday.com/story_images/prison... more
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