For the abolition of the bullfight in Portugal and worldwide.

On October 2 at 7.30 pm, opposite the Campo Pequeno bullring in Lisbon.

Working for the protection of bulls and horses - so they may no longer be victims of the tourada.

Visit: www.poppybears.co.uk.

As the catering department of Friends’ House seeks to serve local and ethically sourced food, we asked if they could state their purchasing policy on eggs.

The Catering Manager is now in contact with CIWF and is looking into the possibility of working towards the award. He also suggests QCA might ask Meetings to state their policy on the eggs served at ‘Bring and Share’ meals, for instance.

Please would you ask your Meetings and let us know – we shall then be in a position to compile a list of free-range Meetings.

The court’s decision means these factory farm abuses will be reassessed, and if they are considered inhumane, they will be banned. “This decision will protect thousands of animals in New Jersey, and also calls into question some of the worst factory farm abuses practiced throughout the country,” said Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president of animal protection litigation for The Humane Society of the United States.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14067.cfm

What’s got pig farmers squealing is a radio ad campaign by Animals Australia. It features a young child voicing the purportedly miserable life of a pregnant sow kept in confined quarters.

In one ad, with the sound of babies crying in the background, the girl says: “Everybody’s crying today. It’s the same every day. It never stops I wish I could close my eyes and not wake up and then I wouldn’t hear it any more.”

QCA note: there are two other ads, one where Lucy complains about being in pain from having babies and having fly-infested sores and a third, where she can’t turn to find out what is happening behind her and is biting the bars of her crate in a vain attempt to escape.

Disturbing enough, but what’s got talkback radio listeners complaining is the campaign’s punchline, voiced by a deep-voiced man: “It is commonly accepted that a pig has the intelligence of a three-year-old child.“

In fact, outrage is such that donations from horrified listeners are keeping the campaign running. “We only had enough money to pay for a week’s worth of air time in the capital cities,” says Glenys Oogjes, Animals Australia’s executive director. “But the overwhelming public support means we are now in our fourth week “

The campaign, “Lucy speaks”, was designed by Sydney creative director Josh Moore three years ago when he was working in New Zealand. Asked to tackle controversial pig-farming practices, such as the use of sow stalls, he came up with Lucy Speaks.

The Kiwi version of the campaign died because of a lack of money. But this time, as cash pours in, it is bringing home the bacon.

~ With acknowledgments to John Elder, The Sunday Age.

For more information on this excellent organisation, see http://www.animalsaustralia.org

Very much a free-range pig - Priscilla, from Edgar’s Mission in Australia.

Last week, thousands of people urged us to send a rose on their behalf to Mr. Ratan Tata and, with a typical act of Gandhigiri, thank him in advance for stopping the destructive port in Dhamra.

This afternoon, on behalf of thousands of concerned Tata customers, Greenpeace activists personally delivered thousands of roses directly to Mr. Tata’s Bombay House office, each tagged with a thanks in advance note.

If you needed any proof that creative, non-violent direct action can be an effective tool to embarrass powerful corporations, consider that it’s exactly stuff like this that has brought the Tatas from a position of aloof indifference to a point where they’re hiring international Public Relations experts and contracting agencies to track what thousands of blogs are saying about the Tatas and their environmental record.

We wish that, instead of all this, they’d simply admit they’ve made a blunder, relocate the port and leave the turtles in peace!

The campaign to protect the endangered Olive Ridley Turtles is getting stronger by the day, because 90,000 of Tata’s own customers know they’re being heard, and the shrill voice of public outrage is beginning to hurt the right ears.

Congratulations for coming so far, and so fast. A lot more is about to happen, it’s going to need your help, and I look forward to counting on your support once again.

Ashish Fernandes

Oceans Campaigner, Greenpeace India

We can now access the thesis through Rhodes at http://eprints.ru.ac.za/1021/

On a rainy, sultry evening I was walking along a rather busy road towards a barrage over the River Ganga. It was the first of a five-day retreat that I was taking in an ashram near Rishikesh. There was still some light from the setting sun and I was alone with my thoughts.

Suddenly I spotted what I thought was a brown rag lying right smack in the middle of the road. I walked over to examine it. The brown lump turned out to be two tiny pups, shivering in the damp, entwined in each other like yin and yang. A car was speeding towards me. I stopped it with a pleading signal from my hands and picked up the two pups. With a shock that made me go weak in the knees, I realized that had I not picked them up at that very instant, they would have been smashed to pulp in front of my eyes, there and then.

It was clear from the way that their heads were lolling with weakness that they had not eaten for God knows how long. They were wet and covered with mud with nary a mother dog in sight. I was a stranger to these parts and I had two nearly dead or about-to-die pups in my hands. What should I do? I started asking people if they would keep the pups for a few days, feed them and make sure they don’t crawl over to the road. I assured them that once they were a little smarter, they would rightfully claim their proud life as stray dogs on an Indian street. A lady told me that I was wasting my time since not only would people be totally disinterested in my requests, but some actually felt that such dogs “deserved to die” since their numbers were increasing and they were infesting the streets. Better they die when they were still pups. I began to sense a wave of desperation as a few drops of rain hit my face like needles. Nothing on earth would make me just abandon those pups on the side of the road and walk off. How could I just go home and sleep knowing that they would be crushed by speeding tyres within the hour?

I continued to scour the streets for help. There was a chaiwallah (a milk seller) just outside the ashram gates. Could he please spare one glass of milk which I would pay for, of course? Two little leaf bowls appeared and I began pouring the milk into them. The pups, (who couldn’t believe that there was a possibility of milk other than what came out of mother, who was anyway, a dim memory by now), drank like kings and a little life seemed to come into them. They snuggled a little tighter into my arms. But having fed them, what next? Ah yes, the ashram, fount of all compassion would take them in. But no, dogs were not their scene. There were too many foreigners and Indian street dogs were risky. Besides, they felt that the sound of barking dogs would disturb the quiet of the ashram. That was final, said the security man crossing his arms, and I shouldn’t even try to plead with them. It was dark now, and the rain was acquiring a new found determination to come down.

One of the ashram security guards shone his torch at me and then at the little bundle in my arms. Before he could switch the torch off, I blurted, “Guard Saab, you must help me. I must give these pups to someone to take care of.” I gave him the low down on what had happened.

He scratched his wet head and said, “Mmmmm….nothing much we can do… but wait…I have an idea…let’s go look for the dog baba.”

If “disbelief” was the word that I was looking for to describe my current state of mind, then that is what I felt. And then there was relief. So there exists a baba (a Hindu devotee who has renounced material society) and a dog one at that.

As we walked, the guard said, “You see, there’s a baba who lives about a kilometer from here, who’s as poor as a mouse and lives under two plastic sheets he calls home. He’s a baba with a mission. He looks after about fifteen or sixteen stray dogs. He feeds them out of whatever alms he earns and they all live with him. He’s known as the “Kuttawalla Baba.”

“Jai ho, Kuttawalla Baba,” I thought to myself as I spotted his little plastic shelter. As we neared it, the guard said, “Ah, but madam, there’s no lamp burning. He’s out.”

And so he was. Clutching my little pups, I asked him with some trepidation, whether we could go again, maybe after dinner? I must be either a very persuasive person, or he must have seen my eyes about to brim over.

The camp turned out to be quite a success with about 40 dogs being vaccinated against Rabies, out of which about 20 would be neutered / spayed and be brought back to their points of pick-up after about a week of hospitalization and care. Similar camps had been carried out by other animal welfare NGOs in Sector D3 and D4 in the past.

With these efforts, children in Sectors D1, D2, D3 and D4 Vasant Kunj could now play without fear of being bitten by dogs with Rabies. Vasant Kunj in the recent past has seen a multiplication of stray dog population and this camp would surely go a long way in keeping their numbers in control. Besides, these camps make people aware, responsible and fearless about the issue of rabies and dog bites.

STRAW and Sonadi have agreed to carry out more of such camps in the months to come to ensure that Vasant Kunj is a Rabies-Free Zone.

Vasanthi Kumar - Managing Trustee

www.strawindia.org

Rishi says:

We have got unbelievable response after this show and people were surprised to know that our own dogs are so intelligent. I hope more people will join us in this program so that it expands in every city.

This is a simple way of finding an answer to many fallacies and problems associated with our indigenous breed of dogs. We would like you people to talk to your local councils and colony associations to participate in this program by getting their street dogs trained, so they can be kept inside the same areas without any fear. Local authorities can be a very good start to resolve the never-ending tiff between dogs lovers and other people who fear dogs. Once trained for security and to play with children and protect the colony, there will not be anyone who would feel they should be removed.

For more information on the group, see our previous newsletters or, to see a clip of the programme, please contact the clerk via this site.