A food insecure Muppet is helping to promote a national Food for Thought campaign that teaches poor families to seek out nutritious food and to eat on the taxpayers tab.
At the National Press Club on Thursday, Lily the Muppet who worries about her family not having enough money to feed her properly -- pitched free food at school:
Sometimes we can't always afford to buy all the food that we need, Lily said. I mean, but we've been finding lots of ways that we can get help...Yeah, for example, at school I get a free breakfast and a lunch...part of the meal plan."
Lilys message is being circulated through schools, hospitals and food assistance programs as part of Sesame Streets Food for Thought multi-media campaign, which includes DVDs and a booklet listing services that can assist your family as well as referrals to social service agencies.
Organizers say they have produced a million of the kits.
At the National Press Club on Thursday, the Rev. Douglas Greenaway of the National WIC (Women, Infants and Children) Association lauded Sesame Streets Food For Thought campaign even linking it to federal deficit-reduction.
What Food For Thought does is remind people that eating healthy now gives them a good health outcome in the long term. So the folks youre looking at up here, the programs that they represent, what Food For Thought does is really a deficit reduction strategy, and we hope policymakers will take notice of that, Greenaway said.
Greenaway didn't elaborate further on how this would work towards deficit reduction.
The Food for Thought Web site urges people to feel good about food.
It is not easy to make healthy food choices when options are limited, the Web site says. But eating a healthy breakfast and snacking on fruits and vegetables are small changes you can make together as a family. Taking time to plan your meals before you shop and cook will help you stretch your dollar and serve healthy meals.
Officials with Sesame Street say reaction to Lily and the Food for Thought program have been so strong they are looking to expand her message.
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind the TV show, announced on Thursday that it plans to appoint a Poverty Advisory Board in 2012. The first meeting will be in Washington on Jan. 10.
I'm wondering if the 'Weekend at Bernie's' pic would be more appropriate...
[Daily Nation (Kenya)]Zim-bob-we's President Bob Muggsy Mugabe Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... has received another endorsement to represent his party in elections expected next year amid reports of intensifying infighting to replace him.
The 87-year-old leader, in power since the country's independence from Britannia in 1980, won the support to remain in office at an annual Zanu-PF conference under way in the country's second city of Bulawayo.
President Mugabe wants elections held as soon as possible, arguing that his coalition government with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has failed to work.
Officially opening the conference with a speech that lasted for more than two hours on Thursday, the veteran politician described the unity government as an impractical patch on torn trousers.
"Time has come to prepare for elections," he said. "We just have to have elections next year."
At the weekend, Mr Tsvangirai relished another opportunity to contest against his long-time rival, saying he was now too old to campaign.
"Let's give the old man a retirement package by voting him out."
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12/10/2011 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Joseph Kabila has won the presidential election of the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the provisional results, but opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi has rejected the announcement.
Election commission chief Daniel Ngoy Mulunda said on Friday that Kabila won 48.9 percent of the vote, or about 8.8 million of the 18.1 million votes cast, and Tshisekedi came in second with 32.3 percent, or 5.8 million votes, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported.
Tshisekedi, who is the leader of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), said, "I reject these results, and in fact I see them as a provocation against our people... it is scandalous and vulgar."
"We have done our own calculations, and I received 54 percent to Kabila's 26 percent. His term is finished. I am the president. It is me that got the votes of the people."
It was the first time the 78-year-old opposition leader contested an election.
Last week, several thousand people decamped the capital Kinshasa for neighboring Congo-Brazzaville amid fears that electoral violence would escalate after the announcement of the final results.
On Friday, the Congolese National Police said that three people were killed and several others were maimed in Kinshasa in the neighborhoods of Ngiri-Ngiri and Makala.
According to Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... , 18 people were killed and more than 100 were maimed before the results were even announced.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon issued a statement on Friday, calling for "any differences regarding the provisional results of the polls to be resolved peacefully through available legal and mediation mechanisms."
The presidential election, which was held from November 28 to December 1, was just the second since dictator Mobutu Sese Seko was deposed in 1997. The results still have to be ratified by the Supreme Court.
Kabila, who is scheduled to be sworn in for his second term on December 20, was chosen by the presidential inner circle to lead DR Congo after his father, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated in 2001. He was elected president for the first time in 2006.
In addition to the presidential election, more than 19,000 parliamentary candidates contested for 500 parliamentary seats.
Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few years, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on for over a decade and left over 5.4 million people dead.
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12/10/2011 00:00 ||
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LONDON/BRUSSELS: Prime Minister David Cameron has made history by blocking EU treaty change in a move that has isolated Britain and this detachment will define the next chapter in this island nation's notoriously tricky relations with continental Europe.
Cameron, who styles himself a "euroskeptic", seems to have pushed Britain further from the heart of Europe than even "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher dared to do in her battles in the 1980s when she said "No, No, No" to Brussels increasing its powers.
The prime minister was left out in the cold in Brussels on Friday when France and Germany failed to give him the safeguards he wanted for the powerful City of London financial services industry, which accounts for 10 percent of economic output.
So in response he blocked the Euro plan. And of course the French and Germans blame him for this.
Cameron's hard line may appease elements of his Conservative Party but is likely to open up a rift with his pro-Europe Liberal Democrat allies. It could also leave Britain at risk of being excluded from Brussels decisions that affect business across the nation.
"It is a black day for Britain and Europe," Liberal Democrat Lord Oakeshott said. "We are now in the waiting room while critical decisions are being taken."
Cameron's tough talk, described by one senior diplomat as "clumsy", is likely to give him short-term relief from the demands of a restive right wing of his Conservatives who have been clamoring for him to claw back powers from Brussels. But they will be back for more, with some seeking nothing short of a complete exit.
Britain, the EU's third-biggest economy, was left on its own with an overwhelming majority of countries led by Germany and France agreeing to forge ahead with a separate treaty to build closer fiscal union to preserve the euro.
"This is the moment when we have to start completely renegotiating our relationship," Conservative euroskeptic member of parliament Bernard Jenkin told Sky News. "We are going to be a satellite on the edge of what is going to be an economic superpower."
London Mayor Boris Johnson, a fellow Conservative who, like Cameron, attended the elite private school Eton College, welcomed the prime minister's performance and, using a sporting metaphor, said his leader "had played a blinder".
One EU diplomat summed up the outcome of the Brussels summit as: "Britain seethes, Germany sulks, and France gloats."
In the past, closer ties between Britain and Europe have torn apart the Conservatives in a country where protecting sovereignty can prove to be a big vote winner.
Britons pride themselves on their national identity and some have joked that the United Kingdom's sometimes blinkered relationship with Europe could be characterized by the old newspaper headline: "Heavy Fog in Channel, Continent Cut Off".
Britain never joined the 17-country single currency zone, although former Prime Minister Tony Blair declared his intention to join when the economic conditions were right. The country has long had an ambivalent attitude to European institutions after joining the then European Economic Community in 1973. Nevertheless, over 40 percent of Britain's trade is with the euro zone and about 3 million jobs depend on trade with Europe.
Conservative leaders are all too aware of painful rebellions of the past over Europe, weighing up the interests of trading as part of a bloc with the rules and regulations that go with it. Alarm bells rang for Cameron this October when some 80 of his legislators a quarter of the total defied him and backed calls for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.
"He's thrown some meat to the euroskeptics who like to see the British PM wielding the veto. (But) it is going to make it harder to defend British interests," said Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform, a think tank in London. "Cameron has played a bad hand poorly. He's been stung by the mounting rebellion here."
In Brussels, Germany failed in its campaign to persuade all 27 EU countries to write the tougher rules into the bloc's treaty, with just Britain and Hungary refusing to go along.
"Worried that Britain is starting to drift away from Europe in a serious way. To where? In a strong alliance with Hungary," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said in a tweet on Friday. By lunchtime, even Hungary had changed its mind.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague played down London's isolation and tried to put a positive spin on the treaty clash, noting that different groups of EU nations had long worked together on various issues like defense and border controls.
"Decisions about the European single market, the thing that matters most to us for jobs and businesses in the UK, still have to be made by the 27 countries together," he told Sky News from Brussels. "We will be very vigilant about any threat to that."
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, also put on a brave face, saying that the government was united over the EU treaty and that Cameron had made reasonable demands in Brussels.
Analysts said Britain's isolation could result in core EU nations effectively taking over decision-making without London.
"You have the potential risk that this new emerging group manages to colonise the EU structures," said Mats Persson of the Open Europe think tank.
Perhaps that's best for Britain. Let the continent go its own way. The trade will still be there -- no one's going to cut that.
Regulation affecting financial services industry could now be decided by 26 rather than all 27 EU members.
Proposals such as short-selling bans and the European Central Bank's insistence that euro-denominated financial transactions are cleared within the euro zone could damage Britain's financial markets, political analysts said. Britain may still try to exercise a veto over an EU-wide financial transactions tax, since taxation policy is subject to unanimity rules, but Cameron effectively goes home with little tangible to show for his defiance.
British government bond markets were looking beyond Cameron's position and were more interested in whether the euro zone economy would stabilize. But threats to the stability of the coalition could imperil the low yields of which Britain has boasted.
Anthony O'Brien, fixed-income strategist at Morgan Stanley, said: "Europe is a major trading partner of ours and therefore any disagreement between us and Europe could be damaging for trade and therefore (mean) a slowing of the economy."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/10/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Cameron, who styles himself a "euroskeptic", seems to have pushed Britain further from the heart of Europe than even "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher dared to do
#4
"considerable erosion of their sovereignty"
Cameron did the right thing. Nothing has changed but big loss of sovereignty. This will fail. The world economy is still going negative. The markets went up but they will soon fall again. Money games.
#9
Golly the UK has chosen self-preservation over preening multi-culti, socialist, world stage-craft? Let's hope it's a trend.
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12/10/2011 15:06 Comments ||
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I welcome this turn of events. The EU has gotten out of control. I do hope for more Nationalism. Well for the moment "No, No, No" to Brussels, bye, bye.
The eurozone banking system is on the edge of collapse as major lenders begin to run out of the assets they need to keep vital funding lines open. Senior analysts and traders warned of impending bank failures as a summit intended to solve the European crisis failed to deliver a solution that eased concerns over bank funding.
They've been failing, and failing, and failing for quite a while now. It's a slow-motion train wreck, not that we want to hurry them to the Apocalypse.
The European Central Bank admitted it had held meetings about providing emergency funding to the region's struggling banks, however City figures said a "collateral crunch" was looming.
"If anyone thinks things are getting better then they simply don't understand how severe the problems are. I think a major bank could fail within weeks," said one London-based executive at a major global bank.
Many banks, including some French, Italian and Spanish lenders, have already run out of many of the acceptable forms of collateral such as US Treasuries and other liquid securities used to finance short-term loans and have been forced to resort to lending out their gold reserves to maintain access to dollar funding.
"The system is creaking. There is a large amount of stress," said Anthony Peters, a strategist at Swissinvest, pointing to soaring interbank lending rates.
CreditSights' weekly funding report said the ECB had effectively become the central clearer for the region's banks as lenders are increasingly distrustful about funding one another. Bank deposits with the ECB now stand at their highest level since June 2010 at 905bn (£772bn) as lenders withdraw deposits held with their peers and put them into the central bank. At the same time, banks in major eurozone countries such as France and Italy have become increasingly reliant on central bank funding. This follows the trend seen in smaller countries like Ireland where lenders have effectively becomes taxpayer-funded "zombie" banks.
Alastair Ryan, a banks analyst at UBS, said there would be "no Lehman moment" or single catastrophic event for the European banking sytem, but added that without a full backstop of bank liabilities by governments the system would "struggle to finance itself in the next year in a durable way".
"The system at the moment hasn't got funding of a duration that allows it to function, so it's failing," he said.
Others think the eurozone banks are heading for a catastrophe and the worry is growing that a major bank could collapse within weeks.
The results of the fourth round of European Banking Authority (EBA) stress tests conducted in just under 18 months pointed to a 115bn capital shortfall in the eurozone financial system, with German banks showing the most notable deterioration in their core capital ratios.
Moody's on Friday downgraded France's three largest banks, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole and Societe Generale in light of what the US rating agency said were "liquidity and funding constraints". The banks' downgrade came despite Moody's acknowledging the three lenders could depend on a higher level of French taxpayer support in future.
Two weeks ago, rumours abounded that it was the near failure of a major French lender that had been the trigger for a massive co-ordinated intervention by the world's largest central banks to shore up the banking system.
The fear is the European authorities do not have the financial firepower to deal with the banks' problems. Analysts at BarCap say that even if the European rescue funds were able to raise 1 trillion of funding this would only meet the needs of the Italian and Spanish government and banks.
The European banking sector's problems are being exacerbated by a wave of asset sales as lenders look to dramatically shrink their balance sheets. UBS estimates eurozone banks could sell off between 3.7 trillion and 4.5 trillion of assets in the next three years.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/10/2011 00:00 ||
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Cannot imagine why UK doesn't want to be a bigger part of this.
[Dawn] European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... leaders, excepting Britannia, banded together Friday to back tighter budget policing after a heated summit considered a last chance to save the debt-struck eurozone.
After two years of foot-dragging on deepening integration, 26 of the 27 EU states signalled their willingness to join a "new fiscal compact" to resolve the two-year crisis threatening to crack apart the monetary union.
But the deal came with a heavy political price when non-euro Britannia resisted a Franco-German drive to enshrine new budget rules in a modified EU treaty to carve them into stone.
"The British were already not in the euro and in that respect, we are used to this situation," German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... said as talks resumed Friday after a first 10-hour session winding up at 5:00 am.
Merkel said she was "very pleased" most had agreed the "fiscal compact"that plans to impose near automatic sanctions on debt and deficit delinquents.
"We have learned from the mistakes of the past," she said. The 17 eurozone nations signed up to the pact while nine other EU nations, "indicated the possibility to take part in this process" after consulting their parliaments, EU leaders said in a statement.
Hungary had originally voiced reluctance, while Sweden and the Czech Republic were undecided. The new deal, to be adopted by March, was put to the entire 27-nation bloc in the interests of maintaining unity.
The accord, which is to include automatic sanctions that can only be blocked by a majority of powerful states, aims to end past practices of overspending responsible for the two-year debt crisis ravaging Europe.
Some leaders hope this will spur the European Central Bank to step up its role in the crisis after ECB president Mario Draghi had called for a "new fiscal compact" last week.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/10/2011 00:00 ||
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Großdeutschland, uber alles.
Up next: Luftschlacht um Großbritannien. Except this time, Britain has no military to resist, so it will be more like the capture of Poland.
[Iran Press TV] The Occupy movement will attempt to shut down all the major ports on the west coast of the U.S. in support of a union battle in Longview, Washington, despite the union opposing the action.
Thousands of protesters from various west coast occupations are expected to take part on Monday 12 December. The action is intended to support a long-running International Longshore Workers' Union (ILWU) fight to prevent a terminal operator using workers from a different union.
However, Switzerland makes more than cheese... a row has broken out in advance of the shutdown, with the ILWU asking Occupy protesters to call off the action.
Occupy Oakland, which organized a "general strike" and shut down Oakland's port in early November, has partnered with occupations including Portland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Tacoma and Seattle in a bid to stop all port activity on America's west coast.
Protesters will march to port terminals and create picket lines in the same way Occupy Oakland did last month, aware that local ILWU arbitrators are then likely to rule that longshore workers should not cross the lines for safety reasons.
"The West Coast ports will be blockaded on December 12th in solidarity with longshoremen and port truckers struggles against EGT and Goldman Sachs," ...Malefactors of Great Wealth, the second most generous contributor to the 2008 Obama campaign, with a total of $1,013,091... the west coast port shutdown website says.
Protesters involved in planning the 12 December shutdown say they do have the support of rank-and-file union members -- if not the ILWU leadership. Guardian
Posted by: Fred ||
12/10/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
See also CHINA DAILY FORUM > US SET TO USE ARMY TO PUT DOWN "OCCUPY" PROTESTS.
US Army Corps of Engineers, ergo an US Army matter.
#7
ION CHINA DAILY FORUM > CLIMATEGATE 2 CONFIRMS THE GROUP-THINK | MORE THAN 1000 INTERNATIONAL SCIENTISTS DISSENT ON MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING CLAIMS - CHALLENGE UN IPC + GORE.
* SAME > CHINESE 2,485-TREE RING STUDY SHOWS [Solar-led] NATURAL CYCLES CONTROL CLIMATE, [Global] TEMPERATURES TO COOL UNTIL 2068, whereupon the temps are anticipated to steadily rise for a 200-year period i.e. Year 2268 +/-.
and
* WORLD NEWS > CENTRAL AMERICA: GLOBAL WARMING TO LEAD TO [Wave(s) of] ILLEGAL MIGRATION, espec from Central-Lower Americas into CONUS-NORAM.
* TOPIX/WORLD NEWS > NORTH KOREA: FEARS OF IMMINENT MOUNT BAEKU ERUPTION SPREADING, throughout the DPRK countryside. Kimmie + Boyz are trying to downgrade threat + calm the rurals.
Guam Legislature Senator JUDITH GUTHERTZ invited Japanese Coitizens to come + stay on Guam ALAP in the wake of the FUKUSHIMA = 03/11 OR TOHOKU DISASTER, the outcome of which is still up in the air - DITTO FOR NORTH KOREANS IFF THE BAEKU ERUPTION IS A BAD ONE???
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Joseph Kabila has won the presidential election of the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the provisional results, but opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi has rejected the announcement.
The eurozone banking system is on the edge of collapse as major lenders begin to run out of the assets they need to keep vital funding lines open. Senior analysts and traders warned of impending bank failures as a summit intended to solve the European crisis failed to deliver a solution that eased concerns over bank funding.
