 Pakistan's Slaughterhouses Breeding-grounds for H5N1 & SARS
This butchers are killing some 100 chickens per day. An indescribable smell bites in every once nose everywhere in the vicinity of these abattoirs. During the summer, when temperatures rise to 45 ° stinks miles away throughout the district of this Pakistani town. The debris attracts flies in swarms making these slaughterhouses a breeding ground for bacteria and all kinds of diseases. Roma and Sinti in Pakistan are living all over peripheral areas around Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and other towns. They are living in shanty-town, make-shift camps, and ordinary Pakistanis are asking me "why do you take photos of these people? They are not good people". There is no running water and electricity. If you don't have clean water and basic food, you'll die. Is this the solution to solve this social problem? The men hire themselves out as day laborers for half a €uro per day finding a job as porter on vegetable markets or as "butchers" in one of this countless slaughterhouses or even need to make living from smuggling good into and drugs out from Afghanistan. For photos of health & pandemic risks in Pakistan click here WHO resource Frequently Asked Questions on human infection with influenza A(H7N9) virus
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 The temples are all in "La Défense". It is a modern high-rise district west of Paris, is Europe's largest business district. Among the 1,600 businesses having their offices here are 14 of the 20 largest French companies and 13 of the 50 largest global corporations. 150.000 people are working here.
The temples are placed criss-crossed along a 1.2 km long and 250 m wide pedestrian allee. The planing of "La Défense" began in 1955 and is home to many banks and insurance companies. Impressive buildings are the towers of "Areva", "Manhattan", "Tour Gan", "Total" and the "CNIT", formerly a exhibition hall, which is now partly used for a hotel, partly as a business and conference center. The most famous buildings of the district, however, is the "Grande Arche", a modern version of the Arc de Triomphe and from there you have also a view over the city, directly to the old Arc de Triomphe. I did these images because of some clients are having their offices here. This is why I captured "La Défense" rather in a "arty" way then for editorial purpose, but you still will find several editorial images among them. For photos of "La Défense" click here  Faith makes blessed some maintain. Probably they are right. But when it comes to details of ingredients in canned food and other "comfort-food" creations, don't believe in a single word. Nothing!
As usual, during the recent "horse-meat-scandal" everybody knew everything and the term "comfort food" I learned for the first time from the opinion makers at the BBC, - they seem to think it is "comfortable" and not necessary to know what we actually eat. To some degree we knew it for long: Comfort ensures a pleasant careless life, thinking is not necessary... So how can you recognize hidden horse meat in Cannelloni?
 For photos of SIMA click here
The 75th Agricultural Fair, the SIMA ended yesterday in Paris. The first SIMA has already taken place 1922nd. From the beginning, the role of the SIMA was to show new developments in agricultural technology and today the SIMA be called one of the world's most important exhibitions in this sector. In the past 90 years the technological development in agriculture has contributed to an increase in successful harvests. Without these developments we would today face problems in the supply of food for large sections of the worlds population. One of the biggest challenges the agricultural industry is facing today is that its technological capacities will be brought into line with urgent need for sustainability as only this will guarantee us tomorrow secure harvests. All this lamenting from Biotech Lobbies in the United States about the subsidies by European Union for its agriculture is at best a silly fairy tale and being revealed by the following facts: While in Europe, sales of agricultural machinery is declining for years, and even in the U.S. the need for new technologies did not increase, the demand for agricultural technologies in Asia, South-Asia, Africa, the Middle East & North Africa and South America are still strongly on the rise. [1] A while ago I wrote here that seeds belong to everybody. It is a natural thousands years old heritage. Biotech companies like Monsanto, Bayer Crop Science, KWS AG and Syngenta knows about agricultural sustainability as much as Ronald McDonald from fine dinning but both have in common that their products are potential health hazards when they are ending up in the shelves of our super market chains as pre-prepaired food. During the past 50 years, agricultural land per person is on strong decline and is reaching levels of up to 30% during this time, -in both, developing as well as in developed agricultural regions of the globe. The future of agriculture is facing many new challenges. Already by the middle of this century, the world population will be around 9 billion. Therefore, new forms of production are necessary in order to meet the rising demand. The important thing is that the cultivation of organic products for ethanol production is at the rearmost. In addition, agriculture has to take its share in environmental services: eg Water management, reducing pollution by chemical products, C02 bonding, conservation of biodiversity and the need to protect forests is to ensure there is a fair share in the future role of farmers to archive this long-term food security. A good tool to convince farmers are the subsidies made by European Union. Investments in agricultural water technologies are becoming increasingly important. For this special topic lectures were given on how machinery for irrigation in agricultural production can enhance reuse of treated water. Especially in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, the use of water should be reconsidered from scratch so that future conflicts over water resources do not develop into wars. In most other regions, the water-use seems to be relatively stable since the late 20th Century. Another trend is visible in biotechnologies. The use of the crops e.g. grown for ethanol production show today that they turn against these sustainability. If we count here then add yet genetically engineered seeds, or even the use of hybrids whose seeds can not be used and the rows of death of types of polluter like bees is clear that it is time to get back again to certain traditional forms of agriculture. A large contribution to the SIMA popularity are surely the exhibitions of agricultural products and livestock. When I see the proud breeder of sheep, cows, pigs and goats is growing again, the hope is that enough common sense still exists. [1] http://www.google.fr/publicdata/explore |