Collateral Damage: Organic Farmers Being Squeezed Out; Corporate Takeover Threatens Farmers, Mission

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 13, 2008  10:10 AM

CONTACT: The Cornucopia Institute
Mark Kastel, 608.625.2042

Collateral Damage: Organic Farmers Being Squeezed Out
Corporate Takeover Threatens Farmers, Mission

CORNUCOPIA, Wis. – October 13 – Groups representing organic farmers and their
customers are calling on consumers to help save the organic industry by exclusively
patronizing dairies, and other brands, that uphold the spirit and letter of the
federal organic law.  They claim the acquisition of major brands by corporate
agribusiness, and their dependence on factory farms, threatens to force families off
the land and deprive consumers of the superior nutritional food they think they are
paying for.

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Haiti’s Hurricane Victims Facing Homelessness and Food Shortages

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 13, 2008  1:32 PM

CONTACT: Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Haiti’s Hurricane Victims Facing Homelessness and Food Shortages
MSF Denounces Inefficient Emergency Response in Gonaïves

GONAIVES – October 13 – Five weeks after a series of hurricanes struck Haiti, people
in the city of Gonaïves are still deprived of essential services, the international
medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières
(MSF) said today. Since early October, families have been evicted from schools and
churches where they had sought refuge after the storms destroyed their homes.

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Air Pollution, Himalayan Monsoons, & Climate Change

Pollution may hit Himalayan monsoon clouds
Mon Oct 13, 2008 5:09pm EDT

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) – Higher levels of pollution in Asia may affect the formation of
clouds high in the Himalayas, perhaps disrupting monsoons and speeding a thaw of
glaciers, according to a study on Monday.

The report, by scientists in France and Italy, found microscopic particles in the
air that can be seeds for water droplets at a Nepalese mountain observatory, the
highest in the world at 5,079 meters (16,660 ft) above sea level.

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Warmer Climate to Dry Up Peatlands

Warmer climate to dry up peatlands: study
Mon Oct 13, 2008 11:00am EDT 

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Warmer temperatures in the years ahead will dry up peatlands,
release more carbon dioxide into the world’s atmosphere and aggravate global
warming, a study in Japan has found.

Peat is the accumulation of partially decayed vegetation in very wet places and it
covers about two percent of global land mass. Peatlands store large amounts of
carbon owing to the low rates of carbon breakdown in cold, waterlogged soils.

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