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Lyon (AFP) - Animal lovers may be delighted that wolves are roaming the French mountains once again -- but the predators' increasing attacks on sheep have farmers longing to get their guns out.

On Monday, farmers flooded the streets of the city of Lyon with hundreds of sheep, demanding more government action after what authorities say were more than 10,000 animal deaths blamed on wolves last year.

Some farmers wore t-shirts emblazoned with photos of their bloodied livestock as they marched alongside their flocks, who filled the city air with the sound of bleating and tinkling bells.

"When you discover the body of one of your sheep with its throat ripped out by a wolf, it is horrible. It's traumatic," said Nicolas Fabre, a 38-year-old farmer from Cornus in the southern Aveyron region.

Wolves have targeted his flock twice in recent months, killing three sheep.

Wolves used to be common in France before dying out in the early 1930s. They reappeared naturally at the beginning of the 1990s and are now believed to number around 360.

Farmers across Aveyron, a sunny agricultural region famed for its pungent Roquefort blue cheese, say they have tried protecting their flocks with dogs, fences and netting, but to no avail.

And they say it is impossible to watch permanently over their animals, which are often spread over hilly, wooded land stretching dozens of hectares.

"There are 800,000 sheep in Aveyron," says Francois Giacobbi, a breeder in charge of the issue for the local farmers' association. "It's basically a pantry for the wolves."  read more »

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Last Pacific Coast Coal Terminal Nixed - Industry’s dream to export U.S. coal to Asia is dead
The state of Washington's Department of Ecology has rejected a necessary water-quality permit sought by Millennium Bulk Logistics for its proposed coal-export terminal at Longview, Washington. Barring a successful appeal of the decision, this means the end of the line not only for Millennium's dream of building the largest coal-export facility in North America, but also for the coal industry's larger scheme to ship vast amounts of U.S. coal to Asian markets.

"This is the end," says Bruce Nilles, senior campaign director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign. "Almost exactly seven years ago, Peabody Coal proposed its first project to move huge amounts of coal around the globe. This is a testament to the tens of thousands of people who raised their voices and said, 'Hell no.'"

Shipping coal abroad was supposed to be a lifeline for the U.S. coal industry, given plummeting domestic demand as renewables became cost-competitive with fossil fuels. With vast coal reserves readily available in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, coal companies pinned their hopes on exporting it to Asia via seven proposed terminals on the West Coast. With Longview blocked, coal opponents are now seven for seven in stopping those terminals. (The others were to be at Cherry Point and Grays Harbor in Washington; Port Westward, Coos Bay, and Port of Morrow in Oregon; and Oakland, California.)

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12 September, 2017
Equifax CEO Richard Smith Apologizes for the 'Most Humbling Moment in Our 118-Year History'
Equifax CEO Richard Smith has apologized for the massive cybersecurity breach at the company, which he described as "the most humbling moment in our 118-year history" and resolved to "make changes" to ensure nothing similar happens again.

28 September, 2017
Equifax Promises A New Lifetime Service, As New Leader Offers An Apology
Equifax is promising consumers new control over access to their personal credit data — for free, and for life — as interim CEO Paulino do Rego Barros Jr. apologized to people affected by the company's recent data breach. He said the company had failed to live up to expectations.

"On behalf of Equifax, I want to express my sincere and total apology," Barros wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal.

In the piece published behind the Journal's online paywall, but that doesn't seem to have been reproduced on Equifax's own site, Barros also unveiled plans for a new credit-monitoring tool:

"By Jan. 31, Equifax will offer a new service allowing all consumers the option of controlling access to their personal credit data. The service we are developing will let consumers easily lock and unlock access to their Equifax credit files. You will be able to do this at will. It will be reliable, safe and simple. Most significantly, the service will be offered free, for life."  read more »

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April 26, 2017
24% tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber British Columbian Premier Christy Clark pressed Trudeau on Wednesday to enforce a trade ban on shipments of thermal coal, also called steam coal, at its terminal in Vancouver in response to the Trump administration's 24 percent tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber imposed Tuesday.

"I told British Columbians that I would use every tool at our disposal to ensure we get a fair deal on softwood lumber," Clark said in an open letter to Trudeau. "Friends and trading partners cooperate," but "clearly, the United States is taking a different approach," she said.

Clark said U.S. coal producers rely on the terminal in Vancouver to ship coal to Asia, with a record of more than 6 million tons shipped last year. The U.S. lacks the capacity to move its own coal on the Pacific coast, making the ban an effective retaliatory response to the lumber tariff.

On Friday Washington state will release an environmental impact statement on a proposed coal terminal for Asian shipments.

Clark also said that steam coal is one of the most carbon-dioxide producing fuels, and banning its shipment would help Canada and the province meet its commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Most scientists blame the emissions for raising the Earth's temperature, resulting in more severe weather, floods and drought.

Clark pointed out that over the past five years most of the U.S. proposals to build its own coal terminals have been rejected for environmental and ecological reasons.  read more »

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Saturday 22 April 2017

"[W]e wish to reiterate the company’s commitment to conduct its operations under the highest sustainability and human rights guidelines, avoiding damages to cultures and their surroundings; a value promise we feel remains intact."

Canadian oil firm pulls out of national park in Peru's Amazon Pacific abandons one million hectare concession including indigenous peoples’ territories along Brazil border.

A Canadian-headquartered company, Pacific Exploration and Production, has pulled out of a huge oil and gas concession overlapping a new national park in the Peruvian Amazon. The concession, Lot 135, includes approximately 40% of the Sierra del Divisor national park established in 2015.

The concession has provoked opposition in Peru and just across the border in Brazil for many years, including regular statements since 2009 from indigenous Matsés people in both countries and a lawsuit recently filed by regional indigenous federation ORPIO. Both Lot 135 and the park overlap territory used by the Matsés and a proposed reserve for indigenous people living in “isolation.”

Pacific signed a contract for the concession in 2007, the year after a significant chunk of it had been declared a supposedly “protected natural area” but eight years before it became a national park.

The company’s decision to pull out was made public by UK-headquartered NGO Survival International. Institutional Relations and Sustainability Manager Alejandro Jimenez Ramirez told Survival in a letter dated 13 March 2017:  read more »

Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook in 2004. Now, just 17 years later, this 32-year-old billionaire is ready to give it all up (Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook in 2004, barely 20 years old.)? Why? According to those closest to the developer, Zuckerberg is disgusted with the way the public has used and abused the platform.

(ET, Tuesday, March 14, 2017) And when it comes to using the platform he created to bully or disparage others, Zuckerberg is completely disgusted. "He hates the way some users utilize the platform to bring others down or even to circulate false accounts of events or history."

Someone who DID quit Facebook: "Why I'm quitting Facebook, By Douglas Rushkoff, CNN"

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Photo courtesy Entertainment Today

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Survey: People Don’t Really Want Fancy Technology To Help Them Shop
While retailers are falling all over themselves trying to incorporate the latest and greatest retail technology - anything from smart mirrors in fitting rooms to robots that answer questions you’d ask store employees - frankly, shoppers just don’t seem to give a damn.

Basically, shoppers just want to get what they want as quickly and easily as possible. And although stores might be excited about their latest gadgets and gizmos, Maya Mikhailov, a co-founder of GPShopper told Bloomberg, “but consumers aren’t necessarily as eager as they are.”

Chatbots fared particularly poorly, Mikhailov says, mostly because talking to robots is still not as natural as talking with a live human about what you want.

Stores are spending lots of time and money trying out new, fancy technologies like touchscreen mirrors in changing rooms and robo-assistants out in the racks to get consumers to buy more.

Shoppers couldn’t care less.  read more »