A better way
It’s a feel-good story that’s been doing the rounds, but it bears repeating. A potentially nasty situation defused by a simple act of friendliness.
Tag: Protest
Slavery in the spotlight
When I was at school, we were taught about how slavery was abolished in Britain and the USA. This was obviously a good thing. It came as a shock to find out, some years ago now, that there are more slaves in the world than ever before.
The oppression goes on?
Indonesia has, at various times over the years, been both the victim of oppression and colonial rule and the oppressor. For two centuries the Dutch East India Company virtually ruled the islands that comprise Indonesia as they profited from the spice trade. Later, the Dutch East Indies was a part of the Dutch colonial empire, […]
Tony’s Chocolonely – serious chocolate!
Regular readers will know that one of my ’causes’ is ethical chocolate – chocolate that is grown by free farmers who are paid a fair wage, and not by trafficked children working more or less as slaves. (For background, see Ethical chocolate update.) So it was with great delight that I received a weighty package […]
Atheists vs christians: does it have to be war?
Disagreements between christians and atheists seem to have heated up in the last decade or two. Whether it is because atheists have become more convinced of the evils of religion, or there are just more of them these days, or whether it is because christians are feeling more under threat, I don’t know. Or perhaps […]
Climate change
I’ve been intending for a while starting a new section on Is there a God? about making a difference in the world. Finally, the baby’s born! The first topic is climate change. Don’t go away just yet. Even if you’re not all that interested, please check out the rest of this post to see why […]
Easter eggs and slavery
Easter’s coming soon, and if you live in the west as I do, you’ll probably be eating your share of easter eggs. But what if the eggs came from cocoa grown using child labour, that is effectively slave labour?
Fair Trade chocolate – report 2
Back in November I reported on exploitation in the world cocoa trade in My pleasure, their misery?. At that time I wrote about this to two prominent chocolate manufacturers. I subsequently reported (Fair Trade chocolate – report 1) that I had received a reply from Cadbury indicating their ongoing support for Fair Trade products. I […]
Fair Trade chocolate – report 1
A couple of weeks ago, I outlined some facts about exploitation in the growing of cocoa for chocolate (see My pleasure, their misery?) and at the same time wrote to two prominent chocolate manufacturers expressing my concerns and asking them to make more concerted moves to only source cocoa from growers who were paid a […]
Support
On 8 October actress Marzieh Vafamehr was sentenced to 90 lashes and one year jail in Iran for her part in the Australian film My Tehran for Sale. I’m a little late in posting this, but its not too late to sign an Amnesty petition to the Iran government opposing flogging. Amnesty: End flogging in […]