Association

Press release - Fundamental rights report finds threats to key freedoms, equality and dignity

Retrieved on: 
星期五, 一月 19, 2024

The report on the state of fundamental rights in the EU was approved with 391 votes in favour, 130 against, and 20 abstentions.

Key Points: 
  • The report on the state of fundamental rights in the EU was approved with 391 votes in favour, 130 against, and 20 abstentions.
  • MEPs call for justice for the killing of journalists and welcome the agreement on the media freedom act.
  • poverty and social exclusion, digital poverty); and
    - improving institutional safeguards (including establishing the Fundamental Rights Agency as an independent human rights authority).
  • Quote
    Rapporteur Katarina Barley (S&D, Germany) commented: “Fundamental rights violations are widespread in EU member states.

Why South Korea is banning the sale of dog meat

Retrieved on: 
星期三, 一月 17, 2024

The South Korean dog meat trade will officially end in 2027 after a bill was passed making the slaughter of dogs and the sale of dog meat for human consumption illegal in the country (though the consumption of dog meat will still be legal).

Key Points: 
  • The South Korean dog meat trade will officially end in 2027 after a bill was passed making the slaughter of dogs and the sale of dog meat for human consumption illegal in the country (though the consumption of dog meat will still be legal).
  • The news has been embraced in South Korea as a long-awaited victory by many animal protection organisations.
  • Dog meat is the fourth-most consumed meat in South Korea after pork, beef and chicken.

Stigmatisation of a practice

  • But an important moment of national and international friction around the practice occurred in the run-up to the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.
  • Influential South Korean public and political figures took a public stance in favour of dog meat as a national cultural symbol.
  • It was reported that the hiding of dog meat restaurant signs and dog carcasses had once again been introduced by the government.

A practice in sharp decline

  • In recent decades, a civil movement led by animal protection charities has campaigned for the end of the trade.
  • It could be argued that the COVID pandemic has also played a part in the sharp fall in dog meat consumption in recent years.
  • Since then, municipal authorities have opened a dialogue with dog retailers to negotiate the demolition of dog slaughtering facilities.

The perspective of the dog farmers

  • Since 2014, some of these municipalities have agreed to compensate dog meat retailers for closing dog meat stalls in traditional markets.
  • However, now that a full ban is coming into effect, dog meat farmers are requesting compensation schemes as this new law will directly affect their livelihoods.
  • The Korean Dog Meat Association has been arguing that the bill represents an abuse of power that overlooks the perspective of many South Koreans, and that it infringes on the right to choose what one wants to eat.


Julien Dugnoille received funding from the Korea Foundation and the Academy of Korean Studies to conduct part of the research on which this paper is based. John Knight does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Wheat Pool 2.0: The time might be ripe for a revival of Prairie co-ops

Retrieved on: 
星期三, 一月 17, 2024

The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the once-mighty agricultural co-operative that became Viterra, is remembered by its iconic, but decaying, grain elevators that still dot much of the province’s rural landscape.

Key Points: 
  • The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the once-mighty agricultural co-operative that became Viterra, is remembered by its iconic, but decaying, grain elevators that still dot much of the province’s rural landscape.
  • Others come only after a raw, hard struggle, a grim rancher straining to pull the calf from a desperate cow.
  • Others come only after a raw, hard struggle, a grim rancher straining to pull the calf from a desperate cow.
  • Bunge, headquartered in Missouri, wants more of it; the wheat pool founders, based all over the province, wanted some of it.

Increasingly consolidated industry

  • The top five companies already control 90 per cent of the global grain trade; six of them sell 70 per cent of all agrochemicals and four of those also sell 60 per cent of all the seed.
  • Farmers owing money on contracts they were unable to fulfill because of events out of their control.

The view from Australia

  • To get a glimpse into what was lost when the Wheat Pool became Viterra, we can look to Australia.
  • Like Canada, farmers in Australia no longer have a national wheat marketing board.
  • Unlike in Canada, however, Australian farmers held on to their co-operative grain handling company, Co-operative Bulk Handling (CBH).


As a result, CBH says average post-farmgate costs for its members are 15 per cent lower than for Australian farmers who rely on multinational corporations — including companies like Bunge and Viterra — for storage, movement, marketing and export. Through CBH, Australian farmers don’t just have a powerful corporate entity looking out for their financial interests, but a company that can help them navigate government lobbying and relationships with agricultural input providers and their growing arsenal of data being used to power artificial intelligence applications.

Co-operative green shoots

  • While there are places in rural Prairies Canada that are prospering — especially those proximate to urban centres — the long-term trends remain.
  • But while perhaps dormant, the co-operative impulse is not gone and may indeed be ripe for a reawakening.
  • He is a fourth-generation farmer, small-business owner and director on the board of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan.


Marc-Andre Pigeon receives funding from the co-operative and credit union sectors as well as funding from government funding bodies for his research into co-operatives and credit unions. Natalie Kallio receives funding from the co-operative and credit union sectors as well as from government funding bodies for research into co-operatives.

Why the Post Office was able to bring private prosecutions in the Horizon IT scandal

Retrieved on: 
星期二, 一月 16, 2024

That the Post Office was able to bring so many prosecutions – and to conduct them so appallingly – is because the company was not supervised.

Key Points: 
  • That the Post Office was able to bring so many prosecutions – and to conduct them so appallingly – is because the company was not supervised.
  • Just as any other public company or private citizen might, the Post Office brought private prosecutions.
  • As co-directors of the Criminal Law Reform Now Network, we have been working on a review of private prosecutions since 2019.

How private prosecutions are brought

  • To bring a private prosecution, a person or company asks a magistrate to issue a summons against the accused person.
  • When the accused person answers the summons, an ordinary criminal case ensues – not a civil case.
  • This is one duty which the Post Office manifestly declined to perform, as has been highlighted by statutory inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal.

Safeguards for private prosecutions

  • There has long been the possibility for the director of public prosecutions (DPP) – who, since 1986, is the head of the CPS – to take over a private prosecution or discontinue it.
  • Since 2009, the policy has been to discontinue private prosecutions which do not meet the same core standards (that there be a realistic prospect of prosecution or that a prosecution is in the public interest) with which the CPS must comply.
  • However, it would normally be up to the accused person themselves to ask that the DDP or CPS should take it over, and the decision would still be made on the basis of the files in the possession of the private prosecutor.

Private prosecutions should be reformed, not abolished

  • It is important not to look at private prosecutions entirely through the prism of the Post Office scandal.
  • Where wealthy and determined victims have the means to investigate and prosecute effectively, they may, in fact, be doing a public service.
  • Some succesful private prosecutions have led to confiscation orders being made against convicted defendants that have resulted in millions of pounds being handed over to the Treasury.
  • In recent years, many legal firms specialising in private prosecutions have formed their own Private Prosecutors’ Association.


The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Meeting highlights from the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) 8-11 January 2024

Retrieved on: 
星期六, 一月 13, 2024

EMA’s safety committee (PRAC) is recommending precautionary measures for the treatment of male patients with valproate medicines.

Key Points: 
  • EMA’s safety committee (PRAC) is recommending precautionary measures for the treatment of male patients with valproate medicines.
  • A safety signal is information which suggests a new potentially causal association, or a new aspect of a known association between a medicine…, Ongoing referralsProcedureStatusUpdateHydroxyprogesterone-containing medicinal products – Article-31 referralUnder evaluationPRAC continued its assessment

Emergency medicine residencies more likely to go unfilled at for-profit and newly accredited programs

Retrieved on: 
星期一, 一月 8, 2024

The number of unfilled positions in emergency medicine residency programs surged in 2022 and 2023, with the trend most pronounced at programs that were recently accredited or under for-profit ownership.

Key Points: 
  • The number of unfilled positions in emergency medicine residency programs surged in 2022 and 2023, with the trend most pronounced at programs that were recently accredited or under for-profit ownership.
  • The proportion of medical students applying for emergency medicine residencies dropped by 16.8% from 2021 to 2022 and declined another 18.1% from 2022 to 2023.
  • Deepening the problem is the fact that the number of emergency medicine residency programs has grown at the same time.

No checks on the for-profit sector

  • Currently, there are no limits on the number of residency programs or positions in emergency medicine.
  • Despite the fact that positions are already going unfilled, eight new emergency medicine residency programs were accredited during the 2022-23 academic year.

More positions, lower demand

  • In our recent paper, my team and I calculated the number of emergency medicine residency programs that filled all positions in the past two match cycles.
  • Our study shows that in 2022, 277 emergency medicine residency programs offered 2,921 positions and had 219 unfilled positions.
  • Third, emergency medicine residency programs with for-profit clinical sites were less likely to fill all residency positions.

Possible solutions

  • In 1996, the anesthesiology specialty saw the proportion of filled residency positions drop to 45%, an all-time low.
  • No research yet has evaluated board exam pass rates of emergency medicine residents graduating from newly accredited or for-profit clinic sites.
  • And more female residents would be drawn into emergency medicine if disparities in pay and concerns over violence in emergency rooms were systematically resolved.


Cameron Gettel receives funding from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health and the American Board of Emergency Medicine / National Academy of Medicine Fellowship. The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and preparation or approval of the manuscript.

Dogs are incredible – if unlikely – allies in conservation

Retrieved on: 
星期日, 一月 7, 2024

Think hunting dogs, herding dogs, police dogs or search and rescue dogs.

Key Points: 
  • Think hunting dogs, herding dogs, police dogs or search and rescue dogs.
  • But have you heard of conservation dogs?
  • Conservation dogs fall mainly into two categories: guardian dogs and sniffer dogs (also called scent, detection or detector dogs).

The nose that knows

  • The film is based on the true story of Maremma dogs, trained to protect little penguins from foxes on Middle Island near Warrnambool in southwest Victoria.
  • The penguin population had dwindled to fewer than ten before the Maremma dogs got involved.
  • They can be trained to find animals or plants, or “indirect” signs animals have left behind such as poo or feathers.


Sniffer dogs have been trained for various missions such as:
finding rare and endangered species
detecting invasive animals during eradication or containment such as fire ants or snakes
locating pest plants
supporting wildlife surveys by detecting scats (poo), urine, vomit, nests, carcasses and even diseases.
They have worked in extreme conditions on land (including on sub-Antarctic islands) and at sea, and can even detect scent located underground. Sniffer dogs have also trained to recognise individual animals such as tigers by scent.

The ultimate scent detection machine

  • A much larger proportion (seven to 40 times larger) of the dog’s brain is dedicated to decoding scent.
  • Dogs analyse the air from each of their nostrils independently, detecting tiny variations in scent concentration.
  • Besides being the ultimate scent detection machine, dogs are great ambassadors for conservation – melting hearts all the way to Hollywood.



Finding the right candidate for the job

  • Trainers use toys and play as a reward, so dogs learn to associate this reward with the target scent.
  • It’s so easy that the scent-learning part of the job is usually the quickest.
  • And if the dog had a troubled background before being rescued, rehabilitation is the most time-consuming and difficult component of the training.

What type of dog can become a sniffer dog?

  • The most important aspect of the association learning process is having the right dog – one with obsessive behaviour.
  • And any breed, sex and age of dog can present this personality type.


Read more:
Scientists find burnt, starving koalas weeks after the bushfires

Top jobs for conservation dogs


Meet dogs working in conservation around the world:
detecting orca poo
making and keeping World Heritage-listed islands and Antarctica pristine
wildlife search and rescue
working as guardians
containing fire ants
leading weed eradication on land or water
monitoring wind farms
finding vomit (rejected owl pellets, to be precise)
supporting environmental assessments
helping Tasmanian devils find mates
detecting diseases.
These are just a few of the dogs making a difference in our fight to protect biodiversity. But we have barely scratched the surface of their potential!
Romane H Cristescu works for Detection Dogs for Conservation, at the University of the Sunshine Coast. She is receiving external funding through multiple government-funded, foundation association, not-for-profit group, and research council grants. She is a founding member and current executive of the Australasian Conservation Dogs Network.

'Designated contrarians' could improve nonprofit boards by disrupting the kind of consensus and groupthink that contributed to the NRA's woes

Retrieved on: 
星期五, 一月 5, 2024

And yet, the NRA had a 76-member board of directors, as well as a designated audit committee, which both had mandates to monitor the organization’s financial health.

Key Points: 
  • And yet, the NRA had a 76-member board of directors, as well as a designated audit committee, which both had mandates to monitor the organization’s financial health.
  • By reviewing transactions involving the NRA and its leaders more skeptically, the board might have helped the NRA avert some of its current legal troubles.
  • Together with Claire Hill, a University of Minnesota law professor, I’ve explored one way nonprofits might theoretically avert debacles, both large and small, in the future.

Board culture

  • They’re responsible for everything from weighing in on strategies to advance the organization’s mission, to hiring and evaluating top executives and setting their salaries.
  • The NRA’s board, like all nonprofit boards, had an obligation to detect the alleged wrongdoing and intervene to stop it.
  • But in general, it appears that NRA board members did little to oversee or restrain LaPierre, even when one top leader unsuccessfully sought big changes.

Too passive

  • But it’s too easy for their members to be too passive.
  • One reason for this is that nonprofit directors usually volunteer their time and don’t get paid for their contributions.
  • Sometimes, overly passive and deferential boards turn into rubber stamps that fail to challenge sloppy bookkeeping or question unwise hires.

What should they do?

  • We propose that trustees take turns being a designated contrarian, temporarily becoming a devil’s advocate obliged to challenge proposed board actions.
  • They would instead ask probing questions and offer feedback on reports by executives and officers.
  • The duration of this role would probably depend on how big a given board is and how often it meets.

Rare examples among nonprofits

  • Although using designated contrarians is not yet a widely used practice, a few nonprofit boards may have already embraced this concept.
  • For example, I’ve been told but have been unable to confirm that one major grantmaker’s investment committee tasks one of its members with challenging particular investment decisions.

No sure thing

  • And even for nonprofit boards in less dire circumstances, using rotating contrarians has its challenges.
  • Most serious among these is whether rotating contrarians will offer only inauthentic dissent, which studies show provides limited benefits.
  • To be sure, organizations that adopt this approach would need to be patient.


Dana Brakman Reiser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Why does Claudine Gay still work at Harvard after being forced to resign as its president? She's got tenure

Retrieved on: 
星期五, 一月 5, 2024

Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned on Jan. 2, 2024, less than one month after University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down.

Key Points: 
  • Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned on Jan. 2, 2024, less than one month after University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down.
  • Some members of the public have been surprised to see that both Gay and Magill remain employed by their universities as professors and researchers.

What does having tenure mean?

  • Tenure, as the American Association of University Professors defines it, is “an indefinite appointment” that protects academic jobs.
  • But revoking a scholar’s tenure and the job security that goes with it requires a formal process and investigation.
  • However, universities rarely end tenure, even when they find evidence that a tenured professor is incompetent.

Does it matter that Gay and Magill stepped down instead of being fired?

  • Whether administrators quit or are fired has little bearing on whether they can hang on to their tenured faculty position.
  • When administrators are fired it can justify an investigation of whether there’s cause for their dismissal as tenured faculty too.

What might happen to their salaries and other compensation?

  • During this time period, they are often paid their administrator salaries.
  • However, compensation is usually adjusted back to comparable faculty salaries upon their return to faculty ranks.
  • Neither former president’s salary has been made public, since they were both recent hires and those details are typically released with a significant delay.

What’s the purpose of tenure?


It’s primarily supposed to foster academic research and academic freedom. Once granted tenure, professors and other faculty members may feel more free to research topics that might not be politically popular or that their superior might not approve. Having tenure also makes it easier for professors to discuss sensitive but appropriate topics with their students without fear of reprisal.

What would it take for them to be fired?


Firing any tenured faculty member is a lengthy process. Even if it doesn’t involve a professor who got caught up in a contentious news cycle, the school would form a committee to evaluate any possible charges. The process can take months or years. Given the allegations of plagarism in Gay’s case, she would appear to be in a more precarious situation, but by no means would her dismissal be guaranteed.

What’s changing with tenure?

  • Those professors and lecturers, who outnumber professors with tenure on U.S. campuses, generally teach more courses and earn less money.
  • This creates a double incentive for universities, which essentially get more labor at a cheaper price.
  • It is possible, but highly unlikely, that proceedings will be initiated to dismiss either for cause.


Ray Gibney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.