July, 07 2009, 03:24pm EDT
Obama Administration Takes Welcome Actions on Food Safety
Working Group Advances E. Coli, Salmonella Protections
WASHINGTON
The food safety working group created by President Barack Obama has
directed the various government agencies involved in food safety to
place new emphasis on preventing contamination-a move that the Center for Science in the Public Interest
says bodes well for the reform legislation moving through Congress.
And, says CSPI, it's an important sign that the current administration
sees a more active role for government in ensuring the safety of food
than previous ones.
For starters, the FDA announced that a long-awaited rule governing the safety of shell eggs has finally hatched.
"This is a good beginning for the Obama Administration when it comes to food safety," says CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal.
"But it faces many tests of how quickly the administration can fix a
weakened federal food safety structure and reverse course on policies
wrongly decided under the Bush Administration. Congress must pass the
Food Safety Enhancement Act to give the FDA the statutory foundation
needed as well as increased financial resources to restore Americans'
confidence in the safety of our food supply."
The working group proposed a series of specific activities
to reduce the risk of Salmonella and deadly E. coli in the food supply.
The recommendations cover FDA- and USDA-regulated foods including eggs,
chicken, turkey, beef, leafy greens, melons, and tomatoes. The working
group was chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
Under the proposal, the two agencies will provide guidance
to increase traceability in the food supply in advance of legislation
requiring it. The working group also proposed steps to increase the
effectiveness of outbreak surveillance among federal, state and local
agencies in addition to using web-based social media to notify
consumers of food safety problems.
In a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg
last week, CSPI urged the agency to reinstate a zero-tolerance policy
for the lethal Listeria monocytogenes bacteria, which can grow in
refrigerated soft cheeses, smoked seafood, and lunch meats; to require
the shellfish industry to treat all Gulf Coast oysters harvested during
warmer months to kill the deadly Vibrio vulnificus bacteria; and to strengthen its advice to vulnerable consumers on eating fish with high levels of methylmercury.
CSPI had long urged the FDA to finalize the egg rule
announced today. That rule will require on-farm controls and expanded
microbial testing to eliminate Salmonella Enteriditis in shell eggs. A
version of that rule languished for years since CSPI first petitioned
the FDA in 1998 to issue such a regulation.
In June, the Food Safety Enhancement Act
cleared a key hurdle in the House of Representatives when it was voted
unanimously out of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The bill,
spearheaded by Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Chairman Emeritus John
Dingell (D-MI), requires food processors to identify potential hazards
and develop written action plans to prevent contamination. It also
requires the FDA to conduct more frequent inspections of food
processors and importers, and gives the agency the authority to issue
mandatory recalls of contaminated food.
"For far too long, FDA has not had the staff, funding, or
even the legal authority to get the job done," said DeWaal. "Things
have gotten so bad that even the food industry is clamoring for reform,
which is not surprising as consumer confidence in the food industry has
fallen to less than 20 percent. But most important, American consumers
face a never-ending stream of food- safety failures that result in
having to avoid tainted fruits, vegetables, peanut butter, even cookie
dough. The time for modernizing our federal food safety system is long
overdue."
Since 1971, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has been a strong advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alcohol policy, and sound science.
LATEST NEWS
In 'Grave Breach' of International Law, Israel Orders More Evacuations in Rafah
"People have stayed in Rafah thinking it's safe and hoping that global pressure would stop an invasion. But now we are abandoned by the world and everyone feels betrayed and let down," one aid worker said.
May 11, 2024
The Israel Defense Forces ordered additional evacuations in central Rafah on Saturday, signalling that Israel will continue with an invasion of the southern Gaza city that has been the last refuge for more than 1.4 million Palestinians displaced since the country began its devastating war on Gaza in October.
The new evacuations follow orders issued Monday for residents and refugees to leave eastern Rafah. Humanitarian agencies said that approximately 110,000 people had evacuated from Rafah before Saturday and that another 40,000 joined them following the most recent orders, according toThe Associated Press.
"We are forcibly leaving after the occupation army threatened us, through recorded calls and in a post published on Facebook. We are leaving because of fear and coercion," Rafah resident Faten Lafi toldAl Jazeera. "We are leaving for the unknown and there are no safe areas at all. All the areas left are unsafe."
"Many people in Gaza are already suffering from famine, but now we are entering a new period of unprecedented hardship."
International humanitarian organizations have warned that an invasion of Rafah would be catastrophic for civilians and aid operations and that there is no credible way to safely evacuate the city.
"The Israeli army does not have a safe area in Gaza. They target everything," Abu Yusuf al-Deiri, who is now in Rafah after fleeing Gaza City, told AP.
The U.S. has said it opposes a Rafah invasion that does not include a workable plan to protect civilians, and President Joe Biden has threatened to withhold certain weapons from Israel if it moves forward with a full-scale Rafah attack, though critics have argued that Israel has made enough incursions into the city to justify cutting off arms now.
"With no guarantee of safety, proper accommodations, or return once hostilities end, this is a grave breach of international humanitarian law, not an orderly evacuation as Israel portrays it," said Itay Epshtain, a senior humanitarian law and policy consultant who works as special adviser to the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Association of International Development Agencies, on social media.
The United Nations Children's Fund has further warned that the "humanitarian area" where Israel is now directing Rafah evacuees—a coastal enclave called Al-Mawasi—is not safe because it does not have adequate supplies and because it has been subjected to air strikes in the past.
"We don't know what we will do," 54-year-old Muhammad Qahman, who arrived in Rafah in January toldThe Guardian. "We are now preparing our things to go to the area designated by the Israeli army, which is supposed to be safe and a humanitarian area, but this is just a lie," Qahman added, referring to Al-Mawasi.
The charity Islamic Relief published a statement in response to the new evacuation orders, which included testimony from a staff member.
"I feel like this is the end," the staff worker said. "It feels like we will all be either trapped and killed in Gaza, or we will all be forced out. People have stayed in Rafah thinking it's safe and hoping that global pressure would stop an invasion. But now we are abandoned by the world and everyone feels betrayed and let down."
The worker added that the humanitarian situation in Gaza had become even more difficult since Israel seized the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, making it impossible for supplies to get in.
"Bakeries have stopped working because they don't have fuel, so we don't have bread. We don't have any water supply as that also depends on fuel deliveries, so yesterday we had to pay $50 just to refill our tank. Cars have stopped, so people coming from Rafah to the Middle Area are either walking or packed into vans carrying hundreds of people," they continued. "Many people in Gaza are already suffering from famine, but now we are entering a new period of unprecedented hardship."
Georgios Petropoulos, who works with the U.N. humanitarian agency in Rafah, explained to AP that aid organizations were struggling to support the latest round of displaced Gazans.
"We simply have no tents, we have no blankets, no bedding, none of the items that you would expect a population on the move to be able to get from the humanitarian system," Petropoulos said.
The latest evacuations could also further destabilize Rafah's remaining healthcare infrastructure.
Hospital director Saheb al-Hams said the latest order "threatened" Kuwaiti Specialty Hospital.
"There is no other place for patients and injured people to go to but this hospital," al-Hams told reporters, calling for "immediate international protection."
In addition to the Rafah evacuation orders, the IDF also told "all residents and displaced people" to leave parts of Gaza City, Jabaliya, Zeitoun, and Beit Lahiya in the north of Gaza as it prepares to intensify fighting there.
"It's raining terror again in Jabaliya Refugee Camp and north of Gaza!" British Palestinian activist Shahd Abusalama wrote on social media Saturday. "I heard the bombs falling all around my surviving family everyone was screaming! They're gasping to breathe! My family there survived through way too much. They may not survive this one."
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'Friday News Dump': Biden State Dept Report Accepts Israeli Assurances
"The report is a slap in the face to the Palestinian and international human rights and humanitarian organizations that provided firsthand accounts and evidence," said the head of Oxfam America.
May 10, 2024
Foreign policy and human rights experts on Friday sharply condemned the Biden administration's delayed report to Congress about Israeli assurances regarding U.S. weapons use in the Gaza Strip and the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The historic assessment stems from National Security Memorandum 20, which President Joe Biden issued in February. NSM-20 requires Secretary of State Antony Blinken "to obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments" that they use U.S. arms in line with international humanitarian law (IHL) and will not "arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance."
"With today's report, the U.S. will be complicit in even more death and suffering in Gaza."
The section on Israel—which spans about a third of the 46-page report—says that "given Israel's significant reliance on U.S.-made defense articles, it is reasonable to assess that defense articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm."
However, "we are not able to reach definitive conclusions on whether defense articles covered by NSM-20 were used in these or other individual strikes," it continues, listing examples that include the April strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen workers.
While noting that "Israel has not shared complete information" to verify U.S. weapons use, the report concludes that Israeli assurances are "credible and reliable so as to allow the provision of defense articles covered under NSM-20 to continue."
Israel also "did not fully cooperate" with the U.S. and international "efforts to maximize humanitarian assistance flow to and distribution within Gaza," the report states. While expressing "deep concerns" about Israel's action and inaction regarding much-needed relief, the document adds that "we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance within the meaning of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act."
The report was initially due to be sent to Congress on Wednesday. Calling its release a "Friday news dump," Palestinian American political analyst Yousef Munayyer said, "This would be comical, if it wasn't aiding genocide."
Democracy for the Arab World Now executive director Sarah Leah Whitson took aim at the State Department, which she said "sinks to uncharted lows in twisting both the facts and the law to absolve Israel of responsibility for its well-documented use of U.S. weapons to commit war crimes and hindrance of U.S. humanitarian aid delivery."
"The State Department's report dutifully regurgitates every hoary defense Israel has long offered the world to justify its indefensible savagery in Gaza using U.S.-taxpayer funded military assistance," she continued. "It wants the world to reject the evidence of our eyes and ears with utterly implausible excuses."
"The State Department is seeking to create new loopholes in the law that don't exist, at once acknowledging that Israel HAS used U.S. weapons in violation of the laws of war and HAS hindered aid delivery, but excusing them from sanctions by claiming they are 'individual' violations and that Israel is remedying them," she added. "The law provides no such carve-outs from enforcement, and by the way, they're also utterly false claims."
Many critics of the war—called plausibly genocidal by the International Court of Justice in January—praised how detailed the document is but blasted its conclusions, which conflict with those of former State Department officials, U.S. lawmakers, and relief groups.
"The administration has once again ignored a mountain of evidence and failed to hold Israel accountable for severe violations of international and U.S. law in its conduct in the Gaza war," said Center for International Policy executive vice president Matt Duss. "This report comes as hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza face famine, continued bombardment, and an invasion of Rafah against U.S. warnings."
Israeli officials and forces this week have made clear that they will not cease the operation against Rafah—a southern Gaza city crowded with over 1.4 million Palestinians, most of them displaced from other areas—in response to Biden stalling the delivery of some weapons and threatening to withhold more.
While welcoming Biden's recent moves on Rafah, Duss argued that "today's report treating Israel as largely meeting its obligations under NSM-20 undercuts the administration's own efforts to protect civilian lives and facilitate a cease-fire and the release of hostages still held by Hamas. Instead, it functionally greenlights Israel's continued use of U.S. weapons in ways contrary to our law, interests, and values."
"The Biden administration must end its mixed messages and conflicting actions on Israel's conduct in Gaza, as well as in the occupied West Bank, and bring its policy in line with its rhetoric," he stressed. "It must fully and consistently enforce international and U.S. law by halting the transfer of all offensive weapons and other military assistance that Israel is using in the Rafah invasion or elsewhere to violate Palestinian rights. If this administration is serious about promoting peace and upholding human rights and international law, President Biden must finally and completely end U.S. complicity in the grievous harm being done to civilians with our aid and arms."
Oxfam America president and CEO Abby Maxman declared Friday that "despite what the Biden administration claims in today's report to Congress, it is clear that Israel is violating international law and obstructing aid into Gaza."
"In turning a blind eye, the administration is allowing Israel to continue to do so without consequence," she said. "The Biden administration published NSM-20 to hold itself and the recipients of its military aid accountable to the requirements of U.S. law, but instead it is demonstrating those laws only apply when politically convenient."
According to Maxman:
The report is a slap in the face to the Palestinian and international human rights and humanitarian organizations that provided firsthand accounts and evidence—backed by experts within the administration—on the assumption that their input would be evaluated in good faith. Most of all, it is a devastating blow to Palestinians in Gaza who have been killed, driven from their homes, and pushed into starvation by Israel's systemic abuses. They now suffer the indignity of this confirmation of the U.S. government's policy of willful blindness.
In a joint report with Human Rights Watch, Oxfam documented substantial violations of international humanitarian law and direct impediments to the delivery of humanitarian aid, including the destruction of Oxfam-supported water infrastructure and repeated delays and denials of basic humanitarian supplies. These impediments remain in place today and there is no sign of improvement going forward.
President Biden's suspension of bombs and artillery shells to stop a Rafah invasion is an important step, but not a substitute for following the law and holding Israel accountable to the basic conditions that apply to all U.S. security assistance recipients. With today's report, the U.S. will be complicit in even more death and suffering in Gaza.
Win Without War also welcomed Biden's decision to send Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a message that Rafah is a red line by holding up weapons shipments—the absolute right call, even if much more needs to be done," the group highlighted on social media Friday. "Yet, we are incredibly alarmed by the findings in the NSM report."
"At this dire moment, we need a U.S. policy towards ending the war and protecting people in Gaza that is consistent and coherent," the organization said. "But this NSM-20 report, by dodging a determination over whether the Israeli government has committed violations, cuts against that clear message and scrambles U.S. policy."
"And it will be yet another missed opportunity to uphold U.S. law and policy governing weapons transfers—right when growing numbers in Congress are calling for exactly that," the group added. "Luckily, Congress can inject some coherence—by continuing to place informal holds on transfers of deadly weapons, and making clear that there won't be new sales until the Israeli [government] shifts course."
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South Africa Urges ICJ Action as Israeli War Cabinet Expands Rafah Assault
"Despite repeated orders by the court, Israel has not changed its conduct," South Africa's urgent request states. "It has doubled down on its genocidal aims and acts, including by invading Rafah."
May 10, 2024
As Israel's War Cabinet voted Friday to expand the invasion of Rafah, South Africa filed an urgent request for the International Court of Justice to order Israel to stop its assault on Gaza's southernmost city, citing violations of the Genocide Convention and "particularly severe" risks to the 1.5 million displaced Palestinians and residents sheltering there.
"The situation brought about by the Israeli assault on Rafah, and the extreme risk it poses to humanitarian supplies and basic services into Gaza, to the survival of the Palestinian medical system, and to the very survival of Palestinians in Gaza as a group, is not only an escalation of the prevailing situation, but gives rise to new facts that are causing irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people in Gaza," South Africa's request states.
"This amounts to a change in the situation in Gaza since the court's order of March 28, 2024," the filing continues, referring to the ICJ's directive for Israel to stop blocking desperately needed humanitarian from entering the embattled enclave.
The March 28 directive also reiterated the court's earlier preliminary ruling that found Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza and ordered the Israeli government to "take all measures within its power" to uphold its obligations under Article II of the Genocide Convention.
The treaty—to which Israel is a party—defines the crime of genocide in part as "killing members of a group" and "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," which South Africa's request says Israeli forces are doing in Rafah.
The new filing argues three main points:
- Rafah is now effectively the last refuge in Gaza for 1.5 million Palestinians from Rafah and those displaced by Israeli action, and the last viable center in Gaza for habitation, public administration, and the provision of basic public services, including medical care;
- By seizing control of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom (Karem Abu Salem) crossings, Israel is now in direct, total control of all entry and exit to Gaza, has cut it off from all humanitarian and medical supplies, goods, and fuel on which the survival of the population of Gaza depends, and is preventing medical evacuations; and
- The remaining population and medical facilities are at extreme risk, given the recent evidence of evacuation zones being treated as extermination zones, the mass destruction and mass graves at Gaza's other hospitals, and the use by Israel of artificial intelligence (AI) to identify "kill lists."
"The incursion followed a two-week intensification of Israel's military bombardment of Rafah, to which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had previously been ordered by Israel to evacuate for their safety," the South African filing states. "An estimated 100,000 Palestinians in eastern Rafah, many of them already displaced nine times over, were given less than 15 hours to evacuate. Many were simply unable to flee. None have anywhere safe to go."
The document cites media reports of "the extreme brutality and indiscriminate nature of Israel's attack on areas of Rafah both within and outside the evacuation zone."
"Videos posted on social media by Israeli soldiers record them firing directly on areas where tents are pitched by displaced Palestinians," the filing states. "Many, including large numbers of Palestinian children, have been killed or injured already. There is recently published testimony from Israeli soldiers who have served in Gaza that Israeli soldiers treat evacuation zones as 'zones of extermination' in which all remaining Palestinians are considered to be legitimate targets. Israel also relies extensively on AI to select its targets and 'kill lists.'"
"Despite repeated orders by the court, Israel has not changed its conduct," the filing states. "It has doubled down on its genocidal aims and acts, including by invading Rafah. Members of the Israeli Ministerial Committee on National Security Affairs (Security Cabinet) and the War Cabinet have continued their genocidal rhetoric."
South Africa lodged its genocide complaint against Israel in December. Since then, more than 30 nations and regional blocs, and hundreds of advocacy groups have joined. The ICJ last month set October 28 as the deadline for South Africa's comprehensive submission in the case. Israel has until July 28, 2025 to respond.
A final ruling from the tribunal is not expected for years. Israel says the case is "baseless" and has accused South Africa of "functioning as the legal arm of Hamas," which led the attacks in which more than 1,100 Israelis and others were killed—at least some by so-called "friendly fire"—last October 7.
Since then, Israeli forces have killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while wounding more than 78,000 others. Over 11,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of the hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings. Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have also been forcibly displaced, and Israel's "complete siege" of the strip has caused massive starvation and has led to the deaths of dozens of children from malnutrition and dehydration.
Friday's filing came on the same day that a group of United Nations experts demanded that U.S. President Joe Biden—Israel's most important international backer—follow through on his "red line" threat to halt arms shipments to Israel in the event its forces invade Rafah. On Thursday, Biden was accused of retreating from his red line by stating he would only cut Israel off if it launches a "major" assault on the city.
Common Dreamsreported Tuesday that Biden is delaying shipments of two types of bombs to Israel in order to send a message that the president is angry and frustrated over what he called Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gazan civilians. However, the U.S. continues to supply billions of dollars of weaponry to Israel and also provides diplomatic cover in the form of U.N. vetoes and other moves.
On Friday, for example, the U.S. was one of only nine nations to vote against a U.N. General Assembly resolution urging the Security Council to grant Palestine full membership in the world body. The vote was 143-9, with 25 abstentions.
Also on Friday, human rights defenders from around the world gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa for the inaugural Global Anti-Apartheid Conference on Palestine.
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