Azione di Essere Animali di fronte a un supermercato Esselunga di Milano. “La quasi totalità delle linee di pollo a marchio Esselunga utilizzano razze selezionate geneticamente per crescere il più velocemente possibile e raggiungere il peso di macellazione in soli 40 giorni. Questo significa che il prezzo più alto del pollo che troviamo sugli scaffali non lo paghiamo noi, ma gli animali, che devono sopportare deformità dolorose, lesioni muscolari e scheletriche, difficoltà respiratorie e cardiovascolari e condizioni di grave sovraffollamento”, spiega Simone Montuschi, presidente di Essere Animali.

E aggiunge: “Nelle sue comunicazioni pubbliche, Esselunga dichiara di avere a cuore il benessere animale e, per alcuni dei suoi prodotti a marchio, sottolinea caratteristiche come la filiera 100% italiana e l’assenza di antibiotici. Ma questi elementi non garantiscono di per sé migliori condizioni di allevamento o maggiore benessere animale. Decidendo di adottare i criteri dell’ECC, che oggi rappresenta lo standard minimo di riferimento per l’allevamento dei polli in Europa, Esselunga ha il potere di ridurre drasticamente le sofferenze dei polli allevati nelle proprie filiere a marchio, che cosa aspetta a farlo?”.

“Il white striping è conseguenza diretta dell’uso di razze a rapido accrescimento. Il passaggio a razze a crescita più lenta, in linea con l’ECC è la soluzione a questa problematica, come raccomandato anche dall’EFSA, l’Autorità europea per la sicurezza alimentare. L’ECC è stato adottato da 400 aziende e numerosi gruppi europei, tra cui i leader del mercato avicolo francese (Gruppo LDC e Terrena) e aziende italiane tra cui Cortilia, Eataly e Gruppo Fileni. Esselunga può scegliere di fare lo stesso. E ogni giorno senza un impegno è un’occasione persa per ridurre le sofferenze di questi animali”, conclude Montuschi.

L'articolo “Ecco il vero prezzo del pollo”, protesta di Essere Animali di fronte a un supermercato Esselunga proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.

Sudan has had its moment at the United Nations General Assembly. Its next, more consequential, moment comes in October, when the Security Council must decide whether to renew an arms embargo confined to Darfur or extend it across the country. 

The Council bought itself time on September 11th, extending the existing sanctions for just one month rather than agreeing to Washington’s proposal for a nationwide embargo. That deadline now falls on October 9th. A further delay would be a decision of its own: to leave restrictions drawn for an earlier Darfur conflict largely unchanged while today’s war rages far beyond Darfur. 

This is not an argument for pretending that one side alone is responsible. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias are accused of atrocities in Darfur. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its allies have attacked civilians and used chemical weapons, as was raised in Geneva around the United Nations Human Rights Council. An embargo worth the name must impede weapons reaching both camps and the outside networks that keep them fighting. Otherwise, it would punish selectively rather than protect Sudanese civilians. 

The UN’s existing restrictions don’t meet that test. America argues that the Darfur-focused regime is outdated and wants the embargo extended nationwide, alongside tougher grounds for sanctioning perpetrators of sexual violence and attacks on aid workers. Britain has urged Council members to negotiate pragmatically—but after more than three years of war, can a policy of “let’s keep talking” any longer be considered adequate? 

France doesn’t think so. President Emmanuel Macron has championed an initiative, developed with Mexico, for permanent Security Council members to refrain voluntarily from using their veto when the Council confronts genocide, crimes against humanity or large-scale war crimes. France says 127 states support it; Britain has recently joined. Its purpose is plain: preserve the Council’s ability to act when civilians are most at risk. Sudan’s embargo debate is a test of that principle.

Washington has already shown it is prepared to confront the SAF’s leadership. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council and head of the SAF, did not receive a US visa to address the General Assembly in person. Reuters reported, citing Sudanese and other sources, that US officials had linked his attendance to acceptance of a proposed 90-day ceasefire. Burhan’s refusal was consistent with his entire approach to peace talks that involve his main rival, the RSF. For him the answer is always no. 

The State Department declined to comment on the visa itself but it did that neither the army nor the RSF nor their leaders represents legitimate constitutional government, and promised to raise the cost of continued conflict. 

That pressure should not be mistaken for a complete Sudan strategy. Denying Burhan a New York platform does not stop a shipment of arms. Nor would an embargo, by itself, deliver a ceasefire. But together they send a message: military commanders cannot claim an automatic right to rule simply because they possess guns, territory and foreign suppliers. 

In the Security Council, Russia’s the tough nut to crack. It has said it will not allow “even a hint” of broader restrictions. China has warned against forcing through contentious measures and argues that expanded sanctions could worsen the crisis. Both are the likely hold-outs, but their positions are not identical. Moscow has drawn a red line but  Beijing seems to have has left room for discussion. And that would make China the diplomatic hinge.

Trump and Xi have just met in Washington amid efforts to steady their relationship and pursue practical cooperation. It’s hard to imagine Sudan was on top of their agenda. But a warmer channel would give Trump an opportunity to make a focused request: China need not champion a wider embargo, but could it just not veto a measure designed to restrain arms flows to both sides and protect civilians? If Beijing moved, Russia would be under more pressure to reconsider. 

This would at least see the big powers deciding to act, and hold in check the regional middle-power military-authoritarian quartet—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan—who would otherwise have their way and consolidate Burhan’s junta in power. 

Sudan’s civilians deserve better than a future decided by a force like the SAF in which Islamist networks retain troubling influence. Analysts have warned that Muslim Brotherhood-linked forces have used the war to regain ground within the SAF’s wartime structure. A nationwide embargo, enforced fairly and coupled to a ceasefire and civilian-led negotiations, is the strongest available way to deny armed factions the confidence that they can dictate the settlement alone. 

The Security Council cannot hand Sudan democracy. It can refuse to help an Islamist-dominated military order extinguish Sudanese people’s aspirations for it. 

Image: Mikaela Ryden, Shutterstock.com

The Trump administration’s assault on the ICC isn’t just about protecting Netanyahu from war crimes prosecution. It’s about preserving “imperial impunity” – Israel’s just “the smokescreen,” says Noura Erakat, professor of criminal justice and Africana studies at Rutgers University and human rights attorney. She traces Washington’s bipartisan refusal to ratify the Rome Statute to explain why the International Criminal Court has spent two decades indicting mostly African and Arab leaders. The 2024 warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant just show the court “between a rock and a hard place”: finally give up its legitimacy entirely, or face destruction by the US.

Now more than a dozen ICC judges, prosecutors, and the court’s president have been sanctioned, as Washington reportedly prepares sanctions against the entire institution, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling it an “intolerable threat” to US sovereignty. Can the court survive a war with Washington? Should it? And why do Global South states stay invested in a court that’s clearly stacked against them?

Plus: Erakat describes her arrest at a Palm Beach County budget hearing on their $1 billion-plus investment in Israel bonds; warns that Gaza’s Board of Peace could become a blueprint to replace the UN; and explains why she believes, even as public opinion on Palestine shifts, “there’s no way to be safe in this moment by hiding.”

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Can the United Nations be saved? Should it be? As world leaders and war criminals gather for the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York, Vijay Prashad, executive director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, says that despite today’s gangster rule by the likes of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, the UN Charter still sets the standard for judging powerful states, making it “the most important treaty document that the world has ever had” – even with the institution built on it in shambles.

Prashad slams Secretary-General António Guterres’s failure to get “creative” to end the genocide in Gaza or to stand up to Trump on Iran, instead opening a free lane for the US president who has “put a loaded gun on the table and has threatened the world.” 

After the US denied visas to the Palestinians for a second year and heavily restricted Iran’s delegation, Prashad makes the case for moving the high-level UNGA out of the US: “New York doesn’t deserve it anymore,” he says, offering alternatives in Geneva or Nairobi. “Let’s move it to the Global South. Why not?”

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