Argentine president: Skip eating beef
Apr 4, 2006, 17:44 GMT
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (UPI) -- The president of Argentina -- a nation with the world`s largest per capita meat consumption -- wants citizens to eat less beef to halt spiraling prices.
President Nestor Kirchner hopes his recent skip-the-beef call will have the same effect as last year`s boycott of Shell oil products to check sharply increasing prices.
Nestor also has virtually halted export of beef from Argentina.
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The average person in Argentina eats 144 pounds of beef annually, twice the U.S. rate, the report said.
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http://news.monstersandcritics.com/southamerica/article_1152418.php/Argentine_president_Skip_eating_beef~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Spurs Action Against Slave Labour
Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Apr 3 (IPS) - Denunciations of sweatshops operating in the Argentine capital have piled up over the past few years in the city government and the courts. But not until six undocumented immigrants - including four children - died in a fire did the authorities announce measures to crack down on the network of clandestine textile factories that use slave labour.
Six Bolivian immigrants - two women, two three-year-olds, a 10-year-old and a 15-year-old - were killed in a blaze that broke out Thursday night in one of the sweatshops operating in a residential neighbourhood in the capital.
Reports on the existence of a broad network of clandestine textile and footwear factories whose workers are kept in conditions of virtual slavery have periodically emerged in Argentina.
In 2005, several Bolivians who were able to escape from the factory where they were locked in and forced to work 18 hours a day reported the situation to the city of Buenos Aires ombudsperson's office, which brought a lawsuit against the factory owner.
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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32757