NEWSEUROPE

Dolce & Gabbana deleted Facebook wall posts as soon as Change.org members led by the Clean Clothes Campaign wrote on the luxury Italian fashion house’s wall, demanding that they stop using a highly dangerous garment production method which gives Dolce & Gabbana jeans a ‘worn’ look

LONDON – The Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana deleted posts on its Facebook wall after Change.org members posted messages demanding that the company ban sandblasting, a technique used to give jeans a used look which is highly dangerous to workers.

The move comes after more than 25,000 European and American activists have joined a campaign on Change.org demanding that the company ban sandblasting.

High Representative and European Commission Vice President Catherine Ashton formally responds to Saudi women’s Change.org campaigns asking her to support for Saudi women’s right to drive; calls on Saudi Arabia to implement UN anti-discrimination convention.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has called on Saudi Arabia to implement an international women’s rights convention in a letter to Saudi women fighting for the right to drive.

The letter, signed July 6 and received by Saudi Women for Driving on Wednesday, directly calls on Saudi Arabia to implement the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, a rare statement of criticism for such a senior diplomat.

Versace turns off its Facebook wall to fan posts after a group of activists led by the Clean Clothes Campaign ask the luxury Italian fashion house to stop using a highly dangerous garment production method which gives Versace jeans a ‘worn’ look.

The Italian fashion house Gianni Versace has de-activated its Facebook wall after activists posted dozens of messages demanding that the company ban sandblasting, a technique used to give jeans a used look which is highly dangerous to workers.

The process of sandblasting involves workers firing sand under high pressure at jeans and has been known to kill workers in garment producing countries like Turkey and Bangladesh, where jean sandblasting is done manually. The large amounts of silica dust generated during sandblasting can cause silicosis, a potentially lethal pulmonary disease, as workers inhale tiny particles of silica.

A number of major brands, such as Levi's, H&M, C&A and Gucci, have already abolished sandblasted jeans in their collections. However, Versace has taken no action despite repeated calls from international labor rights groups like the Clean Clothes Campaign for them to do so.

Top EU diplomat responds to Saudi women’s Change.org campaigns asking her to publicly declare support for Saudi women’s right to drive.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton publicly declared her support for Saudi women’s right to drive campaigns late Wednesday after more than 7,000 people in all EU states joined a Change.org campaign calling on her to stand with the Saudi women.

In a statement released by a spokesperson for the High Representative and European Commission Vice President, HRVP Ashton described the Saudi women fighting for the right to drive as “courageous.”

“The EU supports people who stand up for their right to equal treatment, wherever they are. The Saudi women who are taking to the road are exercising their right to demand that equality. They are courageous and have the High Representative's support.”

The statement came one day after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly praised the Saudi women’s right to drive campaigns:

"What these women are doing is brave, and what they are seeking is right... I'm moved by it [the campaign] and I support them."

Ashton’s support concludes a month of campaigning by Saudi Women for Driving, a coalition of leading Saudi women’s rights activists, bloggers and academics, which directly called on both HRVP Ashton and Clinton to make a public statement in support of Saudi women’s right to drive on Change.org, the world’s fastest-growing platform for social change.

International campaign successfully encourages German National Railways (Deutsche Bahn) to withdraw from supportive role in the construction of an Israeli train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem that crosses Palestinian villages in the Occupied Territories.

German National Railways (Deutsche Bahn) has announced that it will no longer participate in the construction of a high-speed Israeli train line from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as the route passes through occupied Palestinian territory yet is intended for the exclusive use of Israeli citizens.

The news comes after an international campaign let by German, Palestinian, and Israeli activists calling on the Deutsche Bahn Group to withdraw from the project, which activists claim violates international law.

The line is set to cut travel time between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to 28 minutes and is scheduled for completion in 2017. Deutsche Bahn was consulting with Israel Railways on the electrification of the route. According to a report in Der Spiegel, Germany’s Federal Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer told Deutsche Bahn CEO that the project was politically “problematic” and violated the “terms of international law.”

Update: BP has now stopped all business with Libya, and growing sanctions may soon stop others as well.

As unrest in Libya grew into full fledged violent clashes, Change.org member Alyssa Kwan saw a crucial chance to make a difference: calling on BP, one of the largest companies doing business with the Gaddafi regime, to suspend operations in Libya.

She launched a concise and effective petition, which quickly gathered more than 2,500 signatures. The UN seemed to agree with the sentiment, imposing sanctions on the current Libyan government and referring several members of the regime to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Earlier this week a group of Libyan activists launched a petiton calling for Malta to grant asylum to two Libyan pilots who defected to the small island nation last Monday. Within 24 hours they had tens of thousands of signatures, more than 1,000 signatures an hour!

Who are these folks?

ENOUGH! Gaddafi is a group of grassroots Libyan activists both inside and outside the country, working together to bring down the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the long time dictator of Libya. Calling themselves a new voice of dissent against the Gaddafi regime, ENOUGH! Gaddafi seeks to utilize grassroots Libyan activism to "promote the ability of the Libyan people to overcome the limitations imposed upon them by an illegitimate and unjust government."

A group of Libyan activists have gathered tens of thousands of signatures in under 24 hours on a petition calling for Malta to grant asylum to two Libyan pilots who defected to the small island nation last Monday.

That's more than 1,000 signatures an hour!

These pilots faced an unimaginable choice: bomb their countrymen or face likely execution if they returned without carrying out the attacks. Instead, they found a third option - flying their Mirage jets out of Libya and defecting to the nearby island nation of Malta.

In doing so, they saved the lives of untold numbers of their fellow Libyans.

But to date the Maltese government has been silent as to the fate of the two pilots, and the decision rests with Malta's Refugee Commissioner Mario Guido Friggieri.

Thousands of AIDS patients across the developing world could lose access to affordable antiretrovirals if one specific clause makes its way into a pending trade agreement between India and the EU.

Let’s help make sure that doesn’t happen.

Cheap, generic antiretrovirals have been critical in prolonging the lives of HIV/AIDS patients in resource-poor settings. Such generic meds make up 80 percent of the drugs distributed by organizations like Doctors Without Borders across communities that are not able to afford the full-priced alternative. Even the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief incorporates generics into its programs.

India is the world’s leading producer of generics. But if the “data exclusivity” passage, seen in a leaked draft obtained by the Associated Press, makes its way into the final version of a pending trade agreement between India and the EU, it could stymie India’s generic pharmaceutical industry, especially in the development of new medicines coming online. The result could be a return to the days when patients had to choose between full price meds or no meds at all.