Supreme Court protects medical companies

ROBERT KALLWASS STAFF WRITER RHK722@CABRINI EDU

The supreme court passed a law on Feb. 20 which protects companies that produce medical devices from lawsuits by the consumer. In an 8-1 decision, the court says that certain items can go through intensive testing done by the Food and Drug Administration. If it passes, the companies cannot be held responsible for failures or misuses of their devices.

people who have been working on fair trade on Cabrini’s campus since the start. “I like to think that we are working on this initiative together,” Niemann said. “This year we have been working with a group of students who have great ideas.”

Senior English communication majors Patricia Sheehan as well as Yadira Toledo and junior psychology and special education major Jessica Zawrotny are the CRS fair trade ambassadors this year.

“We proposed the idea [to bring fair trade bananas on campus] to Sodexho here at Cabrini way back in September,” Sheehan said.

“Then we had to talk to fair trade banana distributors in the area. It was a tedious process and a lot of people contributed to the goal.”

Just as everyone hoped, fair trade is now growing at Cabrini.

“Jazzman’s now [offers] at least one fair trade coffee a day, the coffee in the student restaurant catering is 100 percent fair trade and the bananas in all locations are now fair trade,” Niemann says.

Out of all the fair trade products, why bananas? Coming from South American developing countries, “bananas are the up and coming thing as far as fair trade goes,” Sheehan said. “It was a big goal for us for the year. We wanted to get more products on campus and spread the word.”

The Cabrini students who were invited to the banana split event were mostly freshman who may be interested in becoming involved in fair trade or other social justice issues at Cabrini. The reason for freshman, rather than seniors, is because “they are the future and they can take their ideas on throughout their college years,” Laver stated.

Events in the past such as the fair trade coffee tasting, the holiday craft sale have made an impact on campus. Due to the success of those events, now not only is the banana split event taking place, but in addition the second annual “fair trade wallyball” tournament took place on Wednesday, Feb. 27 at 3 p.m., in the Dixon Center squash courts.

While the hopes are high to bring more fair trade products on campus, ideas of ways to bring awareness and interest to Cabrini and the collaboration of everyone involved is an ongoing process. Drew Niemann said, “I hope it expands to things beyond food and beverage. I would love to see this thought process [of fair trade] become part of the culture here on campus.”

The process which is involved in bringing fair trade products on campus is not an easy task. Although it can be stressful, students at Cabrini are the perfect people to take initiative. “College students are the trendsetters in the world,” Mary Laver said. “Our main goal is to keep the fair trade engine running.”

Next steps and new ideas are always being generated and put into action by the CRS fair trade ambassadors and their supporters. According to Sheehan, fair trade activists on campus are currently working on starting an official fair trade club on campus, and bringing more products to Cabrini.

Neimann said that the next steps of the process are focused on “to get others to join the fight.”

Government looks to aid homeowners

The government plans to step in to help with the large mortgage crisis which many people in the United States are now facing. Some homeowners are finding themselves paying off a mortgage that is higher than the price the house is actually worth. It is mostly large loan banks who are pushing for help from the Bush administration and from Congress.

Shite militia extend cease-fire in Iraq

Muqtada Sadr announced that his militia will continue their cease-fire agreement in Iraq for another six months. U.S. military officials respect his agreement and state the importance of the cease-fire is to help lower the violence in Iraq. At the same time they are worried about Sadr’s ability to control his militia. Many insurgents are against the cease-fire and some have broken the cease-fire on their own choice.

Castro’s brother rises to power

The National Assembly of Cuba elected Paul Castro to take Fidel’s place to lead Cuba. This will be the first presidential change for Cuba in 49 years. Paul states that even though leaders are changing, he plans to run the country as his brother before him had and not much will change. Cuba’s parliament voted in 77 year old Jose Ramon Machado Ventura as the first vice president.

Oil prices are not only hurting the U.S.

Rising oil prices are hurting the middle class economy throughout the Middle East. Inflation in the Middle East is due to many reasons besides oil, but the recent rise in prices have sent a lot of people into poverty and in some cases has stirred up violence. Many more wealthy countries are able to deal with the rising oil prices and fight inflation problems, but for the less fortunate countries it is causing a drastic fall in the middle class.