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Written on May 31st, 2012 in Monthly Index by Heidi
Written on May 31st, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published on Al-Ahram weekly online, David Tresilian’s interview with Noam Chomsky, 3 – 9 June 2010.
(a short excerpt) … Your latest book is called Hopes and Prospects – What are the hopes?
- The first part of the book is about South America, and in South America there are many quite hopeful developments. For the first time in 500 years, since the Conquistadors, South America is beginning to move towards some degree of independence and integration and at least facing some of its severe internal problems. The colonial structure is extreme in South America, where there is a very narrow concentration of wealth in a mostly Europeanised, sometimes white elite, surrounded by an awful tragedy and some of the worst inequality in the world, in a region that has a lot of resources and a lot of potential. Some steps are being taken to deal with this. Continue Reading…
Written on May 30th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
The level of further integration necessary to deal with the euro crisis will be hard to square with the increasing cantankerousness of Europe’s voters – Published on The Economist, May 26, 2012.
FOR the past six decades, steps forward to greater European union have taken place at moments of incipient crisis. None, though, has been taken in a time of disaster. The next leap in integration looks set to change that. All the plausible solutions to the self-inflicted mess of the euro crisis require a significant new level of fiscal and potentially political union, not least because some countries, such as Germany, actively want greater political union and see it as the price of their co-operation. Continue Reading…
Written on May 29th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Soviet government official Anatoly Chernyaev records an insider’s view of the Brezhnev era – Published on National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 379, by Svetlana Savranskaya, May 25, 2012. (Translated and edited by Anna Melyakova and Svetlana Savranskaya).
Washington, D.C., May 25, 2012 – Today the National Security Archive publishes excerpts from Anatoly S. Chernyaev’s diary of 1972 for the first time in English translation with edits and postscript by the author. While the diary for the Gorbachev years, 1985-1991, published before and widely used in scholarly work on the end of the Cold War provided a major source on the Gorbachev reforms, the earlier years of the diary give the reader a very rare window into the workings of the Brezhnev inner circle in the 1970s. Continue Reading…
Written on May 28th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published on Al Jazeera, by Tania Page in Africa, May 26, 2012 (see also the video, 1.40 min).
Africa is where we first stood upright, and where we first learned to use tools. Now it’s also where we have the best chance of learning about the very beginnings of the universe, with a tool that will push scientists and engineers well beyond the boundaries of their existing skills and knowledge.
From deep in space, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will pick up radio waves to decipher our universe and how life began – well before this little blob in the galaxy called Earth was even a twinkle. Continue Reading…
Written on May 27th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Gated communities for the lower middle classes as well as the rich are little frontier towns with their own sheriffs, suspicious of every outsider – Published on Le Monde Diplo, by Rowland Atkinson and Oliver Smith, May 2012.
George Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon Martin at a gated community in Sanford, Florida, in February, is to be charged with second-degree murder. The case, in which Martin, an unarmed black teenager, died, reminds us how young African-American males face prejudice and heightened risks of death or harm. Continue Reading…
Written on May 26th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published on No Peace Without Justice NPWJ, by Mme Chantal Compaoré /LeFaso.net, May 18, 2012.
Le 15 mai 2012, s’est tenu dans la salle de conférence de l’ambassade d’Ethiopie à Washington D.C, sous la présidence de Mme Chantal Compaoré, première Dame du Burkina Faso, Ambassadrice de bonne volonté du Comité interafricain (CI-AF), coordonnatrice de la campagne internationale pour la résolution de l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies interdisant les mutilations génitales féminines en Afrique et dans le monde, un événement de haut niveau sur les pratiques traditionnelles: pont entre les Etats-Unis et l’Afrique … // Continue Reading…
Written on May 25th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published on The Economist, May 22, 2012.
ON “MEET THE PRESS” this past Sunday, Cory Booker, the superhero mayor of Newark, compared Barack Obama’s ads criticising the behaviour of Bain Capital under Mitt Romney to a Republican plan for new ads attacking Mr Obama for his association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright. “This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides”, Mr Booker said. “It’s nauseating to the American public.” Continue Reading…
Written on May 24th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published on Global Research.ca, by John Bart Gerald, May 23, 2012.
Both the U.S. and Canada have strong laws against the crime of genocide, as required by the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, of 1948. Despite ongoing threats to surviving Indigenous peoples and a genocide against the peoples of Iraq, the Convention is not invoked, and in North America laws against genocide aren’t applied to our own societies. 1 Continue Reading…
Written on May 23rd, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
David Harvey’s Rebel Cities – Published on Dissident Voice, by Ron Jacobs, May 21, 2012.
I live in the small city of Burlington Vermont in the United States. Most every day I walk through the city’s main public square known by its street name, Church Street. A public street that has been semi-privatized, the street is often the center of a struggle between citizens and private interests over the nature of the public square. Continue Reading…
Written on May 23rd, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
After diplomatic debate over dissident Chen Guangcheng, we ask on what basis the US should judge China’s rights record – Published on Al Jazeera, May 21, 2012.
Chen Guangcheng is the Chinese dissident behind a diplomatic rift between the US and China. After months of wrangling over his fate, Chen and his immediate family arrived in the US on Saturday, capping off three weeks of rollercoaster diplomacy that reached the highest levels of the Chinese government and the US White House … // Continue Reading…
Written on May 22nd, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
- Crisis In The Congo: Uncovering The Truth / La Vérité Dévoilée, 26.26min (spoken in english, subtitled in french);
- Coltan And Corruption In Congo: VICE News – 5 of 5, 11.41 min;
- Crisis in the Congo – Using Social Media for Advocacy, 53.06 min;
- March 2 Congressional Briefing on D.R. Congo – Closing Remarks, 20.21 min: On March 2, 2011, the African Great Lakes Advocacy Coalition (Africa Faith and Justice Network, Friends of the Congo, Foreign Policy in Focus, African Great Lakes Action Network, Foundation for Freedom and Democracy in Rwanda, Congo Global Action Coalition, International Humanitarian Law Institute of St. Paul, Mobilization for Peace and Justice in Congo) held a Congressional briefing for Members of the Senate and House and their staffs in order to raise the profile of the UN Mapping Exercise Report and its implications for US Policy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Region;
- 1,000,000 children at risk in West Africa #sahelNOW, 1.21 min, uploaded by unicef UK, April 2, 2012;
- The Spine Africa Project 2012 – The Democratic Republic of the Congo, 20.39 min, uploaded by rkaul357: The Spine Africa Project aids those in the Eastern Congo with debilitating spine injuries as a result of violence and conflict;
- Text, Videos and 18 Photo (scroll down): Thousands flee renewed violence in DRC: Conflict has returned to the troubled North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on Al Jazeera, by Malcolm Webb, May 18, 2012.
Written on May 21st, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published oon ZNet (first on TomDispatch), by Barbara Ehrenreich, May 18, 2012.
Individually the poor are not too tempting to thieves, for obvious reasons. Mug a banker and you might score a wallet containing a month’s rent. Mug a janitor and you will be lucky to get away with bus fare to flee the crime scene. But as Business Week helpfully pointed out in 2007, the poor in aggregate provide a juicy target for anyone depraved enough to make a business of stealing from them. Continue Reading…
Written on May 20th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published on Spiegel Online International, by Matthias Gebauer and Shoib Najafizada in Berlin and Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan, May 18, 2012.
With the German army pulling out of Afghanistan in 2014, hundreds of Afghan workers fear they will become victims of revenge by the Taliban, who have already condemned them as traitors. German authorities are already preparing for a wave of visa applications … //
… Deadly Risk: Continue Reading…
Written on May 19th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published on Intrepid Report, by Jerry Mazza, May 18, 2012.
Dear Mr. CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Mr. Jamie Dimon: There you are sitting with egg on your face and $2 billion plus going deep into the red on bad bets. You, the guy who fought for less and not more regulation is now in the middle of a major mess. You, the guy who hates the Volker rule named after ex-Fed Chief, Paul Volker, and says it went too far and that “if you want to be trading, you have to have a lawyer and a psychiatrist sitting next to you determining what ‘was your intent’ every time you did something.” That was some expensive exaggeration, wouldn’t you say? Continue Reading…
Written on May 18th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published on The Guardian, by Marcel Theroux, May 16, 2012.
… The head of Kiev’s Centre for Children’s Services is a charming former social worker called Nikolai Kulyeba. He says there are no more than 10 or 15 children under 18 living on the streets in Kiev. “Otherwise,” he says, with a certain circularity of thinking, “I would know about it.” Continue Reading…
Written on May 17th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
German growth due to exports and … a rise in government consumption – Published on REWR Blog, by merijnknibbe, May 15, 2012.
Today, Eurostat published data on first quarter GDP in the Eurozone and the EU. Some cherries:
- an increasing number of countries has slipped into a technical recession (two subsequent quarters in which seasonally adjusted GDP declines). Newcomers: Czech Republic, Spain, the UK and Romania. Continue Reading…
Written on May 16th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Even Churchill told the Empire that Britain would not stand by idly and see Poland trampled – Published on The Independent, by Robert Fisk, May 14, 2012.
… Haven’t I heard this before? Why yes, I have. Back in 2009, Robert Gates was getting very exhausted with North Korea and its nuclear weapons. And what did he tell us, on 30 May to be exact? “We will not stand idly by” as Pyongyang developed nuclear weapons. Last year, Barrack Obama said America would not “stand idly by” when a tyrant (to whit, Muammar Gaddafi) “tells his people there will be no mercy”. Continue Reading…
Written on May 15th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Judge Denies Declassification of Final Volume of CIA Official Report on Invasion of Cuba – Published on The National Security Archive, by Peter Kornbluh, May 10, 2012.
CIA Officials Defy Obama Directive on FOIA which states that the Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.
Washington, DC, May 10, 2012 – More than year after the National Security Archive sued the CIA to declassify the full “Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation,” a U.S. District Court judge today sided with the Agency’s efforts to keep the last volume of the report secret in perpetuity. In her ruling, Judge Gladys Kessler accepted the CIA’s legal arguments that, because Volume V was a “draft” and never officially approved for inclusion in the Agency’s official history, it was exempt from declassification under the “deliberative process privilege” despite having been written over 30 years ago. Continue Reading…
Written on May 14th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
- The Neuroscience of Emotions, 62.10 min, Uploaded by GoogleTechTalks on Oct 13, 2008;
- Transform Your Mind, Change Your Brain, 65.21 min, Uploaded by GoogleTechTalks on Sep 28, 2009;
- Brain Imaging between psychiatry and the law, 4.17 min, Uploaded by neuromediacorner on May 26, 2009: Interview with Amedeo Santosuosso, judge at the Milan Court of Appeal and professor at the Pavia’s University (IT) and , during the bid-workshop “brains in dialogue on brain imaging, 17-18 March 2009, Cambridge. Website: Neuromedia Corner; Continue Reading…
Written on May 13th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Despite hiccups, Egypt’s transitional phase is coming to an end – Published on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Dina Ezzat, 10 – 16 May 2012.
It is a very busy time in the corridors of several presidential campaign headquarters. Posters are being sent away for distribution; commercials are being finalised for airing; public speeches are being drafted; and the candidates are getting ready for the final round of the big race … //
… According to parliamentary sources, parliament speaker Saad El-Katatni acted promptly to accommodate the frustrations of the commission: he made a statement apologising for any offence that PEC might have felt from criticism made against its performance, although he also suggested that parliament, for its part, is equally offended by accusations of alleged interference levelled by PEC. Continue Reading…
Written on May 12th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Introduction and implementation, distrust and misuse, the R2P attempt failed miserably in Libya – Published on Current Concerns, by Dr h.c. Hans-Christof von Sponeck, May 8, 2012.
In a few months, the UN will be 67 years old. Initially, in 1945, there were 51 states that joined as a state community. Currently the UN includes 193 states. Southern Sudan is the youngest member. Quickly the new state has been accepted. Those in power at the moment wanted it that way. Palestine must go on waiting. Membership means acceptance of the UN Charter, which links binding covenants, conventions and other international agreements to a network.1 Continue Reading…
Written on May 11th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published on RWER Blog, by Edward Fullbrook, May 7, 2012.
In case you have not been watching this Spring’s coming, since the spectacular Harvard development of two weeks ago, another large tree, the UK government, has bloomed. Its Minister of State for Universities and Science announced last week that beginning in the near future all UK publicly funded academic research will be available on the Web free of charge to anyone anywhere in the world. This is not a politician’s pipe dream; Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has already been hired to set it up. Continue Reading…
Written on May 10th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published on Spiegel Online International, by Christoph Schult, May 9, 2012. (Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein).
For years, former laborers in Nazi-era ghettos have been fighting to get the pension that German law ostensibly guarantees them. A strict interpretation of that legislation, however, has meant that a vast majority of applications have been rejected. Now, a complaint has been filed with Germany’s highest court. Continue Reading…
Written on May 9th, 2012 in Humanitarian Concerns by Heidi
Published on ZNet, by Nikolas Kosmatopoulos, May 07, 2012.
… Crypto-racist and violence-prone armed gangs – aka dias and delta motorcycled police teams – roam the streets of major cities, beating up journalists and harassing and arresting those who appear “suspicious” or “rebellious”.
Guilty politicians from both major parties (the conservative/neoliberal New Democracy and the social-democratic/neoliberal PASOK) hide from an enraged people behind the walls of guarded palaces, evoking doomsday scenarios in case the citizenry dare not vote them back into office. Continue Reading…