Archive for May, 2013

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09/05/2013

The 'European Dream' Going the Way of the 'American Dream'

Human Wrongs Watch

By Roberto Savio*

Rome, May 2013 — The European Union has asked its citizens to brace for further economic misery. In a report on European economic prospects released on May 3, the European Commission said that further deterioration is expected to last at least until 2015. But, as every such report says, things will then get better!

Roberto Savio | Photo: montsess/flickr

Roberto Savio | Photo: montsess/flickr

Unemployment in the euro area is expected to climb to 12.2 percent this year, up from 11.4 percent last year.

In Spain, unemployment will rise to 27 percent, up from the 25 percent of last year; in Portugal it will rise from 15.9 to 18.9 percent; and after three brutal years of suffering, in Greece it will climb by 2.7 percent to 27 percent.

The trend will become devastating for young people: in Spain alone, it is estimated that 52 percent of young people will be without a job. We are creating a generation that will probably never get back on track.

The same trend is happening also in the rich countries of northern Europe, which are being brought down by the reaction of imports from impoverished southern Europe.

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Posted in Market Lords, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples | 3 Comments »

09/05/2013

Egypt 'At Risk Of Drifting Away from Ideals That Ignited Revolution' – UN Rights Chief Warns

Human Wrongs Watch

Expressing concern about key legislative measures being considered by Egyptian authorities, the United Nations human rights chief urged the Government to take steps to ensure it does not drift further away from the ideals that drove the 2011 revolution in the country.

Wall art in France depicting President Mohamed Morsi Abode of Chaos/flickr | IFEX

Wall art in France depicting President Mohamed Morsi
Abode of Chaos/flickr | IFEX

In particular, the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay pointed to a draft law that would constrain the activities of civil society organizations, as well as efforts to limit the authority of the judiciary, as measures that should be carefully examined and brought into line with international standards before they are adopted.

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Posted in Africa, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples | Leave a Comment »

09/05/2013

‘Brazilian Atlantis’: Scientists Discover Traces of Sunken Continent Under Atlantic Ocean

Human Wrongs Watch

By Russia Today*, 9 May 2013 – Granite formed on dry land has been discovered beneath the ocean off the coast of Brazil. Scientists suggest that it might be part of a sunken continent which disappeared millions of years ago and already branded it ‘Brazilian Atlantis’.

Credit: Image from atlantis.haktanir.org Source: Russia Today

Credit: Image from atlantis.haktanir.org | Source: Russia Today

A Japanese-manned submersible discovered a large mass of granite and a large amount of quartz sand 900 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, according to the announcement made by The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and the Geology Service of Brazil (CPRM).

These materials, normally found on dry land, suggest that a continent once existed in the region and then sank.

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Posted in Latin America & Caribbean, Mother Earth | Leave a Comment »

09/05/2013

In Egypt, Religious Violence Casts Pall Over Ortodox Christians Easter

Human Wrongs Watch

By Shahira Amin*,  RIA Novosti, Cairo, 7 May 2013 – Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter on May 5, and crowds thronged the streets near the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo’s Abbassiya district. Traditionally, Easter is a time of celebration and joy here, as Coptic Christians mark the resurrection of Christ, and end their forty day fast. But the mood this year was somber, marred by the memory of a brutal attack on the Cathedral by security forces a month ago.

**Morsi | Photo: Stefan Rousseau | Source: http://www.number10.gov.uk | Wikimedia Commons

Morsi | Photo: Stefan Rousseau | Source: http://www.number10.gov.uk | Wikimedia Commons

Although the country has witnessed a spate of attacks on Christian places of worship since the January 2011 mass uprising, last month’s targeting of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Abbassiya served reminded the country’s Coptic Christian community (they comprise 12 percent of Egypt’s population) of their vulnerability as Islamists continue to consolidate power, post revolution.

The assault on the Cathedral in April came as Christian mourners were leaving the building after a funeral mass for five Christians killed in sectarian clashes that took place days earlier in the village of El-Khosous, Qalyubia governorate, which lies to the north of Cairo.

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Posted in Africa, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples | Leave a Comment »

06/05/2013

UN Says US-backed Opposition, Not Syrian Regime, Used Poison Gas

Human Wrongs Watch

By Alex Lantier, WSWS*, 7 May 2013 — In a series of interviews, UN investigator Carla del Ponte said that sarin gas used in Syria was fired by the US-backed opposition, not the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

*Image: Damascus | Credit: I, Aziz1005 | Wikimedia Commons

*Image: Damascus | Credit: I, Aziz1005 | Wikimedia Commons

Her account explodes the lies on which Washington and its European allies have based their campaign for war with Syria, according to which the US and its allies are preparing to attack Syria to protect its people from Assad’s chemical weapons.

In fact, available evidence of sarin use implicates the Islamist-dominated “rebels” who are armed by US-allied Middle Eastern countries, under CIA supervision.

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Posted in Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords | Leave a Comment »

05/05/2013

Fed Up With Empty Promises, The Arabs May Abandon Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Human Wrongs Watch

By Baher Kamal* | IDN-InDepthNews, Cairo, May 2013

Not that nuclear issues are an actual source of concern to Egyptian citizens. They are deeply worried about their present and immediate future now that inter-religious violence is on the rise, triggering a dangerous, growing insecurity amidst an overwhelming popular discontent with President Mohamed Morsi’s regime. Simply put, there is too much frustration and deception here to think of nukes.

Mohamed Kadry

Major General (Ret.) Mohamed Kadry Said

Nevertheless, it is also a fact that the governments of Arab countries in general, and in the Gulf region in particular – following reported U.S. political pressures – have lately been expressing increasing fear of Iran’s nuclear programme and therefore focusing, again, on nukes.

In fact, Bahrain’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ghanum Fadhel Al Buainain, and Foreign Affairs Minister Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Bin Mohamed Al Khalifa, told this journalist in Manama in March that their nation – as well as all other Gulf countries – do not want to hear a word about any nuclear activities, even for peaceful purposes.

Their arguments are that even civil nuclear activities of whatever nature, have strong, negative impacts on the very lives and livelihoods of the Gulf peoples, from polluting waters and thus affecting the fish – which historically constitutes the main source of living – to the risk of a nuclear accident.

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Posted in Africa, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords | 6 Comments »

04/05/2013

No, We Can’t!

Human Wrongs Watch

By Uri Avnery*, 4 May 2013 — An Ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for the good of his country, a British statesman famously wrote some 400 years ago. That is true, of course, for all diplomats. The question is whether the diplomat lies only to others, or also to himself.

The Middle East | Wikimedia Commons.

The Middle East | Wikimedia Commons.

I am asking this these days when I follow the arduous efforts of John Kerry, the new American foreign secretary, to jump-start the Israeli-Arab “peace process”.

Kerry seems to be an honest man. A serious man. A patient man. But does he really believe that his endeavors will lead anywhere?

True, this week Kerry did achieve a remarkable success.

A delegation of Arab foreign ministers, including the Palestinian, met with him in Washington. They were led by the Qatari prime minister – a relative of the Emir, of course – whose country is assuming a more and more prominent role in the Arab world.

At the meeting, the ministers emphasized that the Arab Peace Initiative is still valid.

This initiative, forged 10 years ago by the then Saudi Crown Prince (and present King) Abdullah, was endorsed by the entire Arab League in the March 2002 Summit Conference in Beirut.

Yasser Arafat could not attend, because Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced that if he left the country, he would not be allowed to return. But Arafat officially accepted the initiative.

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Posted in Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords | Leave a Comment »

03/05/2013

The NPT’s “Unacceptable and Continuous Failure”: Egypt Walks Out

By Rebecca Johnson, openDemocracy, 1 May 2013 — On April 29th Egypt’s diplomats walked out of the NPT Conference in protest at the lack of progress in establishing a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, thereby putting the NPT regime on notice. Reporting from Geneva, Rebecca Johnson analyses the reasons

humanitarian

Source: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)

In a dramatic act that signalled its frustration with the “unilateral postponement” of an agreed 2012 Conference on the Middle East, Ambassador Hisham Badr announced his delegation’s walk-out “to protest this unacceptable and continuous failure to implement the 1995 Middle East Resolution” and “send a strong message of dissatisfaction with the lack of seriousness in dealing with the issue of establishing a zone free of nuclear weapons, a central component of regional, Arab and Egyptian national security, which impacts directly international peace and security”.

Amid mounting frustration, the walk-out occurred towards the end of the debate on the Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction (MEWMDFZ) on Monday afternoon, 29 April 2013. 

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Posted in Africa, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords | 6 Comments »

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