19/01/2016
By Uri Avnery*
16 January 2016
IN ANY list of Israel’s 100 most important women, Ilana Dayan would occupy a prominent position.
Uri Avnery
Dayan (no relation to the late general with the eye patch) is the host of one of the most prestigious television programs.
While Israeli TV in general is slowly sinking into a morass of stupid “reality” entertainment, her program, named “Uvdah” (“Fact”), stands out as a beacon of responsible investigative journalism, of the kind my late weekly news magazine was known for.
In general, Dayan has always been considered as mildly “leftist” – since uncompromising criticism of the powers that be is generally identified with the Left.
Now she is being accused of serving the extreme, near-fascist Right. Shocking.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
19/01/2016
Participants in the African Union Gender Pre-Summit on 2016 African Year of Human Rights, with Particular Focus on the Rights of Women in Addis Ababa | Courtesy of the African Union Commission
These challenges are now top on the agenda of the “8thAfrican Union Gender Pre-Summit on 2016 African Year of Human Rights,with Particular Focus on the Rights of Women” taking place in Addis Ababa on 17 – 21 January.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Market Lords, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
4 Comments »
19/01/2016
International tourism grew by 4.4 per cent last year to a record 1.184 billion as calculated by overnight visitors to international destinations, 50 million more than in 2014, and the sixth consecutive year of above-average growth, UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) on 18 January 2016 reported.
Tourists on a ferry boat going across the Nile River, Cairo, Egypt. Photo: World Bank/Kim Eun Yeul
“The robust performance of the sector is contributing to economic growth and job creation in many parts of the world. It is thus critical for countries to promote policies that foster the continued growth of tourism, including travel facilitation, human resources development and sustainability” UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai said in a press release.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
19/01/2016
By Johan Galtung* –
Alfaz, Spain, 18 January 2016 – TRANSCEND Media Service – Democracy is rule–decision-making –by the consent of the people, the demos. There is a very good argument: the people will suffer the consequences. Hence rule of, by, and for the people.
Johan Galtung
Problem: which level dominates the decision-making? Level [4] national (government-parliament-courts); [3] regional (provinces-departments), [2] local (LAs, municipalities), level [1] individuals? In theory [1] is primary, basic, sovereign; in practice level [4].
Through elected representatives, packaged in electoral districts; representing individual preferences, packaged in party programs.
Comment, from Germany: “The sovereignty comes from the people–and never comes back” (“vom Volke raus, und kommt niemals zurück“).
The representatives kindly open a window every 4 years or so, 8-12 hours, 1-2 days, for the people to confirm or disconfirm the government. 1-2 days out 4 x 365 = 1460 (+1): around 1 per mil.
However, society has faultlines, by gender-generation-race, class, nation, territory. Only territory is built into the system through the elections by districts, the vote catchment areas.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
19/01/2016
With 14 million people facing hunger in southern Africa as the El Niño weather pattern, the worst in over three decades, exacerbates drought, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on 18 January 2016 warned that it faces critical funding challenges in scaling up food and cash-based aid.
A farmer takes a break in Swaziland. Photo: FAO/Rodger Bosch
“The number of people without enough food could rise significantly over coming months as the region moves deeper into the so-called lean season, the period before the April harvest when food and cash stocks become increasingly depleted,” WFP said in a news release.
“Particularly vulnerable are smallholder farmers who account for most agricultural production.”
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
18/01/2016
Violent extremism is a direct assault on the United Nations Charter and a grave threat to international peace and security, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 15 January 2016 said while presenting a new plan of action to prevent violence stemming from “poisonous ideologies.”
In the Gire 1 camp for internally displaced people, near Yola, Nigeria, a father holds photographs of his eldest daughter, 18, and his 6-year-old son, both of whom were kidnapped by members of Boko Haram during an attack on the family’s village. Photo: UNICEF/Sebastian Rich
“We are all appalled by the barbaric crimes that groups such as Da’esh, Boko Haram and others are committing against humanity,” Ban told Member States of the UN General Assembly, noting that the threat of violent extremism is not limited to any one religion, nationality or ethnic group, but that the vast majority of victims worldwide are Muslims.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
18/01/2016
Everyone involved in energy—governments, the private sector, investors and financial institutions, cities, and people everywhere–has understood that we can no longer burn our way to global prosperity, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 17 January 2016 declared at a debate hosted by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Financial Times.
Credit: UNEP
“We all know that renewable energy is limitless and will last forever,” Ban said in the United Arab Emirates capital, Abu Dhabi.
“It offers us great security and peace of mind,” he added. “Costs have come down so quickly that it is now often the cheapest option. And the more renewable energy facilities we build, the cheaper they will become.”
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
15/01/2016
By John Scales Avery*
13 January 2016
During the years 2012-2015, I wrote a number of articles on the urgent problems which the world is facing today, and also discussed the solutions that are available to us.
Most of these articles were published by Countercurrents, TMS Weekly Digest and Human Wrongs Watch.
A few appeared on Waging Peace, the website of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and in Erudito and Cadmus, (which are journals of the World Academy of Art and Science), or on the website the Learning Development Institute.
The long essay, “Against the Institution of War”was first published by the Pari Center for New Learning.
I am extremely grateful to Editors Binu Mathiew, Antonio C.S. Rosa and Baher Kamel, Professors Ivo Slaus, Gary Jakobs and David Peat, and also to Dr. David Krieger and Dr. Jan Visser for their great kindness and encouragement.
Three collections of these articles and essays will be published by Irene Publishing (http://irenepublishing.com/). Volume 3 is already available on Amazon, and the other volumes will be there within a month or so.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
1 Comment »
13/01/2016
.
.
A young Syrian girl sits on a broken chair by her tent in Faida 3 camp, an informal tented settlement for Syria refugees in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Credit: UNICEF/Alessio Romenzi
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
2 Comments »
13/01/2016
By Robert J. Burrowes*
13 January 2016
It has been argued that nonviolent struggles to liberate occupied countries – such as West Papua, Tibet, Palestine, Kanaky and Western Sahara – have failed far more often than they have succeeded but that secessionist struggles (that have sought to separate territory from an existing state in order to establish a new one) conducted by nonviolent means have always failed. See ‘Why Civil Resistance Works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict‘.
However, this argument fails to properly take into account one crucial variable: the quality of the nonviolent strategy that has been used.
Given that none of the cases cited above, for example, has ever planned and then systematically implemented a comprehensive nonviolent strategy of liberation/secession, it is accurate to observe that struggles that largely (but not necessarily wholly) reject the use of violence and then use a randomly selected and applied range of tactics, most of which are not violent, have ‘failed far more often’ or have ‘always failed’ to achieve the desired outcome.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 