'Unseen' News and Views
A picture of Fidel Castro behind an empty desk in a city government office in Havana on Saturday Nov. 26, a few hours after the death of the leader of Cuba’s revolution, at age 90. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS
Visibly moved, President Raúl Castro, his younger brother, made the announcement in a brief televised speech. The president said Fidel died at 22:29 local time, and provided no further details. He said his brother’s remains would be cremated.
Image from Middle East Forum | Arab Awakening
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The presidency of Donald Trump, symptomatic of a deep crisis in the liberal capitalist order, can spell wide ranging structural changes in Middle East international relations, changes that will serve to embolden and strengthen the hands of autocrats, from Sisi in Egypt to Assad in Syria.
Even though Trump remains a wild card, his campaign as well as his cabinet choices to date offer a glimpse on the direction of the policies he intends to follow in the Middle East.
The Trump campaign revolved around the notion that America had become international laughing stock because it had been taken advantage of by its allies.
The Parliament passed on 23 November the very polarising “EU strategic communication to counteract anti-EU propaganda by third parties”.
The resolution, based on a draft by Anna Elżbieta Fotyga (PiS, Poland) doesn’t focus exclusively on Russia (it also speaks of the propaganda by Islamic State), but it generally mobilised MEPs in two camps – those who supported the view that Russia pursues hybrid warfare aimed at destroying the EU, and those who thought such language can only be counterproductive.
The vote was passed with 304 votes “For”, 179 “Against” and a very high number of abstentions – 208.
**Photo: Fidel Castro, Monumento a José Martí, Habana, Cuba. | 27 September 2003 | Source: Agência Brasil.| Author: Ricardo Stuckert/ABr. | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Brazil license. | Wikimedia Commons
**Photo: Fidel Castro speaking in Havana, 1978 | Author: Marcelo Montecino | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
The announcement of Fidel Castro’s serious intestinal illness at the end of July 2006, and the occasion of the Cuban leader’s 80th birthday on 13 August, inevitably have raised a mountain of commentary about the imminence or otherwise of a transition of power in the Caribbean communist state.
But if “what comes after Fidel” is a well-worn topic of op-eds and broadcast interviews, the focus of the answer is less often where it should be: on an assessment of the character – a combination of the institutional, political, and personal – of the Cuban revolutionary experience as a whole.
The Hemicycle of the European Parliament in Strasbourg during a plenary session in 2014.| Author: Diliff | This file was a finalist in Picture of the Year 2014. | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Wikimedia Commons
This week, the European Parliament in Strasbourg voted by a dubious majority for a cash injection to expand the work of a media watchdog aimed at “debunking Russian propaganda.”
The little-known media group, reportedly comprising 11 “diplomats,” was established a year ago by the all-powerful, but unelected European Commission.
26 November 2016 – Opening the first-ever Global Sustainable Transport Conference, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegations gathered in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, that the world has the resolve, commitment, imagination and creativity “to transform our transport systems in a sustainable manner that will improve human wellbeing, enhance social progress and protect our planet.”
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Photo: WHO
**Fidel Castro. | Photo: Antonio Milena – ABr | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Brazil License
Castro died in Havana on Friday at 10:29pm local time, Cuban television said. His death was announced by his brother Raul, who took the reins after Fidel stepped down.
“According to the will expressed by comrade Fidel, his body will be cremated in the early hours” of Saturday, Raul said.
25 November 2016 – Underlining that violence against women and girls is not only a human rights violation but also a serious obstacle to sustainable development, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for “meaningful” action to prevent and respond to such violence.
Transparent. Photo: Belinda Mason, Silent Tears “Violence against women and girls is a human rights violation, public health pandemic and serious obstacle to sustainable development.” Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General
“Violence against women and girls imposes large-scale costs on families, communities and economies,” Secretary-General Ban said in his message on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 