Archive for December, 2017

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23/12/2017

Cry, Beloved Country

Human Wrongs Watch

By Uri Avnery*

23/12/2017

ANYONE PROPOSING the death penalty is either a complete fool, an incorrigible cynic or mentally disturbed – or all of these.

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Uri Avnery

There is no effective therapy for any of these defects. I wouldn’t even try.

A fool would not understand the overwhelming evidence for the conclusion. For a cynic, advocacy of the death penalty is a proven votecatcher.

A mentally disturbed person derives pleasure from the very thought of an execution. I am not addressing any of these, but ordinary citizens of Israel.

LET ME start by repeating the story of my own personal experience.

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Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords | Leave a Comment »

22/12/2017

Roundtable on ‘The Problem of Action’ – An Exchange on How Do Get There?

Human Wrongs Watch

By Roberto Savio*

21 December 2017 — First of all, as we focus on the future, it is essential to look at the past. As Paul Raskin eloquently notes, we are united by a shared future, but we are united by a shared past as well. This shared past had two phases, both of which had major impacts on society.

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Roberto Savio

The first is era of the Washington Consensus and the neoliberal creed, which became la pensée unique as of 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. History was at its end, or so the acolytes of this newly dominant creed hoped.

This, in turn, created an unprecedented counter-mobilization, with the World Social Forum as a prime example.

Nearly 100,000 people paid the costs of travels and hotels to be together, to share the same identity of resistant to the pensée unique, and declare that another world was possible.

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22/12/2017

Goodbye to 2017, a Trump-dominated Year

Human Wrongs Watch

By Martin Khor*

PENANG, Malaysia, Dec 21 2017 (IPS) – In 2017, Donald Trump dominated the year by using US clout to change many aspects of global relations, and not for the better.

President Donald Trump prepares to address the general debate of the Assembly’s seventy-second session. Credit: UN Photo/Kim Haughton

President Donald Trump prepares to address the general debate of the Assembly’s seventy-second session. Credit: UN Photo/Kim Haughton

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22/12/2017

Afghanistan Faces Opium Crisis, Response Must Be Urgent, Swift, Decisive – UNODC Chief

(UNODC)* – In recent years attention has shifted away from the threat posed by illicit drugs, the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Yury Fedotov, told the UN Security Council on 21 December 2017.

UNODC Chief: Afghanistan faces opium crisis, response must be urgent, swift, decisive

“We must reverse this trend, or risk the further expansion and destabilizing influence of non-state actors, organized criminal groups and violent terrorists”, he said.

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22/12/2017

“Aid Has Not Reached ‘A Single Soul’ inSyria’s Besieged Areas in December – UN Special Advisor

Human Wrongs Watch

The list of people requiring life-saving medical help in Syria is getting shorter not because they were evacuated, but because they died, a senior United Nations advisor on 21 December 2017 warned.

A street in Douma, Eastern Ghouta, Syria. Photo: UNICEF/Amer Al Shami

“In many months we reached only 10 or maximum 20 per cent of people in besieged areas. In December, we haven’t reached a single soul,” Jan Egeland, Special Advisor to the UN Special Envoy, told journalists in Geneva after meeting with countries that have influence on the warring parties inside Syria, where war has raged for nearly seven years.

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22/12/2017

Deadly War Weapons Endanger Lives of over 220,000 Children in Eastern Ukraine – UNICEF

Human Wrongs Watch

21 December 2017 – Landmines, unexploded ordnance and other explosive remnants of war threaten the lives of over 220,000 children in eastern Ukraine, the United Nations Children’s Fund has warned, calling on all parties to the conflict to immediately end the use of the lethal weapons and allow mine clearance activities to begin.

A child walks past the front gate of a house damaged by shelling in Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine. Photo: UNICEF/Gilbertson VII

“It is unacceptable that places where children could safely play less than four years ago are now riddled with deadly explosives,” said Giovanna Barberis, the head of UNICEF operations in the country, in a news release on 21 December.

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22/12/2017

Ethiopia’s New Addiction – And What It Says About Media Freedom

Human Wrongs Watch

By James Jeffrey*

ADDIS ABABA, Dec 21 2017 (IPS) – On a Saturday afternoon in one of Addis Ababa’s khat houses, a group of men and women chew the mildly narcotic plant while gazing mesmerized toward a television featuring a South Korean soldier stripped to his waist and holding a young lady’s hand while proclaiming his undying love—somewhat incongruously—in Amharic.
One of KANA TV’s dubbing team in a specially equipped sound-proof studio reading from his Amharic script to dub over a Turkish actor. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

One of KANA TV’s dubbing team in a specially equipped sound-proof studio reading from his Amharic script to dub over a Turkish actor. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Broadcast exclusively in the lingua franca of Ethiopia—a necessity with 80 dialects across the country—and after decades of drab Ethiopian state-owned television, KANA TV marks a breakthrough in Ethiopian televised entertainment. It may also signal a shift in Ethiopia’s much criticised media environment.

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21/12/2017

Conflict Causing Spikes in Food Insecurity in Near East and North Africa

Human Wrongs Watch

Strife and violence in some countries are casting a shadow on prospects for Zero Hunger across the entire region.

Photo: ©FAO/Cengiz Yar

In Iraq, displaced civilians and their livestock flee fighting. Conflict in some countries in the Near East and North Africa is sparking spikes in hunger. Photo: FAO

Cairo/Rome – Conflict and protracted crises in a handful of countries in the Near East and North Africa are hamstringing efforts to eradicate hunger in the region by 2030, according to a new FAO report published on 21 December 2017.

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The 2017 edition of the Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) highlights in particular how an ongoing intensification of violence is opening a wide “hunger gap” between countries being affected by conflicts and those that are not.

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21/12/2017

The State of the Empire in the Age of Trumpism

Human Wrongs Watch

By Diane Perlman, Ph.D.*

18 Dec 2017  – TRANSCEND Media Service —

The Fall of the US Empire – And Then What?, published in 2009, has become the best-selling of the TRANSCEND University Press books. With the presidency of Donald Trump, there is renewed interest in the state of the US Empire.

“I hate the US Empire, but I love the US Republic.” For years I have been hearing this mantra from Johan Galtung my dear friend, mentor and colleague. As events unfold, it takes on new meaning.

Johan Galtung is a Norwegian-born citizen of the world, sociologist and mathematician recognized as the ‘founding father’ of peace studies and conflict transformation as a scientific discipline.

He is a frequent Nobel Peace Prize nominee, winner of the 1987 Right Livelihood Award–the alternative Nobel–and of the 2017 People’s Nobel Prize. (Here his Acceptance Speech).

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21/12/2017

To Be a Latin-American Migrant in Madrid

Human Wrongs Watch

By Baher Kamal*

MADRID, Dec 20 2017 (IPS) – If you are in Madrid and have some spare time, just go to an area which residents consider a “high class” neighbourhood situated in a district bordering Barrio de Salamanca, one of the richest areas in the Spanish capital.

In a main street between Plaza del Ecuador and Plaza de la República Domenicana, in Barrio de Hispanoamérica” neighbourhood, Madrid. Credit: IPS/Baher Kamal

There you will see relatively modern buildings next to old houses constructed under Francisco Franco’s rule (1939-1975) and sold to military officials at token prices.

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Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples | 2 Comments »

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