23 April 2018 – TRANSCEND Media Service — The United States government has once again shamelessly violated international law. There was no legal or moral justification for launching more than a 100 missile strikes against so-called chemical weapons’ sites in Syria on the 14th of April 2018.
Chandra Muzaffar
Unlike the last strike targeting a single airfield in April 2017 which was also in retaliation for President Bashar Assad’s alleged use of sarin gas against civilians, the US was joined in its assault this time by its allies, Britain and France.
The three Western powers claimed that they had strong evidence that the Assad government had again employed chemical weapons in Douma on the 7th of April, killing scores of civilians, including children.
23 April, 2018 – TRANSCEND Media Service — There is an old saying: “You judge your Ego by your intentions and Others’ by facts.” In a conflict Ego vs Other, judgement is by the best intentions and the worst facts. “Islamophobia” sounds like that, as does Christiano-phobia. A supporting Saying, “By the Fruits you shall know the Tree”.
Johan Galtung
Christianity may be judged for Inquisition and witch-hunt processes. And Christians may respond, yes, this happened in Christian countries.
But there are deeper truths in Christianity, such as Jesus’ Samaritan work and solidarity with those who suffer and Mary’s intercession to save us from purgatory and damnation in hell, for salvation in heaven.
Much islamophobia is rooted in images of one or more of the 57 Muslim countries, judging them by (Western-individualist) Human Rights and sometimes by more universal People’s Rights–like the plight of the Kurds in Turkey and Syria-Iraq-Iran.
Since the start of the so-called “War on Terror” the USA has carried out hundreds of lethal drone strikes in at least seven countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Syria).
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, US drone strikes have killed up to 1,551 civilians since 2004 in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Amnesty International and others have exposed how some drone strikes have violated international law, and may amount to extrajudicial executions or war crimes.
In Italy, discourses around labour subcontracting in the agricultural sector serve an important purpose: obscuring the root causes of labour exploitation.
23 April 2018 (openDemocracy)* — Over the last few years, issues of labour subcontracting and forced labour in the Italian agricultural sector have gained significant traction, especially after the shocking deaths of agrarian workers were brought to light in 2015.
19 April, 2018 (UN Women)* — Purity Soinato Oiyie is a Maasai girl from Kenya who escaped Female Genital Mutilation and child marriage. She spoke at the opening session of the 62nd UN Commission on the Status of Women, the UN’s largest gathering on gender equality and women’s rights. In her own words, she shares her story and her dream to start a school for girls in her community.
Purity Soinato Oiyie. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown
“I was only 10 or 11 years old, when my father decided to circumcise me. I was to become the fifth wife to a 70-year-old man. I talked to my class teacher and she informed the police chief. Just two hours before the cutting ceremony, the police came and took me away.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 