ROME, Jul 17 2017 (IPS) – Every single day, print and online media and TV broadcasters show images and footage of migrants and refugees adrift, salvage teams rescuing their corpses–alive or dead, from fragile boats that are often deliberately sunk by human traffickers near the coasts of a given country. Their dramas are counted –and told– quasi exclusively in cold figures.
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Every now and then a reporter talks to a couple of them or interviews some of the tens of humanitarian organisations and groups, mostly to get information about their life conditions in the numerous so called “reception centres” that are often considered rather as “detention centres” installed on both shores of the Mediterranean sea. Continue reading →
9 July 2017 (RT)* — There is a certain irony to the crisis that ails the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), now that Qatar has been labelled a pariah by Saudi Arabia. Terror aside, this stand-off has potential to reshape the region into a completely new geopolitical entity.
How fast yesterday’s allies become today’s enemies, and those we long held as foes sit together as reliable partners in a time of crisis. I don’t think that many political analysts can claim to have predicted Saudi Arabia’s fall from grace. Yet the writing was on the wall for all to see. Crude, pragmatic and as inevitable as man’s greed before the alluring calls of power.
13 July 2017 – openDemocracy* — Academic Sara Farris talks about the ‘instrumentalisation’ of migrant women in Europe by right-wing nationalists – and neoliberals.
In it, she examines how right-wing nationalists, neoliberals, and some feminists and women’s equality agencies, all invoke women’s rights to stigmatise Muslim men and advance their own political objectives.
She argues that there is an important political-economic dimension to this seemingly paradoxical intersection.
It’s a timely – but complex – book including case studies from France, Italy and the Netherlands.
I called Farris, who is currently senior lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, to dig further into some of the questions that her book raises.
11 July, 2017 (Greenpeace) — It took two years of relentless campaigning and nearly 700,000 concerned people from around the world, but today we are sharing the good news that together we convinced the world’s largest tuna company to clean up its act!
Greenpeace volunteers label John West tuna cans with “THIS IS NOT JUST TUNA” in a Tesco store to raise awareness of the #JustTuna campaign.
Tuna giant Thai Union, which owns brands such as John West, Chicken of the Sea, Petit Navire, Mareblu, and Sealect, has committed to a series of changes to its business that will help to protect seafood workers, reduce destructive fishing practices, and increase support for more sustainable fishing. Continue reading →
LONDON, Jul 17 2017 (IPS) – Online shopping may have its pros and cons, but when it comes to buying products that have an invisible morality tag, it’s the safest possible option, believes Franklin Paul.
Digitizing SRHR communication: some of the popular mobile phone apps currently used in India by the government and an NGO. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS
One of India’s most vocal advocates for youth rights to sexual health, education and products, Paul has spent over two years studying and introducing digital technologies to India’s rural youths.
THE WHOLE thing could have been a huge practical joke, if it had not been real.
Uri Avnery
All of Israel was taken in. Left, right and center. All the newspapers and TV networks, without exception.
There it was: UNESCO has declared that the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron is a Palestinian heritage site.
I ADMIT that I was taken in, too. The news was so clear and so simple, its acceptance so uniform, that I too accepted it unthinkingly. True, it was a bit strange, but stranger things happen.
The “Cave of Machpelah” is no cave at all. It is a large building, which the Arabs call al-Haram al-Ibrahim, the Mosque of Ibrahim, in the center of Hebron, the town the Arabs call al-Khalil, the Friend of God (meaning Abraham). Continue reading →
John Scales Avery, author of this book: We Need Their Voices Today! has generously granted Human Wrongs Watch permission to publish it in a series of chapters. This is Chapter 9: Percy Bysshe Shelley. The others will follow successively.
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Figure 9.1: Percy Bysshe Shelley in a portrait by Alfred Clint (Wikipedia).
A pioneer of non-violent resistance to tyranny
Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Shelley is today considered to be one of the major English-language poets.
Less well known is the fact that he was a pioneer of non-violent resistance to tyranny, whose ideas influenced Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was the eldest legitimate son of Sir Timothy Shelley, Baronet and Whig Member of Parliament. His mother was a wealthy Sussex landowner.
John Scales Avery, author of this book: We Need Their Voices Today! has generously granted Human Wrongs Watch permission to publish it in a series of chapters. This is Chapter 8: Thomas Robert Malthus. The others will follow successively.
Figure 8.1: Thomas Robert Malthus (Wikipedia)!.
A debate between father and son
T.R. Malthus’ “Essay on The Principle of Population”, the first edition of which was published in 1798, was one of the the first systematic studies of the problem of population in relation to resources.
Earlier discussions of the problem had been published by Boterro in Italy, Robert Wallace in England, and Benjamin Franklin in America.
However Malthus’ “Essay” was the first to stress the fact that, in general, powerful checks operate continuously to keep human populations from increasing beyond their available food supply. Continue reading →
14 July 2017 – The third consecutive failed rainy season in East Africa has seriously eroded families’ resilience, and urgent and effective livelihood support is required, the United Nations agricultural agency has warned.
Herders collect water with camels at one of the few remaining water points in drought-affected Bandarero village, Moyale County, Kenya. Photo: Rita Maingi/ OCHA
According to an alert released on 14 July by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), poor rains have worsened hunger and left crops scorched, pastures dry and thousands of livestock dead.
The senior author bought an apartment in a nice housing complex in the little town of Manassas, Prince William County, half an hour from the center of Washington DC.
There was a little center with an office and a small staff always there, and a meeting room that could be let was also used for the annual general assembly of house-owners.
And most importantly, a competent service man who could handle all big and small problems that arise in an apartment on permanent call.
The complex was for all practical purposes a cooperative.
Malvin Gattinger
There was a monthly fee, of course. But the usual criterion, Q/P, Quality/Price, here Services/Fee, was more than well satisfied.
Enters “modern” business, exactly under that heading, as if “modern” can exonerate business from anything.
