Mois : mai 2014

(UPDATE May 12, 2014: Rebels declare victory in east Ukraine poll, on english Al Jazeera, May 11, 2014: Pro-Russia separatists announce 89 percent of voters in Donetsk favoured self-rule, in referendum rejected by Kiev).

Egypt’s upcoming presidential polls will be heavily supervised by local judges and foreign monitors – Published on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Gamal Essam El-Din, May 8, 2014.

Seventy nine domestic civil society groups and five foreign organisations — the European Union (EU), the Arab League, the Carter Center, Transparency International and the US-based Democracy International (DI) — have been licensed to observe the presidential polls, says Abdel-Aziz Salman, spokesman for the Presidential Election Commission (PEC).   Continuer la lecture de « Egypt: Legitimising the poll »

Published on Axis of Logic, by Willima Blum, The Anti-Empire Report #128/williamblum.org, May 10, 2014.

So, what do we have here? In Libya, in Syria, and elsewhere the United States has been on the same side as the al-Qaeda types. But not in Ukraine. That’s the good news. The bad news is that in Ukraine the United States is on the same side as the neo-Nazi types, who – taking time off from parading around with their swastika-like symbols and calling for the death of Jews, Russians and Communists – on May 2 burned down a trade-union building in Odessa, killing scores of people and sending hundreds to hospital; many of the victims were beaten or shot when they tried to flee the flames and smoke; ambulances were blocked from reaching the wounded. Try and find an American mainstream media entity that has made a serious attempt to capture the horror[1] … // Continuer la lecture de « Russia: The Russians are coming … again … and they’re still ten feet tall »

Interview with Kavita Krishnan, published on LINKS.org.au, by Mila Gisbert, May 8, 2014.

… It is now over a year since the Delhi case ignited people’s anger and led them to protest. What do you consider has been the main achievement of that movement?

• I would say the main achievement has been actually a shift in the way that rape is talked about. To me, the most significant thing about the protest was that there were slogans being raised against victim blaming, rape culture, and this was happening for the very first time, and to introduce the idea that the women should not be subjected to restrictions in the name of “chastity”. This was something new that was happening in India for the first time with this case.
• But I think that the changes we want to see are clearly yet to happen and not all of the changes were positive.       Continuer la lecture de « India: Modi's BJP a 'grave danger' to women and minorities »

Published on truthout, by Mike Ludwig, May 7, 2014.

A woman in New York City left a nightclub in late 2010 to meet some friends for tacos. While she was walking to the restaurant in the Queens neighborhood of Jackson Heights, a man pulled up beside her in a dark-colored car and began talking to her. As the woman inched closer to hear what the man was saying, two undercover police officers jumped out of a van and arrested her for engaging in prostitution. She was thrown into a van with a dozen other women and taken to the115th Precinct in Jackson Heights to be fingerprinted before being transferred to Central Booking. There, she was then jailed in the men’s unit, where she endured painful verbal harassment from some of the cops and men in custody, according to the community organizing group Make the Road New York, which identified the woman by the pseudonym « Natasha. » Continuer la lecture de « 'Walking While Woman' and the Fight to Stop Violent Policing of Gender Identity – Report »

Published on Dissident Voice, by Peter Breschard, May 7, 2014.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Unalienable Rights. Self-evident Rights. You might say the modern definition of Human Rights springs directly from that unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. You probably wouldn’t be given much of an argument.   Continuer la lecture de « The Affordable Care Act: The Human Rights Violation for Liberals »