Thursday, September 24, 2009
Ahmadinejad, Qaddafi, and Palin today
On the same day, two national leaders and one former vice-presidential candidate made odd public comments that beckon further dialogue.
In an interview with NPR's Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned the holocaust again. Ahmadinejad told Inskeep he isn't a historian who can claim what did or did not happen,
While I personally was not alive 60 years ago, I happen to be alive now, and I can see that genocide is happening now under the pretext of an event that happened 60 years ago. So the fundamental question I raise here is that, if this event happened, where did it happen? As a form of an objection question, who was it carried by? Why should the Palestinian people make up for it?
The full interview is here.
Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, again proposed to the United Nations General Assembly that Israel and the Palestinian territories be combined into one state called Isratine. I bet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas would love it.
And Sarah Palin addressed Asian bankers, investors and fund managers in Hong Kong.
As the governor of Alaska she said...she had a unique insight (into foreign affairs) because “you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska” — a remark that was widely lampooned. - The New York Times
Canadian Doug A. Coulter, the head of private equity in the Asia-Pacific region for LGT Capital Partners, says Palin has potential as a future presidential candidate. Let's hope that she travels a lot more, after giving her first speech abroad yesterday and making her first trip outside North America in 2007.
Sources:
Ahmadinejad: Holocaust 'Opinion Of Just A Few'
Qaddafi's First U.N. Speech Is a Rambling Diatribe
Palin Speaks to Investors in Hong Kong
In an interview with NPR's Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned the holocaust again. Ahmadinejad told Inskeep he isn't a historian who can claim what did or did not happen,
While I personally was not alive 60 years ago, I happen to be alive now, and I can see that genocide is happening now under the pretext of an event that happened 60 years ago. So the fundamental question I raise here is that, if this event happened, where did it happen? As a form of an objection question, who was it carried by? Why should the Palestinian people make up for it?
The full interview is here.
Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, again proposed to the United Nations General Assembly that Israel and the Palestinian territories be combined into one state called Isratine. I bet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas would love it.
And Sarah Palin addressed Asian bankers, investors and fund managers in Hong Kong.
As the governor of Alaska she said...she had a unique insight (into foreign affairs) because “you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska” — a remark that was widely lampooned. - The New York Times
Canadian Doug A. Coulter, the head of private equity in the Asia-Pacific region for LGT Capital Partners, says Palin has potential as a future presidential candidate. Let's hope that she travels a lot more, after giving her first speech abroad yesterday and making her first trip outside North America in 2007.
Sources:
Ahmadinejad: Holocaust 'Opinion Of Just A Few'
Qaddafi's First U.N. Speech Is a Rambling Diatribe
Palin Speaks to Investors in Hong Kong
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Middle East refugees flee, but France closes a camp
The Taliban and Al-Qaeda continue to disgrace civility in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The unbearable conditions push migrants to The Jungle.
Ad hoc international and ethnic boundaries have sprung up across the town of Calais. Afghans live in a desolate place known as "the Jungle", Iraqis have their own encampment not far away. East Africans live in a terrace of derelict buildings in the town centre.
The Jungle is a filthy, squalid camp with shacks made from old bits of wood, corrugated iron, plastic sheeting and blankets.
It is starting to look permanent though. This week the men there began work on building a lashed-together mosque.
Ethnic disputes break out frequently. One man was recently murdered here by someone from another tribe. His friends have built him a memorial made from old breeze blocks.
In March, the French and British governments started planning detention centers in Calais to stop illegal immigrants from settling and from crossing the English Channel to Britain. Officials wanted to detain traffickers too.
Today officials detained 278 immigrants who would have paid traffickers about $700 for a trip to Britain. The Jungle may be gritty, but locals host soup kitchens and help build tents for the immigrants. Where will they go?
Sources:
French Officials Move to Close Camp of Migrants Headed to Britain
Detention centre planned for illegal immigrants in Calais
Police detain 278 migrants in raid on Calais 'jungle'
Calais: Immigrants desperate to reach UK
Ad hoc international and ethnic boundaries have sprung up across the town of Calais. Afghans live in a desolate place known as "the Jungle", Iraqis have their own encampment not far away. East Africans live in a terrace of derelict buildings in the town centre.
The Jungle is a filthy, squalid camp with shacks made from old bits of wood, corrugated iron, plastic sheeting and blankets.
It is starting to look permanent though. This week the men there began work on building a lashed-together mosque.
Ethnic disputes break out frequently. One man was recently murdered here by someone from another tribe. His friends have built him a memorial made from old breeze blocks.
In March, the French and British governments started planning detention centers in Calais to stop illegal immigrants from settling and from crossing the English Channel to Britain. Officials wanted to detain traffickers too.
Today officials detained 278 immigrants who would have paid traffickers about $700 for a trip to Britain. The Jungle may be gritty, but locals host soup kitchens and help build tents for the immigrants. Where will they go?
Sources:
French Officials Move to Close Camp of Migrants Headed to Britain
Detention centre planned for illegal immigrants in Calais
Police detain 278 migrants in raid on Calais 'jungle'
Calais: Immigrants desperate to reach UK
Monday, September 21, 2009
Fighting the cartels from Eugene, Ore.
Mexican drug cartels don't stop in San Diego.
Oregon is fighting drug crimes with a $1.5 million federal grant, which will add two new investigators and a new analyst to work with local police and district attorneys in a multiagency Drug Crimes Strike Force.
I responded to an article about this issue in the Register Guard.
To the Editor:
The new $1.5 million federal grant to fight drug cartels in Oregon is a catalyst for stopping a crippling foe for addicts: access to methamphetamine. But the Department of Justice hasn’t explained its intentions for rehabilitating drug users. Investigating crimes is a step, but if cartels are the problem their deep bases won’t stop serious users.
The higher demand for meth could exhaust local police unless there is some attention to identifying and rehabilitating current users.
Courtney Hibbard, Eugene
Sources: Grant aimed at drug cartels
Oregon is fighting drug crimes with a $1.5 million federal grant, which will add two new investigators and a new analyst to work with local police and district attorneys in a multiagency Drug Crimes Strike Force.
I responded to an article about this issue in the Register Guard.
To the Editor:
The new $1.5 million federal grant to fight drug cartels in Oregon is a catalyst for stopping a crippling foe for addicts: access to methamphetamine. But the Department of Justice hasn’t explained its intentions for rehabilitating drug users. Investigating crimes is a step, but if cartels are the problem their deep bases won’t stop serious users.
The higher demand for meth could exhaust local police unless there is some attention to identifying and rehabilitating current users.
Courtney Hibbard, Eugene
Sources: Grant aimed at drug cartels
Friday, September 11, 2009
Mexico's drug war as tumultuous as ever
Mexico's former Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora resigned four days after gunmen shot to death 18 people at a drug treatment center. The assailants have suspected links to the drug cartels.
Medina Mora was criticized by political opponents who said the government's drug war strategy was failing. Mexico's War on Drugs spans well below and far above its borders. Around 90 percent of the cartels' firearms originate in the U.S., and many trafficked drugs are grown south in Latin America and travel through Mexico and into the U.S. Mexico is in the middle - drug gangs receive weapons and money from all directions. They use some to bribe police officers to look away. Almost 10,000 have been killed as result of the drug war since December 2006.
Medina Mora had a tough job, as do Mexicans on the drug cartels' path. Residents fear drug-related gang members could raid their town, like they did at Ciudad Juarez on Sep. 4. Some of the 45,000 deployed Mexican military troops and 5,000 police have also been blamed for harassing locals, with such cases as entering homes without cause and raping women.
The incoming attorney general, Arturo Chávez, is a former deputy interior minister and was Chihuahua's prosecutor from 1996 to 1998. Between these years, international human rights groups criticized Chávez for almost ignoring a string of killings and rapes of women in Ciudad Juarez, claiming that he "botched investigations" and arrested few suspects.
Sources:
Mexico's Attorney General is replaced
18 killed in Juarez clinic for addicts
Attorney General Leading War on Mexico Drug Cartels Resigns
Medina Mora was criticized by political opponents who said the government's drug war strategy was failing. Mexico's War on Drugs spans well below and far above its borders. Around 90 percent of the cartels' firearms originate in the U.S., and many trafficked drugs are grown south in Latin America and travel through Mexico and into the U.S. Mexico is in the middle - drug gangs receive weapons and money from all directions. They use some to bribe police officers to look away. Almost 10,000 have been killed as result of the drug war since December 2006.
Medina Mora had a tough job, as do Mexicans on the drug cartels' path. Residents fear drug-related gang members could raid their town, like they did at Ciudad Juarez on Sep. 4. Some of the 45,000 deployed Mexican military troops and 5,000 police have also been blamed for harassing locals, with such cases as entering homes without cause and raping women.
The incoming attorney general, Arturo Chávez, is a former deputy interior minister and was Chihuahua's prosecutor from 1996 to 1998. Between these years, international human rights groups criticized Chávez for almost ignoring a string of killings and rapes of women in Ciudad Juarez, claiming that he "botched investigations" and arrested few suspects.
Sources:
Mexico's Attorney General is replaced
18 killed in Juarez clinic for addicts
Attorney General Leading War on Mexico Drug Cartels Resigns
Saturday, September 05, 2009
More refugees to EU nations?
The European Commission wants refugees to enter European nations legally. That's only possible if the immigrant laws change.
The Commission, which executes policies for the European Union, created the "Joint EU Resettlement Programme" on September 2 to increase acceptance rates for refugees outside of the EU. Human rights groups are concerned about the refugees who enter the country via dangerous sea voyages or smugglers.
According to the BBC, EU states would decide annually "which refugee groups should be given priority for resettlement, and receive more money from a joint fund to give them a new home."
According to figures from UNHCR, only 6.7% of the 65,596 refugees who were resettled internationally last year were accepted by EU countries. Sweden receives the most refugees, around 1,900 annually. The Commission says developing countries were hosting 80% of the global refugee population in 2008.
Joint EU Settlement Programme FAQs.
Map of where global refugees settled in EU states in 2008.
Sources:
BBC
European Voice
UNHCR
The Commission, which executes policies for the European Union, created the "Joint EU Resettlement Programme" on September 2 to increase acceptance rates for refugees outside of the EU. Human rights groups are concerned about the refugees who enter the country via dangerous sea voyages or smugglers.
According to the BBC, EU states would decide annually "which refugee groups should be given priority for resettlement, and receive more money from a joint fund to give them a new home."
According to figures from UNHCR, only 6.7% of the 65,596 refugees who were resettled internationally last year were accepted by EU countries. Sweden receives the most refugees, around 1,900 annually. The Commission says developing countries were hosting 80% of the global refugee population in 2008.
Joint EU Settlement Programme FAQs.
Map of where global refugees settled in EU states in 2008.
Sources:
BBC
European Voice
UNHCR
Thursday, September 03, 2009
When the wrongfully convicted sleep forever
Does the death penalty serve a victim justice when a judge declares the defendant guilty?
Occasionally, ex post facto evidence proves the dead innocent. The most recent case in the United States was Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for killing his two daughters when their house burned down in 1991.
Since the death penalty was re-established in U.S. in 1973, 124 people on death row have been released after being found innocent. Maybe the plight of some of the 3,297 prisoners on death row in the U.S. (20,000 globally) are wrong too.
ReligiousTolerance.org created maps of the United States and the world showing the local and national governments that have abolished the death penalty:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/executh.htm
Human rights laws ban killing the innocent, but many governments won't admit that the justice system has its flaws.
Sources:
http://www.amnesty.org/
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39678
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/opinion/01herbert.html?_r=1
Occasionally, ex post facto evidence proves the dead innocent. The most recent case in the United States was Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for killing his two daughters when their house burned down in 1991.
Since the death penalty was re-established in U.S. in 1973, 124 people on death row have been released after being found innocent. Maybe the plight of some of the 3,297 prisoners on death row in the U.S. (20,000 globally) are wrong too.
ReligiousTolerance.org created maps of the United States and the world showing the local and national governments that have abolished the death penalty:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/executh.htm
Human rights laws ban killing the innocent, but many governments won't admit that the justice system has its flaws.
Sources:
http://www.amnesty.org/
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39678
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/opinion/01herbert.html?_r=1
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