All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Boyd Jarvis, Whose Synthesizer Fueled Dance Music, Dies at 59

rip Mr. Jarvis played a synthesizer alongside dance music DJs in New York in the early 1980s, building a sound that anticipated house music.

‘Trade wars are good,’ Trump says, defying global concern over tariffs

F##king idiot – trying to buy his way out of failure with another failure. Think of all the US auto industry being strangled by higher costs for steel and aluminium?!? And those costs being passed on to you when you try to buy a new car or truck. Job gains – forget it – just higher profits for owners with no new jobs! Another con job and no way but down for US. WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump struck a defiant tone on Friday, saying trade wars were good and easy to win, after his plan to put tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum triggered global criticism and a slide in stock markets.

topNews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA topNews?i=_x7-1hLwdV4:b9LUJO5t6Sg:V_sGLi topNews?i=_x7-1hLwdV4:b9LUJO5t6Sg:-BTjWO

Oil Was Central in Decision to Shrink Bears Ears Monument, Emails Show – The New York Times

The internal Interior Department emails and memos also show the central role that concerns over gaining access to coal reserves played in the decision by the Trump administration to shrink the size of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by about 47 percent, to just over 1 million acres.

Mr. Zinke’s staff developed a series of estimates on the value of coal that could potentially be mined from a section of Grand Staircase called the Kaiparowits plateau. As a result of Mr. Trump’s action, major parts of the area are no longer a part of the national monument.

“The Kaiparowits plateau, located within the monument, contains one of the largest coal deposits in the United States,” an Interior Department memo, issued in the spring of 2017, said. About 11.36 billion tons are “technologically recoverable,” it projected.

Suu Kyi sold her soul to devil: Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

Judge not lest you be judged?

Nobel Laureates Shirin Ebadi of Iran, left, Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland, second from left, and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, right, met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Gono Bhaban on Wednesday, February 28, 2018. Photo: BSS

By UNB, Dhaka
Mar 1 2018 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

Claiming that Aung San Suu Kyi has chosen to turn a blind eye to the genocide taking place in her country to retain her political power, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Iran’s Shirin Ebadi today said that their fellow laureate has sold her soul to the devil.

The laureate came up with this remark at a programme titled ‘Combating Violence Against Women and Advancing Women’s Rights’ arranged by Naripokkho and Nobel Women’s Initiatives in the city where she and another Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Northern Ireland’s Mairead Maguire talked to female reporters of the country.

“When Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest, Mairead and I staged several campaigns in order to secure her release, we even staged demonstration outside the Myanmar Embassy in Washingtong,” she said adding, “However, unfortunately, when she was released from the house arrest she sold her soul to the devil.”

Shirin said she, as a Muslim laureate, has written several open letters to Suu Kyi saying that her silence is shameful. “I urged her to take a stance breaking her silence, but Suu Kyi didn’t reply to any of them.”

Suu Kyi appears to have forgotten how she suffered when she was under house arrest. Now the Rohingya Muslims are suffering at least ten times more than any of her sufferings but she wants to hold on her political power, she added.

Urging for a peaceful solution,Mairead Maguire said dialogue and diplomacy are very important to solve the Rohingya crisis and the role played by Bangladesh is a model for the world.

She and the two other laureates will hopefully further detect the genocide of Rohingya people to the ICC and encourage the other countries to support Bangladesh for their inspirational works in the crisis, added the laureate.

She said it is also important to focus on the need of having dialogue and listening to each other to bring peace, while everybody, including the governments, has a role to play here.

Claiming that they have the evidence that the Rohingya issue is genocide, Mairead said their next course of programme is to identify interested states through the UN who can take the Myanmar government to the ICC. “We want to find states that have passion for human rights and justice,” she added.

However, the three Nobel laureates — Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, Shirin Ebadi of Iran and Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland — came to Bangladesh on a week-long visit to see the Rohingya situation on the ground.

The Nobel Women’s Initiative in collaboration with its partner in Bangladesh, Naripokkho, led the delegation to Bangladesh to better understand the situation of the Rohingya refugees and the two laureates except Tawakkol Karman joined the programme to share their experiences with some of the female journalists of the country.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Suu Kyi sold her soul to devil: Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Wallström: Russia “just wants to finish the job” in Syria

ugh

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Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallström (left). On Wednesday, smoke rises from areas targeted by Syrian army shelling in towns in the suburbs of Damascus.

Lyssna: Swedish foreign minister on why UN ceasefire in Syria is not working

Deadly violence has continued in Syria despite a UN ceasefire resolution, drafted by Sweden and Kuwait, that was adopted last weekend.

The resolution is meant to last for 30 days and allow humanitarian aid and medical evacuations in bombed out ares of the Syrian capital, but fighting continues.

“Why is it that Assad, the regime, Russia, and … also the Turkish troops have not stopped the bombings? I think that maybe one explanation is that they feel very secure and sure about a military victory, and they just want to sort of finish the job.”

Foreign Minister Margot Wallström told Radio Sweden on Thursday.

Wallström also said that the five-hour daily “humanitarian pauses” that Russia had declared in eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held area on the outskirts of Damascus, were flawed.

She said the time limit was too short and that the pause should cover the whole of Syria and not just parts of Damascus as well as put an emphasis on providing medical aid.

Radio Sweden asked her whether it’s still possible to have faith in diplomatic measures when the parties don’t comply, and what can be done to actually get the UN ceasefire resolution implemented.

Brett Ascarelli
brett.ascarelli@sverigesradio.se