All posts by nedhamson

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

23 young Jews arrested in anti-occupation protests across U.S. | +972 Magazine

Hundreds hold ‘Liberation Seders’ outside (and inside) major Jewish American institutions in five major cities, demanding that the Jewish community take a stand against Israel’s occupation. ‘The history of Jewish oppression is not an excuse…

Source: 23 young Jews arrested in anti-occupation protests across U.S. | +972 Magazine

German populists want France excluded from eurozone – The Local

Arian only Euro-Zone – Ja – Not!

Germany’s right-wing populist AfD believes that France and southern European countries should be excluded from Europe’s common currency, the party’s top officials said, AFP reported.

“We can have a common currency with the Netherlands, Austria, Finland or Baltic states. They have similar cultures of stability like ours,” Jörg Meuthen, the party’s co-leader, told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in remarks to be published in Monday’s edition.

“But the French have a different one, not to mention the Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and Greeks. They don’t want austerity at all,” said the co-leader of Alternative for Germany, which was formed three years ago as an anti-euro party but is now running mainly on an anti-immigrant platform.

Source: German populists want France excluded from eurozone – The Local

المتاهة والانجراف الفلسطيني شعبا وحكومة الى واقع سحيق  

نادية حرحش

 

تجول برأسي مشاهد ذلك البرنامج التلفزيوني الياباني ربما، الذي كان يدخل المتسابقون فيه بأعداد كبيرة نحو مراحل كثيرة من ضمنها متاهات وتسلق وغوص وقفز ومكائد ومصائد، حتى يصل البعض الى خط النهاية .

حالنا يشبه مرحلة ما من تلك المسابقة، حيث يدخل المتسابقون في متاهة ومن يستطيع الخروج منها لا يلبث يفرح حتى يجد نفسه واقع في حفرة طينية ،يظنها من فرط الصدمة عميقة ستلتهمه .

حال الشعب يشبه حال المتسابقين المهرولين للمرحلة القادمة. مرحلة مبهمة عبثية فوضوية. الكل دخلها مع هدف واضح ومحدد ، ليجد نفسه في متاهة لا يعرف لما دخل ولما هو هناك اصلا وماذا يفعل .

متاهتنا التي تشمل الكثير من الامور العالقة والسابحة والخانقة، الممتلئة بالحفر ،قبل الوصول الى الحفر الطينية ان وصلناها ، من غياب الحكم الرشيد اولا ، الى ازمة الضمان الاجتماعي اخيرا….

بين غياب حكم رشيد وبين تيهنا بأزمات تلو الازمات لاجتذاذ بعض الحقوق او الحصول على بعض الماكسب تقع مشكلتنا…

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Palestinians create seed bank to save their farming heritage in the Holy Land’s hills | World news | The Guardian

In the rocky hills of the Palestinian West Bank, farmers learned long ago how to adapt to extremes of climate that make spring the shortest season. In a part of the world where agriculture was first practised, they found crops that could survive even if watered only by the occasional rain storm. But a form of farming that informed both Palestinian culture and identity – seeping into the language, songs and sayings – has increasingly come under threat from a combination of factors, including manmade climate change, the incursion onto Palestinian land by Israeli settlement, and agricultural companies’ marketing of hybrid varieties to farmers. Now, however, an initiative is being launched to save Palestine’s agricultural plant heritage, with the first seed bank dedicated to preserving traditional varieties used by farmers for generations – before they vanish for ever. The Palestine Heirloom Seed Library – to be formally launched in June – is part of an effort both to educate Palestinians about traditional forms of agriculture in the Holy Land, which are in danger of being forgotten, and about the culture associated with them. The seed library will preserve “heirloom” varieties particularly adapted to the West Bank. Supported by the Qattan Foundation, the project is the brainchild of Vivien Sansour, who studied and worked abroad before returning to the West Bank city of Beit Jala.

Source: Palestinians create seed bank to save their farming heritage in the Holy Land’s hills | World news | The Guardian

Turkey’s ‘Campus Witches’ take on sexual harassers – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

In a newspaper interview, Campus Witches co-founder Meral Cinar painted a gloomy picture even for young urban women, describing how the group formed in 2013. “I was one of five female students in an engineering class with 80 males. The professors would address the males as they lectured. Then, there would be off-color jokes and obscenities,” she said. Cinar added, “We were facing harassment in the dorms as well. The security guards would draw up rankings or top 10 lists of the prettiest girls according to room number. At Ege University [in Izmir], the lane to the subway station was unlit, and all the women passing through there would be harassed. Mersin University has the same problem. Two female students were murdered [in unlit areas]. All those reasons led us to take action to try to create an atmosphere where women can express themselves freely on campus.”

Source: Turkey’s ‘Campus Witches’ take on sexual harassers – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

Brazil: Democracy at Risk

“There is no judicial basis for this process of impeachment,” Rousseff said. “I am not accused of crimes of corruption, diversion of public funds, nor do I have accounts abroad or any accusations of money laundering.” She said even some members of the opposition are beginning to support her, not necessarily because they agree with her policies, but rather because they see the impeachment push as a threat to Brazil’s democracy.

Source: News from The Associated Press

The Best Oscar Picture ever Taken

boffo

matteringsofmind

Social media, the press and the whole damn internet is awash with pictures on the subject of the Oscars.  They are mostly, always the same picture, only reinhabited by different players from last year, and the years before that.  There are the official ones: Recipients holding the Oscar statues like golf trophies, then there are the candid chating amongst themselves images that are like shooting fish in a barrel type photography.  Point a camera at a Hollywood party, you can’t miss.  But  every now and then there is a considered, imaginative, intimate portrait of an Oscar Winner.  There are not many taken like this in the few days of the Oscars,  probably it’s a matter of access.  Security is so tight that almost no one can speak to anyone without a special pass.

When I think about the Oscars, my mind oftens turns to a picture taken in 1971 of…

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China’s Collapse. Any Day Now? | DQ-en Not Really

I have described how recent events in China’s economic trajectory have set off alarm bells for many observers. I have also described how these same incidents, set against a slightly more textured background, are actually nuanced in their implications.China is not imminently in meltdown.None of this is to say China’s economy will continue growing at double digit rates forever. Nor does it argue China’s policy-makers have consistently done the right things. But neither are those policy-makers obviously guilty of incompetence or excessive interventionism.Steep challenges lie ahead. China’s pile of debt is a tricky mix of privatized, local governmental, and national obligations, and there remains considerable uncertainty how this debt hangover will work out. China’s industrial restructuring, its anti-corruption campaign, its transition past the Lewis Turning Point and out of the middle-income trap, and its environmental and demographic challenges all remain daunting. These challenges are substantive and long term, and China’s policy-makers will have to deal with them in a properly measured and considered way.2015.11.03-Marry-Me-for-Chinese-Citizenship-Beyond-ChinatownPerhaps one day China too will be a beacon that attracts humanity to it, the same way the US has done so successfully the last two centuries. That day, however, is clearly not yet here.But China’s exchange rate and stock market gyrations? They have likely already attracted far too much attention relative to substance.

Source: China’s Collapse. Any Day Now | DQ-en

Japanese MPs visit Tokyo war shrine, China and South Korea displeased

Japanese members of parliament visited a Tokyo war shrine Friday. The ritual will no doubt anger China and South Korea, with memories of Japan’s military record still very raw.

(and the relative of hundreds of thousands of people in South East Asia, US, Australia, New Zealand… of service people who died at the hands of Japanese lead by a government bent on enslaving peoples for their fascist government’s advantage.)

Source: Japanese MPs visit Tokyo war shrine, China and South Korea displeased

» Safe Home

No home is safe for me. Always I am in danger.

Where is my safe home?
I am not safe anywhere.
My father abuses me,
My brother scorns me,
My husband disrespects me,
For the crime of being female!

My penalty is to be hated,
Hated simply for being female,
Hated for being a daughter,
Hated for being a sister,
Hated for being a wife.

No home is safe for me.
Always I am in danger.
I want a safe home,
But that home will come
Only after my death.

That home will be my grave.
I will live without fear,
I will sleep soundly,
I will go into darkness,
Safe at last.

By Nasrin

Source: » Safe Home