All posts by nedhamson

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

Disappearances in Sri Lanka & Role of Civil Society | Groundviews

I remember that on this day, exactly two years ago, I was in detention at the Terrorism Investigation Division with another friend, Fr. Praveen. The nearest trigger for our arrest appeared to have been our efforts to look into the arrest of a mother of a disappeared child, Balendran Jeyakumary (who was also a vocal campaigner seeking truth and justice for disappearances) and other Tamils in the North. More than a year after “good governance”, Jeyakumary. Fr. Praveen and me are still being investigated under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Ironically, at the same time, I have been invited for various meetings of the government and to be part of an Expert Advisory Committee related to Transitional Justice (which I didn’t accept due to various other reasons), despite still being a “terrorist suspect” and having a court order restricting my freedom of expression. Although Jeyakumary was conditionally released two months after President Sirisena took office, she was re-arrested last year under “good governance”. She also faces serious social isolation due to this and struggles to find livelihood and has been compelled to keep her young daughter in a hostel. There has been no news about her disappeared son, who she claims has appeared in a photo taken at a government rehabilitation facility. We are also no closer to the truth or justice in relation to the disappearance of Lalith and Kugan, two campaigners against disappearances, who disappeared in Jaffna in December 2011. Families of disappeared and activists don’t face the kind of attacks, threats, intimidations, discrediting etc. that we experienced under the Rajapakse regime. But monitoring of families of disappeared persons and activists in the North and East continues. And there is total impunity for the reprisals we faced in the past.

Source: Disappearances in Sri Lanka & Role of Civil Society | Groundviews

Puerto Rico Braces for Its Own Zika Epidemic – The New York Times

A quarter of the island’s 3.5 million people will probably get the Zika virus within a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and eventually 80 percent or more may be infected. “I’m very concerned,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director, said in an interview after a recent three-day visit to Puerto Rico. “There could be thousands of infections of pregnant women this year.” The epidemic is unfolding in one of the country’s most popular vacation destinations, where planes and cruise ships disembark thousands of tourists daily. Anyone could carry the virus back home, seeding a mosquito-borne outbreak or transmitting it sexually. Health officials here have begun intensive efforts to stop the virus, which has been linked to abnormally small heads and brain damage in babies born to infected mothers, and to paralysis in adults.

Source: Puerto Rico Braces for Its Own Zika Epidemic – The New York Times

Saturday Open Thread | USPS has now restored direct mail to Cuba | 3CHICSPOLITICO

on March 20, President Obama will set foot on the island country that’s only 90 miles off the coast of Florida. The visit is a historic milestone after more than a year of progress from the day in December of 2014 when the President first announced he was abandoning a failed, Cold War-era approach to Cuba in favor of a new course to normalize relations. Since then, we’ve restored non-stop flights between our two countries. We’ve helped facilitate more people-to-people interaction and commercial enterprise. We’ve allowed U.S. dollars to be used in more financial transactions with Cuba. And today, we’re restoring direct mail for the first time in 50 years. The first flight carrying that first batch of U.S. direct mail to Cuba took off yesterday — a development that may please Ileana Yarza, a 76-year-old letter writer in Cuba who has been waiting for the President to visit for years. “I think there are not many Cubans so eager as I to meet you in person,” she wrote on February 18. “Not as an important American personality, but as a charming president whose open smile wins hearts.”

Source: Saturday Open Thread | USPS has now restored direct mail to Cuba | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Avian Flu Diary: Germany’s RKI Statement On Lassa Fever Cluster In Cologne – Oops!

The Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health provides only spotty updates on the outbreak, but two days ago CNN reported in Lassa fever death rates in Nigeria higher than expected): NCDC’s latest report, dated 14 March 2016, the total number of reported cases is 254 (129 of which confirmed by lab tests) and the total number of deaths (suspected, probable and confirmed) is 137, with a Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 53.9%. Remarkable because last year (2015),  Nigeria reported 250 cases (likely a substantial under count) and only 8 deaths. Normally, 80% who are infected only experience mild symptoms, and the overall mortality rate is believed to be in the 1% to 2% range (although it runs higher (15%-20%) among those sick enough to be hospitalized). The Lassa virus is commonly carried by multimammate rats, a local rodent that often likes to enter human dwellings. Exposure is typically through the urine or dried feces of infected rodents, although human-to-human transmission is possible. Over the years we’ve seen a number of imported cases of Lassa fever to Europe, and into the United States (see here and here). Despite the potential for H-2-H transmission, we’ve never seen a cluster of cases outside of Africa. Until now.  About 10 days ago the medical director of a missionary hospital in Togo, who had been transferred to a hospital in Cologne, Germany, died of Lassa fever.  Yesterday German authorities announced that three contacts of his – including the mortician who prepared his body – have been diagnosed with Lassa.

Source: Avian Flu Diary: Germany’s RKI Statement On Lassa Fever Cluster In Cologne

Our Prime Minister interview with DW …another slap

نادية حرحش

The Palestinian prime minister was interviewed by DW German TV channel last week, in what appeared yet another time a flashing light in the continuous scandals in the Palestinian decision making governmental PA level.

I don’t know what is the recipe for such failures.

I am wiring this and I am really not proud. It is good to criticize, to be self critical to one self and his government, but when you see this in international media, there is really not much left to criticize. It becomes an embarrassment.

Each time a Palestinian believe-to-be-a BIG man appears on international interviews it backfires big time. I don’t know what do they think or expect. In written interviews I understand that some of them expect that we the absentee population doesn’t reach, believing that we still live in the controlled media era. But with TV interviews chances are that we see. The…

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Letter from Gustavo Castro to the Honduran People

dorset chiapas solidarity

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Letter from Gustavo Castro to the Honduran People

gus carta

Tegucigalpa, Honduras – March 15, 2016

TO THE PEOPLE OF HONDURAS

I don’t know if these words will reach you one day.

I came to Honduras with hope and anticipation. It had been many years since I visited, but I am thankful to Berta for inviting me. She and her family have been deepest friends for so many years. In spite of all I have gone through, I do not regret coming, nor being chosen by fate to be able to say goodbye to my dear friend.

My wounds hurt greatly even as they heal into scars, but what hurts me more is the pain of the beloved Honduran people who do not deserve this fate; none of us deserve it. We have always admired this noble people so full of courage, who struggle so that all may have a life…

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Chile lawmakers move towards authorizing abortion in limited cases | News | DW.COM | 18.03.2016

Abortion had been legal in Chile before 1989 in cases of risk to the mother or an unviable fetus before the practice became outlawed. Ever since, Chile has remained one of the few countries in the world not to allow abortion under any circumstances – a measure introduced by ex-dictator General Augusto Pinochet shortly before his departure from power in 1990. The prohibition remained unchanged for more than twenty-five years because of pressure from the Roman Catholic Church and other conservative groups. A touchy subject on many levels An estimated 160,000 clandestine abortions are nevertheless carried out each year in Chile – sometimes under risky circumstances. Polls indicate that 70 percent of Chileans say they support the new bill. Illegal abortions remained accessible mainly to wealthy Chileans only; making the issue both a moral question and an economic one.

Source: Chile lawmakers move towards authorizing abortion in limited cases | News | DW.COM | 18.03.2016

Brazil court clears Lula to take up cabinet post amid anti-government protests | News | DW.COM | 18.03.2016 Big Business – Global Capital trying to buy back Brazil for the rich only!

Protests across Brazil On Friday, Rousseff called for her supporters to hold mass rallies in more than 30 cities. The largest rallies in support of the government were expected in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, called by Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, the major CUT union and other groups. Hours before the pro-Rousseff demonstrations were due to begin on Friday, riot police used water cannons to break up anti-government demonstrations in Brazil’s largest city, Sao Paulo. Similar measures were enforced on Thursday evening as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to hold back protesters demanding Rousseff’s resignation.

Source: Brazil court clears Lula to take up cabinet post amid anti-government protests | News | DW.COM | 18.03.2016

David Morris: A Long (and Still Unfinished) Road to Democracy – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

In 1963, only 156 of 15,000 eligible black voters in Selma, Alabama, were registered to vote. Between 1963 and 1965 the federal government filed four lawsuits but the number of black registered voters only increased from 156 to 383 during that time. In 1964 the 24th Amendment prohibited poll taxes in federal elections. At the time, five Southern states still imposed that election requirement. One might accurately say that only in 1965, a century after the Civil War ended did blacks effectively gain the right to vote. The Voting Rights Act sent federal examiners to seven Southern states to help register black voters and required states with a history of voter discrimination to gain pre-approval from the federal government before changing any voting requirements.

Source: David Morris: A Long (and Still Unfinished) Road to Democracy – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics