Category Archives: Global Politics

Names of the Victims in Gaza – Continuously Updated | Hummus For Thought

Nour al-Najdi 2004-2014

Relatives and friends carry the body of Nour al-Najdi, 10-years-old, during her funeral in Rafah after being killed by an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 11, 2014. (Photo: AFP – Said Khatib – retrieved from Al Akhbar)

They will try their best to dehumanize the civilians slaughtered by the terrorist government of Israel, but the Internet allows us to, at least, know their names. Here are the names of the first 100 Gazans murdered by the Occupying force in the past 4 days. The list will be updated daily. I’m dedicating the blog’s Facebook page to reporting on Gaza. I apologize for the disproportionate attention given to Palestine, but international pressure is the only way to stop Israel’s government from continuing the ongoing massacre (despite Netanyahu pretending otherwise.) I’m still sharing Middle East-related links of course, not just on Palestine.

via Names of the Victims in Gaza – Continuously Updated | Hummus For Thought.

Bombs over Gaza – about Israeli politics – not security, revenge, peace, or… Liberman positions himself as Mr. Security – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

“The approach of ‘quiet will be met with quiet’ is very seriously mistaken, and I can say on my behalf and on behalf of the members of Yisrael Beitenu that we completely reject such an approach,” said Liberman in an obvious effort to paint Netanyahu as a weak leader who is afraid of a confrontation with Hamas. “It is unacceptable that after three of our children were kidnapped and murdered and after two consecutive weeks of rockets falling, Israel’s approach would be that quiet will be met with quiet. … We in Yisrael Beitenu oppose to the cease-fire. There are no arrangements to be made with Hamas.” His stern remarks were more reminiscent of an attack from the opposition than the comments of the country’s foreign minister during a military escalation. These remarks more or less coincided with comments made by Minister Yair Shamir during an interview with Al-Monitor.

via Liberman positions himself as Mr. Security – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

Religious groups want right to hate, fear, and discriminate against gay people and friends of gay people! Faith Groups Seek Exclusion From Bias Rule – NYTimes.com

Some religious folks (not) believe they have a right to hate who they want to hate! What’s next a claim of a right to discriminate according to race, religion, ethnicity, sex, national origin because of your corporate, family, or individually professed “religious” belief! Turn off the lights of democracy USA – we are done!

After a setback in the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby case, President Obama is facing mounting pressure from religious groups demanding to be excluded from his long-promised executive order that would bar discrimination against gay men and lesbians by companies that do government work.

The president has yet to sign the executive order, but last week a group of major faith organizations, including some of Mr. Obama’s allies, said he should consider adding an exemption for groups whose religious beliefs oppose homosexuality. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, the court ruled that family-run corporations with religious objections could be exempted from providing employees with insurance coverage for contraception.

via Faith Groups Seek Exclusion From Bias Rule – NYTimes.com.

Same Interest as Facebook – Manipulate Your Thoughts and Actions for Profit and maybe a Little Good! Participant Index Seeks to Determine Why One Film Spurs Activism, While Others Falter – NYTimes.com

Participant, created in 2004 by the eBay co-founder Jeffrey S. Skoll, is using that methodology to build a proprietary database. It will feature three echelons with 35 projects each, or about 100 distinct bits of media, annually.

The company will lean heavily toward films and television shows of its own, especially those carried on its activism-driven online and pay-television network, Pivot. But it will also index properties for partners, like the Gates and Kaiser Family foundations, and for companies or others who will pay a fee.

Participant was created in 2004 by the eBay co-founder Jeffrey S. Skoll, left, pictured here with James G. Berk, chief executive. Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times

(Prices have not been set, Mr. Berk said, but he expects to serve nonprofits at cost. He declined to say how much Participant has invested in the index.)

In an inaugural general survey, which polled 1,055 of its viewers in March and April of this year, Chad Boettcher, Participant’s executive vice president for social action, and Caty Borum Chattoo, a researcher and communications professor at American University, found some perhaps surprising results.

Even among the presumably progressive Participant audience, crime ranked near the top of the list of 40 primary concerns. It was cited by 73 percent of respondents as an important social issue, placing it just behind human rights, health care and education.

Gay rights, female empowerment and prison sentencing reform, by contrast, ranked near the bottom of the list, while climate change was stuck in the middle, a concern among 59 percent of respondents. Digital intellectual property issues, at 38 percent, brought up the rear.

Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story

Stories about animal rights and food production, it turned out, were the most likely to provoke individual action. But tales about economic inequality — not so much.

Over all, said Marc Karzen, a social media entrepreneur whose company, RelishMix, advises film and television marketers, Participant will most likely affirm what is becoming clear to conventional film studios: Impact can be less about persuasion than nudging an audience to go where it is already pointed.

“You have to embrace your fans, not shout at them,” Mr. Karzen said. “They need to be inspired to spread the word.”

One of the weirdest problems in measuring social impact, and one still unresolved, Mr. Boettcher said, is the paradox of “The Cove.”

That documentary, which looks closely at dolphin killing in Japan, had worldwide ticket sales of just $1.2 million after its release in 2009. Yet it has repeatedly led to campaigns to protect the Japanese dolphins, Mr. Boettcher notes, particularly among activists who are aware of the film but will not watch (and hence, would not be counted under the current methodology of the index) because of its gory content.

“They don’t want to see it,” Mr. Boettcher said, “but they will sign up.”

via Participant Index Seeks to Determine Why One Film Spurs Activism, While Others Falter – NYTimes.com.

 

Is it a documentary or propaganda – the folks who want to profit from your feelings don’t care – they just care about the money!

Four Freedoms – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.”—Franklin D. Roosevelt, excerpted from the State of the Union Address to the Congress, January 6, 1941

via Four Freedoms – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

ISIS chief orders Muslims to ‘obey’ him: video | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR

{Self-delusion is very comforting to the one who deludes himself – but can be devastating to those who laugh or oppose the delusion}

“I am the wali (leader) who presides over you, though I am not the best of you, so if you see that I am right, assist me,” he said, wearing a black turban and robe.

“If you see that I am wrong, advise me and put me on the right track, and obey me as long as I obey God in you.”

AFP was not immediately able to confirm the authenticity of the video purportedly showing Baghdadi, of whom there were previously only two known photographs.

The video is the first ever official appearance by Baghdadi, according to Aymenn al-Tamimi, an expert on Islamist movements, though the jihadist leader may have appeared in a 2008 video under a different name.

“God gave your mujahedeen brothers victory after long years of jihad and patience… so they declared the caliphate and placed the caliph in charge,” he said.

“This is a duty on Muslims that has been lost for centuries,” he added, sporting a long and slightly greying beard, as he addressed the faithful from the mosque’s pulpit.

via ISIS chief orders Muslims to ‘obey’ him: video | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR.

Salvadoran Peasant Farmers Clash With U.S. of Monsanto Over Seeds | Inter Press Service

Seed quality is monitored and approved by the Salvadoran Ministry of Agriculture, which paid a total of 25.9 million dollars on seed purchases in 2013, most of them maize and beans which are staple foods in El Salvador.

Until the new model was implemented in 2011, 70 percent of the market was cornered by a subsidiary of U.S. biotech giant Monsanto, Semillas Cristiani Burkard. Since then, other producers have entered the field, like the cooperatives, with better quality certified seeds and more competitive prices.

Last year’s seed was purchased by an executive decree of December 2012, with the approval of Congress, and in practice U.S. companies were excluded. The U.S. embassy demanded a public and “transparent” tender process.

In January 2014, lawmakers approved a new decree allowing international companies to participate in the tendering process. However, the bidding in April was won by the same 18 producers.

Ambassador Aponte is now pressing for a different procurement process that will favour U.S. companies. This position is being criticised by social organisations and rural producers, who protested in front of the embassy in San Salvador in June.

“The embassy’s position serves to promote Monsanto’s seeds,” environmentalist Ricardo Navarro told IPS, referring to the world leader in transgenic seeds, against which many protests have been held in Latin American countries.

Aponte did not mention Monsanto in her comments, but according to Navarro “it is obvious she is referring to Monsanto, the largest company in the sector,” whose local branch “lost a market they thought belonged to them.”

via Salvadoran Peasant Farmers Clash With U.S. Over Seeds | Inter Press Service.

Saharan Dust on the Move : Image of the Day

{Interconnected – climate change and interchange? – naw say tea partiers and lots of GOP – despite proof such as this}

Saharan dust has a range of impacts on ecosystems downwind. Each year, dust events like the one pictured here deliver about 40 million tons of dust from the Sahara to the Amazon River Basin. The minerals in the dust replenish nutrients in rainforest soils, which are continually depleted by drenching, tropical rains. Research focused on peat soils in the Everglades show that African dust has been arriving regularly in South Florida for thousands of years as well.

In some instances, the impacts are harmful. Infusion of Saharan dust, for instance, can have a negative impact on air quality in the Americas. And scientists have linked African dust to outbreaks of certain types of toxic algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico and southern Florida.

via Saharan Dust on the Move : Image of the Day.