Category Archives: human rights

Night Falls on New Ukraine; Parliament Dismisses President Viktor Yanukovych – The Wire

According to the Interfax news agency, President Viktor Yanukovych tried to board a plane to Russia, but was stopped and turned back by border officials. Meanwhile, opposition lawmaker Oleksandr Turchynov was chosen as the new speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, making the de facto head of state.

Ahead of Turchynov’s selection, parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Rybak, an ally of Yanukovych, handed in his resignation and a number of opposition ministers were appointed to key government posts on Saturday afternoon, a signal of Yanukovych’s waning power.

Following her release from a prison hospital, former prime minister and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko traveled to Kiev and addressed a 50,000-person crowd at Independence Square.

via Night Falls on New Ukraine; Parliament Dismisses President Viktor Yanukovych – The Wire.

Kyiv medic Olesya survives sniper bullet through neck | euronews, news +

Olesya Zhukovska is still alive, the 21-year-old first aid volunteer who tweeted “I’m dying” to those closest to her.

The next day they got another message: her gratitude for their prayers. She said, ‘I’m in hospital, in stable condition.’

On Thursday, a bullet went through Zhukovska’s neck. She had been standing where Institutska Street meets Independence Square (Maidan) in the Ukrainian capital. As she was bleeding heavily, she sent the tweet. But she was operated on in time.

We got news about her from the head of the volunteer medical service in Maidan, Oleh Musiy.

On the phone with euronews, Musiy said: “After she is transferred from intensive care to a regular room in the hospital, I hope she can finish her treatment with us, until her life is no longer in danger. The wound in her neck was serious. What we see with Olesya and the people who were killed yesterday and whose bodies we helped transfer to the pathologists, is that 70-80 percent of them had gunshot wounds in the head or neck.”

via Kyiv medic Olesya survives sniper bullet through neck | euronews, news +.

Settlers destroy 700 olive tree saplings near Ramallah | Maan News Agency

Extremist settlers destroyed over 700 newly planted olive tree saplings north of Ramallah on Wednesday, a Palestinian Authority official said.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that a group of settlers from the illegal outpost of Ade Ad carried out the attack.

Over 700 saplings belonging to Mahmoud and Rabah Hizma were either uprooted or broken in the al-Sadir area in Turmusayya.

An identity card belonging to one of the perpetrators was found at the scene.

via Settlers destroy 700 olive tree saplings near Ramallah | Maan News Agency.

Women join the Kurdish fight in Syria | World | DW.DE | 19.02.2014

Women will decide the future

The Kurdish party PYD has also introduced a women’s quota of 40 percent, and the party’s executive is half women. Co-chairwoman to Asya Abdullah is fully dedicated to her political work and equality. She is convinced that “women have become the benchmark.” And she continues, “In some sectors, women have become so dominant that now men are demanding a quota.” Not every man is happy about that, she says, laughing. Even the male member of the regional parliament who’s sitting beside has to laugh at that, but he doesn’t contradict.

The Kurdish women’s great role model is the rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned in a Turkish jail since 1999. The leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who spent 20 years of his life in exile in Syria, repeatedly demanded the liberation of women. Many Kurdish families still display his photo in their living room, and Öcalan’s nickname Apo is sprayed on numerous buildings. In their fight for autonomy, the Kurds may turn out to be the winners of the Syrian conflict – as long as they aren’t pulverized amid the conflicting interests of Syria’s neighbors.

via Women join the Kurdish fight in Syria | World | DW.DE | 19.02.2014.

Kellogg’s Boasts ‘Diversity,’ But Locks Out Black Workers | Labor Notes

“We want every person to bring their ‘whole self’ to work every day,” says a Kellogg’s human resources manager in the company’s latest “diversity and inclusion” report.

But for more than three months now, 220 locked-out cereal workers in Memphis, a majority black, have had to settle for bringing their “whole self” to the frigid picket line at the Kellogg’s factory entrance. Workers maintain a 24/7 picket, with four to 10 workers holding signs.

Production continues uninhibited by the picketers. Scabs brought in by an Ohio company enter through a back gate. Cereal leaves by the trainload, heading east.

At a rally on Martin Luther King Day, the president of the Memphis chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) called for a boycott of Kellogg’s products.

Rev. Dwight Montgomery said he had spoken with an organization of 300 ministers in the Memphis area, and that they had decided to ask “our congregation members to go talk to their friends, family neighbors… We are not going to buy any Kellogg’s products.”

via Kellogg’s Boasts ‘Diversity,’ But Locks Out Black Workers | Labor Notes.

The Academic Feminist: Melanie Klein on Yoga and Feminism

1) You credit feminism and yoga with being the two main influences of your work. Can you describe how the two are linked for you?

Ultimately, for me, they’re both equally about raising consciousness, wiping the fog from the mirror, seeing the world (including ourselves) through fresh eyes, thereby moving in the world from an authentic and grounded place. And, in the end, this means we’re capable of being a more effective agent for social change, whether you’re making changes in your home, the workplace, the media or politics.

Feminism provided the intellectual and ideological framework to recognize, deconstruct, analyse and critique the structured inequality that is the hallmark of the system of patriarchy. That veil was lifted when I found feminism and my first mentor, a Radical Marxist feminist who is now well into her eighties. One of my biggest “a-ha” or “click” moments is when I realized, “It’s not me! It’s patriarchy.”

via The Academic Feminist: Melanie Klein on Yoga and Feminism.

“Let them eat cake” or “Give them cash” – Daily News Egypt

A more current and increasingly popular strategy in the world today is a cash transfer directly to the citizen. Through a food subsidy programme, a government rations food. The basic idea of a cash transfer is that instead of spending money on something like subsidies that cause so many market distortions (meaning there are bad consequences for many segments of the economy), the government gives the cash to individuals or households.

Brazil, Mexico, South Africa are among only a few countries that have had great success with cash transfer programmes. These programmes give money directly to the benefit of the elderly, children or households. Women are most often the recipients of the cash, as hundreds of studies have shown women to be more prudent spenders to the better benefit of their households.

These programmes are highly effective and represent great efficiency gains relative to a subsidy system, which means public money is better used to meet the goal of protecting the vulnerable. Efficiency is particularly important given the high budget deficit.

via “Let them eat cake” or “Give them cash” – Daily News Egypt.

The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown: Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American Library by Louise S. Robbins

Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American Library

By Louise S. Robbins

University of Oklahoma Press

256 pages. ISBN: 0-8061-3163-2 Cloth $29.95 Published February 2000

In 1950 Ruth W. Brown, librarian at the Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Public Library, was summarily dismissed from her job after thirty years of exemplary service, ostensibly because she had circulated subversive materials. In truth, however, Brown was fired because she had become active in promoting racial equality and had helped form a group affiliated with the Congress of Racial Equality.

Louise S. Robbins tells the story of the political, social, economic, and cultural threads that became interwoven in a particular time and place, creating a strong web of opposition. This combination of forces ensnared Ruth Brown and her colleagues-for the most part women and African Americans-who championed the cause of racial equality.

via The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown: Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American Library by Louise S. Robbins.