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Afghan Women’s Writing Project | The Window

Afghan Women’s Writing Project | The Window.

I look from my room’s window
Try to see my future,
I see a long way to go.
Life changes its face as weather changes seasons
Trees lose leaves just as I
lose every day of my life.

I look from my room’s window
and think, “Where did my smile go?
Where has my happiness gone?”
I am strange to myself.
Looking from my room’s window.
I see how my life is passing
But my days and nights the same

Looking from my room’s window,
I am not a child at play anymore
I am not child to have my hand held
I am grown
I have to find my own way
As I look from my room’s window
I think how I will build my future.

by Shogofa

Zambia: Chinese Mining Boss Allegedly Killed by Striking Workers · Global Voices

Zambia: Chinese Mining Boss Allegedly Killed by Striking Workers · Global Voices.

“Imperialism always operates for profit, not people – no matter who the imperialists may be.”

The mine has also had problems with government officials in the past. In 2010, then Southern Province Minister Elijah Muchima described the plight of the workers as sad, saying they were subject to slave wages and worked under hazardous conditions and explaining that the workers there earned between Zambian kwacha 57,000 and 500,000 (between US$ 15 and US$ 100) per month.

In 2006, another provincial minister, Alice Simango, openly wept after seeing miners during a tour of the mine emerge semi-naked and barefoot from the tunnel. Simango, who was blocked from entering the mine by the Chinese, later recommended that it be closed to protect human life.

The latest incident, which left a Chinese supervisor dead, elicited a lot of reactions from netizens on various social platforms, ranging from blaming the government for the abrupt manner in which it announced the minimum wage to blaming the Chinese for taking advantage of the workers.

Syrian Christians caught between two sides | NRS-Import | DW.DE | 06.08.2012

Syrian Christians caught between two sides | NRS-Import | DW.DE | 06.08.2012He says that for years now the Assad regime has been trying to ensure that the Christians would remain loyal, and to this end it has been stirring up among them a fear of Islamists that is now increasingly becoming a reality. Yet the Jesuit priest asserts that in fact Assad’s troops have been attacking Christian communities. Numerous churches have been destroyed, he says, and around 150,000 Christians driven out of their homes. Again, none of this can be independently verified. The truth will only come to light after the fall of the regime, if at all.

The Christian opposition activist George Stevo says, “We Christians have to understand that it’s not a regime or a particular person who can protect us. The only thing that can do that is a democratic system and a Syrian civil society.” At the moment, though, it’s impossible to tell whether this is what Syria’s future holds.

Sectarian splits can blind people to their neighbors and who actually supports freedom for all…

Belgium film on street harassment strikes a chord across Europe | World news | The Guardian

Belgium film on street harassment strikes a chord across Europe | World news | The Guardian.

When Sofie Peeters moved to Brussels for a film degree, she found herself confronted with a depressing problem almost every time she left her front door. Walking around her local neighbourhood, the mixed, working-class district of Anneessens, at any time of day she would be greeted with cat-calls, wolf-whistles and jeers of “slag” and “how much do you cost?”

Sick of wondering whether it was her fault for wearing particular clothes, she made her end of year film on the topic, armed with a hidden camera to record the street harassment.

Female acquaintances admitted the problem was so bad they never went out in a skirt, avoided the metro, never made eye contact with men, avoid walking certain streets, never wore shorts and in one case, only ever left their house by bike.

The student film, Femme de la Rue, a shocking account of everyday sexist insults in the street, is now at the centre of a political and social storm in Belgium and across its borders. After it was shown on TV and at a screening last week it has become an internet success and triggered a public debate.

Egypt’s women demand end to harassment | World | DW.DE | 02.08.2012

Egypt’s women demand end to harassment | World | DW.DE | 02.08.2012Security forces are nearly non-existent on the streets of Egypt and an increasing number of women fall victim to sexual harassment. Harassers target protesters in what some call politically motivated abuse.

When Nihal Saad Zaghloul sleeps, she comes face-to-face with the men who assaulted her at Tahrir Square. They stand in front of her grab and grope at her until she wakes up. It was a Friday at the end of June when Nihal went to Tahrir Square with her friends to demonstrate with her friends as she often did. But that Friday was one she will never forget.

“I was separated from my friends, men tore off my headscarf and groped at me,” she said. “There were more than 15 men. Their hands were everywhere. I was more scared than I have ever been in my entire life.”

Far-right Golden Dawn party hands out food outside Parliament, but only to Greek citizens – The Washington Post

Far-right Golden Dawn party hands out food outside Parliament, but only to Greek citizens – The Washington Post“At night they beat people up. And by day, they hand out food,” Petros Constantinou, a left-wing Athens city councilman, told the AP.

“They are exploiting people’s misery to fish for votes. They are despicable.”

www.german-foreign-policy.com Neo-Nazis hiding as EU strategists?

www.german-foreign-policy.com.

A European think tank, with ties to Germany, is calling for the establishment of an EU controlled “Grand Area” stretching from the Arctic, through Central Asia, the Middle East to North Africa. With this “Grand Area,” the “Group on Grand Strategy” (GoGS) seeks to create a power base for a European Federal State, it considers necessary to establish. This “Grand Area” should also serve European interests in resources and deter foreign powers from meddling. This concept, which corresponds, in many ways to German interests, also includes the establishment within the “Grand Area” of a network of “European” military bases, which therefore would be outside any national control. The Bertelsmann Foundation, one of the most influential German think tanks, also has a representative on the GoGS Advisory Board. Within the Foundation, that political scientist’s work is centered on the theme, “Europe’s future.”

The term “Grand Area,” used by the GoGS, had once been popularized by the “Third Reich’s Crown Jurist” Carl Schmitt, in his 1939 book “Völkerrechtliche Großraumordnung und Interventionsverbot für raumfremde Mächte. Ein Beitrag zum Reichsbegriff im Völkerrecht.”[7] In this work Schmitt postulated that the “principle of non-interference by powers foreign to the realm, is a valid international legal principle,” which was supposed to secure sole access for Germany to all countries in Europe. To show the success of his Grand Area theory, Schmitt used the example of Rumania. As critics point out – Rumania was integrated into the German “Great Area,” at the “expense of its natural resources and economic substance.”[8] The Group on Grand Strategy is obviously also demanding that the countries within the “Great Area” surrender their wealth to the advantage of Germany and the EU.

Romney-touted firms got government help – UPI.com

Steve Miller, president of Millwood Inc., appeared in the Web ad for “We Did Build This.”

“I couldn’t put my faith in the government or the banks — no one wanted to talk to me,” Miller said, describing the rough start to his business.

However, Millwood received a state tax break of $44,226, Ohio Department of Development records show.

The president of Service Spring Corp. also participated in the campaign. The company received a $70,000 Ohio Workforce Guarantee in 2005.

“He was trying to say ‘Hey, you didn’t build that business on your own,'” said Dennis Sollman, president of Sollman Electric Co. “‘The government helped you build it.’ And that’s what ticked me off more than anything.”

Sollman Electric Co. received millions of dollars in government contracts for schools and colleges.

Sollman, as well as the other business owners who turned out to prove Obama’s comments rather than refute them, could not be reached for comment.

via Romney-touted firms got government help – UPI.com.