Archive for the ‘Justice’ Category
ID Laws – Israel Teaches Arizona A Lesson
Thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank may soon be evicted or face criminal charges by Israeli authorities, the Israeli daily Haaretz has said.
An amendment to an Israeli military order on “preventing infiltration” could soon stipulate that residents of the West Bank without ID cards may now need one issued by the occupying authorities.
Anyone without such a document could either be expelled or jailed.
Haaretz said the new order would likely be used first against Palestinians in the West Bank with Gaza ID cards and the foreign spouses of Palestinians living in the territory.
Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland explains.
From Guantanamo to Palau
This video is not new but I’ve only just been introduced to it thanks to my friendship with folks from Witness Against Torture who, among other things, do advocacy and demonstrations on behalf of Guantanamo detainees. This segment from a British news show, Dateline, addresses the temporary resettlement in Palau of several Uighur men who had been imprisoned at Guantanamo for the last eight years. There are interviews with the men, shots of their first opportunity to cook, discussion of the pressure from China that keeps these men from reaching their hoped for destination (Australia), etc. I found the account is particularly poignant when watched in light of the following words from an attorney, “These men have never committed any terrorist acts…never had any terrorist training…”
Free Book, But Today Only
Bellow is from JR Woodward’s blog:
InterVarsity Press is celebrating Earth Day by giving away Julie Clawson’s recent book – Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices. You can download a free copy for your Kindle or PC – today only!
Here is a description of the book from the Everyday Justice website: “Where does your chocolate come from? Does it matter if your coffee is fair trade or not? It matters – more than you might think.
Julie Clawson takes us on a tour of everyday life and shows how our ordinary lifestyle choices have big implications for justice around the world. She unpacks how we get our food and clothing and shows us the surprising costs of consumer waste.
How we live can make a difference not only for our own health but also for the well-being of people across the globe. The more sustainable our lifestyle, the more just our world will be. Everyday justice is one way of loving our neighbors. We can live more ethnically, through the little and big decisions we make every day.” This book tells you how and you can. Download it free today only. HT J. Fowler at SustainableTraditions
The Cable That Solved The Mystery
On the 21st of December, 1976 a car bomb detonated in downtown Washington DC, killing former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier and his 26-year old American colleague, Ronni Karpen Moffitt. The assassination was part of “Condor”, a multinational collaboration between Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and several other Latin American military dictatorships. Condor’s aim was to find and kill opponents of the conspiring regimes. Senior US State Department officials were tipped off to the assassination plans and arrangements were made to send a diplomatic démarche which expressed “our deep concern” over “plans for the assassination of subversives, politicians, and prominent figures both within the national borders of certain Southern Cone countries and abroad.” The US ambassador’s instructions to deliver the démarche however were rescinded and five days latter one of the Condor assassinations exploded in DC.
A long standing mystery has been Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s role in rescinding the Condor démarche, but with the uncovering of Kissinger’s cable, the answer to that mystery has finally come to light. Earlier this week, The National Security Archive published it’s report on the new revelation that it was in fact Kissinger himself who blocked any further action being taken to deter the “Condor scheme”.
IF you want to learn more on the subject of Kissinger, Chile and Pinochet, a wealth of information can be found at the National Security Archives. Also, audio recordings of Kissinger and Nixon discussing Chile were posted on Knosha in 2008 and are worth going back to for a listen. While you’re at it, you may want to give this a listen too:
The Human Cost of Leaves
You’ve probably noticed a growing awareness among consumers, awareness of where the things they buy come from and what the human cost is associated with that product. It becomes difficult to buy a pair of shoes or a lousy T-shirt without asking “Am I supporting an abusive industry?”
A seemingly unrelated topic is that of the US’s awkward transition into legalizing Marijuana. The clumsy shift in the law is made comically evident here in California, where laughable billboards advertise “medical” Marijuana cards and dispensaries are popping up everywhere. The drug is understood by many to be an innocent offense – illegal but harmless. Soon, perhaps very soon, it will be legal to grow and sell cannabis, but in the mean time, the same question we ask about our clothing and cheep electronics applies to Marijuana. Where is it coming from? Who is getting hurt to get it here?
There was a recent article in McClatchy that highlights Mexico’s expressed frustration toward the US’s flirtations with legalizing Marijuana. There are those among our Southern neighbors who believe the US is undermining Mexico’s attempts to control the violent drug cartels that plague the country.
Tim Johnson’s article is worth reading and Mexico’s concerns warrant consideration as the US continues forward in developing new drug laws.
The Politics of Homosexuality
At a Princeton Lecture event Andrew Sullivan, author and former editor of The New Republic, reprised his article, “The Polotics of Homosexuality”. The Nation called Sullivan’s article “the most influential article of the decade on gay rights.” Sullivan has written numerous popular books and articles on the subject of homosexuality and gay rights. As a very thoughtful, articulate, openly gay, Roman Catholic conservative, Andrew brings an interesting perspective to the contemporary conversation on homosexuality.
The lecture is well worth a listen.
How To Make Millions Off Crushing Poverty
From Dollars & Sense:
Greg Palast continues to follow the story of debt vultures who “buy up the loans of poor governments, wait for them to win debt relief from the international community, and then use courts to pursue the countries for assets,” for BBC TV Newsnight and an article in the Guardian. Palast wrote about debt vultures for D&S back in 2007 (George Bush’s Favorite Vultures).
Shipbreaking in Bangladesh
Bellow is an excerpt from an email the National Labor Committee sent out recently. The stories sketched out in the email gave added perspective to my recent job hunting. I’ve never been wealthy (by North American Standards), but stories like those bellow remind me that I’ve never been poor either. What do you think the chances are of getting Mike Rowe to do an episode of Dirty Jobs in Bangladesh?
FROM: Charlie Kernaghan
RE: Four more workers killed in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards
Dear Friends,
Workers continue to be maimed and killed in Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards. Just last week we wrote you of three workers who were crushed to death at the Crystal shipbreaking yard on October 8 when a huge steel plate fell on them. (The ship they were dismantling carried the International Maritime Organizationregistry number 7435474.)
Since then, four more workers have been needlessly killed. At the Pakija shipbreaking yard, on the morning of October 13, three workers died after inhaling poisonous gas fumes. The young men-including a 17-year-old boy-were cutting up a gas tank on the ship when they were overcome by the fumes. The three dead workers are Mr. Mamun, 17 years old, Mr. Embram Hossain and Mr. Nasir Uddin, both 25. (The ship the workers were breaking apart carried the International Maritime Organization registry number 7913 816.) To date, the dead workers’ families have not received a single cent in compensation from the shipyard owner.
On the very next day, October 14, another worker was killed at 12:30 p.m. at the Habib shipbreaking yard. Twenty-eight year old Mr. Jahangir Alam was crushed when a large iron plate fell on him. There are currently two ships being dismantled in the Habib yard, La Forge Nassau and BW Rachel Stavan. The dead man’s family has not received any compensation from the wealthy shipyard owner. (In February 2009, two workers were killed at the Habib shipyard, Mr. Sakhowat and 20 year old Mr. Tipu, when they were crushed by falling metal.)
To date, this brings the death toll to 17 workers in 2009, meaning on average a worker is being killed every two weeks in the shipbreaking yards, while at least one worker is seriously maimed every single day.
The three burned workers who survived the fire at the Kabir shipyard-which killed two of their colleagues on September 5-have been released from the hospital. It will be months of bed rest before it will be known if the workers can resume a normal life and whether they will be able to work again. Management paid the severely burned workers $43.50 each and sent them on their way!
Here is a link to an earlier NLC report on shipbreaking.
Does charity do more harm than good?
This is something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time, but particularly after my trip to Haiti. Out of all of the experiences I had there, the one that effected me the most was the impact “child sponsorship” seemed to have on the culture, or at least the behavior, of the villagers we were aiding. The kids were adorable, pitiful, manipulative beggars. I’m not saying that’s their entire identity, but it’s how they’ve learned to interact with “rich” Americans. And with good reason. As soon as we walked into their villages, their homes, we were handing out candy and balloons and pens and I’m sure my group wasn’t unique in this ritual. 
Of course, the mission we were visiting was doing important things like establishing schools and clinics with indigenous teachers and doctors and giving food and clothes and establishing real and long-term relationships, with good results. What was distressing to me was that the children were the commodity – they are the big
attraction to draw in the missionary “tourists” aka short-term missions. They are what sells, what brings in the money, and they understand that. And that is just a little bit disturbing to me. What are we doing to entire generations of people? What does living in this continuously dependent relationship do to their psyches? Obviously there is need and we shouldn’t sit back and do nothing, but I wonder if there is a better way than continuous charitable donations. My feeling is that an investment in an impoverished person’s or group of peoples’ skills, talents, ideas and passions might go farther in changing a person’s/community’s view of herself/himself/itself in relation to the wider world and make a larger, longer-lasting, and (I’m sorry, I have to use this word) sustainable impact.
Here’s a link to an article on this subject that I found interesting:
Thoughts, ideas, or criticisms anyone?
Knosha 