Time and again GCHQ and other intelligence agencies have spuriously used 'national security arguments' to suppress information and stifle debate
By Richard Norton-Taylor and Ian Cobain
theguardian.com, Wednesday 16 October 2013
Ever since they were set up more than a hundred years ago Britain's
security and intelligence agencies have been accused of using the excuse
of "national security" to suppress information. Whenever information
has been disclosed against their will, through leaks or whistleblowers,
they have claimed security has been jeopardised.
Agencies are said
to have consistently used this argument to protect themselves from
embarrassment and to suppress evidence of information relating to a wide
range of subjects, from government waste to involvement in torture.
Ministerial claims that the publication of reports based on NSA
and GCHQ documentation undermined national security prompted a scathing
response from United Nations experts on freedom of expression and human
rights.
"The protection of national security secrets must never
be used as an excuse to intimidate the press into silence and backing
off from its crucial work in the clarification of human rights
violations," the UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and
expression, Frank La Rue, said.
To read more....
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Can Rouhani Deliver?
By Said Amir Arjomand
NEW YORK – As world powers meet in Geneva to begin nuclear
talks with Iran, the world awaits the follow-up to the phone call between
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and US President Barack Obama after Rouhani’s
visit to the United Nations General Assembly last month. That brief
conversation – the first between the two countries’ presidents since 1979 –
recalls the last attempt to revive bilateral diplomacy, undertaken 12 years ago
by Iran’s then-President Mohammad Khatami. In both episodes, a missing
handshake symbolized the countries’ persistent rift. Back then, Khatami and Foreign Minister Kamal
Kharrazi “went shopping,” rather than attend a cultural event at the Asia
Society and risk crossing paths – and shaking hands – with US Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright. This time, despite Iran’s avoidance of a presidential
handshake at the UN, Rouhani delivered a major address at the Asia Society
asserting that his government would pursue policies of “moderation and common
sense” and would be willing to work with the West on resolving questions about
its nuclear program.
The Messy Link Between Slave Owners And Modern Management
By Katie Johnston
Forbes - 1/16/2013
While studying the history of business practices, HBS researcher Caitlin Rosenthal made a startling discovery: Many of the techniques pioneered by slave owners in the 1800s are widely used in business management today. Rosenthal discusses her findings in this story by Katie Johnston, which first appeared on the HBS Working Knowledge website.
Caitlin C. Rosenthal didn’t intend to write a book about slavery. She set out to tackle something much more mundane: the history of business practices. But when she started researching account books from the mid-1800s, a period of major economic development during the rise of industrialization in the United States, Rosenthal stumbled across an unexpected source of innovation.
Rosenthal, a Harvard-Newcomen Fellow in business history at Harvard Business School, found that southern plantation owners kept complex and meticulous records, measuring the productivity of their slaves and carefully monitoring their profits—often using even more sophisticated methods than manufacturers in the North. Several of the slave owners’ practices, such as incentivizing workers (in this case, to get them to pick more cotton) and depreciating their worth through the years, are widely used in business management today.
To read more....
Forbes - 1/16/2013
While studying the history of business practices, HBS researcher Caitlin Rosenthal made a startling discovery: Many of the techniques pioneered by slave owners in the 1800s are widely used in business management today. Rosenthal discusses her findings in this story by Katie Johnston, which first appeared on the HBS Working Knowledge website.
Caitlin C. Rosenthal didn’t intend to write a book about slavery. She set out to tackle something much more mundane: the history of business practices. But when she started researching account books from the mid-1800s, a period of major economic development during the rise of industrialization in the United States, Rosenthal stumbled across an unexpected source of innovation.
Rosenthal, a Harvard-Newcomen Fellow in business history at Harvard Business School, found that southern plantation owners kept complex and meticulous records, measuring the productivity of their slaves and carefully monitoring their profits—often using even more sophisticated methods than manufacturers in the North. Several of the slave owners’ practices, such as incentivizing workers (in this case, to get them to pick more cotton) and depreciating their worth through the years, are widely used in business management today.
To read more....
Monday, October 14, 2013
The Eton Scholarship Question: this is how the British elite are trained to think
As one of the school’s scholarship exam questions shows, young boys are encouraged to think that humanity, compassion, even sense are secondary to winning. This is how we’ve ended up with politicians who will enact any policy, no matter the human cost, just so their party will win.
By Laurie Penny
The New Statesman - 24 May 2013
How will you defend the murder of civilians when you’re Prime Minister? Pupils competing for a scholarship to Eton have been asked just that, in the following question from a 2011 exam which seemed to draw its inspiration from recent events in London:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/05/eton-scholarship-question-how-british-elite-are-trained-think
The headmaster of Eton, responding to the furore on Twitter, claimed that this was an intellectual exercise, based on Machiavelli’s The Prince, and was taken out of context. It was nothing of the kind. In fact, questions like this - topics for debate designed to reward pupils for defending the morally indefensible in the name of maintaining "order" - crop up throughout the British elite education system, from prep schools to public schools like Eton to public speaking competitions right up to debating societies like the Oxford and Cambridge Unions, which are modelled on parliament for a reason.
This is how you’re meant to argue when you’re eventually in charge. You’re trained for it, and part of that training is regularly being presented with morally indefensible positions to defend anyway or risk losing whatever competition you’re engaged with. I have seen perfectly decent young men get carried away defending genocide and torture because that’s the only way to win. Those who are unable to do so are taught that they have no business having political opinions. The people assumed to be the future elite are not rewarded for getting the answer which is most correct, most compassionate or humane or even sensible - they’re rewarded for smashing the opposition. And that’s how you get politicians who will argue anything they’re told to, enact any policy they're told to no matter how many how many people will get hurt, just so that their team can win.
To read more...
By Laurie Penny
The New Statesman - 24 May 2013
How will you defend the murder of civilians when you’re Prime Minister? Pupils competing for a scholarship to Eton have been asked just that, in the following question from a 2011 exam which seemed to draw its inspiration from recent events in London:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/05/eton-scholarship-question-how-british-elite-are-trained-think
The headmaster of Eton, responding to the furore on Twitter, claimed that this was an intellectual exercise, based on Machiavelli’s The Prince, and was taken out of context. It was nothing of the kind. In fact, questions like this - topics for debate designed to reward pupils for defending the morally indefensible in the name of maintaining "order" - crop up throughout the British elite education system, from prep schools to public schools like Eton to public speaking competitions right up to debating societies like the Oxford and Cambridge Unions, which are modelled on parliament for a reason.
This is how you’re meant to argue when you’re eventually in charge. You’re trained for it, and part of that training is regularly being presented with morally indefensible positions to defend anyway or risk losing whatever competition you’re engaged with. I have seen perfectly decent young men get carried away defending genocide and torture because that’s the only way to win. Those who are unable to do so are taught that they have no business having political opinions. The people assumed to be the future elite are not rewarded for getting the answer which is most correct, most compassionate or humane or even sensible - they’re rewarded for smashing the opposition. And that’s how you get politicians who will argue anything they’re told to, enact any policy they're told to no matter how many how many people will get hurt, just so that their team can win.
To read more...
China Global Investment Tracker Interactive Map
The Heritage Foundation - October 2013
China's investment in the U.S. and around the world saw moderate growth in the first half of 2013. The China Global Investment Tracker created by The Heritage Foundation is the only publicly available, comprehensive dataset of large Chinese investments and contracts worldwide (excluding bonds). Details are available on over 900 attempted transactions -- failed and successful – valued at more than $100 million in all industries, including energy, mining, transportation and finance.
China’s Global Investment Rises: The U.S. Should Focus on Competition
China’s 2012 outbound investment set new records. North America jumped to the forefront of Chinese business activity, but this is likely to be temporary: Chinese enterprises move as a group from region to region. Energy and metals draw the most money. The outlook for Chinese investment is positive, but setbacks will continue to occur, due in part to foreign suspicion of state firms. The U.S. should formulate policy to ensure competition, with the Chinese firms that come here, in the Chinese market, and around the world through the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other agreements that liberalize market access.
Chinese Outward Investment: Acceleration Features the U.S.
Chinese outward investment strengthened in the first half of 2012. The leading recipient of new Chinese investment was the U.S., recovering sharply from a very weak 2011. Unsurprisingly, energy is still the main target for investment but, in addition, transportation construction contracts are prominent while investment in the financial sector receded. The best policy for the U.S. is to continue to outpace China by opening markets around the world to American investors.
Chinese Outward Investment: More Opportunity Than Danger
Chinese investment is not taking the world by storm financially, nor will it in the near future. It does not pose a major threat to the U.S., either in the purchase of American assets or expansion of Chinese influence around the globe. At home, U.S. policy concerning Chinese investment should be more transparent. Overseas, the best reply is to expand American commercial influence--for instance, through free trade agreements. These steps will help to create more economic opportunities in the U.S. and enhance America's global position.
To see the Interactive Map......
China's investment in the U.S. and around the world saw moderate growth in the first half of 2013. The China Global Investment Tracker created by The Heritage Foundation is the only publicly available, comprehensive dataset of large Chinese investments and contracts worldwide (excluding bonds). Details are available on over 900 attempted transactions -- failed and successful – valued at more than $100 million in all industries, including energy, mining, transportation and finance.
China’s Global Investment Rises: The U.S. Should Focus on Competition
China’s 2012 outbound investment set new records. North America jumped to the forefront of Chinese business activity, but this is likely to be temporary: Chinese enterprises move as a group from region to region. Energy and metals draw the most money. The outlook for Chinese investment is positive, but setbacks will continue to occur, due in part to foreign suspicion of state firms. The U.S. should formulate policy to ensure competition, with the Chinese firms that come here, in the Chinese market, and around the world through the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other agreements that liberalize market access.
Chinese Outward Investment: Acceleration Features the U.S.
Chinese outward investment strengthened in the first half of 2012. The leading recipient of new Chinese investment was the U.S., recovering sharply from a very weak 2011. Unsurprisingly, energy is still the main target for investment but, in addition, transportation construction contracts are prominent while investment in the financial sector receded. The best policy for the U.S. is to continue to outpace China by opening markets around the world to American investors.
Chinese Outward Investment: More Opportunity Than Danger
Chinese investment is not taking the world by storm financially, nor will it in the near future. It does not pose a major threat to the U.S., either in the purchase of American assets or expansion of Chinese influence around the globe. At home, U.S. policy concerning Chinese investment should be more transparent. Overseas, the best reply is to expand American commercial influence--for instance, through free trade agreements. These steps will help to create more economic opportunities in the U.S. and enhance America's global position.
To see the Interactive Map......
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Here Comes The 2013 Forbes China Rich List
Russell Flannery, Forbes Staff
Forbes - October 13, 2013
China is a key locomotive for global economic growth today, and yet many of its top business leaders aren’t very well known around the world. Who’s made and lost some of the biggest fortunes in China in the past year, and why? Are China’s rich getting richer, and, if so, how?
We’ll be answering those questions on Wednesday, Oct. 17, when Forbes Asia and Forbes China, our licensed Chinese-language edition, will unveil one of our most closely followed reports every year, the Forbes China Rich List.
The 2013 edition will be announced at 10 a.m. local time at the Banyan Tree Shanghai on the Bund.
At a time when the U.S. economy has been struggling, China has become the world’s fastest-growing source of new billionaires. On the 2013 Forbes Billionaire List published in March, the mainland’s 122 members were second only to the United States. Among them were Robin Li, the CEO of Internet search leader Baidu, and Jack Ma, chairman of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.
To read more....
What’s Mandarin for great game?
By
The Hindu - October 14, 2013
To read more....
The Hindu - October 14, 2013
The cancellation of U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit
to South-East Asia, and the two separate tours of Chinese President Xi
Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang to the region can be seen as geopolitical
markers of our times. The energetic Chinese foreign policy — which has
seen Xi hop across a dozen nations in three of the world’s six
continents this year, including an intriguing trip to the Caribbean —
contrasts with the seeming American lassitude all around.
This
is most evident in Asia, where the self-declared American pivot to the
region — already diluted by being renamed a “rebalance” has become
hostage to a virtual civil war between the Republican and the Democratic
parties. In the meantime, China has moved to shore up relations with
strategic neighbours Russia and Central Asia and now to repair ties in
South-East Asia that have been frayed by its muscular assertion of
territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Xi
undertook a whirlwind tour of South-East Asia beginning with a two-day
visit to Indonesia earlier this month, followed by a visit to Malaysia
and culminating in his participation at the 21st informal leaders
meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation at Bali. To underscore
the Chinese determination in wooing the ASEAN bloc, this visit has been
followed by Premier Li Keqiang’s October 9-15 tour which saw him first
in Brunei to attend the 16th China-ASEAN leaders meeting, the 16th ASEAN
plus three (China, Japan, South Korea) summit and the eighth East Asia
summit, and then in Thailand and Vietnam.
To read more....
The Perils of Premature Deindustrialization
By Dani Rodrik
Project Syndicate - October 13, 2013
PRINCETON – Most of today’s advanced economies became what they are by traveling the well-worn path of industrialization. A progression of manufacturing industries – textiles, steel, automobiles – emerged from the ashes of the traditional craft and guild systems, transforming agrarian societies into urban ones. Peasants became factory workers, a process that underpinned not only an unprecedented rise in economic productivity, but also a wholesale revolution in social and political organization. The labor movement led to mass politics, and ultimately to political democracy.
Over time, manufacturing ceded its place to services. In Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, manufacturing’s share of employment peaked at around 45% before World War I and then fell to just above 30%, where it hovered until the early 1970’s, when it began a precipitous decline. Manufacturing now accounts for slightly less than 10% of the workforce.
Project Syndicate - October 13, 2013
PRINCETON – Most of today’s advanced economies became what they are by traveling the well-worn path of industrialization. A progression of manufacturing industries – textiles, steel, automobiles – emerged from the ashes of the traditional craft and guild systems, transforming agrarian societies into urban ones. Peasants became factory workers, a process that underpinned not only an unprecedented rise in economic productivity, but also a wholesale revolution in social and political organization. The labor movement led to mass politics, and ultimately to political democracy.
Over time, manufacturing ceded its place to services. In Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, manufacturing’s share of employment peaked at around 45% before World War I and then fell to just above 30%, where it hovered until the early 1970’s, when it began a precipitous decline. Manufacturing now accounts for slightly less than 10% of the workforce.
Over
time, manufacturing ceded its place to services. In Britain, the
birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, manufacturing’s share of
employment peaked at around 45% before World War I and then fell to just
above 30%, where it hovered until the early 1970’s, when it began a
precipitous decline. Manufacturing now accounts for slightly less than
10% of the workforce.
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/developing-economies--missing-manufacturing-by-dani-rodrik#RyV4FkyiEUfq05bu.99
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/developing-economies--missing-manufacturing-by-dani-rodrik#RyV4FkyiEUfq05bu.99
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/developing-economies--missing-manufacturing-by-dani-rodrik#RyV4FkyiEUfq05bu.99
True scale of European immigration
An EU study has found 600,000 unemployed migrants are living in Britain - a 42 per cent rise
More than 600,000 unemployed European Union migrants are living in Britain at
a cost of £1.5 billion to the NHS alone, according to an EU report.
The authoritative study, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, shows the
number of jobless European migrants coming to Britain has risen dramatically
in the past five years, intensifying demands for the Government to
renegotiate EU membership.
Opponents of the EU seized on the figures to suggest Britain could not afford
to allow European migrants to come here at will while continuing to provide
a universal benefits system.
The 291-page report, to be published this week by the European commissioner in
charge of employment and welfare, discloses:
• The number of “non-active” EU migrants in Britain has risen by 42 per cent
between 2006 and 2012;
World Bank: Latin America’s Economy Is Decelerating but, in a Historic Shift, Currencies Now Provide Lift
The World Bank - October 9, 2013
WASHINGTON, OCTOBER 9, 2013 – For the first time, currencies in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are absorbing some of the shocks derived from a less friendly global environment, according to the latest report by the World Bank Chief Economist Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Latin America’s Deceleration and the Exchange Rate Buffer. Depreciated currencies not only lower the cost of exports but also raise the cost of imports, making the export and local industries more competitive and boosting job creation.
LAC, together with other emerging markets, is entering a new phase of lower growth dynamics, as the tailwinds that blew so favorably in its direction in the recent past continue to recede. Growth rates in middle-income countries in Eastern Europe, East Asia, and LAC, as well as China have declined by about 3 percentage points from their 2010 peaks to the present. In the case of LAC, the growth rate has fallen from about 6 percent in 2010 to around 3 percent in 2012 and to an estimated 2.5 percent in 2013, with a predictable heterogeneity within the region.
Forecasts go from rates at or below 1 percent for Jamaica and Venezuela, to Asian-style growth rates of 5.5 and 8 percent for the two best performers in the region in the past decade, Peru and Panama, respectively. Reassuringly, a good number of mid-sized LAC countries (such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Uruguay) are beating the regional average, with growth rates in the 3-4 percent range. Regrettably, the region’s giants, Brazil and Mexico, are growing below the average, with Mexico’s growth falling below 2 percent despite the ongoing wave of reforms fueling investor optimism.
To read more....
WASHINGTON, OCTOBER 9, 2013 – For the first time, currencies in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are absorbing some of the shocks derived from a less friendly global environment, according to the latest report by the World Bank Chief Economist Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Latin America’s Deceleration and the Exchange Rate Buffer. Depreciated currencies not only lower the cost of exports but also raise the cost of imports, making the export and local industries more competitive and boosting job creation.
LAC, together with other emerging markets, is entering a new phase of lower growth dynamics, as the tailwinds that blew so favorably in its direction in the recent past continue to recede. Growth rates in middle-income countries in Eastern Europe, East Asia, and LAC, as well as China have declined by about 3 percentage points from their 2010 peaks to the present. In the case of LAC, the growth rate has fallen from about 6 percent in 2010 to around 3 percent in 2012 and to an estimated 2.5 percent in 2013, with a predictable heterogeneity within the region.
Forecasts go from rates at or below 1 percent for Jamaica and Venezuela, to Asian-style growth rates of 5.5 and 8 percent for the two best performers in the region in the past decade, Peru and Panama, respectively. Reassuringly, a good number of mid-sized LAC countries (such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Uruguay) are beating the regional average, with growth rates in the 3-4 percent range. Regrettably, the region’s giants, Brazil and Mexico, are growing below the average, with Mexico’s growth falling below 2 percent despite the ongoing wave of reforms fueling investor optimism.
To read more....
Russia race riot leads to hundreds of arrests
Russian police arrest more than 380 people after a nationalist protest over the murder of a local man turned violent.
Al-Jazeera - 14 Oct 2013
More than 380 people have been arrested after Russian nationalists rampaged for hours in Moscow over the murder of a local man blamed on a migrant.
Crowds on Sunday chanted slogans, including "Russia for Russians" and "white power" in the protest in Biryulyovo, an industrial district of southern Moscow.
Police ordered a city-wide security alert and began making arrests after they smashed shop windows, set a shopping centre on fire and assaulted security guards.
Witnesses said the protesters threw empty beer bottles, clubs and even hammers at a riot police force that rushed to the scene in about a dozen buses.
"I cannot believe this is happening in our city," one woman told Russian state television "I am afraid to let my children out on the street," said another.
A police spokesman told Russian media that the city's entire active security force had been mobilised several hours into the riot. Five police officers were injured, according to a police spokesman.
To read more....
Al-Jazeera - 14 Oct 2013
More than 380 people have been arrested after Russian nationalists rampaged for hours in Moscow over the murder of a local man blamed on a migrant.
Crowds on Sunday chanted slogans, including "Russia for Russians" and "white power" in the protest in Biryulyovo, an industrial district of southern Moscow.
Police ordered a city-wide security alert and began making arrests after they smashed shop windows, set a shopping centre on fire and assaulted security guards.
Witnesses said the protesters threw empty beer bottles, clubs and even hammers at a riot police force that rushed to the scene in about a dozen buses.
"I cannot believe this is happening in our city," one woman told Russian state television "I am afraid to let my children out on the street," said another.
A police spokesman told Russian media that the city's entire active security force had been mobilised several hours into the riot. Five police officers were injured, according to a police spokesman.
To read more....
Freedom of Information
A British newspaper wants to take its aggressive investigations global, but money is running out.
By Ken Auletta
The New Yorker - October 7, 2013
At eight-thirty on the morning of June 21st, Alan Rusbridger, the unflappable editor of the Guardian, Britain’s liberal daily, was in his office, absorbing a lecture from Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary to Prime Minister David Cameron. Accompanying Heywood was Craig Oliver, Cameron’s director of communications. The deputy editor, Paul Johnson, joined them in Rusbridger’s office, overlooking the Regent’s Canal, which runs behind King’s Cross station, in North London. According to Rusbridger, Heywood told him, in a steely voice, “The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Attorney General, and others in government are extremely concerned about what you’re doing.”
Since June 5th, the Guardian had been publishing top-secret digital files provided by Edward Snowden, a former contract employee of the National Security Agency. In a series of articles, the paper revealed that the N.S.A., in the name of combatting terrorism, had monitored millions of phone calls and e-mails as well as the private deliberations of allied governments. It also revealed, again relying on Snowden’s documents, that, four years earlier, the Government Communications Headquarters (G.C.H.Q.), Britain’s counterpart to the N.S.A., had eavesdropped on the communications of other nations attending the G20 summit, in London.
To read more....
By Ken Auletta
The New Yorker - October 7, 2013
At eight-thirty on the morning of June 21st, Alan Rusbridger, the unflappable editor of the Guardian, Britain’s liberal daily, was in his office, absorbing a lecture from Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary to Prime Minister David Cameron. Accompanying Heywood was Craig Oliver, Cameron’s director of communications. The deputy editor, Paul Johnson, joined them in Rusbridger’s office, overlooking the Regent’s Canal, which runs behind King’s Cross station, in North London. According to Rusbridger, Heywood told him, in a steely voice, “The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Attorney General, and others in government are extremely concerned about what you’re doing.”
Since June 5th, the Guardian had been publishing top-secret digital files provided by Edward Snowden, a former contract employee of the National Security Agency. In a series of articles, the paper revealed that the N.S.A., in the name of combatting terrorism, had monitored millions of phone calls and e-mails as well as the private deliberations of allied governments. It also revealed, again relying on Snowden’s documents, that, four years earlier, the Government Communications Headquarters (G.C.H.Q.), Britain’s counterpart to the N.S.A., had eavesdropped on the communications of other nations attending the G20 summit, in London.
To read more....
China calls for 'de-Americanised' world economy in wake of US shutdown, debt stand-off
Australia News Network - October 13, 2013
China's official news agency says the world should consider 'de-Americanising' in the wake of the US shutdown and looming debt crisis.
A commentary by state news agency Xinhua says "as US politicians of both political parties (fail to find a) viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanised world."
In a lengthy polemic against American hegemony since World War two, it added: "Such alarming days when the destinies of others are in the hands of a hypocritical nation have to be terminated.
"A new world order should be put in place, according to which all nations, big or small, poor or rich, can have their key interests respected and protected on an equal footing."
Negotiations over how to end the budgetary impasse have shifted to the US Senate after House Representatives failed to strike a deal with President Obama on extending borrowing authority ahead of a October 17 deadline.
Beijing has in recent days issued warnings as well as appeals for a deal, all the while emphasising the inseparable economic ties that bind the world's two biggest economies.
To read more....
China's official news agency says the world should consider 'de-Americanising' in the wake of the US shutdown and looming debt crisis.
A commentary by state news agency Xinhua says "as US politicians of both political parties (fail to find a) viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanised world."
In a lengthy polemic against American hegemony since World War two, it added: "Such alarming days when the destinies of others are in the hands of a hypocritical nation have to be terminated.
"A new world order should be put in place, according to which all nations, big or small, poor or rich, can have their key interests respected and protected on an equal footing."
Negotiations over how to end the budgetary impasse have shifted to the US Senate after House Representatives failed to strike a deal with President Obama on extending borrowing authority ahead of a October 17 deadline.
Beijing has in recent days issued warnings as well as appeals for a deal, all the while emphasising the inseparable economic ties that bind the world's two biggest economies.
To read more....
Starbucks to take on Juan Valdez in Colombia
Its souvenir-filled stores number 170 nationwide. There are 68 in other countries, from Spain to Chile to the United States, where a store does business a few blocks from the White House. If anything, the chain named after the iconic coffee farmer — a creation of a Madison Avenue ad firm in 1959 — has faced just one main challenge: getting Colombians, more accustomed to exporting their best coffee beans, to sip white chocolate cappuccinos and iced caramel macchiatos.
But now Juan Valdez has a serious competitor: Starbucks, which has 19,000 outlets in more than 60 countries. The Seattle chain, which in city after city has prompted cafes to close or remake themselves to survive, recently said that it plans to open 50 stores in Colombia in the next few years.
To read more....
Taking on Capitalism, U.S. Torture & Dictatorships, Costa-Gavras on Decades of Political Filmmaking
DemocracyNow - Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Costa-Gavras joins us for the hour to discuss a nearly 50-year career that has earned him the reputation as one of the world’s greatest living political filmmakers. Born in Greece in 1933, the 80-year-old has won two Academy Awards for his films "Z" and "Missing." Other acclaimed films include "State of Siege," "Amen.," "Music Box," "The Confession," "Hanna K." and "Betrayed." For nearly five decades, Costa-Gavras has tackled some of the key political issues of the day. "Z" was a drama loosely based on the 1963 assassination of a Greek left-wing activist. "Missing," his 1982 film starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, told the story of American journalist Charles Horman, who was abducted and killed after General Augusto Pinochet came to power in Chile in a U.S.-backed coup. In his film "State of Siege," Costa-Gavras looked at the controversial role of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Latin America. The film was based on the kidnapping and murder of a U.S. official named Dan Mitrione, who taught torture to Uruguayan officers. His latest film, "Capital," tells the story of a CEO of a large bank who lays off many of the employees and brokers a corrupt deal with the head of an American hedge fund.
Costa-Gavras joins us for the hour to discuss a nearly 50-year career that has earned him the reputation as one of the world’s greatest living political filmmakers. Born in Greece in 1933, the 80-year-old has won two Academy Awards for his films "Z" and "Missing." Other acclaimed films include "State of Siege," "Amen.," "Music Box," "The Confession," "Hanna K." and "Betrayed." For nearly five decades, Costa-Gavras has tackled some of the key political issues of the day. "Z" was a drama loosely based on the 1963 assassination of a Greek left-wing activist. "Missing," his 1982 film starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, told the story of American journalist Charles Horman, who was abducted and killed after General Augusto Pinochet came to power in Chile in a U.S.-backed coup. In his film "State of Siege," Costa-Gavras looked at the controversial role of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Latin America. The film was based on the kidnapping and murder of a U.S. official named Dan Mitrione, who taught torture to Uruguayan officers. His latest film, "Capital," tells the story of a CEO of a large bank who lays off many of the employees and brokers a corrupt deal with the head of an American hedge fund.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH:
Today we’re joined by a man described as one of the world’s greatest
living political filmmakers, Costa-Gavras. Born in Greece 80 years ago
in 1933, Costa-Gavras has won two Academy Awards for his films Z and Missing. His other films include State of Siege, Amen., Music Box, The Confession, Hanna K. and Betrayed.For nearly five decades, Costa-Gavras has tackled some of the key political issues of the day. Z was a drama loosely based on the 1963 assassination of a Greek left-wing activist. The opening credits to the film read: "Any resemblance to real events, to persons living or dead, is not accidental. It is DELIBERATE." Missing, his 1982 film starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, told the story of American journalist Charles Horman, who was abducted and killed after General Augusto Pinochet came to power in Chile in a U.S.-backed coup.
AMY GOODMAN: In his film State of Siege, Costa-Gavras looked at the controversial role of USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, in Latin America. The film was based on the kidnapping and murder of a U.S. official named Dan Mitrione, who taught torture to Uruguayan officers. The film was too controversial for Washington. A screening at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1972 was cancelled.
To read more and watch the full interview....
TED talks are lying to you
The creative class has never been more screwed. Books about creativity have never been more popular. What gives?
By Thomas Frank
Salon.com - Sunday, Oct 13, 2013
The writer had a problem. Books he read and people he knew had been warning him that the nation and maybe mankind itself had wandered into a sort of creativity doldrums. Economic growth was slackening. The Internet revolution was less awesome than we had anticipated, and the forward march of innovation, once a cultural constant, had slowed to a crawl. One of the few fields in which we generated lots of novelties — financial engineering — had come back to bite us. And in other departments, we actually seemed to be going backward. You could no longer take a supersonic airliner across the Atlantic, for example, and sending astronauts to the moon had become either fiscally insupportable or just passé.
And yet the troubled writer also knew that there
had been, over these same years, fantastic growth in our creativity
promoting sector. There were TED talks on how to be a creative person.
There were “Innovation Jams” at which IBM employees brainstormed
collectively over a global hookup, and “Thinking Out of the Box” desktop
sculptures for sale at Sam’s Club. There were creativity consultants
you could hire, and cities that had spent billions reworking
neighborhoods into arts-friendly districts where rule-bending
whimsicality was a thing to be celebrated. If you listened to certain
people, creativity was the story of our time, from the halls of MIT to
the incubators of Silicon Valley.
The literature on the subject was vast. Its authors included management gurus, forever exhorting us to slay the conventional; urban theorists, with their celebrations of zesty togetherness; pop psychologists, giving the world step-by-step instructions on how to unleash the inner Miles Davis. Most prominent, perhaps, were the science writers, with their endless tales of creative success and their dissection of the brains that made it all possible.
To read more...
By Thomas Frank
Salon.com - Sunday, Oct 13, 2013
The writer had a problem. Books he read and people he knew had been warning him that the nation and maybe mankind itself had wandered into a sort of creativity doldrums. Economic growth was slackening. The Internet revolution was less awesome than we had anticipated, and the forward march of innovation, once a cultural constant, had slowed to a crawl. One of the few fields in which we generated lots of novelties — financial engineering — had come back to bite us. And in other departments, we actually seemed to be going backward. You could no longer take a supersonic airliner across the Atlantic, for example, and sending astronauts to the moon had become either fiscally insupportable or just passé.
The literature on the subject was vast. Its authors included management gurus, forever exhorting us to slay the conventional; urban theorists, with their celebrations of zesty togetherness; pop psychologists, giving the world step-by-step instructions on how to unleash the inner Miles Davis. Most prominent, perhaps, were the science writers, with their endless tales of creative success and their dissection of the brains that made it all possible.
To read more...
Your Stories of Life in High-Rises
The New York Times - October 12, 2013
The photographs and reflections in this gallery
were submitted to The Times by people who reside in and among high-rise
buildings around the world. Their contributions are part of “A Short History of the Highrise,” a four-part interactive documentary that draws on The Times's visual archives as well as reader-submitted images.
To read more.....
To read more.....
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Malala Yousafzai and the White Saviour Complex
Assed Baig
Freelance print and broadcast journalist
Huffington Post - 13/07/2013
When Malala Yusufzai was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen simply because she wanted to gain an education it sent shockwaves around the world.
Straight away the Western media took up the issue. Western politicians spoke out and soon she found herself in the UK. The way in which the West reacted did make me question the reasons and motives behind why Malala's case was taken up and not so many others.
There is no justifying the brutal actions of the Taliban or the denial of the universal right to education, however there is a deeper more historic narrative that is taking place here.
This is a story of a native girl being saved by the white man. Flown to the UK, the Western world can feel good about itself as they save the native woman from the savage men of her home nation. It is a historic racist narrative that has been institutionalised. Journalists and politicians were falling over themselves to report and comment on the case. The story of an innocent brown child that was shot by savages for demanding an education and along comes the knight in shining armour to save her.
The actions of the West, the bombings, the occupations the wars all seem justified now, "see, we told you, this is why we intervene to save the natives."
To read more....
Freelance print and broadcast journalist
Huffington Post - 13/07/2013
When Malala Yusufzai was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen simply because she wanted to gain an education it sent shockwaves around the world.
Straight away the Western media took up the issue. Western politicians spoke out and soon she found herself in the UK. The way in which the West reacted did make me question the reasons and motives behind why Malala's case was taken up and not so many others.
There is no justifying the brutal actions of the Taliban or the denial of the universal right to education, however there is a deeper more historic narrative that is taking place here.
This is a story of a native girl being saved by the white man. Flown to the UK, the Western world can feel good about itself as they save the native woman from the savage men of her home nation. It is a historic racist narrative that has been institutionalised. Journalists and politicians were falling over themselves to report and comment on the case. The story of an innocent brown child that was shot by savages for demanding an education and along comes the knight in shining armour to save her.
The actions of the West, the bombings, the occupations the wars all seem justified now, "see, we told you, this is why we intervene to save the natives."
To read more....
Spring 2014 Internships at the Middle East Institute
From: "Bet George, Alexandra" <abetgeorge(at)mei.edu>
Date: Wednesday, October 9, 2013 8:10 AM
To: TK <tugrulkeskin(at)pdx.edu>
Subject: Spring 2014 Internships at the Middle East Institute
Hi Everyone,
My name is Alexandra BetGeorge, and I am the internship coordinator at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. We are currently seeking applicants for our spring internship program, and we would be thrilled with the opportunity to consider students from Portland State University. In the past, we have been very pleased with the caliber of interns we receive from Portland State and would like to continue that relationship into the future.
The Middle East Institute offers an array of internship opportunities to engage with a wide cross-section of professional interests and talents. Our Publications interns, for instance, work alongside our Managing Editor to produce The Middle East Journal — the oldest, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to Middle East research — while our Programs and Communications interns organize events which bring together experts from around the world to discuss the most current issues facing the Middle East. Moreover, the Middle East Institute works to ensure that the interns are compensated for their contributions through free language classes, daily travel reimbursement, subscriptions to the Journal, and programming dedicated to professional growth, such as our Intern Development Series.
Attached you will find a flier containing information about our internship program. Feel free to distribute this flier to any students or alumni who might be interested and encourage them to find out more information on our website:
http://www.mei.edu/internships-0
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via phone or email. I look forward to corresponding with you soon.
Best regards,
Alexandra BetGeorge
Assistant Editor, The Middle East Journal
Internship Development Coordinator
202-785-1141 ext. 206
Date: Wednesday, October 9, 2013 8:10 AM
To: TK <tugrulkeskin(at)pdx.edu>
Subject: Spring 2014 Internships at the Middle East Institute
Hi Everyone,
My name is Alexandra BetGeorge, and I am the internship coordinator at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. We are currently seeking applicants for our spring internship program, and we would be thrilled with the opportunity to consider students from Portland State University. In the past, we have been very pleased with the caliber of interns we receive from Portland State and would like to continue that relationship into the future.
The Middle East Institute offers an array of internship opportunities to engage with a wide cross-section of professional interests and talents. Our Publications interns, for instance, work alongside our Managing Editor to produce The Middle East Journal — the oldest, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to Middle East research — while our Programs and Communications interns organize events which bring together experts from around the world to discuss the most current issues facing the Middle East. Moreover, the Middle East Institute works to ensure that the interns are compensated for their contributions through free language classes, daily travel reimbursement, subscriptions to the Journal, and programming dedicated to professional growth, such as our Intern Development Series.
Attached you will find a flier containing information about our internship program. Feel free to distribute this flier to any students or alumni who might be interested and encourage them to find out more information on our website:
http://www.mei.edu/internships-0
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via phone or email. I look forward to corresponding with you soon.
Best regards,
Alexandra BetGeorge
Assistant Editor, The Middle East Journal
Internship Development Coordinator
202-785-1141 ext. 206
E-Hell on Earth: Where the West's Electronics Go to Die
By Andrew Tarantola
Gizmodo - October 9, 2013
While American consumers clamor for the latest and greatest in consumer
electronics, our older digital devices are inundating and poisoning a
generation of children in Ghana. Colorado Springs Gazette photographer Michael Ciaglo
recently visited the largest e-waste processing site in the African
nation and returned with some very damning images. That new iPhone of
yours had better be worth it.
To read more.....
Gizmodo - October 9, 2013
To read more.....
Good Money After Bad
By Fernando Menéndez, principal of Cordoba Group Int'l LLC
China - US Focus - October 9, 2013
Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro recently returned from Beijing with a $5 billion line of credit from the China Development Bank (CDB). This comes at a very difficult time for Maduro, whose regime’s support is at an all time low since his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, first came to power 15 years ago. For Maduro things abroad look better than things at home.
A former bus driver, named as successor to the late, charismatic Chávez, Maduro is driving his country’s economy into a ditch. Instead of correcting his path, he has been shifting blame for his mismanagement on to others.
The Broken Record
Despite one of the largest oil booms in history, yielding over $90 billion a year to the Venezuelan government, Maduro runs one of the worst performing economies in the Americas.
Since coming to power in April, after a hotly contested election in which he claimed to receive just over fifty percent of the vote, Maduro has presided over recurrent national electricity blackouts, one of the highest murder rates in the world, shortages of basic goods such as rice, oil, butter, flour, and even toilet paper.
To read more...
China - US Focus - October 9, 2013
Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro recently returned from Beijing with a $5 billion line of credit from the China Development Bank (CDB). This comes at a very difficult time for Maduro, whose regime’s support is at an all time low since his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, first came to power 15 years ago. For Maduro things abroad look better than things at home.
A former bus driver, named as successor to the late, charismatic Chávez, Maduro is driving his country’s economy into a ditch. Instead of correcting his path, he has been shifting blame for his mismanagement on to others.
The Broken Record
Despite one of the largest oil booms in history, yielding over $90 billion a year to the Venezuelan government, Maduro runs one of the worst performing economies in the Americas.
Since coming to power in April, after a hotly contested election in which he claimed to receive just over fifty percent of the vote, Maduro has presided over recurrent national electricity blackouts, one of the highest murder rates in the world, shortages of basic goods such as rice, oil, butter, flour, and even toilet paper.
To read more...
China Passes U.S. As World's Biggest Oil Importer
By JOE McDONALD
The Huffington Post - 10/10/13
BEIJING -- BEIJING (AP) — China has achieved another world-beating status its leaders don't want: Biggest oil importer.
China passed the United States in September as the world's biggest net oil importer, driven by faster economic growth and strong auto sales, according to U.S. government data released this week.
Chinese oil consumption outstripped production by 6.3 million barrels per day, which indicates the country had to import that much to fill the gap, the Energy Information Administration said this week.
"China's steady growth in oil demand has led it to become the world's largest net oil importer, exceeding the United States in September 2013,'" the agency said in a report. "EIA forecasts this trend to continue through 2014."
China's economic boom has raised incomes and increased its global influence. But it also has spurred demand for imported oil and gas, which communist leaders see as a strategic weakness.
Rising auto ownership has left China's cities choking on smog and added to pressure on Beijing from its own public to curb pollution and from other nations to rein in surging greenhouse gas emissions.
The United States, with a population about one-third the size of China's, still consumes far more oil per person than China does.
In September, Americans used 18.6 million barrels per day of oil and other liquid fossil fuels, while China used 10.9 million, according to the EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook. U.S. production was 12.5 million barrels per day, while that of China was 4.6 million.
To read more...
The Huffington Post - 10/10/13
BEIJING -- BEIJING (AP) — China has achieved another world-beating status its leaders don't want: Biggest oil importer.
China passed the United States in September as the world's biggest net oil importer, driven by faster economic growth and strong auto sales, according to U.S. government data released this week.
Chinese oil consumption outstripped production by 6.3 million barrels per day, which indicates the country had to import that much to fill the gap, the Energy Information Administration said this week.
"China's steady growth in oil demand has led it to become the world's largest net oil importer, exceeding the United States in September 2013,'" the agency said in a report. "EIA forecasts this trend to continue through 2014."
China's economic boom has raised incomes and increased its global influence. But it also has spurred demand for imported oil and gas, which communist leaders see as a strategic weakness.
Rising auto ownership has left China's cities choking on smog and added to pressure on Beijing from its own public to curb pollution and from other nations to rein in surging greenhouse gas emissions.
The United States, with a population about one-third the size of China's, still consumes far more oil per person than China does.
In September, Americans used 18.6 million barrels per day of oil and other liquid fossil fuels, while China used 10.9 million, according to the EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook. U.S. production was 12.5 million barrels per day, while that of China was 4.6 million.
To read more...
Slavoj Žižek: "Most of the idiots I know are academics"
Luke Massey talks to the cultural theorist and ideas machine about Obama, stupidity and his favourite quasi-fascist industrial metal outfit - Rammstein.
By Luke Massey
The New Statesman - 08 October 2013
Slavoj Žižek is brimming with thought. Each idea sprays out of the
controversial Slovenian philosopher and cultural theorist in a jet of
words. He is like a water balloon, perforated in so many areas that its
content gushes out in all directions.
The result is that, as an interviewer, trying to give direction to the tide is a joyfully hopeless enterprise. Perhaps more significantly, the same seems to be true for Žižek himself.
We meet in a room with one glass wall - an apt setting for a discussion of freedom, ideology, surveillance and ‘80s dystopias on film. Picturehouse HQ is playing host to our discussion, on the launch of Žižek’s new film The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology.
Before I even ask my first question, Slavoj is off: he tells me that I’m better than some interviewers he’s met. The fact that I’ve barely spoken yet doesn’t seem a barrier to that.
"You know, I hate it so much, when I was in Korea, I gave a couple of interviews, and they ask me 'What do you think we should do in Korea? What’s our situation here?' F*ck you! What do I know?! You know? This crazy idea…"
To read more....
By Luke Massey
The New Statesman - 08 October 2013
The result is that, as an interviewer, trying to give direction to the tide is a joyfully hopeless enterprise. Perhaps more significantly, the same seems to be true for Žižek himself.
We meet in a room with one glass wall - an apt setting for a discussion of freedom, ideology, surveillance and ‘80s dystopias on film. Picturehouse HQ is playing host to our discussion, on the launch of Žižek’s new film The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology.
Before I even ask my first question, Slavoj is off: he tells me that I’m better than some interviewers he’s met. The fact that I’ve barely spoken yet doesn’t seem a barrier to that.
"You know, I hate it so much, when I was in Korea, I gave a couple of interviews, and they ask me 'What do you think we should do in Korea? What’s our situation here?' F*ck you! What do I know?! You know? This crazy idea…"
To read more....
'In our country literature, the word, remains more than just the word' - Nobel literature nominee
The Voice of Russia - October 10, 2013
The announcement of Nobel nominees for literature will be held on Thursday. Among them are: Haruki Murakami, Alice Munro and Svetlana Alexievich. The latter is a belarussian writer who was nominated for her latest book "Second hand time" where she talks about the new generation of people in Russia and how much their ideas differ from those of their predecessors. In the interview to The Voice of Russia she talks about those who inspire her.
The announcement of Nobel nominees for literature will be held on Thursday. Among them are: Haruki Murakami, Alice Munro and Svetlana Alexievich. The latter is a belarussian writer who was nominated for her latest book "Second hand time" where she talks about the new generation of people in Russia and how much their ideas differ from those of their predecessors. In the interview to The Voice of Russia she talks about those who inspire her.
How does it feel being in the same row with Albert Schweitzer and Hermann Hesse - Nobel Prize laureates from previous years?
At
first, I was baffled, of course, as there are so many names there, my
favorite names. But on the other hand, it’s a feeling of support since
you realize that you are on the right track and the things you do have
been heard. It took me five years to write a chronicle of the
Russian-Soviet history, the “red utopia”, the unique and terrible
experiment. Some say it’s already in the past, although we are still
unable to extricate ourselves from that past. Others say that it no
longer interests anyone because life is different now. No, it’s not
different, it’s absolutely the same. And it’s not by chance that my last
book is entitled ‘Second-Hand Time’. The fact that this was heard, that
this book came out in Europe so soon and stirred up debates and
explained much of what is happening [in our country] and where we have
failed - and I look at the Internet and see similar debates at
Russian-Belarusian internet forums - so, of course, it’s a feeling of
support.
US without the authority of the Libyan government went into the country and kidnapped somebody - expert
The Voice of Russia - Thursday, October 10, 2013
Libyan PM Ali Zeidan has been seized from his hotel in the capital, Tripoli by a former rebel militia loosely allied to the government.
The Voice of Russia talked to Curtis Doebbler
who is an international human rights lawyer and a peace activist,
specializing on the Middle East. And let’s see if we can get some more
inside on what’s happening in Libya.
Curtis, hello.
Welcome to the program. And first of all do you have any more details on
today’s arrest or kidnapping, whatever that was?
Certainly,
it’s not clear what it is. And I think that’s indicative of the very
unusual and strange situation in the country that has been caused by the
interfering intervention in their country. The latest reports that are
coming out said that PM Ali Zeidan is being held by his own government
in the anti-crime department. But they’ve apparently arrested him for
acting in a way, that harm the national interest. But it’s certainly a
very unusual type of situation, one that would not normally happen in a
country that has a situation of stability and respect for the rule of
law.
Also in a recent interview with BBC Ali Zeidan
urged the West to help stop militancy in Libya. He said that his country
has been used as weapons’ base. Do you think, if he was abducted
indeed? Do you think that has something to do with the abduction?
Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize in Literature
By JULIE BOSMAN
The New York Times - October 10, 2013
Alice Munro, the renowned Canadian short-story writer whose visceral work explores the tangled relationships between men and women, small-town existence and the fallibility of memory, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. Ms. Munro, 82, is the 13th woman to win the prize.
To read more.....
The New York Times - October 10, 2013
Alice Munro, the renowned Canadian short-story writer whose visceral work explores the tangled relationships between men and women, small-town existence and the fallibility of memory, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. Ms. Munro, 82, is the 13th woman to win the prize.
Announcing the award in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy said that Ms.
Munro is a “master of the contemporary short story.”
Ms. Munro, who lives in Clinton, a town in Ontario, told a writer from The Globe and Mail earlier this year that she planned to retire after “Dear Life,” her 14th story collection.
In a statement from Penguin Random House, her publisher, Ms. Munro said that she was “amazed, and very grateful.”
She added, “I’m particularly glad that winning this award will please so
many Canadians,” she said. “I’m happy, too, that this will bring more
attention to Canadian writing.”
To read more.....
Cornel West Again Blasts Obama, Sharpton, Dyson
By Blair Adams
Special to the NNPA from the Afro-American Newspaper
The New Journal and Guide - October 9, 2013
ne of the most opinionated political commentators, Dr. Cornel West, has incited a new round of controversy by calling Rev. Al Sharpton a “Bonafide House Negro of the Obama Plantation.”
During an Aug. 30 interview with radio host Tavis Smiley, West spoke of the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. He said the celebration included some wonderful speakers, but most of the country didn’t get a chance to hear them because speeches made by Sharpton and President Barack Obama “sanitized” Dr.Martin Luther King’s vision.
“Instead, we saw of course the coronation of the bonafidehouse negro of the Obama plantation, our dear brother Al Sharpton, supported by the Michael Dysons and others who’ve really prostituted themselves intellectually in a very ugly and vicious way,” West said of Sharpton’s speech.
West said the anniversary of the March on Washington was a beautiful thing. “I was there in D.C. to see the magnificent expression of, like, faces and sparkling eyes of everyday people of all colors, hungry, thirsty for justice, hungry, thirsty for truth.”
“Brother Martin himself, I think, would’ve been turning over in his grave,” West said. “King would have wanted people to talk about Wall Street criminality, he wants people to talk about war crimes, or drones dropping bombs on innocent people.”
To read more....
Special to the NNPA from the Afro-American Newspaper
The New Journal and Guide - October 9, 2013
ne of the most opinionated political commentators, Dr. Cornel West, has incited a new round of controversy by calling Rev. Al Sharpton a “Bonafide House Negro of the Obama Plantation.”
During an Aug. 30 interview with radio host Tavis Smiley, West spoke of the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. He said the celebration included some wonderful speakers, but most of the country didn’t get a chance to hear them because speeches made by Sharpton and President Barack Obama “sanitized” Dr.Martin Luther King’s vision.
“Instead, we saw of course the coronation of the bonafidehouse negro of the Obama plantation, our dear brother Al Sharpton, supported by the Michael Dysons and others who’ve really prostituted themselves intellectually in a very ugly and vicious way,” West said of Sharpton’s speech.
West said the anniversary of the March on Washington was a beautiful thing. “I was there in D.C. to see the magnificent expression of, like, faces and sparkling eyes of everyday people of all colors, hungry, thirsty for justice, hungry, thirsty for truth.”
“Brother Martin himself, I think, would’ve been turning over in his grave,” West said. “King would have wanted people to talk about Wall Street criminality, he wants people to talk about war crimes, or drones dropping bombs on innocent people.”
To read more....
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Mental Health Issues Among Graduate Students
By Nash Turley
Inside Higher Ed - October 7, 2013
In recognition of Mental Illness Awareness Week (MIAW), GradHacker will be publishing articles on Graduate Students' Mental Health all this week. Want to join the conversation? Comment below or tweet using #ghmiaw.
Editorial Comment: This article was originally published on September 2, 2013 on Nash Turley's blog and is republished here in its entirety. Nash Turley is a Guest Author at GradHacker who is currently a PhD Candidate studying evolutionary ecology at the University of Toronto. You can follow Nash on twitter at @NashTurley and on his blog at nashturley.org.
There is an abundance of comics and writings online that poke fun at the tortured graduate students, anxious and overwhelmed, complaining about grading and research and the next frightful meeting with their advisor (e.g. PhD comics and this recent buzzfeed post). Graduate students consume and propagate these memes because, oh! how we can relate, and oh! how easy it is to make fun of people with emotional problems. And those outside the graduate school loop seem confused why grad students are so sensitive and mentally unstable. As these ideas migrate across the Internet and across our hallways I worry our collective community is masking its real concerns about mental health behind laughter.
Inside Higher Ed - October 7, 2013
In recognition of Mental Illness Awareness Week (MIAW), GradHacker will be publishing articles on Graduate Students' Mental Health all this week. Want to join the conversation? Comment below or tweet using #ghmiaw.
Editorial Comment: This article was originally published on September 2, 2013 on Nash Turley's blog and is republished here in its entirety. Nash Turley is a Guest Author at GradHacker who is currently a PhD Candidate studying evolutionary ecology at the University of Toronto. You can follow Nash on twitter at @NashTurley and on his blog at nashturley.org.
There is an abundance of comics and writings online that poke fun at the tortured graduate students, anxious and overwhelmed, complaining about grading and research and the next frightful meeting with their advisor (e.g. PhD comics and this recent buzzfeed post). Graduate students consume and propagate these memes because, oh! how we can relate, and oh! how easy it is to make fun of people with emotional problems. And those outside the graduate school loop seem confused why grad students are so sensitive and mentally unstable. As these ideas migrate across the Internet and across our hallways I worry our collective community is masking its real concerns about mental health behind laughter.
How to Get College Tuition Under Control
Three economists debate the causes of and possible solutions for the high cost of college
By DOUGLAS BELKIN
The Wall Street Journal - October 8, 2013
In the past decade, college tuition has risen three times as fast as the consumer-price index and twice as fast as medical care.
How can that be—and what can be done about it?
To answer those questions, The Wall Street Journal invited three economists with distinctly different orientations within higher education to discuss the issue.
Rudy Fichtenbaum teaches at Wright State University, Fairborn, Ohio, and is president of the American Association of University Professors, which promotes academic freedom and shared governance on college campuses. Katharine Lyall was president of the University of Wisconsin System from 1992 to 2004. Richard Vedder is director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, Washington, D.C., which researches cost and efficiency in higher education.
This conversation was conducted by email between Aug. 28 and Sept. 3. Here are edited excerpts.
To read more....
By DOUGLAS BELKIN
The Wall Street Journal - October 8, 2013
In the past decade, college tuition has risen three times as fast as the consumer-price index and twice as fast as medical care.
How can that be—and what can be done about it?
To answer those questions, The Wall Street Journal invited three economists with distinctly different orientations within higher education to discuss the issue.
Rudy Fichtenbaum teaches at Wright State University, Fairborn, Ohio, and is president of the American Association of University Professors, which promotes academic freedom and shared governance on college campuses. Katharine Lyall was president of the University of Wisconsin System from 1992 to 2004. Richard Vedder is director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, Washington, D.C., which researches cost and efficiency in higher education.
This conversation was conducted by email between Aug. 28 and Sept. 3. Here are edited excerpts.
To read more....
Book Review: Hannah Arendt - The Human Condition
Submitted by lev.lafayette on 2010, August 2
Isocracy Network
Labour is defined as the biological
process of the human body, and life-sustaining activities, noted for its
remorseless repetition. On the latter point a comparison is made with the
slaves of the Hellenic world; not because of the harshness of the work, but
rather because it was dedicated to the production of necessities, and those
which would be consumed with immediacy. Arendt refers to those who through
circumstance or even choice, are engaged only in labour as 'animal laborans',
as it is such a state that human beings are closest to the animal world. To be
trapped in the world of 'animal laborans' is to be barely human; it is not
living but mere survival, to paraphrase the attributed words of Chief Seattle.
This is, of course, a novel definition which constrasts strongly to theorist
such as Marx (for example) who combined labour, work, and activity into the
single category of "labour". Whereas Marx compared the labour in
relation to ownership of the means of production, Arendt is looking at the
activity itself. For it is quite possible for even a highly democratised
ownership to exist and for the population to be still engaged in labour, in
Arendt's sense. Further - and Arendt is particularly critical of Marx in this
regard - the assumption that the mechanisation of necessary consumables would
lead to a higher civilisation is fallacious without the opportunity for action.
As has become very evident, mechanisation has simple exapanded the appetite of
consumption; from necessities to luxuries.
Isocracy Network
Book Review: Hannah
Arendt, The Human Condition, University of Chicago Press, 1958
Hannah Arendt is considered one of the
most important political philosophers of the twentieth century and, it must be
stated, a profoundly influential contributor to the social and political theory
of the Isocracy network. Two of her major works include The Origins of
Totalitarianism, a sociological study of the Stalinist terror and Nazi
genocide, and On Revolution, which combined political science with
history, both highly important for an isocratic perspective. Arendt is
difficult to position in a traditional political sense; she is a supporter of
constitutionalism and the rule of law, yet she also disparaged representative
democracy in favour of high levels of deliberative participatory democracy and
the revolutionary spirit. Both anarchistic in her love of political pluralism,
political involvement, and direct democracy she also emphasised the fundamental
roles of government in establishing lasting institutions and laws as the free
agreements of behaviour between members of the polis.
The Human Condition, reviewed here in summary form,
emphasised the vita activa and distinguished between three fundamental
activity; labor, work and action, distinguishing the "human
condition" from "human nature", the latter existing within
human beings, the former between. The vita activa, or active
life, is necessarily distinguished by what has been more popular in the western
philosophical tradition which concentrated on vita contemplativa
(contemplative life). Famously Arendt refused to describe herself as a
philosopher precisely because of the historical attachment of that discipline
to contemplativa; Arendt (to use the Platonic philosophical language
which she targets) attended to the world temporary 'appearances', rather than
the world of eternal 'forms'. For her, life was to be lived with others in the
practical tasks of common activity i.e., praxis.
Labour is defined as the biological
process of the human body, and life-sustaining activities, noted for its
remorseless repetition. On the latter point a comparison is made with the
slaves of the Hellenic world; not because of the harshness of the work, but
rather because it was dedicated to the production of necessities, and those
which would be consumed with immediacy. Arendt refers to those who through
circumstance or even choice, are engaged only in labour as 'animal laborans',
as it is such a state that human beings are closest to the animal world. To be
trapped in the world of 'animal laborans' is to be barely human; it is not
living but mere survival, to paraphrase the attributed words of Chief Seattle.
This is, of course, a novel definition which constrasts strongly to theorist
such as Marx (for example) who combined labour, work, and activity into the
single category of "labour". Whereas Marx compared the labour in
relation to ownership of the means of production, Arendt is looking at the
activity itself. For it is quite possible for even a highly democratised
ownership to exist and for the population to be still engaged in labour, in
Arendt's sense. Further - and Arendt is particularly critical of Marx in this
regard - the assumption that the mechanisation of necessary consumables would
lead to a higher civilisation is fallacious without the opportunity for action.
As has become very evident, mechanisation has simple exapanded the appetite of
consumption; from necessities to luxuries.
In contrast the activity of work is
defined as the the interaction between the natural world and human artisanship,
involved in the creation of lasting things, the 'mixing of labour' to
paraphrase Locke, or 'homo faber', the production of things with an end, a
final good or service, in mind. All work involves violence against nature, as
part of the human transformation of the natural world. The distinction between
labour and work, as Arendt notes, can be found in most European languages;
e.g., 'arbeiten' and 'werken' in German; 'laborare' and 'fabricari' in Latin;
'ponein' and 'ergazesthai' in Greek, for example. It is the point where there
is labour transcends itself into permanence. But this process involves a
reifiction, to the conversion of an idea into a thing and instrumentalisation,
"a degredation of things into means" (p156), as evident in
utilitarian approaches, the exchange market, which itself is a new public world,
albeit one which is not part of political action. Applying a Marxist analysis,
it is at this point where alientation in the relations of production occurs.
Finally, action is defined as the
interaction between people "without the intermediary of things or
matter" (p7), which has some semblance to Habermas' public sphere and the
ideal speech situation and inevitably comes with plurality ("this
plurality is specifically the condition - not only the conditio sine qua non,
but the conditio per quam - of all political life" p7). The
principle of action is it required freedom, in a political and economic sense,
and produces political power; contrary to popular belief the dictator is a
person who prevents politics and preventing the development of power. Its
orientation was towards the deeds and ideas that aspired toward the eternal
remembrance, and hence Arendt make the seemingly surprising turn to explicitly
tie action to concepts of promising and forgiving as the means to establish a
degree of certainty in the supposedly unpredictable world where action is
provided.
Common to a lot of her works, Arendt
raises comparison of contemporary society with that of the Ancient Hellenic,
starting with distinguishing the despotism of the private life with the engagement
in the public polis. In modernity, especially through the politics of the
nation-state, a new realm arises "a curiously hybrid realm" called
'society', where private interests enter the public realm, but without an
orientation towards res publica, "the public thing", or public
interests. Indeed the public interest has become almost lost ("withered
away") with a bourgeois infatuation of household happiness, the 'freedom'
to be trivial and vacuous, but never excellent.
In concluding, Arendt considers the modern
age to be one of 'world alienation', where the pretense of the abolition of the
unhappy state of 'animal laborans' is in reality shifted to the third and
fourth world. The instrumentalisation of production has also become an
instrumentalisation of social relations, to the point that the only people
engaging in free action are the scientific community, with its multi-authored
papers and stringent peer review, whose tests are limited to facticity alone.
Whilst Arendt does not explicitly tie her
theory of the human condition to an explicit political economy, it is a
relatively painless task to do so. The principle of abolition of the
undignified status of animal laborans is achievable within its own context,
that is, what reduced human beings to animals of nature is the exclusion of the
equal right to the value of nature from human beings. Likewise the world of the
instrumental homo faber, to paraphrase Saint-Simon's famous dictum, must exist
only for the administration of things, and not the governance of people.
Essentially, free people must be 'ungoverned', and a sphere of life - the
public sphere - must exist for independent human action; the expression of
thoughts, ideas and the reaching of consensus, independent of coercive
influences.
Empire Under Obama: Political Language and the "Mafia Principles" of International Relations
By Andrew Gavin Marshall
The Hampton Institute | News Analysis - Tuesday, 08 October 2013
The first part of this essay series on 'Empire Under Obama' aims to establish some fundamental premises of modern imperialism, or what is often referred to as 'international relations,' 'geopolitics', or 'foreign policy.' The author draws upon Noam Chomsky's suggestion of understanding international relations as the application of 'Mafia Principles' to foreign policy. Future parts to this
series will examinine the manifestation of empire in recent years.
On August 21, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad was accused of using chemical weapons on its own population, prompting Western countries - led by the United States - to declare their intention to bomb Syria to somehow save it from itself. The reasons for the declared intention of launching air strikes on Syria was to punish the Syrian government, to uphold international law, and to act on the 'humanitarian' values which the West presumably holds so dear.
George Orwell discussed this in his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, written two years prior to the publication of 1984. In his essay, Orwell wrote that, "the English language is in a bad way" and that language is ultimately "an instrument which we shape for our own purposes." The decline of language, noted Orwell, "must ultimately have political and economic causes... It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." Still, Orwell suggested, "the process is reversible."[1] To reverse the process, however, we must first understand its application and development.
To read more....
The Hampton Institute | News Analysis - Tuesday, 08 October 2013
The first part of this essay series on 'Empire Under Obama' aims to establish some fundamental premises of modern imperialism, or what is often referred to as 'international relations,' 'geopolitics', or 'foreign policy.' The author draws upon Noam Chomsky's suggestion of understanding international relations as the application of 'Mafia Principles' to foreign policy. Future parts to this
series will examinine the manifestation of empire in recent years.
On August 21, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad was accused of using chemical weapons on its own population, prompting Western countries - led by the United States - to declare their intention to bomb Syria to somehow save it from itself. The reasons for the declared intention of launching air strikes on Syria was to punish the Syrian government, to uphold international law, and to act on the 'humanitarian' values which the West presumably holds so dear.
George Orwell discussed this in his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, written two years prior to the publication of 1984. In his essay, Orwell wrote that, "the English language is in a bad way" and that language is ultimately "an instrument which we shape for our own purposes." The decline of language, noted Orwell, "must ultimately have political and economic causes... It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." Still, Orwell suggested, "the process is reversible."[1] To reverse the process, however, we must first understand its application and development.
To read more....
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Swiss vote for sweet minimum monthly wage: $2,800
Russia Today - October 6, 2013
Some 120,000 Swiss signatories have put their names to a petition demanding a monthly minimum wage of $2,800 (2,500 Swiss francs) for every single member of the working adult population. Enough names have been collected for a government vote.
Anything less than the proposed amount would be deemed illegal, even for people working in the lowest paid jobs. A typical fast-food worker in the US earns roughly $1,500 per month.
“It could be one of the landmark historical moments, like the abolition of slavery, or the civil rights movement – of course, those who don’t want it will find excuses, but those who do want it will find solutions,” Enno Schmidt, founder of the Basic Income Initiative, told RT.
A date for the vote itself is yet to be confirmed, however, it could take place before the end of this year, depending on the decision of the Swiss government. The “1:12 initiative” has gained support across the government’s social democrat bloc.
To read more.....
Some 120,000 Swiss signatories have put their names to a petition demanding a monthly minimum wage of $2,800 (2,500 Swiss francs) for every single member of the working adult population. Enough names have been collected for a government vote.
Anything less than the proposed amount would be deemed illegal, even for people working in the lowest paid jobs. A typical fast-food worker in the US earns roughly $1,500 per month.
“It could be one of the landmark historical moments, like the abolition of slavery, or the civil rights movement – of course, those who don’t want it will find excuses, but those who do want it will find solutions,” Enno Schmidt, founder of the Basic Income Initiative, told RT.
A date for the vote itself is yet to be confirmed, however, it could take place before the end of this year, depending on the decision of the Swiss government. The “1:12 initiative” has gained support across the government’s social democrat bloc.
To read more.....
Intervention as Radical Struggle: On Arendt, Negativity and Resistance
By Javier Sethness
Truthout | Op-Ed - Sunday, 06 October 2013
"What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing." Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition.
Doubtless, there exists much reason to study disobedience, "the spark behind all knowledge," as Gaston Bachelard claims in his Fragments of a Poetics of Fire. I would argue that Albert Camus
is right to claim rebellion - which, as he says, can only ever be a
social project infused by notions of solidarity, rather than
individualism - to be intimately related to the defense of human
existence - survival, in the first place - as well as to the political
task of advancing human flourishing. Alarmingly, both such struggles
today confront especially severe threats: As Noam Chomsky
describes it plainly, the prospect of decent human survival is
presently imperiled by the twin specters of nuclear war and
environmental catastrophe. Given the totally inadequate approaches that
constituted power have presented vis-à-vis these world-historical
problems - radical denial on the one hand, and conscious exacerbation on
the other - the question becomes whether we can hope for revolutionary
interventions from below, emanating from that which Giorgio Agamben
terms "the non-State, which is humanity," to address these pressing
dangers in rational and humane fashion. As we have seen in recent years
with the shattering entrance onto the public stage of oppressed humanity
seeking to manage its affairs autonomously from and antagonistically
against the State and capital, such hope does not seem entirely without
merit.
In this sense, Arendt is correct to note, as she did in reflecting on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, that the tide of history can shift radically and rapidly, once established hierarchies are disrupted by the broad-based delegitimization of prevailing power relations. Indeed, such a perspective seems to be one of the major, optimistic conclusions to be gleaned from George Katsiaficas' sweeping study of People's Power movements throughout much of Asia - that despotism is doomed, once the demos struggles together to overthrow it, and that the militaristic repression perennially visited on dissident movements reflects the oppressors' fears of the power of the people. Hence, I completely reject the nihilistic notion that intervention constitutes little more than a "decoy or distraction in the face of futility" or a "cover or compensation for hopeless battles and setups." Consider for a moment the Great French Revolution of 1789-1794: One would be at a loss to think of a similarly shattering event in human history, one that abolished monarchy and feudalism at a stroke - not to mention recognizing the end to formal slavery in Saint Domingue/Haiti, following the radical struggle of the slaves there themselves to destroy the system oppressing them. I claim that G.W.F. Hegel was right to celebrate this intervention as "a glorious mental dawn," one that led "[a]ll thinking beings" to experience "jubilation." Similarly, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just justifiably declared the Revolution as promoting the concept of happiness, which heretofore had been denied by existing social arrangements; it was for this reason "a new idea in Europe," and a new reality.
To read more....
Truthout | Op-Ed - Sunday, 06 October 2013
"What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing." Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition.
Doubtless, there exists much reason to study disobedience, "the spark behind all knowledge," as Gaston Bachelard claims in his Fragments of a Poetics of Fire. I would argue that Albert Camus
is right to claim rebellion - which, as he says, can only ever be a
social project infused by notions of solidarity, rather than
individualism - to be intimately related to the defense of human
existence - survival, in the first place - as well as to the political
task of advancing human flourishing. Alarmingly, both such struggles
today confront especially severe threats: As Noam Chomsky
describes it plainly, the prospect of decent human survival is
presently imperiled by the twin specters of nuclear war and
environmental catastrophe. Given the totally inadequate approaches that
constituted power have presented vis-à-vis these world-historical
problems - radical denial on the one hand, and conscious exacerbation on
the other - the question becomes whether we can hope for revolutionary
interventions from below, emanating from that which Giorgio Agamben
terms "the non-State, which is humanity," to address these pressing
dangers in rational and humane fashion. As we have seen in recent years
with the shattering entrance onto the public stage of oppressed humanity
seeking to manage its affairs autonomously from and antagonistically
against the State and capital, such hope does not seem entirely without
merit.In this sense, Arendt is correct to note, as she did in reflecting on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, that the tide of history can shift radically and rapidly, once established hierarchies are disrupted by the broad-based delegitimization of prevailing power relations. Indeed, such a perspective seems to be one of the major, optimistic conclusions to be gleaned from George Katsiaficas' sweeping study of People's Power movements throughout much of Asia - that despotism is doomed, once the demos struggles together to overthrow it, and that the militaristic repression perennially visited on dissident movements reflects the oppressors' fears of the power of the people. Hence, I completely reject the nihilistic notion that intervention constitutes little more than a "decoy or distraction in the face of futility" or a "cover or compensation for hopeless battles and setups." Consider for a moment the Great French Revolution of 1789-1794: One would be at a loss to think of a similarly shattering event in human history, one that abolished monarchy and feudalism at a stroke - not to mention recognizing the end to formal slavery in Saint Domingue/Haiti, following the radical struggle of the slaves there themselves to destroy the system oppressing them. I claim that G.W.F. Hegel was right to celebrate this intervention as "a glorious mental dawn," one that led "[a]ll thinking beings" to experience "jubilation." Similarly, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just justifiably declared the Revolution as promoting the concept of happiness, which heretofore had been denied by existing social arrangements; it was for this reason "a new idea in Europe," and a new reality.
To read more....
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Robots May Revolutionize China's Electronics Manufacturing
Machines in Pipeline to Supplant Workers as Pay Soars and People Age
By PAUL MOZUR and EVA DOU
The Wall Street Journal - September 24, 2013
A new worker's revolution is rising in China and it doesn't involve humans.
With soaring wages and an aging population, electronics factory managers say the day is approaching when robotic workers will replace people on the Chinese factory floor.
A new wave of industrial robots is in development, ranging from high-end humanoid machines with vision, touch and even learning capabilities, to low-cost robots vying to undercut China's minimum wage.
Over the next five years these technologies will transform China's factories, executives say, and also fill a growing labor shortage as the country's youth become increasingly unwilling to perform manual labor. How the transformation plays out will also go a long way in deciding how much of the electronics supply chain remains in China.
To read more.....
By PAUL MOZUR and EVA DOU
The Wall Street Journal - September 24, 2013
A new worker's revolution is rising in China and it doesn't involve humans.
With soaring wages and an aging population, electronics factory managers say the day is approaching when robotic workers will replace people on the Chinese factory floor.
A new wave of industrial robots is in development, ranging from high-end humanoid machines with vision, touch and even learning capabilities, to low-cost robots vying to undercut China's minimum wage.
Over the next five years these technologies will transform China's factories, executives say, and also fill a growing labor shortage as the country's youth become increasingly unwilling to perform manual labor. How the transformation plays out will also go a long way in deciding how much of the electronics supply chain remains in China.
To read more.....
Iran Opens Its Fist
By Gary Sick
The New York Review of Books – September 30, 2013
He came to New York. He saw almost everyone. Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s new president, may not have conquered, but at least he seems to have persuaded John Kerry and Barack Obama that his proposals for negotiating an end to the US-Iran conflict deserve to be taken seriously. When President Obama picked up his phone in the Oval Office on Friday to bid farewell to President Rouhani with the Persian phrase Khodahafez (“God be with you”), there was the sense that a tectonic shift between Washington and Tehran was taking place.
The Rouhani blitz was regarded by many cynics as nothing but a charm offensive. Of course, in one sense that is what it was. Rouhani dominated the media, with half a dozen one-on-one interviews, a well written and conciliatory op-ed in the Washington Post, a seemingly endless series of meetings with curated groups of journalists, scholars, former US government officials, business executives, and a throng of his fellow Iranians, many of whom had taken refuge in the United States from the regime he represents. He spoke to the UN General Assembly (the ostensible purpose of his visit), to the Non-Aligned Movement (which Iran chairs), and to a collection of some two hundred members of the Asia Society and the Council on Foreign Relations at a midtown hotel.
I watched him in the two meetings that I attended and in most of his televised appearances. Rouhani is a man of considerable gravitas. He is serious, businesslike, and fully in command of his brief. Except for the formal speeches, he spoke without notes and responded directly and thoughtfully to the many questions directed at him. He spoke in Persian, except for an occasional English phrase, but he listened to his English-speaking audience without simultaneous translation, and his responses indicated that he grasped not only the words but also the nuances. Rouhani is a cleric, and he wears the robes and turban appropriate to his status. But he prefers to be addressed as Doctor Rouhani, in recognition of his PhD in law from Glasgow Caledonian University. Addressing members of New York think tanks, he reminded them that until recently he was one of them, running the Center for Strategic Research in Tehran. That, however, is only a small part of his résumé.
To read more....
The New York Review of Books – September 30, 2013
He came to New York. He saw almost everyone. Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s new president, may not have conquered, but at least he seems to have persuaded John Kerry and Barack Obama that his proposals for negotiating an end to the US-Iran conflict deserve to be taken seriously. When President Obama picked up his phone in the Oval Office on Friday to bid farewell to President Rouhani with the Persian phrase Khodahafez (“God be with you”), there was the sense that a tectonic shift between Washington and Tehran was taking place.
The Rouhani blitz was regarded by many cynics as nothing but a charm offensive. Of course, in one sense that is what it was. Rouhani dominated the media, with half a dozen one-on-one interviews, a well written and conciliatory op-ed in the Washington Post, a seemingly endless series of meetings with curated groups of journalists, scholars, former US government officials, business executives, and a throng of his fellow Iranians, many of whom had taken refuge in the United States from the regime he represents. He spoke to the UN General Assembly (the ostensible purpose of his visit), to the Non-Aligned Movement (which Iran chairs), and to a collection of some two hundred members of the Asia Society and the Council on Foreign Relations at a midtown hotel.
I watched him in the two meetings that I attended and in most of his televised appearances. Rouhani is a man of considerable gravitas. He is serious, businesslike, and fully in command of his brief. Except for the formal speeches, he spoke without notes and responded directly and thoughtfully to the many questions directed at him. He spoke in Persian, except for an occasional English phrase, but he listened to his English-speaking audience without simultaneous translation, and his responses indicated that he grasped not only the words but also the nuances. Rouhani is a cleric, and he wears the robes and turban appropriate to his status. But he prefers to be addressed as Doctor Rouhani, in recognition of his PhD in law from Glasgow Caledonian University. Addressing members of New York think tanks, he reminded them that until recently he was one of them, running the Center for Strategic Research in Tehran. That, however, is only a small part of his résumé.
To read more....
Shutting Down the World? By Jonathan Freedland
The New York Review of Books - October 3, 2013
When I was The Guardian‘s Washington correspondent in the 1990s, fellow members of the British press corps would joke about a specific genre of story our news desks back home could not resist. TWA’s I called them: Those Wacky Americans. Typically, these were matters of no national consequence, such as the self-styled “meanest sheriff in America,” humiliating jail inmates by making them wear pink underwear, or the strange world of Utah polygamists. But sometimes national politics fell into the TWA category too: the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns of the US government, for example, which closed the Statue of Liberty to visitors and, improbably, deprived veterans of their benefits.
“We almost watched it as a spectator sport,” recalls Robin Niblett, director of London’s Chatham House (more formally known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs). “It was ‘Bloody hell, what are those Americans up to now?’”
This time around, however, with the US government shutdown again, there is not just bemusement in capitals across Europe and Asia, but a growing sense of angst. If the current deadlock extends to October 17, and a congressional refusal to raise the debt ceiling triggers a US default, the impact will be instant and international. What for the Tea Party caucus will be a gesture about excessive federal spending, will to the rest of the world be an act of sabotage inflicted on the global economic system.
Even before things reach that drastic pass, the current display of self-induced paralysis has many asking, If the United States cannot solve its own problems, how can it help solve the world’s? “Is Uncle Sam ready for assisted suicide?” asked one London columnist, unable to believe that the nation still routinely deemed the world’s sole superpower has to send its own government into hibernation because it cannot agree to pay its bills.
To read more.....
When I was The Guardian‘s Washington correspondent in the 1990s, fellow members of the British press corps would joke about a specific genre of story our news desks back home could not resist. TWA’s I called them: Those Wacky Americans. Typically, these were matters of no national consequence, such as the self-styled “meanest sheriff in America,” humiliating jail inmates by making them wear pink underwear, or the strange world of Utah polygamists. But sometimes national politics fell into the TWA category too: the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns of the US government, for example, which closed the Statue of Liberty to visitors and, improbably, deprived veterans of their benefits.
“We almost watched it as a spectator sport,” recalls Robin Niblett, director of London’s Chatham House (more formally known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs). “It was ‘Bloody hell, what are those Americans up to now?’”
This time around, however, with the US government shutdown again, there is not just bemusement in capitals across Europe and Asia, but a growing sense of angst. If the current deadlock extends to October 17, and a congressional refusal to raise the debt ceiling triggers a US default, the impact will be instant and international. What for the Tea Party caucus will be a gesture about excessive federal spending, will to the rest of the world be an act of sabotage inflicted on the global economic system.
Even before things reach that drastic pass, the current display of self-induced paralysis has many asking, If the United States cannot solve its own problems, how can it help solve the world’s? “Is Uncle Sam ready for assisted suicide?” asked one London columnist, unable to believe that the nation still routinely deemed the world’s sole superpower has to send its own government into hibernation because it cannot agree to pay its bills.
To read more.....
Interview with Professor John L. Esposito
Islamist Gate conducted an email interview with world-renowned scholar Professor John L. Esposito. John L. Esposito is University Professor and Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University. His many books include The Future of Islam.
Interview with Professor John L. Esposito
Islamistgate - Tuesday 01/October/2013
Islamist Gate: On June 30, many observers declared the death of the Muslim Brotherhood group, and also the death of "the project of political Islam". How do you assess these two hypothesis - why do you think they are right/wrong? How do you see the future of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and across the Arab world, and the future of political Islam?
Professor John L. Esposito: LET ME EMPHASIZE THAT I AM NOT CONCERNED HERE WITH DEFENDING THE BROTHERHOOD PER SE BUT HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS IN EGYPT.
While I respect the rights of the opposition to Pres. Morsi to have mobilized, demonstrated, called for and insisted upon reforms, I believe that the path to a more democratic and non-authoritarian state requires that change come through ballots not bullets.
The “observers [who have] declared the death of the Muslim Brotherhood” would be wise to remember the famous phrase of Mark Twain, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Or, “Those who do not know history are destined to repeat it.” George Santayana
When Gamal Abdel Nasser attempted to eradicate the MB, many, including experts on the MB, sounded its death knell. Years later they would be proven wrong. There are two lessons to be learned from this period. First, when under Anwar Sadat the MB came out of prison and out of hiding, it reemerged and resurrected itself and rebuilt its movement to become a major social and political movement in Egypt functioning non-violently reform within mainstream society. Second, the negative result of Nasser’s purge was that former MB members as a result of their imprisonment and torture broke with the Brotherhood and, convinced that violent revolution rather than reform was the only way to topple a repressive authoritarian regime turned to violence and terrorism, a reign of terror by a number of extremist groups that stretched from Sadat’s regime and his assassination through the 1990s and the terror during Mubarak’s rule.
Again, the same is true, regarding those who have declared the death of the project of political Islam. A prominent reporter for a major publication once called me up, when in the words of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran had to “swallow the bitter pill” and call an end the Iran-Iraq war, and asked for my reaction to her conclusion that this signaled the end of political Islam. And of course it did not. Years later she called again on the death of Khomeini and repeated the same conclusion, that surely now political Islam was dead. This was not to be the case as demonstrated by the reemergence of the MB in Egypt, the return of Ennahda and Rashid Ghannoushi to Tunisia and their victory in elections, the end of Erbakan’s Welfare Party but years later the emergence of the AKP under Erdogan and Gull’s leadership, not to mention examples from Morocco and elsewhere. Like all social movements and political parties, their survival and success will be the extent to which they are able to learn from their experiences and adapt their ideology and policies to the political and social realities and challenges of their societies.
To read more.....
Interview with Professor John L. Esposito
Islamistgate - Tuesday 01/October/2013
Islamist Gate: On June 30, many observers declared the death of the Muslim Brotherhood group, and also the death of "the project of political Islam". How do you assess these two hypothesis - why do you think they are right/wrong? How do you see the future of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and across the Arab world, and the future of political Islam?
Professor John L. Esposito: LET ME EMPHASIZE THAT I AM NOT CONCERNED HERE WITH DEFENDING THE BROTHERHOOD PER SE BUT HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS IN EGYPT. While I respect the rights of the opposition to Pres. Morsi to have mobilized, demonstrated, called for and insisted upon reforms, I believe that the path to a more democratic and non-authoritarian state requires that change come through ballots not bullets.
The “observers [who have] declared the death of the Muslim Brotherhood” would be wise to remember the famous phrase of Mark Twain, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Or, “Those who do not know history are destined to repeat it.” George Santayana
When Gamal Abdel Nasser attempted to eradicate the MB, many, including experts on the MB, sounded its death knell. Years later they would be proven wrong. There are two lessons to be learned from this period. First, when under Anwar Sadat the MB came out of prison and out of hiding, it reemerged and resurrected itself and rebuilt its movement to become a major social and political movement in Egypt functioning non-violently reform within mainstream society. Second, the negative result of Nasser’s purge was that former MB members as a result of their imprisonment and torture broke with the Brotherhood and, convinced that violent revolution rather than reform was the only way to topple a repressive authoritarian regime turned to violence and terrorism, a reign of terror by a number of extremist groups that stretched from Sadat’s regime and his assassination through the 1990s and the terror during Mubarak’s rule.
Again, the same is true, regarding those who have declared the death of the project of political Islam. A prominent reporter for a major publication once called me up, when in the words of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran had to “swallow the bitter pill” and call an end the Iran-Iraq war, and asked for my reaction to her conclusion that this signaled the end of political Islam. And of course it did not. Years later she called again on the death of Khomeini and repeated the same conclusion, that surely now political Islam was dead. This was not to be the case as demonstrated by the reemergence of the MB in Egypt, the return of Ennahda and Rashid Ghannoushi to Tunisia and their victory in elections, the end of Erbakan’s Welfare Party but years later the emergence of the AKP under Erdogan and Gull’s leadership, not to mention examples from Morocco and elsewhere. Like all social movements and political parties, their survival and success will be the extent to which they are able to learn from their experiences and adapt their ideology and policies to the political and social realities and challenges of their societies.
To read more.....
Why Drag Queens Are Better Role Models Than Disney Princesses
Joy Martin-Malone
Mother, writer, designer and reconstruction extraordinaire
The Huffington Post - 09/29/2013
An earlier version of this blog post originally appeared on MamaPop.
The moment that I learned of the twin girls in my belly, I resolved not to send two hoes into the world. I'd teach them that self-expression is always more important than playing nice, and I'd warn them that waiting around for someone else to make their dreams come true is not only futile but downright scallywag.
So imagine my horror when my toddlers took to Disney princesses. And
it goes beyond merely watching the movies and buying the merchandise: My
girls have lived as those characters for the past three years. They've
all but forgotten how to count to 5, but they can curtsy, smile and gasp
on cue. The standard name for each color has been replaced by the name
of the princess with the corresponding branding: "Belle" for "yellow,"
"Tiana" for "green," "Cinderella" for "blue," "Sleeping Beauty" for
"pink," etc. The feminist inside me wept -- until, eavesdropping on
their usual princess gab, I overheard the following statement:
"My favorite princess is Ariel, and yours is Cinderella, and Mommy's favorite princess is Sharon Needles."
To read more...
Mother, writer, designer and reconstruction extraordinaire
The Huffington Post - 09/29/2013
An earlier version of this blog post originally appeared on MamaPop.
The moment that I learned of the twin girls in my belly, I resolved not to send two hoes into the world. I'd teach them that self-expression is always more important than playing nice, and I'd warn them that waiting around for someone else to make their dreams come true is not only futile but downright scallywag.
So imagine my horror when my toddlers took to Disney princesses. And
it goes beyond merely watching the movies and buying the merchandise: My
girls have lived as those characters for the past three years. They've
all but forgotten how to count to 5, but they can curtsy, smile and gasp
on cue. The standard name for each color has been replaced by the name
of the princess with the corresponding branding: "Belle" for "yellow,"
"Tiana" for "green," "Cinderella" for "blue," "Sleeping Beauty" for
"pink," etc. The feminist inside me wept -- until, eavesdropping on
their usual princess gab, I overheard the following statement:"My favorite princess is Ariel, and yours is Cinderella, and Mommy's favorite princess is Sharon Needles."
To read more...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)