Chimanda Adichie on the danger of a single story

Click here to watch this TED video:

In Nigeria, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun has helped inspire new, cross-generational communication about the Biafran war. In this and in her other works, she seeks to instill dignity into the finest details of each character, whether poor, middle class or rich, exposing along the way the deep scars of colonialism in the African landscape.

Adichie’s newest book, The Thing Around Your Neck, is a brilliant collection of stories about Nigerians struggling to cope with a corrupted context in their home country, and about the Nigerian immigrant experience.

NPR: Foreign Dispatch Podcast

 

Foreign Dispatch is a weekly podcast of the biggest news and best stories as covered by National Public Radio’s Foreign correspondents from around the world.

Visit this podcast’s Web site

Charity: Water a simple yet brilliant idea

Click to watch how one idea changed hundreds of lives

Peace and Prosperity in Jenin, West Bank?

PBS Episode: Peace and Prosperity in the West Bank?

Once one of the most dangerous cities in the West Bank, Jenin. Today, however, there’s been a huge turnaround. Jenin is now the center of an international effort to build a safe and economically prosperous Palestinian state.

Watch the Video

Cheat Sheet: Must Reads From All Over

Daily Beast’s cheat sheet is a must read.

Stories to Listen to on NPR

1) Is Hamas Support in Gaza Waning?

2) What  J Street May Mean for America and…the Middle East?

3) Naguib Mahfouz Book of Dreams

4) Afghanistan: A Woman Among Women

Torture songs spur a protest most vocal

Musicians call for release of records on Guantanamo detainee treatment

By Joe Heim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 22, 2009

Was the theme to “Sesame Street” really played to torture prisoners held at Guantanamo and other detention camps? What about Don McLean’s “American Pie”? Or the Meow Mix jingle? Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.”?

A high-profile coalition of artists — including the members of Pearl Jam, R.E.M. and the Roots — demanded Thursday that the government release the names of all the songs that were blasted since 2002 at prisoners for hours, even days, on end, to try to coerce cooperation or as a method of punishment.

Read more

Impressive Amman Website

Read more about Amman’s story on this impressive new site:

Brutal Destruction Of Iraq’s Archaeological Sites Continues

Buried in Iraq’s clay and dirt is the history of Western civilization. Great empires once thrived here, cultures that produced the world’s first wheel, first cities, first agriculture, first code of law, first base-sixty number system, and very possibly the first writing. A brutal plundering of this rich cultural heritage has been taking place in broad daylight ever since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. These days Ancient Mesopotamia looks more like a scene from the movie Holes.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-tucker/brutal-destruction-of-ira_b_290667.html

View slideshow and Read more at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-tucker/brutal-destruction-of-ira_b_290667.html

NYRB: The Afghanistan Impasse

There were hundreds of foreign observers to watch Afghans go to the polls on August 20. Both UN officials and a European Union delegation were assigned months ago to make sure it would be a creditable election. In fact, for the US and its NATO partners, most of this year has been taken up with preparing for the elections and trying to ensure sufficient security for them. Yet the entire Western community in Afghanistan was caught napping by the widespread fraud. How could the rigging have happened?

Read the article in NYRB

Daily Beast: One Company, 23 Suicides

Since early 2008, nearly two-dozen employees at France Telecom have taken their own lives. Is the communications giant’s corporate culture to blame? Eric Pape investigates.

Read this investigative piece

The Nation: Women Trafficking

A feature published in The Nation magazine:

“A lock on a brothel, for me, represents this element of violence and force,” says Haugen. “The lock is on the outside of the door, not inside.”

For Haugen, the locks are reminders of his calling: to break the chain of human rights abuses, one person at a time. He argues that the main problem facing the disenfranchised is not one of hunger, homelessness, lack of education or disease. Rather, the root cause of much of the suffering in the developing world is the failure of the criminal justice system to protect the poor from violence–the brutality that robs them of food, home, liberty and dignity.

Read the feature article in The Nation

Video: The Girl Effect

Clean Water

By Scott Harrison

Founder and president, charity: water

Nonprofits like ours that are addressing enormous problems (a billion people without clean water) are told to make sure we don’t scare people off by communicating how big the whole problem is.

Author Seth Godin recently wrote that the problem with enormity in marketing is that it doesn’t work. He said “Enormity should pull at our heartstrings, but it usually shuts us down. Show us too many sick kids, unfair imprisonments or burned bodies and you won’t get a bigger donation, you’ll just get averted eyes.”

While all this may be true, it just seems rather boring. Visionless. I have to believe people want to sign up for something bigger than just one. I did.

There’s a proverb in the Bible that says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” People are certainly dying all around us, but could that be because we’re terrified to tackle the enormous? Because we don’t have the faith to see the entire problem solved?

I can’t quite see to a billion people yet, but I’m getting closer. Your generosity has helped us do that. In only three years, 60,000 people around the world have donated $11 million. That means 750,000 lives will change. 750,000 people will get clean water to drink.

So in the spirit of solving enormous problems, we want to step it up this September, and serve our first million people. Then keep going until every single person on the planet has clean and safe drinking water.

McDonalds served a billion people, didn’t they?

We made a video that explains how we want to do that. Please watch it, and share it.

We’ve also built a new website that allows everyone to use birthdays, anniversaries, weddings… to run marathons, swim and dance — do just about anything to help. Every dollar given is tracked to the project it funded, and GPS coordinates and photos are posted on Google Earth when complete. Like always, 100% goes directly to the field.

In only eight days, individuals already raised $80,000 towards our goal.

Read it in the Huffington Post

Opposing the death penalty is not about innocence

By Lee Kovarsky

Fighting the death penalty should not hinge on proving that innocent people have been sentenced to die.

As the attention paid to systemic failure grows, so too does the apparent need to posthumously exonerate a capital convict. It is now fair to say that a posthumous exoneration is the pièce de résistance of death penalty opposition. But ardent defenders of capital punishment appear comfortable to defend on this territory. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a 2005 Supreme Court opinion that there is not “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.” For at least two reasons I discuss below, we must be careful not to overstate the importance of posthumous exoneration.

Read this article published in salon.com

Artist pushing limits teaching in the Middle East

“I went over there with a lot of fear, not knowing anything about the culture,” she says.

The longtime Lawrence-area artist, a 56-year-old journeywoman lecturer at area universities, finally landed a full-time position — teaching at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Amman, Jordan. She started a year ago this week.

After a year of frustrations, triumphs and plenty of education — both students’ and her own — Doner-Hedrick is headed back to the Middle East this week with a renewed sense of purpose both as an educator and an artist.

“I really found my place in life,” she says.

Read more…

For ‘Amreeka’ Director, Life As Inspiration For Art

Writer and director Cherien Dabis drew upon her own childhood experiences as a first-generation Arab immigrant growing up in the Midwest for her feature film Amreeka. The film explores the journey of a single mom and her teenage son as they emigrate from the West Bank to America during the first Gulf War. Amreeka has garnered high praise from both critics and audiences alike.

Listen to this Story

Congo’s ‘Hidden’ War

Although it has been strangely ignored in the Western press, one of the most destructive wars in modern history has been going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s third-largest country. During the past eleven years millions of people have died, while armies from as many as nine different African countries fought with Congolese government forces and various rebel groups for control of land and natural resources. Much of the fighting has taken place in regions of northeastern and eastern Congo that are rich in minerals such as gold, diamonds, tin, and coltan, which is used in manufacturing electronics.

Few realize that a main force driving this conflict has been the largely Tutsi army of neighboring Rwanda, along with several Congolese groups supported by Rwanda.

Read the article

Powerful Photo: US Surge in Homeless Pupils Strains Schools

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Her family is facing eviction, but Charity Crowell, 9, and her younger brother are enrolled in elementary school in Asheville, N.C

Read the article

Israel, Jordan Find Accord in Finding New Water Supplies

Jordan loses perhaps half of its water supply to leakage and illegal wells

Controversial Projects Include Network Linking the Dead Sea and the Red Sea

Washington Post:

Water is a major source of contention in the Middle East, whether it is tension over Egypt’s concerns about Sudan’s management of the southern Nile or disputes between Israel and the Palestinian Authority over shortages in the occupied West Bank. The water shortage is severe enough to upend some of the region’s traditional dynamics. Jordan and Israel are often pressured by Western nations and international organizations to cooperate in the name of Arab-Israeli peace. Water is one area in which pressure is running in the other direction, with the two pushing quickly on the Red Sea-Dead Sea connection while outside observers urge restraint.

Jordan now views the connection as central to the long-term stability of its water supply. Upset over the years spent discussing the project without concrete action, the country in the spring announced plans to proceed on its own. Israel has since said it would join its neighbor in an initial phase, even as the World Bank and environmental groups foresee perhaps two more years for studies to be completed before deciding whether the project should be built at all.

Read the article in the Washington Post

Social Scientists Deployed to Afghanistan?

Why are social scientists being deployed to Afghanistan?

As the White House turns its focus to the war in Afghanistan, President Obama has stressed the need to win over “the hearts and minds” of the Afghan people. That’s the goal of teams of anthropologists and social scientists who are currently embedded with troops in Afghanistan. Washington Post Reporter Vanessa Gezari, who’s writing a book about the ‘Human Terrain System’, explains how it works. And Dr. Karl Slaikeu, a psychologist and conflict resolution specialist currently along side troops in Afghanistan, offers a first hand perspective.

Listen to this story on NPR

Where is the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Program going?

After meeting with World Bank President, Robert Zoellick, Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister of Regional Development, Silvan Shalom, stated that the World Bank had agreed to fund the Red-Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Program that involves Jordan, Palestine and Israel. However, Bank officials say that they have made no promises and that the project is still in the feasibility study phase.

The studies are slated to be completed in early 2011. According Lintner, the Bank has still not determined how much financial (or other) involvement it will have in the project’s future, but Lintner stated that by 2011, the three governments involved in the project will have decided what the Bank’s role will be if any, but that it is the governments’ decision to make. At this point the Bank’s only involvement is in the feasibility and the environmental impacts studies, which the governments of France, Greece, Italy, South Korea, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden and USA have jointly put in the allocated $16.2 million for.

Read more

46 Million Uninsured Americans: A Look Behind The Number

“We are not a nation that accepts nearly 46 million uninsured men, women and children,” President Obama told doctors in a speech before the American Medical Association in Chicago in June. “We are not a nation that lets hardworking families go without coverage, or turns its back on those in need. We’re a nation that cares for its citizens. We look out for one another. That’s what makes us the United States of America. We need to get this done.”

And the White House Council of Economic Advisers pressed the number in its number-crunching case for a health overhaul: “Perhaps the most visible sign of the need for health care reform is the 46 million Americans currently without health insurance,” according to the report, also issued in June.

The 46 million number is a handy one — large and round — but who are the people it represents, and what does it mean for the rest of us that they don’t have insurance?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY on NPR

Daily Beast: Can USAID Survive Without a Leader?

Until last week, Farmer was rumored to be Hillary Clinton’s choice to head USAID, an organization that has languished without a leader for almost seven months. Then he bowed out, and Wednesday came news that he’s going to be the U.N. Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti under Bill Clinton. It’s probably a much better position for him—Farmer isn’t a bureaucrat, and Haiti, where he founded the pioneering Zanmi Lasante hospital, is by all accounts where his heart is. But it raises a question that’s being asked with increasing urgency within development circles—why can’t the Obama administration fill the void at the top of USAID?

Read more….

A very important topic since Jordan is very dependent on USAID…

Iraqi Refugees Struggle to Adjust to Life in U.S.

By KIRK SEMPLE

Not long after the Iraq War began in 2003, Uday al-Ghanimi was accosted by several men outside the American military base where he managed a convenience store. They accused him of abetting the Americans, and one fired a pistol at his head.

Now, after 24 operations, Mr. Ghanimi has a reconstructed face as well as political asylum in the United States. On July 4, his wife and three youngest children joined him in New York after a three-year separation.

But the euphoria of their reunion quickly dissipated as the family began to reckon with the colder realities of their new life. Mr. Ghanimi, 50, who has not been able to work because of lingering pain, is supporting his family on a monthly disability check of $761, food stamps and handouts from friends. They are crammed into one room they rent in a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in a city whose small Iraqi population is scattered. And Mr. Ghanimi’s wife and children do not speak English, deepening their sense of isolation.

A report released in June by the International Rescue Committee, a refugee resettlement organization in New York, said that many Iraqi immigrants have been unable to find jobs, are exhausting government and other benefits and are spiraling toward poverty and homelessness.

“They say, ‘Let’s go back,’ ” Mr. Ghanimi said glumly. “It’s not what they were thinking. I told them, ‘Just be patient.’ ”

For years after the American invasion of Iraq, thousands of Iraqis clamored for admission to the United States and found the door all but closed — until the government reacted to widespread criticism in 2007 by making it easier for more to enter with special visas or as refugees.

But now that Iraqis are arriving in larger numbers, many are discovering that life in the United States is much harder than they expected.

Read the article

Mentally Ill Offenders Strain Juvenile System

As cash-starved states slash mental health programs in communities and schools, they are increasingly relying on the juvenile corrections system to handle a generation of young offenders with psychiatric disorders. About two-thirds of the nation’s juvenile inmates — who numbered 92,854 in 2006, down from 107,000 in 1999 — have at least one mental illness, according to surveys of youth prisons, and are more in need of therapy than punishment.

“We’re seeing more and more mentally ill kids who couldn’t find community programs that were intensive enough to treat them,” said Joseph Penn, a child psychiatrist at the Texas Youth Commission. “Jails and juvenile justice facilities are the new asylums.”

At least 32 states cut their community mental health programs by an average of 5 percent this year and plan to double those budget reductions by 2010, according to a recent survey of state mental health offices.

Read the article

Rise in suicide among American Soldiers

By ERICA GOODE

Sgt. Jacob Blaylock flipped on the video camera he had set up in a trailer at the Tallil military base, southeast of Baghdad.

He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, blew the smoke upward.

“Hey, it’s Jackie,” he said. “It’s the 20th of April. We go home in six days. I lost two good friends on the 14th. I’m having a hard time dealing with it.”

For almost a year, the soldiers of the 1451st Transportation Company had been escorting trucks full of gasoline, building materials and other supplies along Iraq’s dark, dangerous highways. There had been injuries, but no one had died.

Their luck evaporated less than two weeks before they were to return home, in the spring of 2007. A scout truck driving at the front of a convoy late at night hit a homemade bomb buried in the asphalt. Two soldiers, Sgt. Brandon Wallace and Sgt. Joshua Schmit, were killed.

The deaths stunned the unit, part of the North Carolina National Guard. The two men were popular and respected — “big personalities,” as one soldier put it. Sergeant Blaylock, who was close to both men, seemed especially shaken. Sometime earlier, feeling the strain of riding the gunner position in the exposed front truck, he had switched places with Sergeant Wallace, moving to a Humvee at the rear.

“It was supposed to be me,” he would tell people later.

The losses followed the men and women of the 1451st home as they dispersed to North Carolina and Tennessee, New York and Oklahoma, reuniting with their families and returning to their jobs.

Sergeant Blaylock went back to Houston, where he tried to pick up the pieces of his life and shape them into a whole. But grief and guilt trailed him, combining with other stresses: financial troubles, disputes with his estranged wife over their young daughter, the absence of the tight group of friends who had helped him make it through 12 months of war.

On Dec. 9, 2007, Sergeant Blaylock, heavily intoxicated, lifted a 9-millimeter handgun to his head during an argument with his girlfriend and pulled the trigger. He was 26.

“I have failed myself,” he wrote in a note found later in his car. “I have let those around me down.”

Over the next year, three more soldiers from the 1451st — Sgt. Jeffrey Wilson, Sgt. Roger Parker and Specialist Skip Brinkley — would take their own lives. The four suicides, in a unit of roughly 175 soldiers, make the company an extreme example of what experts see as an alarming trend in the years since the invasion of Iraq.

The number of suicides reported by the Army has risen to the highest level since record-keeping began three decades ago. Last year, there were 192 among active-duty soldiers and soldiers on inactive reserve status, twice as many as in 2003, when the war began. (Five more suspected suicides are still being investigated.) This year’s figure is likely to be even higher: from January to mid-July, 129 suicides were confirmed or suspected, more than the number of American soldiers who died in combat during the same period.

Those statistics, of course, do not offer a full picture. Suicide counts tend to be undercounts, and the trend is less marked in other branches of the military. Nor are there reliable figures for veterans who have left the service; the Department of Veterans Affairs can only systematically track suicides among its hospitalized patients, and it does not issue regular suicide reports.

Even so, stung by criticism from veterans groups and mental health advocates, the Pentagon and the veterans agency have increased efforts to understand and address the problem. They have bolstered suicide-prevention programs, hiring hundreds more mental health providers. At Fort Campbell, in Kentucky, where at least 14 soldiers have killed themselves this year alone, normal activities were suspended for three days in May and replaced with suicide-prevention training. Late last year, the Army commissioned a five-year, $50 million study of the causes of suicide among soldiers, turning to four outside experts to lead the research.

“The ‘business as usual’ attitudes of the past are no longer appropriate,” said George Wright, an Army spokesman. “It’s clear we have not found full solutions yet, but we are trying every remedy.”

Read more…

Read Ending It All

US: 12 and in Prison

An important editorial published in the NYT today:

The Supreme Court sent an important message when it ruled in Roper v. Simmons in 2005 that children under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed were not eligible for the death penalty. Justice Anthony Kennedy drew on compassion, common sense and the science of the youthful brain when he wrote that it was morally wrong to equate the offenses of emotionally undeveloped adolescents with the offenses of fully formed adults.

The states have followed this logic in death penalty cases. But they have continued to mete out barbaric treatment — including life sentences — to children whose cases should rightly be handled through the juvenile courts.

Congress can help to correct these practices by amending the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, which is up for Congressional reauthorization this year. To get a share of delinquency prevention money, the law requires the states and localities to meet minimum federal protections for youths in the justice system. These protections are intended to keep as many youths as possible out of adult jails and prisons, and to segregate those that are sent to those places from the adult criminal population.

The case for tougher legislative action is laid out in an alarming new study of children 13 and under in the adult criminal justice system, the lead author of which is the juvenile justice scholar, Michele Deitch, of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. According to the study, every state allows juveniles to be tried as adults, and more than 20 states permit preadolescent children as young as 7 to be tried in adult courts.

This is terrible public policy. Children who are convicted and sentenced as adults are much more likely to become violent offenders — and to return to an adult jail later on — than children tried in the juvenile justice system.

Despite these well-known risks, policy makers across the country do not have reliable data on just how many children are being shunted into the adult system by state statutes or prosecutors, who have the discretion to file cases in the adult courts.

But there is reasonably reliable data showing juvenile court judges send about 80 children ages 13 and under into the adult courts each year. These statistics explode the myth that those children have committed especially heinous acts.

The data suggest, for example, that children 13 and under who commit crimes like burglary and theft are just as likely to be sent to adult courts as children who commit serious acts of violence against people. As has been shown in previous studies, minority defendants are more likely to get adult treatment than their white counterparts who commit comparable offenses.

The study’s authors rightly call on lawmakers to enact laws that discourage harsh sentencing for preadolescent children and that enable them to be transferred back into the juvenile system. Beyond that, Congress should amend the juvenile justice act to require the states to simply end these inhumane practices to be eligible for federal juvenile justice funds.

Read more on Jordan’s attempt to reform its prison system.

Iraq’s National Symphony Orchestra

I haven’t heard about Iraq’s National Symphony Orchestra for two years now, so it’s good to get an update. Here’s more about it in a New York Times blog:

By Steven Lee Myers

BAGHDAD – It was achievement enough that the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra managed to survive the darkest days of the war, when it struggled for supplies and electricity, when its members fled for safety abroad and those who remained practiced in secret for fear of offending militants who considered music un-Islamic.

“We were fighting against the impending doom simply by functioning,” the orchestra’s charismatic director and chief conductor, Karim Wasfi, said the other day.

Now the orchestra finds itself “out of the bottleneck,” as Mr. Wasfi put it, facing challenges in a post-conflict society that are no less daunting for being less immediately life-threatening.

Photographs by Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times Tuqa Saad Al Waeli warms up prior to rehearsal.

The orchestra is fighting for its budget, only now beginning to solicit corporate sponsorship in a country where the state once controlled all (and still does, if chaotically). Mr. Wasfi is lobbying to build an opera house in a country where electricity, clean water and garbage removal remain scarce services.

Hardest of all, the orchestra is trying to recreate a shared cultural life – “the concept of Iraq,” he said – that decades of isolation, international sanctions, war and sectarianism have thoroughly shattered.

“Iraq has achieved a lot, but it’s not yet on a solid, concrete foundation,” Mr. Wasfi said. “Stability is not related just to people not killing each other.”

The New York Times’s Edward Wong wrote movingly about the orchestra nearly three years ago , a time when sectarian bloodshed seemed to threaten its very mission: to give a troubled nation succor through music.

Photographs by Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times Students and teachers practicing.

Even with today’s vastly improved security, the orchestra’s home in a former royal concert hall near the edge of the Old City still feels like an oasis of civility and cosmopolitanism – something evident from a lone trumpeter practicing Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” to the full orchestra rehearsing Dvorak’s “New World” symphony.

At the height of the sectarian bloodshed in 2006 and 2007 the orchestra dwindled to just 43 members; violence and checkpoints meant as few as 17 made it to some rehearsals.

Photographs by Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times Dua’a Majid Hussien Al Azawi, a young oboe player in the orchestra, prior to rehearsal.

There are 85 members now, including 13 who recently returned from self-exile in Syria and the United Arab Emirates. (During rehearsal Mr. Wasfi chided one whose playing was off, “Are you thinking of Syria?”) The dearth of musicians also forced the orchestra to find and train aspiring young people; the youngest member is only 15. Mr. Wasfi dreams of building a full philharmonic orchestra with 120 players.

Its foundation seems firm at last. The Ministry of Culture pays the members’ salaries, the equivalent of roughly $1,000 a month. Members carry their instruments openly into the concert hall. The orchestra has 14 concerts planned in the coming year, as well as 10 chamber performances, around the country.

Photographs by Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times Nubar Bashtikian prepares for rehearsal.

The most recent was July 16 in Sulaimaniya, in the northern Kurdish region, sponsored by Asiacell, a mobile telephone company, which will cover its travel costs. The playlist included Verdi, Liszt, Strauss, Webber, Gershwin and Dvorak, as well as Iraqi classical music.

For the first time, Mr. Wasfi has even negotiated performances in the next year in the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, where conservative religious values still dominate. “There’s no indecent music,” he said, explaining his delicate negotiations with religious leaders there.

Photographs by Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times The Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra rehearses under the direction of Karim Wasfi.

Iraq remains a troubled place, but the orchestra should be a bridge to a better future, as he explained, “when we have an opera house, when attending a performance and opening a gallery is part of your normal life, when political leaders fight in the parliament and not in the streets, when they set aside their differences and attend a concert.”

Lopez Wanders, and Waits for Dynamite Trial

Watch the video here

Great NYTblog by Damiano Beltrami

You remember Robert Lopez, the man arrested more than two years ago on St. Felix Street for having fake dynamite that he wanted to turn into a piggy bank?

“I hope this silliness will be laid to rest soon,” he said. “It’s much ado about nothing.”

His trial was postponed again, this time to July 31. The police officers who arrested him were not available because of summer staffing shortages, and a new assistant district attorney, Tim Gearon, has been assigned to the case because the previous one, Raymond Gazer, recently changed jobs.

Mr. Lopez, 38, who faces up to four years in prison if convicted of violating state law 240.62, “placing a false bomb or hazardous substance,” is tackling a difficult economic situation.

Homeless since mid-May, he recently lost his job as a maintenance person at McDonald’s.

“I haven’t talked to him in the last few days because he has no minutes on his phone,” said his sister Angela Lopez, who lives in Fresno, Calif., in a telephone interview. “I don’t know why they are taking him on a string for so long. He is obviously not a terrorist. This is a waste of money for the taxpayers.”

To meet Mr. Lopez, you need only to walk the streets of Fort Greene at night. He wanders around the Brooklyn Academy of Music, stops for small snack in a corner shop, waits for the dawn on a bench on Atlantic Avenue.

“One of my uncles survived outside for years, and he is old,” Mr. Lopez said. “If he can do it, I can do it.”

Mr. Lopez’s lawyer, Joshua Horowitz, said he hopes the case gets through some pre-trial hearings in August and finally goes to trial in September.

UNDP: Insecurity due to unemployment, environmental degradation, lack of healthcare and legal rights is hindering progress in MidEast

Jordan Times

By Taylor Luck

According to the UNDP Arab Human Development Report 2009: Challenges to Human Security in the Arab Countries, which was launched yesterday in Beirut, insecurity due to unemployment, environmental degradation, lack of healthcare and legal rights is hindering progress in the region.

“The security of people themselves is threatened not just by conflict and civil unrest, but also by environmental degradation, discrimination, unemployment, poverty and hunger,” Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States and UN Assistant Secretary General Amat Al Alim Alsoswa said in a statement received by The Jordan Times.

“Only if these sources of insecurity are addressed in a holistic manner will the people of the Arab region be able to make progress in human development,” he added.

According to the study, the region’s economic progress is tied to the fluctuations of the demand for oil, which accounts for more than 70 per cent of Arab exports, with Arab countries home to the highest regional unemployment rate in the world, some 14.4 per cent, compared to a world average of 6.3 per cent.

One in five people in the region live under the international poverty level of $2 a day, and many more live in nationally determined conditions of poverty, leading to undernourishment, it said.

Jordan along with Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Yemen witnessed increases in the number of undernourished citizens, according to the report, as the number of undernourished persons across the region rose by 5.7 million between 1992 and 2004.

Read more

Read more about the report and download it…

Jordanians changing consumption behaviour

Published in the Jordan Times today:

The global economic downturn has forced 28 per cent of Jordanians to cut down on their household expenditures, according to the latest study by the Middle East’s leading job website: Bayt.com.

The study, carried out in conjunction with research specialists YouGov, found that 30 per cent of professionals across the rest of the surveyed countries have cut down on their household spending.

“The region’s consumers are cutting back considerably on their spending. Now, despite some signs of optimism at the grassroots level in the global economy, it seems the trend of being more price-conscious looks set to continue, at least in the short term,” said Nassim Ghrayeb, regional CEO of YouGov.

Asked to name their main reason for cutting down on spending, recession was the most common answer among respondents, followed by job losses suffered by either the respondent or a family member.

Around 36 per cent of professionals in Jordan and Bahrain said they would accept reduced salary in a new job in case of redundancy, compared to 31 per cent of all respondents, while region-wide, 45 per cent said they wouldn’t settle for any less.

“There is a general consensus that the recession is having a sustained impact on the region, which of course manifests itself in the behaviour and attitudes of professionals living and working here,” explained Amer Zureikat, Bayt.com’s regional manager.

The study asked respondents about their financial health both before and during the recession to ascertain how many professionals felt their financial position had changed. In Jordan, the figures changed considerably. Before the recession, an overwhelming 42 per cent of respondents felt financially more stable than their peers, compared to only 26 per cent during the recession.

More than a third of Jordanians attributed this change in their financial status to job losses, and 17 per cent said it was due to salary cuts.

In Jordan, residents have taken a number of steps to deal with the recession. The study found that 31 per cent of respondents have moved to a different country as a result of the recession, while 5 per cent have moved to a less expensive part of the country.

However, according to a report issued by the Central Bank of Jordan, the inflation rate during the first five months of this year fell sharply to 1 per cent compared with 11.6 per cent during the same period last year.

The report also indicated that the real gross domestic product grew by 3.2 per cent during the first quarter of this year compared with 8.6 per cent during the first quarter of 2008.

According to the Bayt.com survey, physical health was also found to be an issue during the recession, with 27 per cent saying financial problems had caused them health concerns or issues including stress, and 13 per cent saying that a family member’s health had been affected. In Jordan, 28 per cent of those surveyed suffered with bad health as a result of the recession – slightly higher than the regional average.

“These findings send a clear message to employers that many professionals across the region are suffering at the moment,” concluded Zureikat.

Data for the Surviving the Recession study was collected online between the period of May 26 and June 28, 2009 with 12,908 respondents from across the region. Males and females over age 18 were included in the study.

Expose’: Prison Reform in Jordan. Is it Possible?

Published in Living Well Magazine. June 2009.

Despite negative perceptions about Jordan’s penitentiary system, officials say they want all prisons in Jordan to eventually become centers for vocational training and rehabilitation. Is change possible?

By Rana F. Sweis

When Um Dia’a speaks, her eyes squint and her voice is barely audible. Upon recalling the story that landed her in Jordan’s Juweideh Correctional and Rehabilitation Center, she regurgitates it quickly. “It is a story of theft that turned deadly,” she announces. “Poverty and debt pushed my brother and I to steal from a farm, but things went wrong and my brother killed a man.” Um Dia’a and her brother, also in prison, confessed to murdering a farm owner in Madaba.

Today, Um Dia’a spends her days in confinement – knitting, attending lectures, learning to bake pastries, and watching television. Though their first aim is to take away freedoms enjoyed within society, prisons are looking to new ways of development. Juweideh prison for women underwent renovation in 2000 to see it turn into a correctional and rehabilitation center (CRC) aimed at reforming character through exercise, work, training, and social care. “Change and reform continue to take place because we feel there is a need for it,” says Khaled AlMajali, director of CRC Training and Development. “We are not apart from the Public Security Directorate, but at the same time we are not only focusing on law enforcement, but rather on training individuals whose mentality is more aligned with rehabilitating.”

The white stone building of Juweideh’s CRC for women looks more like a two-story apartment building with a balcony and small rectangular-shaped windows. Guards stand inside and outside a large black gate. Cellular phones are not permitted. The parking lot is empty with only an ambulance on standby, while from a distance, a guard leaning on his rifle can be seen from the high-rise compound of Juweideh prison for men, which hosts almost 1,300 persons. Accommodating up to 450 inmates, the CRC for women  boasts 14 rooms, 450 beds, and 300 security officers. At present, the total number of prisoners held in Jordan is 7,834, of which 235 are women, this according to a May 7, 2009 daily report distributed by the Administration of the CRC.
“My main concern is to provide the best possible services to the women here and make sure they are safe,” explains Fatima Al Badarein, director of Juweideh CRC for women. “We think the reform that is taking place is a good step forward but much more needs to be done,” says Nisreen Zerikat, an advocate at the National Center for Human Rights (NCHR) in Jordan. “Yes, there are activities that are being provided like baking and sewing, but we need to really focus on the rehabilitation process in the sense of psychological care, and to help individuals integrate back into society once they are out.” Prison is a part of any society and the way prisoners do time may also affect their lives after incarceration. “The truth is, nothing compensates for freedom, but while they are here we try to offer good services and protection,” says Al Badarein.

Finding a way to integrate back into society after being in a CRC or prison facility remains an obstacle for these men and women in Jordan, especially since some even face internment by their own families and society at large. “The perception of prisoners among Jordanians is they are deviant, criminals, and dangerous,” says Musa Sheitwi, a sociologist and director of the Jordan Center for Social Research. “It is even more so for women, and the stigma against them is greater,” he adds. “The perception is that she has done wrong morally and accepting her in society is very difficult.”

For many institutions and ministries, including the Ministry of Social Development (MoSD) who work on rehabilitation and reintegration into society, it remains a new and challenging concept. It is usually difficult for prisoners to become reacquainted with freedom, and at least a quarter of those who are released will commit an act that will lead them back to the prison or center. “Around 25 to 30 percent of those who are released from prison will return,” says AlMajali. “That is why we need to work on all fronts to make sure that they don’t commit a crime again.”

The most popular activity these days at the Juweideh CRC for women is learning how to make and bake desserts, which Um Dia’a participates in. “Prior to coming to the center, I didn’t know how to make anything,” says Um Dia’a, wearing a navy blue robe over her jeans. “I was illiterate, but now I am learning how to read.” She also admits to feeling anxious about returning to her poverty-ridden neighborhood and providing her five children with food and shelter. “At the CRC, there are many services,” she explains. “I want to be free, but I would be lying to you if I said I was not nervous about my future.”

Security and government officials all agree that if Jordanian society does not begin to change their attitude towards prisoners, giving them a second chance, their efforts will not completely succeed. “In cooperation with the Police Security Directorate we are trying to change the concept of prison as being a place solely for punishment to one that rehabilitates,” says Mohammad Khasawneh, secretary general of the MoSD. “On our part, we are accepting that concept more rapidly than the average Jordanian citizen, who perhaps still struggles to recognize that a prison can actually be a place for rehabilitation.”

The burden to step up the training process (including providing teachers and doctors) seems to be placed mainly on government agencies and the Police Security Directorate. “We do a lot of training, and we are trying our best to do our part, but there needs to be more effort on the part of civil society,” says AlMajali. A recent study conducted by the Higher Council for Science and Technology revealed that Jordan suffers from a shortage in mental health services, and finding mental health professionals who are willing to work with prisoners is even more difficult, admits Hatem Al-Azraai, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health. “It is a nationwide problem, but we are working on encouraging more Jordanians to specialize in this field and we are offering residency programs twice a year,” he points out.

When Um Dia’a talks about feeling guilty about participating in a crime, she also mentions her five children and begins to cry. “I rarely see my children,” she complains, having been at the center for five months now. “It’s not easy for my mother to come here, as she is an old lady and is the only one taking care of my children.” Things are progressing though; the MoSD opened a nursery inside the facility for women only recently, with Khasawneh remarking that, “After examining cases inside the prison, the idea of opening a nursery became something that we needed to do. By depriving the mother from her children, we would be depriving the child from healthy development, and in the end, the children are not to blame for their mother’s wrong-doing.”

Currently, five social workers take care of infants at the nursery, along with five security officers assigned with them as a precaution. There are women requesting to be reunited with their infants, and the only psychologist assigned to the CRC will assess whether they are mentally stable to be with their children. Indeed, sometimes children under three years old may find themselves in prison or CRC with a parent, especially when there are no extended family members to help. And, although some have lauded the creation of the nursery in Juweideh’s CRC, for others it raises concern. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) advises that infants should be accommodated with their mothers where possible, although, the environment is a totally unnatural one for a child. “The truth is even if it’s a rehabilitation center, it is not an environment for an infant or a child to be in,” says Yazan Abdo, an expert in development and education. “I would prefer to see the child or infant in an adjacent or nearby place where the mothers would spend time with them, but it would not be at the CRC.”

Worldwide, the goal of the first modern prisons was to enforce strict regulations, confinement, and forced and deliberate labor. It was not until the late 19th Century that rehabilitation through education and vocational training became the standard goal of prisons. Muwaqar 1, a prison in Jordan for men, was turned into a CRC only two years ago. The implementation of programs such as The Twinning Project at this facility, which includes the implementation of human rights principles and international standards, may determine the direction of reform elsewhere, with one of the main articles in this project including developing classification for prisoners. “Right now classification is implemented according to the crime,” proclaims AlMajali. “This is incorrect because not all who are convicted of theft or murder should be together,” he adds. “The personality of the prisoner, his integration into the center or prison, and overall behavior should be the determining factors.”

At the police training and development center on the outskirts of Amman, women in uniforms were attending a several day workshop on human rights and safeguarding prisoners. Not far from this training room, another workshop is taking place for higher-ranking male officers; Krista Schipper, a prison director in Austria and Irene Kock, a lead prosecutor at the Ministry of Justice in Austria, discuss short and long-term goals with them. They exchange ideas on procedures to release prisoners earlier, a change in the visit system, as well as infrastructure. Large flip-chart notes hang in front of the room, filled with answers and suggestions by the Jordanian high-ranking officers. In a parking lot outside the training center, police officers dressed in blue uniforms, helmets, and carrying clear shields with black rims, move in unison from left to right.

Back in the female training workshop, Abdullat is demonstrating the new technique of handcuffing from the front instead of the back of the body due to health reasons; the women are enthusiastic to learn the procedure. “Watch each step and tell your colleague if she is doing something wrong,” explains Abdullat. “Look at the angle she is standing – did she insert her finger between the handcuffs and the prisoner’s wrist to make sure there is enough blood circulation?” The women, mostly in their twenties and thirties nod enthusiastically. Suddenly the officer holding the handcuffs realizes she is standing too close to the woman she is handcuffing, causing her harm if the prisoner should become violent. “This is my first time at this,” she says looking at the other women sitting. “This is all new – I need more time and I will get it right.” The other officers encourage her to repeat the process from the beginning, and she succeeds the second time around. “Every time there is change, there is struggle and resistance,” says AlMajali. “Otherwise it is not really change.”

May 7, 2009

Facility Holding Most Prisoners (Sawqa)     2059 Individuals

Correctional and Rehabilitation Centers and Prisons (Total)    12 Facilities

Total  Men:  7834   Women: 235

Source: Jordan Correctional and Rehabilitation Centers (Administration)

Clean, Sexy Water

More on one of my favorite non-profits: Charity:Water

By Nicolas Kristof

New York Times

Armed with nothing but a natural gift for promotion, and for wheedling donations from people, Mr. Harrison started his group, called charity: water — and it has been stunningly successful. In three years, he says, his group has raised $10 million (most of that last year alone) from 50,000 individual donors, providing clean water to nearly one million people in Africa and Asia.

The organization now has 11 full-time employees, almost twice as many unpaid interns, and more than half a million followers on Twitter (the United Nations has 3,000). New York City buses were plastered with free banners promoting his message, and Saks Fifth Avenue gave up its store windows to spread Mr. Harrison’s gospel about the need for clean water in Africa. American schools are signing up to raise money to build wells for schools in poor countries.

“Scott is an important marketing machine, lifting one of the most critical issues of our time in a way that is sexy and incredibly compelling — that’s his gift,” said Jacqueline Novogratz, head of the Acumen Fund, which invests in poor countries to overcome poverty.

Mr. Harrison doesn’t actually do the tough aid work in the field. He partners with humanitarian organizations and pays them to dig wells. In effect, he’s a fund-raiser and marketer — but that’s often the most difficult piece of the aid puzzle.

So what’s his secret? Mr. Harrison’s success seems to depend on three precepts:

First, ensure that every penny from new donors will go to projects in the field. He accomplishes this by cajoling his 500 most committed donors to cover all administrative costs.

Second, show donors the specific impact of their contributions. Mr. Harrison grants naming rights to wells. He posts photos and G.P.S. coordinates so donors can look up their wells on Google Earth. And in September, Mr. Harrison is going to roll out a new Web site that will match even the smallest donation to a particular project that can be tracked online.

Third, leap into new media and social networks. This spring, charity: water raised $250,000 through a “Twestival” — a series of meetings among followers on Twitter. Last year, it raised $965,000 by asking people with September birthdays to forgo presents and instead solicit cash to build wells in Ethiopia. The campaign went viral on the Web, partly because Mr. Harrison invests in clever, often sassy videos.

Read the op-ed…

Israeli Settlements: Fictions on the Ground

June 22, 2009

New York Times

There are about 120 official Israeli settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank. In addition, there are “unofficial” settlements whose number is estimated variously from 80 to 100. Under international law, there is no difference between these two categories; both are contraventions of Article 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which explicitly prohibits the annexation of land consequent to the use of force, a principle re-stated in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter.

The blatant cynicism of the present Israeli government should not blind us to the responsibility of its more respectable-looking predecessors. The settler population has grown consistently at a rate of 5 percent annually over the past two decades, three times the rate of increase of the Israeli population as a whole. Together with the Jewish population of East Jerusalem (itself illegally annexed to Israel), the settlers today number more than half a million people: just over 10 percent of the Jewish population of so-called Greater Israel. This is one reason why settlers count for so much in Israeli elections, where proportional representation gives undue political leverage to even the smallest constituency.

Thus the distinction so often made in Israeli pronouncements between “authorized” and “unauthorized” settlements is specious — all are illegal, whether or not they have been officially approved and whether or not their expansion has been “frozen” or continues apace. (It is a matter of note that Israel’s new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, belongs to the West Bank settlement of Nokdim, established in 1982 and illegally expanded since.)

Read the op-ed in today’s New York Times

Music: Ensemble Ambitions in a World Divided

Despite the cohesion implied by the word “ensemble,” these four men are rarely in the same city, much less the same room. The politics of the Middle East confine them to four separate spheres and have turned them into a living metaphor for inescapable division

“It’s our story,” said Suhail Khoury, who plays the traditional flute, or ney, and clarinet in the group. “It’s like summing up Palestine.”

Read this feature in the New York Times

Honoring World Refugee Day

By Queen Noor of Jordan

For 35 years, my home has been one of the world’s major conflict regions, home also to over 10 million refugees and displaced inhabitants. World Refugee Day (June 20) is a time to honor and support these individuals and families who persevere through devastating tragedies.

I have lived and worked with the nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees and now nearly 5 million displaced Iraqis, many from each group now making their homes in Jordan. I have also worked with displaced people from Afghanistan, Colombia, Somalia, and those seeking safe haven during the first Gulf War. I have witnessed first-hand the anguish of those uprooted from their homes — people who have had their lives threatened, homes bombed, and family members kidnapped or murdered.

The global displacement crisis is both a humanitarian and a security issue. History shows that mass migrations pose a serious threat to regional stability, as we have seen in Palestine, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan and West Africa. The Middle East is particularly vulnerable as ongoing tensions are further strained by such large scale displacement.

Read more on this June 20, 2009 World Refugee Day

Jordan: Water crisis looms, urgent measures needed reveals study

Insufficient access and availability of quality water and high poverty levels in Jordan are inextricably linked, found a rapid water assessment commissioned by World Vision in six of the kingdom’s governorates in May 2009.

Programmes addressing water scarcity and increasing its availability at the household and community level can assist in poverty alleviation, the assessment by the Interdisciplinary Research Consultants (IdRC) of Jordan revealed.

Ranked among the 10 most water deficient countries in the world, scarce water resources and other natural resources have been contributing factors to debt, poverty, and unemployment in Jordan, according to the assessment. It also cited that poverty amongst children is higher than poverty amongst the overall population, according to the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (April 2007).

Read more…

Charity: Water

One billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us. Charity: Water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing national. 100 percent of public donations directly fund water projects.

Learn more

Cinema of Justice

Human Rights International Film Festival

Lessons in how the world works and portraits of the never-ending struggles in places around the globe where power is challenged by populist resistance: such matters are a concern of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary.

Read more

Obama’s Address in Cairo

Watch the Obama Speech in Cairo and read the transcript here.

King Abdullah: Peace Now or it’s War Next Year

America is putting the final touches to a hugely ambitious peace plan for the Middle East, aimed at ending more than 60 years of conflict between Israel and the Arabs, according to Jordan’s King Abdullah, who is helping to bring the parties together.

The Obama Administration is pushing for a comprehensive peace agreement that would include settling Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and its territorial disputes with Syria and Lebanon, King Abdullah II told The Times. Failure to reach agreement at this critical juncture would draw the world into a new Middle East war next year. “If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12-18 months,” the King said.

Details of the plan are likely to be thrashed out in a series of diplomatic moves this month. Chief among them is President Obama’s meeting with Binyamin Netanyahu, the right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, in Washington a week today. The initiative could form the centrepiece for Mr Obama’s much-anticipated address to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4. A peace conference could then take place involving all the parties as early as July or August. Such an ambitious project has not been attempted since 1991, when George Bush senior’s Administration assembled all the parties for a peace conference in Madrid.

Read more

News2you: Best of the best in Jordanian Media

News2you's Best of the Best in Jordanian Media

Here is News2you’s best of the best in Jordanian Media:

1) Best journalism writing and analysis: Al Sijill Newspaper

2) Best columnist in Arabic: Jamil Al Nimri (Al Ghad newspaper)

3) Best columnist in English: Nermeen Murad (Jordan Times)

4) Best cartoonist: Emad Hajjaj (Al Ghad Newspaper) 

5) Best Arab Twitterer:  The Arab Observer

6) Most user-friendly and in-depth newspaper website: Al Sijill Newspaper (View the newspaper in PDF)

7) Best investigative Arab journalism website: ARIJ

For Journalists:

1) Best Sociologist in Jordan to interview: Dr. Musa Sheitwei

2) Most cooperative in visits and interviews: Jordan Police and Security Department (Media Office)

3) Best Human Rights Advocate to interview: Nisreen Zerikat (National Center for Human Rights)

4) Smartest journalism students in Jordan : Yarmouk University (Media Department)

5) Best Blogger: Naseem Tarawneh (Get the news and the scoop)

JT: Yazan’s rights in Parliament

 

Published in today’s Jordan Times:

By Nermeen Murad

A national newspaper recently published pictures of the “home” of five-year-old Yazan who died last week at the end of a short life replete with torture, domestic abuse and neglect.

His story has won the hearts of Jordanians and captured the imagination of many writers who took to their columns demanding punishment for the perpetrators, investigation into social services, investigation into the crime. etc. Most also cried over this young boy’s wasted life and miserable stab at enjoying life even if it was a few stolen moments on an old plastic toy horse.

I took a walk with my husband a couple of nights ago and saw a man beating his son back into a building with a wooden stick. The boy only wanted to follow his father out of the house, but he was cruelly snubbed and sent crying back “home”.

We, the parents, forget that we are not the owners of these children. This is not slavery. They have been given to us on loan so that we may care for them and protect them until they grow up and can look after themselves and in turn have children and protect those. That is the cycle of nature.

The state is in place with its laws to ensure that we fulfill our duties towards the next generation and is expected to step in to safeguard them if we fail.

Accepting, as we seem to have done, that parents can and should slap their kids around a bit to discipline them, does and has led to many cases of child abuse in our families, on our streets and in our communities, which have remained unchecked and untreated.

What are we going to do to make sure that there isn’t another Yazan on every street in our cities and villages?

The simple answer is that we can’t remove all possibility that this type of incident would recur, but we can certainly try to first create legal deterrents to such crime.

I have always tried to argue in my writing that the first step is always, absolutely always, to protect the weak and fragile in our society through our legal system. The first step is always the law and then a concerted effort to educate and change the mindset that allows for the abuse of the weak in our society.

In a meeting of activists seeking to change laws that pertain to women, a well-known activist retold the story of how parliamentarians vehemently argued against amendments in the law aimed at protecting child rights because they felt those interfered with the socially acceptable norms that allow parents to physically discipline their children. She was telling the story to show how difficult it was to convince parliamentarians to accept protection even for their children, let alone their women.

When I consider the performance of Parliament, I don’t worry about the privileges they grant themselves in travel allowances, salary hikes and all other monetary benefits. Those “weaknesses” are ones I can live with. I worry about the intransigence and in many cases the carelessness with which most parliamentarians handle the laws that come to them and which deal with women and children.

Yazan is not only a victim of his dysfunctional and poor family. He is also the victim of a society that is ignorant of his rights, a state that had turned a blind eye to the excesses by some parents in society and certainly a Parliament that has been busy with the “number” of allowances and reelection votes instead of the number of victims of the laws it failed to update and upgrade to protect the weaker and more fragile citizens.

NermeenMurad@gmail.com

Drug Addiction Increases in Afghanistan

 

Turning to Drugs in Afghanistan (NPR.org)

Listen to this story on NPR…

A growing number of Afghans — including children — are escaping the pain of war and poverty by using opium or heroin, for as little as a dollar a day.

A United Nations survey begun this month is widely expected to show that at least 1 in 12 people in Afghanistan abuses drugs — double the number in the last survey four years ago.

Experts say that the alarming trend is not being addressed by the Afghan government and its international partners, even though most officials acknowledge that the drug scourge threatens lasting stability in Afghanistan.

The Wall: A Monologue

 

Here’s a piece written by David Hare in the New York Review of Books on the West Bank wall:

It’s a dusty spot, featureless, in the middle of nowhere—or would be featureless if it weren’t for the series of high concrete slabs on our left-hand side. The wall. Although the road doesn’t run through the wall, we are forced to stop. We join a long line of cars which we are told has been here for fifteen minutes. The drivers have turned their engines off, and they sit on the roofs or the hoods, smoking cigarettes and talking. Yes, this is what happens every day. A daily event. For those who go back and forth between towns in the West Bank more than once daily, a more-than-once daily event. The soldiers are letting only one side go through at a time. So we sit for a further twenty minutes, cars coming at us from the opposite direction, and then very slowly, insolently, the Israelis, carrying machine guns, move to our side of the road, and for no reason, begin to let us through.

I say “for no reason” but probably there is a reason. And nobody imagines it has anything to do with security—since the road doesn’t go to Israel itself, and no one shows any interest in the cars themselves. After all, the road stretches empty in either direction, and the checkpoint is not short-staffed. Why, then, are Israeli soldiers wasting time by holding back one line of traffic which they could perfectly well let through, while they permit the flow of another? Why are they doing this? The answer seems clear. They are doing it because they can. To those waiting in line the implicit message is: “If we choose to delay you, we shall. We have the right to delay you. We have the right to render your life meaningless.”

Read it all…

The Perils of Intervening in Somalia

What a military intervention in Somalia might mean for the US, here’s Nicole Stremlau writing in the Huffington Post:

The current attention on Somalia’s pirates and thereports of youth from Minnesota traveling to Somalia to fight in the jihad forces us to focus on a country that the US often ignores. The challenge is that no one really knows what to do to help foster peace or how to do it. And while there are plenty of ideas, there is little consensus from Somalis.

Americans may remember Black Hawk Down, but for Somalis the events that brought further violence in 2006 and 2007 are fresher. In 2006, America backed warlords on surprisingly uninformed intelligence. And as this strategy appeared to be failing, the US helped Somalia’s long-time nemesis, Ethiopia, to oust the popular leader of the Islamic Courts Union, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, accusing him of being too radical. The same Sheikh Sharif is now president of Somalia after his predecessor, Abdullahi Yusuf, proved unable to create a viable government.

Read more…

Guardian: Iraqi Children for Sale

 

And so, what happens after the storm? Here’s an article published in the Guardian newspaper:

Corruption, weak law enforcement and porous borders are compounding a growing child trafficking crisis in Iraq, according to officials and aid agencies, with scores of children abducted each year and sold internally or abroad.

Criminal gangs are profiting from the cheap cost of buying infants and the bureaucratic muddle that makes it relatively easy to move them overseas. Accurate figures are difficult to obtain because there is no centralised counting procedure, but aid agencies and police say they believe numbers have increased by a third since 2005 to at least 150 children a year.

Iraqi Surveys Start to Unveil the Mental Scars of War, Especially Among Women

 

An article in the New York Times on the mental health situation in Iraq…since the article came out more than 50 Iraqis have died this week…

Only when the guns fall silent does the extent of damage wrought by conflict become visible. So in Iraq, as security improves, only now are the full effects of the violence on the Iraqi people emerging. Two studies being released this weekend, one on mental health and the other on the status of women, paint a sobering portrait of the enormous difficulties that lie ahead as the country tries to recover from years of war and state-sponsored terrorism under Saddam Hussein and the more recent sectarian and ethnic strife that followed the American invasion.

Iraqi refugees returning to danger zone to escape poverty in Utah

An article from the Salt Lake Tribune on Iraqi refugees who are leaving their life in the US due to poverty and returning to Iraq. 

As human rights organizations call for aid and resettlement for millions of Iraqi refugees, some who are exasperated by America’s refugee system are going home or attempting to return to other countries in the Middle East. They feel abandoned by federal policies that offer limited and brief financial support and leave many refugees living in poverty.

Refugees planning to leave acknowledge they may be less safe in Iraq, but believe they will be better able to afford food, pay rent and receive medical care.

Educated Iraqis eager to re-establish their middle-class lifestyle are making flaws in the U.S. resettlement system more apparent, while the troubled economy is compounding them, critics charge.

American Military Interventions In Post 9/11 World

My second HuffPost contribution:

A year after the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York, former President Bush’s national security strategy was clear: US interests triumph all else and international institutions would not hinder military actions deemed necessary. Therefore, when contemplating humanitarian interventions, the US would weigh the potential benefits–in terms of foreign lives saved–against the likely costs to the United States. Even if US strategic interests intertwine with internationally accepted humanitarian criteria for humanitarian interventions, it may have consequential effects on the notion of the ‘responsibility to protect.’

Throughout the 1990s, experiences such as Rwanda, Kosovo and East Timor among others built a momentum towards the idea that governments had a “responsibility to protect” people suffering in complex humanitarian emergencies. However, according to experts like Thomas Weiss, author of ‘Military-Civilian Interactions’, the September 11th attacks and subsequent US led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, led to two world organizations: “The United Nations, global in members; and the United States, global in reach and power.”

The primary purpose in a humanitarian intervention must be ‘right intention’–to halt or avert human suffering, despite other motives intervening states may have. But the debate after September 11th, shifted to the right to intervene-to protect the intervening country’s people from a threat seen to be originating from another country. The debate shifted to self-defense. Samantha Power, author of ‘A Problem From Hell’, writes that since the September 11th attacks, the “U.S. government is likely to view genocide prevention as an undertaking it cannot afford as it sets out to better protect Americans.”

Security Council resolutions have authorized the use of armed forces led by US-led coalitions, rather than under the command of the UN. In a humanitarian intervention, the intervening states have the responsibility to rebuild. Since September 11th, none of the US interventions taken were primarily called humanitarian interventions, despite clear complex humanitarian emergencies. But Weiss points out the US led invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, turned primarily humanitarian. In 2002, a planned operation against Iraq began to surface. The Bush administration called on the UN to enforce its resolutions on Iraq or risk ‘irrelevance’. But military intervention without a UN mandate raises questions over a country’s motives and capabilities to rebuild in the post-conflict period. The implication of such a reality has also posed a dilemma for the notion of ‘neutrality’ once forces are deployed on the ground and raises concern among independent aid agencies.

Read it all…

Musical Show of Unity Upsets Many

 

Here an article of interest published today in the New York Times:

Achinoam Nini, a singer and peace activist, has long stirred controversy here. Known abroad by her stage name, Noa, she has recorded with Arab artists, refused to perform in the occupied West Bank, condemned Israeli settlements there and had concerts canceled because of bomb threats from the extreme right.

A petition went around demanding that the duo withdraw, saying they were giving the false impression of coexistence in Israel and trying to shield the nation from the criticism it deserved. It added, “Every brick in the wall of this phony image allows the Israeli Army to throw 10 more tons of explosives and more phosphorus bombs.”

The Most Dangerous Place in the World

 

 

Somalia is a state governed only by anarchy. A graveyard of foreign-policy failures, it has known just six months of peace in the past two decades. Now, as the country’s endless chaos threatens to engulf an entire region, the world again simply watches it burn.

Read this special report…

Ending It All: Suicide in Jordan

 

 

 

By Rana F. Sweis

Published in Living Well Magazine

February 2009

AMMAN-Mohammad Abdul-Nabi, 23, was found hung in his home by his 14-year-old brother. The young farmer was rushed to the hospital but was pronounced dead upon arrival. He decided to end his life because of a second failed marriage, explain his relatives. His story, like others similar to it, is shrouded in mystery and recorded only in snippets. And just like their short interrupted lives, information regarding suicide victims’ acts and their aftermath is scarce in Jordan. Like so many families who prefer to deny or forget the past, a person who knows a person tells a story of pain. 

 “When it comes to suicide cases in Jordan, we only get a glimpse, like a car whooshing by,” says Fayez Al-Fayez, Editor in Chief of Arabiya magazine and a popular social columnist. “We end up never knowing the reasons, we end up never knowing the whole story and no one wants to talk about it either.” Every year, one million people worldwide die by suicide, according to World Health Organization (WHO) statistics. Moreover, in the past 45 years suicide rates increased by 60 percent and is now among the three leading causes of death among those aged 15-44 years. These figures do not include attempted suicide, which are up to 20 times more frequent than suicide.

WHO statistics reveal that suicide in Jordan and in the region remain low, but in-depth research remains inadequate. “Statistically suicide is not considered an epidemic problem in Jordan,” explains Hani Jahshan, a Forensic Pathologist. There are 35 to 40 cases of suicide in Jordan every year, and the age range is between 20-25, according to the National Center for Forensic Medicine. However, attempted suicide cases are not recorded, says Jahshan. “Research is lacking in this field, especially in terms of attempted suicide.” Emergency services in hospitals are not keeping records of suicide attempts, adds Jahshan.

Sultan, 39, stole a knife from a shop in Amman and stabbed himself in the stomach. Witnesses say the man was “desperate”. He did not die. He was taken to hospital where reports suggest he is in ‘critical’ condition. Just a few hours before he stabbed himself, family members saved Sultan. They found him wearing a noose around his neck. Suicide is ultimately an individual and often a private act. Biological, genetic, psychological, social and cultural factors may impact the risk of suicide in an individual. Domestic violence, for example, can trigger a suicide attempt. “Psychological abuse can take on different forms including humiliation, threats of divorce, blackmailing and physical abuse,” explains Walid Sarhan, a psychiatrist. “The psychological consequences will include anxiety, frustration, low self-esteem and suicidal attempts.” Other risk factors can include serious mental illness, alcohol and drug abuse, childhood abuse, loss of a loved one and unemployment. “There is a lack of awareness about suicide,” admits Mohammad Khateeb, Police Security Department Spokesperson. “The truth is we still live in a tribal and conservative society that would rather not speak of suicide, which is forbidden in religion and brings shame to the family.” 

Another short news piece on suicide was published in Ammonews, a popular electronic news website. A 20-year-old woman jumped from the top of the fifth circle tunnel, according to traffic police and witnesses. The woman whose ‘love affair’ failed recently, prompted her to attempt suicide, reports suggest. She was still alive when she was rushed to hospital and an investigation took place.

Individual cases of suicide in Jordan that were published in the media—overwhelmingly in electronic media–illustrate that shame, economic hardship, examination failure, unrequited love, family’s objection to a marriage and other family disputes were the greatest risk factors. One of the only in-depth documents that shed light on suicide in Jordan is a 2001 dissertation entitled, A Sociological View of Suicide in Jordan written by Ismeel Aqili, a former graduate student at the University of Jordan. Based on cases he examined from 1982-1999, his study reveals more males than females commit suicide but more females attempt suicide. University graduates between the ages of 18 to 37 were more likely to commit suicide in Jordan. Most of the individuals who committed suicide in this age range were unemployed.

Police were able to convince a 17-year-old from jumping off a telecommunication building in Zarqa, reported Ammon. The young man found out he failed the Tawjahi exam. Witnesses and friends said the young man was afraid he would be punished severely by his family for failing the exam. “At the end of the day, I worry about our youth because I don’t believe they want to commit suicide. It is often a cry for help” says Haifa Abu Ghazaleh, Senator and Secretary General of the National Council for Family Affairs. “If they fail the Tawjahi [high school exam] for example, they may fear the family’s reaction.”

 People at risk of suicide can be treated. Oftentimes, it is due to the inability to cope as a result of an event or series of events that the person finds overwhelmingly traumatic or distressing. Psychotherapy and continued contact with a health provider can decrease the risk of suicide. Programs that address risk and protective measures are effective. Moreover, suicide has a profound effect on family, friends, and those associated with the victim. “I reported on a story of a mentally ill woman whose husband eventually divorced her,” explains Al-Fayez. One day her parents and daughter found her on the roof of their house, says Al-Fayez. She poured gasoline on herself very calmly and she lit herself on fire. She didn’t die. The victim was rushed to the hospital and died two days later. “What I saw is the effect it had on the family, the devastation,” he adds. “The siblings and her daughter were devastated.” While those who are under the age of 18 and attempt suicide have access to rehabilitation programs from the Family Protection Department, those who are over 18 have no institutional support, according to Khateeb. 

In Jordanian society, there is a great deal of social and religious stigma surrounding mental illness. Islam views suicide as a sin. The prohibition of suicide has also been recorded: “He who commits suicide by throttling shall keep on throttling himself in the Hell-fire, and he who commits suicide by stabbing himself, he shall keep stabbing himself in the Hell-fire.” In the sixth century, suicide became a Christian religious sin and secular crime. In 533, those who committed suicide while accused of a crime were denied a Christian burial.

Talking about feelings surrounding suicide promotes understanding and can greatly reduce the immediate distress of a suicidal person. “Is suicide a really big problem in Jordan? Are the numbers alarming? The answer is no,” says Khateeb, “However, I understand the concern among individuals and members of society at large regarding individuals who attempt suicide, where can they turn to for help?”

People who feel suicidal may fear expressing themselves, and may be reluctant to reach out for help. “The stigma of psychiatric illnesses is still very prevalent,” explains Sarhan. “A women, for example, who dares to consult with a psychiatrist could face the threat of divorce and deprivation from her children, although it is not legal, but women believe that.”

People often deal with stressful or traumatic events and experiences reasonably well, but sometimes an accumulation of such events, over an extended period, can push normal coping strategies to the limit.  Jahshan, like many others working with victims of violence and abuse, says that Jordan continues to lack skilled professionals in this field. “Those who provide counseling to victims of violence and abuse should consider cases of attempted suicide and provide them services as well,” says Abu Ghazaleh. “At the end of the day everyone has a role to play including all sectors of civil society.”

Jordan could go a long way by reducing the suicide rate by discussing ways to decrease suicidal tendencies. Providing protection programs is important. Shedding light on the issue can even prevent suicide cases. “Protection programs begin in our schools. There needs to be awareness campaigns, group therapy and individual counseling in schools,” says Abu Ghazaleh. “I believe there should be a more clear strategy on how to tackle this issue from different angles and address it in schools,” explains Abu Ghazaleh.

When forensic experts, doctors and members of various organizations wanted to begin combating family violence in Jordan, they turned to the media. In 2004, two forensic doctors presented statistics showing a dramatic increase in the number of abused children. “If this issue is not covered enough by the media, the children will not know there are people who are here to help them, and places they can turn to for help,” said Rabab al Qubaj, a specialist in the Jordan River Foundation. During that time, journalists present at the workshop asked members of organizations and others to play a role in giving them easier access to information. The journalists also pointed out hidden fears, about raising such taboo and sensitive issues, fearing repercussions.

Today, electronic media news websites such as Ammon (www.ammonnews.net) and Saraya (www.sarayanews.com) have taken a lead in shedding light on suicide in Jordan. Although suicide news segments in both news agencies are not covered in-depth, they do report individual cases. Ammon publishes statistics on the number of suicide cases per year in Jordan. They examine the reasons for each case, although there is little follow-up on the cases. Print and broadcast media in Jordan lags behind in both reporting and shedding light on suicide in Jordan. “Electronic media in Jordan is lifting the lid on many issues like suicide, and domestic violence,” explains Rana Sabbagh, a journalist and media expert.

In February 2004, the first ever conference on child abuse in the Middle East took place in Amman. Representatives from across the world, local government and NGO’s took part. Dozens of media outlets from the Arab world were present. During the conference Jahshan attributed the increase in the number of reported child abuse cases in Jordan to the increased coverage of the issue in the local press.

This successful and ongoing campaign to combat child abuse in Jordan can also be implemented to debunk misconceptions and reduce suicide rates in Jordan. “The more we deny as a society that there are cases of suicide in Jordan, the more we’ll have to look within and say, how could we not help these individuals from killing themselves?” says Al-Fayez. “That is shameful.”

Fact Box

By Age	2007
Age Group	Cases
Under 18	1
18-27	13
28-37	9
38-47	7
47-Over	8
By Gender
Gender	Cases
Male	26
Female	12
By Nationality
Nationality	Cases
Jordanian	35
Non-Jordanian (Arab)	2
Non-Jordanian	1
Method of Suicide
Method	Cases
Firearms	13
Other	25
Burning
Falling from Heights
Knife
Hanging
	2008
Total Suicides	34

 

Source: Jordan Police Security Department

Slumdog Controversy in India

Slumdog Controversy

 

 

Slumdog Millionaire has made it big, but the story is a little different in India, where the film was shot.

The film hit a sensitive nerve in India, launching soul-searching debates over the actors’ compensation, the movie’s portrait of the country’s vast poor and the title’s use of the word “dog,” which some slum dwellers consider so offensive that they ransacked a theater in Bihar’s state capital of Patna, where the film was being shown in India for the first time.

Read more in the Washington Post.

Video [CBS] 60 Minutes: Is Peace Possible

Has peace in the Middle East become nothing more than a pipe dream? As Bob Simon reports, a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians feel that a two-state solution is no longer possible.

Video: Obama Interview with Al Arabiya Television

Obama speaking to the Arab world.

Obama’s Mideast Policy Examined

 

Listen to Rami Khouri on NPR.

 

Richard Holbrooke has been named special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and George Mitchell has been picked to be special envoy for Middle East affairs. Rami Khouri, editor at large of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut, Lebanon, and director for the Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs, weighs in.

Oped: Lesson of a Bloody War

A very well written op-ed in the Washington Post By David Grossman on the aftermath of the war on Gaza.

Like the pairs of foxes in the biblical story of Samson, tied together by the tail with a flaming torch between them, we and the Palestinians are dragging each other into disaster — despite our disparate strength, and even when we try very hard to separate. And as we do, we burn the one who is bound to us, our double, our nemesis, ourselves.

So, a month after the war began, in the midst of the wave of nationalist invective now sweeping Israel, it would not hurt to keep in mind that this latest military operation in Gaza was, when all is said and done, just one more way-station on a road paved with fire, violence and hatred. On this road, you sometimes win and you sometimes lose, but in the end it leads to ruin.

NYTIMES: The Bullets in My In-Box

A great New York Times article written by By Ethan Bronner:

It turns out that both narration and mediation require common ground. But trying to tell the story so that both sides can hear it in the same way feels more and more to me like a Greek tragedy in which I play the despised chorus. It feels like I am only fanning the flames, adding to the misunderstandings and mutual antagonism with every word I write because the fervent inner voice of each side is so loud that it drowns everything else out.

George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader who is Mr. Obama’s new special envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, could find something similar when he arrives here.

Video: Oprah Effect in the Middle East

Satellite television has reached even conservative parts of the Arab world, where hundreds of programs are now available. The Middle East’s MBC-4 began airing “The Oprah Winfrey Show” more than four years ago, and the program now reaches about 6 million viewers in the Arab world each day.

Worldfocus correspondent Kristen Gillespie reports from Jordan on the “Oprah effect” in the Middle East.

Books I’d Like to Read

Books I’d like to read

 

‘

An Open Letter to President Obama

 

Here’s a very thoughtful letter to President Obama written by Faisal Abbas.

Here’s an excerpt:

I utilized my stay in the US to learn more about Edward Murrow and the history and achievements of American journalism; and while there were many arguments made about the role the American media is playing today, especially with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I found it quite comforting to know that at least under the first amendment, one could really say anything one likes.

Based on all of that, Sir, I find myself at ease in writing this letter to you, hoping you manage to read it before your Blackberry is taken away and you start consuming media in the form of briefings, as I clearly don’t think I am so important to make it into one of those.

All what I want to say, Mr. President, is that you bring a lot of hope to my region, and that people are counting on you to make a change for the better and to once and for all bring peace and prosperity to this very troubled part of the world.

We know that we shouldn’t be expecting miracles, and that there are more pressing issues on your agenda, especially the economy which the whole world expects you to focus on for everyone’s sake.

However, Sir, unlike myself… you are in no way, shape or form an ‘average Joe’, as of today you are leading the world’s number 1 super-power, and you are doing this after winning a battle with preconceived ideas and racial barriers that you have managed to overcome.

Transcript of Obama Inaugural Speech

Obama makes history

 

 

Full transcript as prepared for delivery of President Barack Obama’s inaugural remarks on Jan. 20, 2009, at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

Workshop in Amman demonstrates power of filmmaking

Yasir Khan conducted the filmmaking workshop in Amman

 

 

January 19, 2009

By Rana Sweis

AMMONNEWS – During a 10 day workshop, members of non-governmental organizations as well as university students in Jordan got a glimpse into the power of filmmaking. The workshop focused on the use of film in shedding light on social issues in Jordan. The first few days were spent discussing theoretical aspects of filmmaking and exchanging ideas. The young NGO members spent almost four days shooting and then began writing, editing and mixing. This week, all four short documentaries were shown at the Royal Film Commission. Topics covered by NGO members included adult literacy, autism, student rights and a day in the life of a social worker in Jordan.

The workshop conducted by Yasir Khan, Professor at the American University of Cairo and a multimedia journalist and documentary filmmaker, says he hopes the participants will continue to use what they learned to create documentaries. On the first day of the workshop, Khan made sure the various ideas pointed out by the students remained focused. “Craft a focus statement and come back tomorrow,” he told the participants. “Every shot has to have meaning.”

As the students sat mixing and editing, many say they were pleased with this opportunity, the first of its kind in the kingdom. “It was a great opportunity for me and it is a way to convey to the public severe social problems in Jordan,” says Abdullah Momani, a journalism student at Yarmouk University.

Queen Noor on Gaza-MSNBC

More of Queen Noor on Gaza

The Brave Dennis Kucinich

From Congressman Kucinich

As Congress begins, I have been leading the way towards addressing the humanitarian plight of the people of Gaza whose desperate conditions must be addressed if there is to be any chance for peace in the Middle East. I have also begun a campaign to work on the reform of our monetary system in order to bring about equity, prosperity and environmental sustainability.    

I had to spend the resources you provided me with in order to retain my seat in Congress. I need your generous help again to fund our ongoing political operations including media outreach, web communications, office administration and issues campaigning.

I know these are hard times, but your contribution is essential to strengthening our efforts. Please contribute as generously as you can. Your support assures a true independent voice in Congress.

With hope and in peace,

Dennis

Please contribute at http://www.Kucinich.us/contribute

Queen Noor on Gaza

Top Ten humanitarian crises

Read about each crises

Massive forced civilian displacements, violence, and unmet medical needs in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, andPakistan, along with neglected medical emergencies in Myanmar and Zimbabwe, are some of the worst humanitarian and medical emergencies in the world, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reports in its annual list of the “Top Ten” humanitarian crises.

The report underscores major difficulties in bringing assistance to people affected by conflict. The lack of global attention to the growing prevalence of HIV-tuberculosis co-infection and the critical need for increased global efforts to prevent and treat childhood malnutrition—the underlying cause of death for up to five million children per year—are also included in the list.

Video: Pres-Elect Obama: The Middle East Response

Watch 

On this edition of Independent Sources we talk with an Iraqi and Jordanian journalist about how people in their countries are reacting to the Obama victory. We look at the challenges facing African-American newspapers, and we profile Claire Chen, an award-winning journalist for the Chinese-language daily World Journal.

 

 

Ethnic Divide in Iraqi City a Test for Nation

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 20, 2008; A01

 

KIRKUK, Iraq – Darawan Salahadin, dressed in a black shirt and blue jeans, strolled out of his home in the Kurdish part of his ethnically fragmented neighborhood, passing concrete barriers and a checkpoint guarded by a Kurdish fighter. He entered the Arab section and walked swiftly to his tan, flat-roofed school.

In the classrooms were only Kurdish students. The Arabs would arrive as Kurds left, and then the Turkmen students would get their turn. The school has three names, one in each community’s language, and three sets of teachers and principals.

“I have no Arab and Turkmen friends. I have only Kurdish friends,” said Salahadin, a slim 17-year-old with thick, gelled black hair. “I can’t speak Arabic or Turkmen. So I don’t know them.”

The school’s divisions illustrate the tensions rippling through this neighborhood and all of Kirkuk, ground zero of Iraq’s most vexing conflict over land, oil and identity. The battle over who will rule Kirkuk is a significant test of whether the Iraqi government can solve the country’s internal disputes as the U.S. military draws down.

In contrast to security improvements elsewhere in the country, Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen residents of Kirkuk remain targets of political violence as their leaders vie for control of what they see as their ancestral lands. Last week, at least 57 people died in a suicide bombing on the outskirts of the city, the deadliest assault in Iraq in six months.

“Kirkuk could be the capstone in the house of freedom, or it can be the cheap thread that when you pull out unravels the entire suit,” said Lt. Col. David Snodgrass, deputy commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, which oversees the city.

Kurdish political parties, citing historical claims to the city, want to expand their autonomous region in northern Iraq to include it. Iraq’s predominantly Arab central government opposes Kurdish control over Kirkuk, whose oil fields produce 40 percent of Iraq’s output, as does Kirkuk’s minority Turkmen community and its backers in Turkey.

Iraqi leaders and the United Nations are struggling to reach at least a temporary solution to the question of who should control the city. At a time when the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Kurdish leaders are increasingly at odds over the disposition of oil revenue and other issues, Kurdish parties have deployed forces in the city and the surrounding area in what they say is an attempt to protect Kurdish civilians from attack.

Even the name of Salahadin’s neighborhood is contested. Arab and Turkmen residents call it Hay al-Wasiti, as it was known before the 2003 U.S-led invasion of Iraq. The Kurds have renamed it Nowruz, after the Kurdish New Year.

Read more

Glenn Greenwald : Are we a nation ruled by men or by laws?

Bill Moyers sits down with political commentator and Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald who asks: Are we a nation ruled by men or by laws? As the administration is set to change, Glenn Greenwald has been looking at the legacy of the Bush Administration, the prospects for President-elect Obama’s cabinet choices, and the possibilities for government accountability. 

Watch Glenn and more episodes of PBS’s Bill Moyers Journal

Obama’s Human Rights Opportunity

By Jimmy Carter

Wednesday, December 10, 2008; A25

 

The advancement of human rights around the world was a cornerstone of foreign policy and U.S. leadership for decades, until the attacks on our country on Sept. 11, 2001.

Since then, while Americans continue to espouse freedom and democracy, our government’s abusive practices have undermined struggles for freedom in many parts of the world. As the gross abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay were revealed, the United States lost its mantle as a champion of human rights, eliminating our national ability to speak credibly on the subject, let alone restrain or gain concessions from oppressors. Tragically, a global backlash against democracy and rights activists, who are now the targets of abuse, has followed.

The advancement of human rights and democracy is necessary for global stability and can be achieved only through the local, often heroic, efforts of individuals who speak out against injustice and oppression — endeavors the United States should lead, not impede. If the early warnings of human rights activists had been heeded and tough diplomacy and timely intervention mobilized, the horrific, and in some cases ongoing, violence in Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan’s Darfur region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo might have been averted.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. With a new administration and a new vision coming to the White House, we have the opportunity to move boldly to restore the moral authority behind the worldwide human rights movement. But the first steps must be taken at home.

Read this op-ed

New Tensions in Jerusalem’s Arab Neighborhoods

NYTIMES

JERUSALEM — A series of recent Israeli actions in the mainly Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem have raised tensions there, with Palestinian and Israeli critics contending that they are part of a wider plan to “Judaize” historically charged areas around the Old City.

The actions, ostensibly unconnected, include the demolition of two Arab homes in Silwan, a neighborhood adjacent to the Old City above the ruins of an ancient Jewish site; the start of a controversial infrastructure project there; and the eviction of a Palestinian family from its home in Sheik Jarrah, another neighborhood coveted by Jewish nationalists near the Old City.

None of these actions in themselves are that unusual here. But the spate of high-profile, highly symbolic moves in the past few weeks has reignited concerns that an increasing Jewish presence in Arab areas will further complicate the chances of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian political agreement based on a two-state solution, which calls for a division of powers in a shared capital.

And they come as a new Jerusalem mayor who has vocally supported expansion of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem takes office.

“East Jerusalem must be the capital of the Palestinian state,” said Hatem Abdel Qader, an adviser on Jerusalem affairs to the Palestinian Authority prime minister, Salam Fayyad. “Israel is trying to create facts on the ground and determine the results before we reach any solution.”

To read more

Ignoring Africa

 

By Rana F. Sweis

World AIDS Day is about raising awareness. Yet the deadly virus continues to kill mostly Africans, where three million people died this year alone. Africa remains the most impoverished, hungry and war-ravaged continent in the world. And in the US there is modest support for increased humanitarian and military intervention as well as poverty reduction strategies. By ignoring Africa, we are ignoring a volatile and vulnerable region. We are ignoring a desperate people. The horn of Africa is increasingly becoming a fertile ground for terrorism. Terrorist cells in West Africa, “take advantage of poor, disillusioned populations to recruit for their jihad.” 

The 1998 bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi demonstrated the presence of terrorists groups. The core leadership of the Kenyan cell consisted primarily of citizens of the Gulf States, Somalia, Pakistan, and the Comoro Islands but gradually local Kenyans were recruited. In the current war in Iraq, statistics have shown that about twenty five percent of foreign fighters detained are from Africa, especially from the East Africa. 

The United States ignored a great deal of civil war, tribal conflicts, disease and poverty. All this combined, turned Somalia into a ‘failed state.’ Somalia has no central government. Reports made public by the CIA confirm that suspected terrorists operate predominantly in so-called “failed states.” Hundreds of thousands of Somalis live as refugees in neighboring countries, and many others are internally displaced. 
This is a fight for life. And it is not only African lives that are at stake. Our lives could be at stake. When we see no perfect solution, we tend to ignore the problem. We give up once when we do not understand. But recently African Union forces, soldiers from across Africa, set up a small security outpost of 50 troops in one refugee camp in Somalia. Almost immediately, refugees began returning followed by international aid groups. Whether it is one refugee camp, one village or one tribe. Little things in Africa can make big differences. 
Helping people help themselves is priceless. Empowering, rebuilding and improving the quality of life whether in Iraq or Darfur may be our best hope towards fostering democracy. Some may argue that we do not have enough troops or expertise on the ground to be effective. Peacekeeping and peace building is essential to protect our nation and others. When we decide to build the peace in Africa, we must look towards the local people who have inside knowledge of every alley, every cultural norm and every little thing that adds up to mean everything in places we seem to understand little about. 
The quick U.S. disengagement from Somalia and failure to respond to the Rwanda genocide in 1994 has left us vulnerable to attacks. An effective U.S. response to terrorist threats in the Horn of Africa must include increased and targeted foreign aid and improved intelligence capabilities. 
This year, World AIDS Day was about wearing the red ribbon, as a sign of support for people living with HIV. Let us help people help themselves as a sign of our long due support to people in Africa. We would also help ourselves by decreasing the chances of turning a vulnerable region into a volatile breeding ground for terrorists, who may end up striking us on our shores–again

Jennifer Utz: My Journey with an Iraqi Refugee

 

This is a great article by Jennifer Utz on a personal story of an Iraq refugee.

Read the whole piece in the Huffington Post.

In recent months, much has been said in the media about Iraqi refugees going back to Iraq as a result of the success of “the surge.” The truth is that most of those who return are doing so because either they’ve run out of money or their visas have expired. Many of those who return find that another family has taken up residence in their home.

After receiving criticism for not having done enough to respond to the crisis, the Bush administration recently began taking in more Iraqi refugees — in 2008, more than 14,000 Iraqis were accepted into the United States. But for the country that started this war, that’s a drop in the bucket – just a third of 1 percent of the total number of those displaced. After the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians were authorized and ensured admission to the United States each year.

Today, Mohamed says that without having had me as an advocate, he could have never done this on his own. As an American and a journalist, I was able to make him stand out as more than a face in the crowd, and helped him navigate the perplexing bureaucracy of being a refugee.

Cleansing of Neighborhoods in Iraq?

This is a claim published today by Reuters:

Satellite images taken at night show heavily Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baghdad began emptying before a U.S. troop surge in 2007, graphic evidence of ethnic cleansing that preceded a drop in violence, according to a report published on Friday.

The images support the view of international refugee organizations and Iraq experts that a major population shift was a key factor in the decline in sectarian violence, particularly in the Iraqi capital, the epicenter of the bloodletting in which hundreds of thousands were killed.

Music in Iraq Plays On

Listen to a story on Karim Wasfi, director and co-conductor of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra. He discusses the integral role music and culture play in the ongoing rehabilitation of Iraq. It’s difficult gathering all the musicians for rehearsals, but Wasfi and the orchestra have drawn crowds of more than 600 people in war-torn Bagdhad.Also, Melik Kaylan, culture contributor for The Wall Street Journal, talks about the cultural exchange going on between Iraqis and Americans in Baghdad.

Iceland Takes Palestinians who fled Iraq

Iceland is a very small country that has been very gracious with resettling some of those who fled from Iraq. 

By Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, Sept. 8 — Iceland has agreed to resettle nearly 30 Palestinian refugees who have lived for two years at a desolate camp on the Iraqi-Syrian border, the U.N. refugee agency announced Monday. The refugees, who were expected to leave Iraq on Monday, include widows of men killed during the war and their children, according to a statement by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Saddam Hussein protected Iraq’s Palestinian community, which included approximately 34,000 people when he was deposed in the spring of 2003. Between 10,000 and 15,000 Palestinians remain in Iraq, according to the United Nations. Palestinians living in Iraq have been particularly difficult to resettle. Syria and Jordan, the two countries that have taken in the majority of Iraqi refugees, have refused to take in many Palestinians out of concern that thousands would follow. Few countries have heeded the U.N. refugee agency’s call to open their doors to Palestinians living in Iraq. More than 2,000 Palestinians have languished at two austere camps near the Syrian border for years, including some with severe ailments who have had scarce access to medical care. Iceland resettles 25 to 30 refugees a year. This is the first group of refugees from Iraq that the country has accepted.