Yarl's Woods – Asylum Gone Mad
May 26, 2009 11 min. read

First the child is led into a small holding room.  She waits.  Her mother is visibly shocked, the stressed lines of her face and swollen eyes awash in tears. An hour or two pass; a television is stuck on one channel as the incessant rabble of another world enters the surreal shock of her horror.   […]

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Israeli Arms Dealer Goes Bollywood
May 25, 2009 2 min. read

My mom just drew my attention to what might be the greatest defense arms music video ever made. Earlier this year, Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems decided to celebrate the strengthening of India-Israel military ties and the virtues of its products in song and dance. In this Israeli video, a man decked out in a […]

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People of God
May 23, 2009 3 min. read

The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse has disclosed the ugly face of hypocrisy and bigotry of the Roman Catholic Church.  For the children who were raped, beaten, and treated like animals, or what the Second Vatican Council refer to as ‘People of God’, the revelations in the report is yet another example of acute […]

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Giving victims of abuse our undivided attention
May 22, 2009 1 min. read

“I believe the best service to the child is the service closest to the child, and children who are victims of neglect, abuse, or abandonment must not also be victims of bureaucracy. They deserve our devoted attention, not our divided attention.” – Kenny Guinn (American educator, businessman and two-term Governor of Nevada from 1999-2007) Children […]

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Terrorists equivalent to gang leaders, Mueller says
May 20, 2009 5 min. read

FBI Director Robert Mueller told U.S. lawmakers Wednesday that the threat posed by harboring terrorist at U.S. detention facilities was a threat on par with that posed by high-ranking gang leaders. “The concerns we have about individuals who may support terrorism being in the United States run from concerns about providing financing, radicalizing others,” Mueller […]

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Scapegoating Wahhabism
May 20, 2009 2 min. read

On the eastern edge of Georgia and stretching up along the Caspian sea, the troubled Republic of Dagestan has been largely forgotten.  Escalating poverty, hopelessness, and the militant Islamic Shariat Jamaat is driving many of its youth into extremism.  Mixed in the fray are ordinary Salafis who are being targeted as extremists.  These individuals, easily spotted by […]

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Child poverty continues to rise
May 19, 2009 2 min. read

According to the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO),  Director-General Pascal Lamy, International trade helps solve food crisis, and had not been part of the problem for the increased food insecurity of the last year and the increased level of poverty. “To suggest that less trade, and greater self-sufficiency, are the solutions to food […]

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Best of the Web: The India-Pakistan Edition
May 19, 2009 1 min. read

The Congress Party wins big, while Hindu nationalists and communists lose out in the largest democratic elections in the world. And the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty keeps going and going… BBC’s vast election coverage (beaming with post-colonial pride) is worth checking out. India’s Finance Ministry is holding a contest to see who can come up with a […]

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War crimes charges emerge from Tamil Tiger defeat
May 18, 2009 1 min. read

Sri Lankan officials Monday claimed defeat over the Tamil Tigers guerrilla organization amid reports its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was killed in the latest raids. The victory puts an end to nearly a quater century of violent conflict in Sri Lanka, though the reconciliation campaign may take even longer. European Union nations called Monday for an […]

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Risking it all – Journalism in Iraq
May 17, 2009 6 min. read

It’s with hindsight that we can also analyze how war shapes images and content.  For journalists working in Iraq during the height of the conflict, it became a profession of high risk and danger.  The following entry looks back at some of the Iraqi journalists who risked their lives  – some murdered – to write […]

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Exploiting our future
May 15, 2009 2 min. read

“I am not sure how many “sins” I would recognize in the world. Some would surely be defused by changed circumstances. But I can imagine none that is more irredeemably sinful than the betrayal, the exploitation, of the young by those who should care for them.” -Elizabeth Janeway (1913 – 2005) American author and critic. […]

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Torture and America
May 15, 2009 3 min. read

Looking at the US from a distance, one cannot help but wonder why there exists a  culture where hypocrisy is alive and vibrant.   The extreme variations between the political systems of thought  and the almost zealous drive to hold onto those ideologies seem to undermine its strengths. There has been a lot of debate in the news […]

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