The big news came from John McCain on Monday. McCain Pledges To Combat Climate Change is the story from Reuters' "Planet Ark" service. In an obvious attempt to delineate the difference between President Bush and himself, he said "I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit […]
Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon spoke on Darfur today, arguing that the joint UN/African Union peacekeeping mission is seriously hampered by a variety of logistical problems. In Sudan, rebels reached Omdurman, a suburb of Khartoum, this weekend. AP reports 200 people died in the attack. Sudan blames Chad, and has cut diplomatic ties. The rebel movement […]
The executioners wear suits and ties to match. Clean-shaved, hair brushed back, a news camera crew follows all five of them into a sterile lobby at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, its capital city. They came for Ama Sumani, in her wheelchair, and dying of malignant myeloma she requires kidney dialysis three times […]
Judge Susan Crawford, the prosecutorial authority for the U.S. military tribunal at the naval detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Tuesday refused charges filed by prosecutors against Mohammed al-Qahtani, an alleged Sept. 11 conspirator. Crawford accepted charges filed against five other high-profile suspects, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad and Ramzi bin al-Shieb. The […]
A report published last week by the Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Information Center (PIC) claims that the security measures being carried out by the pro-Fatah Palestinian police force are part of a campaign targeting the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank. The report, which dubs the force heading this effort the “Abbas-Fayad Apparatuses” in reference to the […]
Zogby International and the University of Maryland's Shibley Telhami conducted a poll last month of 6 Arab publics: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Not surprisingly, the poll reveals negative attitudes toward the US. The pollsters also took this opportunity to gauge these publics’ opinion on the US Presidential election. Reuters reports […]
With the West Virginia primary tomorrow, and Kentucky next week, coal and coal mining become more visible as issues. I wrote about this in April at Quick Political Note , Coal and the Candidates. The Sundance Channel is going to premier a blockbuster movie, Burning the Future: Coal in America, tomorrow night. That’s 9:35 PM […]
A consistent theme running throughout this blog has been the Defense Department's slow and steady encroachment on activities traditionally performed by our diplomatic bureau, the State Department. A recent article from the USA Today reveals a new aspect of this phenomenon: “The Pentagon is setting up a global network of foreign-language news websites, including an Arabic […]
In the blistering summer heat of the Algerian desert, 28-year old Sahrawi refugee Brahim Boudjemaa is telling me his story. It is one shared by many like him, that of anger, frustration, and a hope against the odds. Born and still living in a refugee camp, he sweeps his arm across his chest so as […]
A major financial backer of the Rwandan genocide had his assets frozen in Kenya. A good first step but it seems as if there are grounds for an arrest.
We will spend a lot of time looking at the crisis in Darfur on this blog. At the moment I want to leave you with a short note on an important development that will likely impact the innocent victims of Darfur. According to the BBC shooting has been heard in two separate parts of Sudan's […]
For those of you new to Human Rights or simply in need of an easy set of reference tools I would encourage you to bookmark the UN human rights homepage. It has links to the key UN human rights treaties and offices (including a link to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights). […]
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