Archive 1986 – 2017

  BREAKING NEWS December 1, 2005 CNN State’s high court won’t spare Williams Schwarzenegger could still stop execution of gang founder   Nonviolence But what’s even more important: Stan Tookie Williams’ commitment is a vital impulse for a civil approach to violence. His history, personal chance and initiatives have yielded and will yield more positive results than all correctional institutions in the United States and, by their own example, call for a policy chance that at long last starts to again invest into the education of young people instead of prison expansion.   What you can do • Read the currently two best newspaper article “Dead Man Talking” in The Times and Clemency for a Crip in the International Herald Tribune • Inform yourself and read more: www.tookie.com, www.savetookie.org, www.againstthecrimeofsilence.de Wikipedia   • Sign the petition for clemency to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Or sign it here: • Mail your own...

Den serbiske provins Kosovo, er befolket af en albansk separatist-sindet befolkningsmajoritet, og har ikke imødekommet de krav om at opfylde grundlæggende menneskerettigheder og politiske standarder, som det internationale samfund satte som forudsætninger for statusforhandlinger. Alligevel begynder i de kommende måneder forhandlinger om provinsens fremtidige status. Denne grundlæggende konklusion findes i den længe ventede rapport fra FNs særlige udsending Kai Eide, som blev godkendt af Kofi Annan og som støttes fuldt ud af EU og USA – men rapporten afmystificerer ikke paradokset. For kun to et halvt år siden bestemte det internationale samfund, at forhandlinger om provinsens status ikke kunne begynde før, der var opnået et bestemt niveau af menneskerettigheder. Siden da er det kun blevet klarere, at Kosovos albanske flertal var uvilligt til at imødekomme kriterierne og at FN ikke var i stand til at gennemtvinge dem. Der har været en permanent udvanding af forudsætningerne indtil man nu med hr....

The Serbian province of Kosovo, largely populated by the Albanian separatist-minded majority, has failed to meet basic human rights and political standards set as prerequisites by the international community, but it should nevertheless enter in the months to come talks on its future status. This basic conclusion of the long-awaited report by UN special envoy Kai Eide was approved by the UN secretary general Kofi Annan and fully supported by the EU and the US, but it fails to demystify the paradox. Only two a half years ago, the international community had charged that talks on status could not start before a set of basic human rights standards was achieved. Since then, however, as it became clearer that the Kosovo Albanian majority was unwilling to meet the criteria and the UN unable to enforce them, there was a permanent watering down of prerequisites, until the proclaimed policy of “standards before...

Den serbiska provinsen Kosovo, huvudsakligen befolkad av den albanska separatistiskt inställda majoriteten, har inte lyckats tillgodose de grundläggande mänskliga rättigheter och den politiska standard som villkorats av världssamfundet, men icke desto mindre ska under de närmaste månaderna påbörjas samtal om dess framtida status. Denna grundläggande slutsats av en länge emotsedd rapporten av FN:s särskilda utsände Kai Eide har godkänts av FN:s generalsekreterare Kofi Annan och fått fullständigt stöd från EU och USA, men paradoxen med detta har man inte lyckats avmystifiera. För bara två och ett halvt år sedan krävde världssamfundet att samtal om Kosovos ställning inte skulle inledas innan man uppnått en viss standard i fråga om mänskliga rättigheter. Men då det sedan dess har blivit allt klarare att den kosovoalbanska majoriteten är ovillig att tillgodose kriterierna och att FN inte förmår genomdriva dem, har förutsättningarna oavbrutet urvattnats tills den proklamerade politiken “standard före status” slutligen begravdes med Eides...

LONDON – The European Union’s new report on the status of Jerusalem may have reminded those who have forgotten what Yasser Arafat always said, “The Arab leader has not been born who will give up Jerusalem.” The EU report, besides highlighting the long Palestine preoccupation with Jerusalem, also underlines how central to Israel’s strategy of Palestinian exclusion present day Israeli policy on Jerusalem is. The report argues that the effort to establish illegal Jewish settlements in and around East Jerusalem and to use the route of its separation wall is “to seal off most of East Jerusalem, with its 230,000 Palestinian residents, from the West Bank” and to create “a de facto annexation of Palestinian land.” Poets from England’s eighteenth century William Blake to Israel’s contemporary Yehuda Amichai have sung the praises of a heavenly Jerusalem, a city without strife or rancour, war or bitterness, envy, acquisitiveness or hatred. But...

LONDON – On its submarines Britain has 48 nuclear warheads, each one eight times as powerful as the nuclear bomb that obliterated Hiroshima. In other words, Prime Minister Tony Blair theoretically could order the almost instant incineration of 384 large cities around the world. Barely anyone in parliament has mentioned it, much less debated it in the eight and a half years Blair has been in office. But recently, all of a relative sudden, Blair has promised a discussion sometime “in the life of the present parliament” because the U.S., the supplier of the Trident missiles (but not the warheads which are home-made), has made it clear that it will soon be taking a decision on replacing its own Tridents and the UK must decide in tandem what to do with its. As Blair slides gently, but not particularly gracefully, to the end of his term in office it looks...

LONDON – No one is whiter than white in Liberia. Certainly not the new president-elect, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who at one time lent her support to Charles Taylor, Africa’s most bloodthirsty and notorious warlord. But, as one Liberian I talked to in Monrovia’s market said, “we have more than paid for our sins”. Finally after mass murder, mass rape and mass economic destruction the human spirit has shown its amazing ability to somersault and become non-violent. Not a shot has been fired during this election; barely a bad word word uttered, at least until the results came in. Somewhere the good words of the Christian book that the liberated slaves brought back with them from the United States are being recalled and remembered. It is a time for forgiveness, repentance and rebuilding. The churches, at least those still standing, are packed. But this begs the question what to do about Charles...

LONDON – The dust is beginning to settle on Zanzibar’s notorious election. Perhaps we can now look at it with a little more objectivity. Reporters flocked in, lured by the promise of rigged elections in an African tourist paradise where the smell of blood-letting mingled with the scent of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and all the other wonderful things that the spice island grows. Moreover, the Tanzanian balloon was too tempting not to prick – an African country, which incorporated the islands of Zanzibar in 1964, is one of the continent’s success stories: politically peaceful, democratic and exhibiting consistently high rates of economic growth; surely something must be wrong. After days of journalists highlighting the run up to the election with stories and photos of mayhem and murder, intimidation and fraud, the election did take place and the ruling party, the one allied with the ruling party of the mainland, as...

Tio år har gått sedan de storskaliga massmorden på bosnienmuslimska män i den Srebrenica. Stadens namn har för alltid etsats in i samtidens kollektiva medvetande. Jag träffade och intervjuade själv hösten 1995 flyktingar från Srebrenica i den bosniska staden Tuzla, hörde deras fasansfulla berättelser. På tioårsdagen i måndags hade tiotusentals sörjande samlats i Srebrenica för att minnas det som skedde, också ledande politiker från många länder. Serbiens president Boris Tadic deltog i ceremonin och sa att “det är nödvändigt att bryta de onda cirklarna”. Tadics närvaro var viktig. Försoning efter ett krig kräver att parterna erkänner också den egna sidans brott. Det sker inte ofta. Massakern i Srebrenica inträffade den heta krigssommaren 1995, då gränser ritades om med vapenmakt. Omvärlden blev uppmärksam på det som hade hänt första gången när USA:s dåvarande utrikesminister Madeleine Albright en månad senare, den 10 augusti, i FN visade upp bilder, som påstods visa “nyligen...

LONDON – The first time I thought Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen bank, deserved the Nobel Prize was twenty years ago, and I said as much in a column in the International Herald Tribune. “Away from the intrigue of Dhaka, with its street battles, armed police and brigades of international journalists something quite wonderful is happening in Bangladesh.” It was for me a road to Damascus. Saturated with covering failure in Africa, Brazil and India there I saw for the first time how the poor could almost literally lift themselves up by their own bootstraps. I recall sitting in the shade of a mango tree, not far from the Himalayan foothills, talking to my host, an ultra ebullient Italian, Sergio Apollonio, the information chief of a small Rome-based UN agency, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), who had had to twist my arm to persuade me to take...

LONDON – There are 101 small – and not so small – things that are starting to go right in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. But the big thing is not happening – persuading the electorate that after twenty years of gross mismanagement followed by the austere belt tightening and pruning of the democratic rule of President Olusegun Obasanjo, that their lives can be better. Obasanjo is not popular. Only if Obasanjo can turn this negative psychological state around in the coming eighteen months of his final term will Nigeria’s forward momentum into the future be secured. Otherwise his successor will be feel pressured to raid the piggy bank – where Nigeria’s bountiful oil earnings are stored for a rainy day – and buy his/her way into cheap popularity by offering to cut petrol prices, subsidize food, boost civil service employment and all the other wasteful expenditures that Obasanjo has...

Av Catharina Östman, Vasabladet kolumn Med utgångspunkt i Burundis positiva fredsprocess frågar Catharina Östman “Vore det inte på tiden med ett utvidgat nyhetsbegrepp där också det som redan görs för de drabbade i olika länder skulle lyftas fram – inte för att dölja problemen, utan som sporre för oss omkring att engagera oss ännu mer?” – Jag skall skriva en kolumn om Burundi, säger jag. – Om vad då? undrar omgivningen – och ger mig vatten på min kvarn: detta är något som vi inte hör talas om, en dold punkt i nyhetsrapporteringen. Varför berättar ingen vad som händer i Burundi? För att det är historia om hopp? Hopp i ett härjat land som inte längre befinner sig på katastrofens brant anses inte ha nyhetsvärde. Just då när landet skulle behöva omgivningens stöd för att kunna fortsätta på den inslagna vägen till fred och stabilitet. Burundi – det centralafrikanska landet...