In the winter of 2005 myself and one other volunteer at the Coalition for the Homeless were driving around in a white van in New York City handing out food and whenever available, used clothing. We stopped at approximately 31 designated areas ranging from lower Manhattan all the way up into the Bronx. For anyone […]
U.N. council extends mandate of Darfur peacekeepers The UN Security Council members voted unanimously to extend the mandate of a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission in the Darfur region of Sudan. The force, which gradually has been deployed to the region, is expected to reach 90% of its full operating complement by the end of […]
This past weekend police violently broke up an opposition rally in the streets of Kuala Lumpur, highlighting once again the lack of certain freedoms in Malaysia. The rally was called to protest a security law that allows the government to preventatively detain certain defendants indefinitely without charges. The Internal Security Act of 1960 has been […]
On her ten day trip through Africa, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will make two stops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – capital Kinshasa and Goma in the east. Estimates state that conflict in the DRC (a country the size of the US east of the Mississippi) has resulted in 3.5 […]
I still have faith in President Barack Obama but there are some things that cannot just be ignored. His executive order in January was to close the disgrace that is Guantanamo Bay within one year – the holding pen of America’s hypocrisy. He had inherited two wars, a wrecked economy, a huge national debt and […]
As was noted in my recent post, Is there child labor in your make-up?, being a conscious consumer is more difficult that one often thinks in regards to some products, especially when one wants to ensure that they are purchasing goods that are child labor and slavery free. While it is true that being a […]
This past week was not a good one for human rights lawyers. As reported on this blog earlier this week, on Monday the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) suspended an Arab human rights group at the request of Algeria for hosting a “known terrorist” at a speaking event last year. The “known terrorist” here […]
A major human rights group is urging US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take a tough stance on human rights and the rule of law during her seven nation trip to Africa next week. Her itinerary includes Kenya, where she will meet with representatives from both the Kenyan and Somali governments, and the Democratic […]
“The greatest inspiration is often born of desperation.” -Comer Cotrell, American Entrepreneur (1931- ) In the face of hardship and disaster, one most often finds the most inspiring people you will ever come across. For many when we reach the point of desperation we find ourselves over whelmed and wanting to give up, but lucky […]
We build memorials to remember the dead. Those that died in wars, in natural disasters, on the front line or the victims of stubborn and vision-less politicians. We do so for a number of reasons, to not forgot, for some to realize the absurdity of war, for others as a symbol of pride for a […]
You see their faces plastered across newspapers and even catch a glimpse on the evening news, but you never really get a clear picture of what a day in the life of a refugee is like, and now you can thanks to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), where you can take a virtual tour […]
Honduras is just having problems these days. First its president wants to throw selected parts of the constitution out the window. Then the military throws the president out of the country. And now after a month of international diplomatic drama with the interim government, a major collection of human rights groups is accusing it of […]
Yesterday we posted that Iran was releasing some prisoners who were detained for protesting last month’s presidential election. It has now come out that Shadi Sadr, a major women’s rights lawyer in Iran, was released from Evin Prison. Her arrest, which we detailed here, brought Iran’s current detention policies following last month’s disputed election back […]
Serbian authorities declared this week that top war criminal fugitive, Ratko Mladic, has his days numbered. Mladic was the general in charge of the Serbian military at the massacre in Srebrenica in which 7,000 Muslims were killed. He was also the officer responsible for ordering the shelling of civilians in Sarajevo in the early 1990s […]
Italy has become the butt end of all jokes in Europe. Few take President Silvio Berlusconi seriously and instead, cringe with delight whenever he opens his mouth and speaks his mind. An article in the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, even goes so far to claim conspiracy against Italians (by Beppe Severgnini – can’t find […]