With a Friday prayer sermon by a former president and a call for a national referendum on the government’s legitimacy by another, the drama and crisis in Iran following the disputed elections are not over yet. When he spoke on Friday, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said many Iranians have doubts about the election […]
This documentary is a love letter to Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Director Estela Bravo doesn’t try to hide her adoration of the man many in the developing world look up to. Using archival footage and interviews with friends, relatives, and celebrities, Bravo paints a picture of a person who has not lost his idealism. [kml_flashembed […]
What this all means is that the problem of macho run amok and the excessively over-compensated male ethos of ‘macho’ aggression and propensity for risk-taking is now giving way to the male unemployed and undirected—a different but possibly just as destructive phenomenon. Long periods of unemployment are a strong predictor of heavy drinking, especially for men ages 27 to 35, a study in Social Science & Medicine found last year. And the macho losers of globalization can forget about marrying: “Among the workers who disproportionately see their jobs moving overseas or disappearing into computer chips,” says sociologist Andrew Cherlin, “we’ll see fewer young adults who think they can marry.” So the disciplining effects of marriage for young men will continue to fade.
Surly, lonely, and hard-drinking men, who feel as though they have been rendered historically obsolete, and who long for lost identities of macho, are already common in ravaged post-industrial landscapes across the world, from America’s Rust Belt to the post-Soviet wreckage of Vladimir Putin’s Russia to the megalopolises of the Middle East. If this recession has any staying power, and most believe it does, the massive psychic trauma will spread like an inkblot. How will this shift to the post-macho world unfold? And what will be its legacy in the world of 21st century capitalism and the global economy..??
On July 14, the prosecution wrapped up its case against Thomas Lubanga, the first ever accused brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC). Lubanga, the alleged leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC), and its military wing the Forces Patriotiques pour la Libération de Congo (FPLC), has been charged with enlisting and conscripting child soldiers between […]
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) there is an estimated 165 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 whom are actively involved in child labor. Just over a month ago on June 11th we celebrated World Day Against Child Labor, which as I stated in my post, that this year was one […]
The recent flurry of media coverage on a town in the West Bank called Nablus has a definite positive ring to it. Things are changing for the better there, in an area that has been described by the media as a “former ghost town.” It is also described as a “former militant strong hold”. Most […]
Last week, the Chinese government said the country grew nearly eight percent in the year to the second quarter. Beijing’s economic stimulus and record bank lending have proven effective and China is in a good position to emerge comfortably from the Great Recession. Do the new figures signal China’s economic resilience? Or is it too […]
The secretary of state finally gets a platter of her own at ITC Maurya’s Bukhara restaurant in New Delhi. The Hillary Platter–urgh malai kabab, seekh kabab, paneer tikka, tandoori aloo, sikandari raan, dal bukhara, tandoori jinga, mixed raita, naan, rasmalai and kulfi–joins the Presidential Platter and the Chelsea Platter. At the town hall meeting at […]
“Uncle” seems almost condesending — I don’t mean it so. Walter Cronkite was more than an avuncular presence in American homes. He was a serious newsman at a time when TV news was being invented and we were all a bit in awe of the new medium and its ability to broadcast images as well […]
Civil society representatives from over 20 African countries met in Kigali, Rwanda last week to discuss how to better implement a key regional protocol on women’s rights. The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa received it’s fifteenth ratification and therefore came into effect in […]
Eyes have fallen off of Sri Lanka since the country ended it’s 26 year civil war ended in May 2009. The conflict ended with the governments forces final defeat of the insurgent Tamil Tigers rebel group (LTTE). Over the years, especially in the last few years of the conflict international human rights groups repeatedly called […]
The book highlights the people who’ve done everything “right” — college degrees, often ivy-educated, developed marketable skills, with impressive track-records — yet, they’ve become repeatedly vulnerable to the seemingly never-ending string of Wall Street scandals, economic “crises,” eviscerating mergers & acquisitions, and your basic business cycle. Further, today’s globally competitive corporations take pride in shedding their “surplus” employees (i.e., downsizing) or by increasing corporate profit margins by shipping technology and call center jobs overseas into lower labor cost markets like India or the Philippines where they don’t have to pay for healthcare, retirement or vacation benefits for workers. Inevitably, this plunges white collar employees into months or even years at a stretch into the twilight zone of white-collar unemployment where a job search itself becomes a full-time occupation; and not to mention the underlying risk to this prime driver of the U.S. economy.
Two weeks after unrest erupted in Xinjiang, Beijing should reassess its policies towards and relations with ethnic minorities. Instead of a strong and uncompromising response, the Chinese government needs to protect rights and provide opportunities for real autonomy. Ethnic tensions must be reduced not used to justify harsher measures. Minxin Pei, a senior associate at […]
A row of Moroccan flags firmly embedded in a concrete wall too tall to scale, align a compound that has no political will and surround a United Nations mission that has no human rights bureau. Minurso, the UN Mission for the Referendum in the Western Sahara, is a sad spectacle where the single blue flag […]
India is under pressure to come forward with more assertive action indicating it is going to take part in a mandatory regime of greenhouse gas reductions. It has, unfortunately, been saying much the opposite: that it will not sign up to quantifiable emission reductions. (See last post below.) China and India have been marching, if […]