United Nations Universal Declaration of Human R+ts (UNDHR)
From: AmnestyIntlToronto | September 16, 2010 | 227 views
The Article 13 Mural is part of a series of murals depicting one of the 30 articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR); the mural was created by Amnesty International in partnership with Arts Etobicoke and is part of AI's Project: Urban Canvas. ... (more info)
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-- Goodgy
And here's another Politico source with link:
DIANE SAWYER interviews BOB WOODWARD tonight on “World News” and “Nightline.” His 16th book, “Obama’s Wars,” is out today. Bob tells Diane in the taped sit-down: “If it turns out [that in] July of next year, nine months away, things are much better in Afghanistan, it seems to be working – [Obama’s] going to be a geo-strategic genius. If it doesn't work, you've got all kinds of people -- generals, Republicans, Democrats -- who are going to say, ‘Wait a minute…’ … This is Obama's war. He really became the strategist-in-chief.” Video: Hurray!, I finally found the link.Yes, already a bit dated; but still good, snappy, and far out.
BBC reports early results of Venezuela's parliamentary elections (Sept27,2k10):
Chavez foes advance in election
There were broad smiles among members of the opposition MUD as the results were announced.
The Venezuelan opposition has performed well in elections, overturning President Hugo Chavez's two-thirds majority in parliament.
Mr Chavez's United Socialist Party (PSUV) still won a majority of seats in Sunday's poll, but will now be unable to pass major legislation unaided.
The poll was seen as a test of Mr Chavez's popularity ahead of presidential elections in 2012.
An opposition spokesman said he was "very happy" with the results.
The opposition umbrella group he represents, the Table for Democratic Unity (MUD), will now become an important bloc in the parliament, says the BBC's Will Grant in Caracas.
It will be capable of thwarting some of Mr Chavez's key socialist reforms, be they appointments to the Supreme Court or backing for sweeping new laws.
It seems Mr Chavez will now have to find some way to work with the opposition representatives in parliament, our correspondent adds.
The stolid solid online Politico (Sept25,2k10) in a report by Josh Gerstein tries to fathom trends and overall direction of American Bar Association which has a long history of trying to arrogate power over the entire profession of jurists, lawyers, judges, juridical scholars (muxh like American Medical Association of yesteryear, now rather constrained. In recent years ABA had gone thru the refiner's fire, sorted itself into circumspect tendencies, deferring to the ancient canon of suaviter in modo.
The American Bar Association, which was dogged for decades by criticism over a perceived liberal bent, is risking reigniting that debate by taking bold stands on a pair of hot-button social issues.
At its annual meeting last month in San Francisco, the nation’s largest lawyers’ group passed a formal resolution, urging every state in the union to permit same-sex marriages.Continue Reading
In June, the ABA took what it acknowledged was an “extraordinary action” by filing a brief urging a federal judge in Arizona to block enforcement of that state’s highly controversial law intended to crack down on illegal immigration.Critics contend that the back-to-back moves on the polarizing issues of gay marriage and immigration show that the ABA is again sliding to the left politically and putting its reputation at risk.“One of the problems with having a viewpoint on anything and everything is, when the public disagrees with us on something they understand or think they understand thoroughly, that undercuts the willingness to defer to us on something they don’t understand,” said Leslie Jacobs, a former president of the Ohio Bar Association. “It compromises our prestige and our persuasiveness and you only have so many opportunities to influence people.”
A reporter for San Fran Chronicle, Jaxon Van Derbeken, spooks us with a very valuable news story:
[Years ago in a previous lethal explosion -- ] The colony of bacteria released gases that eventually broke down the wall of the 5-decade-old, 30-inch gas transmission line, a phenomenon called microbiologically influenced corrosion.H+ technics now exist to combat the li'l bratardos, but older pipelines may have too many twists and turns, too many spots where water may pool, too few pipeline companies that take the problem with grave seriousness.
A decade later, the phenomenon is being looked at as a possible cause of the Sept. 9 disaster in San Bruno, in which a 5-decade-old, 30-inch gas transmission line ruptured, killing seven people and destroying 37 homes. Read more
On the other side of free trade, encouraging foreign manufacturers to produce in the US creates a big defeat for us. For example, Ohio and Indiana competed to get a new Honda auto factory. Indiana succeeded. They gave Honda an $81 million enticement gift and other intangibles. Honda said they would put up a $500 million facility to produce 200,000 cars per year. They did put up a facility, cost unknown. And 23,000 Americans applied for 2,000 jobs. Two thousand Americans are now turning out 200,000 Honda cars per year in Indiana which translates to one American supplying the labor to turn out 100 cars per year. One American can earn on average about $50,000 per year to turn out $2,000,000 worth of cars (Average car sale $20,000 x 100 cars = $2,000,000). This may be a simplification, but the American labor cost is approximately 3 percent. Almost nothing is made in that factory.Some 2,000 of us benefit handsomely, while the remainder of our American 300+ million do not -- oh yeah, the consumers (and their families) who buy these 200,000 Hondas presumably have some satisfaction in their auto consumption. Are the vehicles all green? -- that woud at least help the enviro some, yes?
Doing my rounds to monitor the 24-hr nuzc+cl today, I read up on my incoming email newsletters in the bizness-f+nanchels category. I got to my favourit strait-up capital-investors daily Money Morning where Kerri Shannon, MM's Associate Editor reports, thusly:
Republicans this week outlined their plan for reform in one-page summary entitled "A Pledge to America." Republicans today hope their pledge will do for them what the "Contract with America" did for Republicans in 1994 when the GOP gained 54 House seats and regained control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.The report is usefully read in its entirety, and is recommended.
The proposal's goals include immediately canceling any unused funds from last year's $787 billion stimulus program, permanently extending the Bush tax cuts, repealing the new healthcare law, cutting $100 billion in discretionary spending, and freezing the size of the "nonsecurity" federal work force. It also calls to end government control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [The two govt-sponsored housing-mortgage conglomerates which triggered the financial meltdown as the banking houses fell into step (voraciously, I m+t add) -- Politicarp].
The plan comes at a time when many Americans are questioning the economic policies put forth by the Obama administration. With the unemployment rate stuck near 10%, President Obama two weeks ago announced a new six-year infrastructure plan, which says will create a "substantial number of jobs and improve the country's transport system.
An important newspaper in India, The Hindu, carries an article about the evaluation of a visit to Kashmir's Hindu majority of Mr Arun Jaitley, leader of the Hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata. "Fight separatism, win over minds of people" (Sept23,2k10) reports a "Special Correspondent":
NEW DELHI: “The government must be willing to wage a war of ideas in Kashmir, a war that must win over the minds of the common people of Kashmir, the students and housewives, a war to fight against the feeling of victimhood and against separatism. And in this task, India must show determination.”Bharatiya Janata Party has had to live down some extreme actions by its adherents on the Indian subcontinent. This effort to understand and make better contact with Hindus in Kashmir seems to be qu+t an alternative approach than those which prevailed previously.
Saying this, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley — who returned on Wednesday from a three-day visit to Kashmir as part of the all-party delegation — added: “When routinely slogans of ‘azadi' are chanted, the ordinary people do not even know what they mean by it.”
Could an ‘azad' Kashmir exist as a separate state and function independently? he said. Was that what they meant?
The “real” battle, Mr. Jaitley said, was between allowing the people to be alienated from India, their own land, and isolating the separatists.
“The Kashmiris are Indians living in India and this land is theirs. We have to have multiple strategies, multiple visions to ensure the people are not alienated from their own country,” he said.
Speaking to ordinary people, Mr. Jaitley said the sense that he and other members of the delegation got was that the people did not want to be harassed.
“They want to be free to live their daily lives in an atmosphere devoid of fear. Their biggest source of anxiety springs from being told on a daily basis that they are acting at the behest of Pakistan,” he said, adding that the people told the delegation: “We have nothing to do with Pakistan.”
“A teargas shell thrown by the security forces at a protesting group of people accidentally killed a boy, setting off a spiral of violence, anger, frustration, and more violence and anger. The government must be willing to recognise and admit the mistakes made and then rectify them,” Mr. Jaitley said.
His views were expressed at an interaction on the ‘Roots of Separatism' at the Constitution Club here.Mr. Jaitley said the government had been talking about issues related to the Line of Control (making that irrelevant) or demilitarisation and other issues that do not directly touch the lives of ordinary people in the State. He felt a different approach, together with a massive effort to reach out to the people through ideas, was needed.“Their mindset must be changed, their sense of victimhood must go,” he said.
