News blog

Afghan women face the future

Mar 132013
 
 News blog

from The Nation

This is a personal story, and it’s hard to tell because nobody knows how it will end. I first went to Afghanistan in 2002, where I volunteered with two small nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) staffed by Afghan women: widows, university students, teachers. I’ve gone back to Afghanistan to work with those women almost every year — except for part of 2010 and 2011, when I embedded with the US military instead, to learn more about its “mission” in the country. The military was so out of touch with the actual Afghanistan that I may as well have been on the moon.

I went back to Kabul again in January, eleven years after first meeting my Afghan colleagues, and more than a year since I had last seen them. I thought I would find them changed, and I did—but not as I had imagined. I was worried about their future. They’re worried too, but they’re also stronger and more determined than ever…
 
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Ottawa still blocking UN observer

Mar 132013
 
 News blog

UN Indigenous peoples rapporteur's request for official visit ignored.

by Jorge Barrera

OTTAWA (APTN)  –The Harper government continues to prevent the UN special rapporteur on Indigenous peoples from visiting Canada.

James Anaya, the special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, says the federal government continues to ignore his year-old request to visit Canada to investigate the “human rights situation of Indigenous peoples,” according to a February 20 letter he sent to the Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC).

“I have communicated with the government of Canada to request its consent for me to conduct an official visit to the country to examine and report on the human rights situation of Indigenous peoples there,” writes Anaya, in the letter. “I initially made the request in February of 2012 and am still awaiting a response from the government.”

Anaya has written the federal government at least three times requesting permission to visit the country…

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Ron Paul revolution jolts Preston Manning conference

Mar 112013
 
 News blog

from The Vancouver Observer

… Ron Paul talks extensively and passionately about liberty. He defines it by what it is (freedom) and what it is not (everything else). He encourages governments — his own and ours–to put personal liberty above their own interests. He says that modern societies are failing because they have replaced the concept of personal liberty with 'interventionism'.

"If you believe in interventionism across the board" he says, his voice rising, you want the government to invade personal lives, economic prosperity and foreign policy.

He shouts "I am a non interventionist and that is what freedom is all about!"

And the crowd goes wild…

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McDonald’s guest workers stage surprise strike

Mar 112013
 
 News blog

from The Nation

Alleging unpaid wages and repeated retaliation, McDonald’s workers in central Pennsylvania launched a surprise strike at 11 this morning. The strikers are student guest workers from Latin America and Asia, brought to the United States under the controversial J-1 cultural exchange visa program. Their employer is one of the thousands of McDonald’s franchisees with whom the company contracts to run its ubiquitous stores. ..

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