Auteur/autrice : Heidi Barathieu-Brun

Denis Robert – France

Added on May 26, 2007 this links: Clearstream and some french politics, and:


His book « Revelations »: This is a story about a massive money-laundering operation run by the world’s biggest banks. It hides behind the “eyes-glazing over” technicalities of the international financial system. But it could be one of the biggest illicit money-moving operations anyone has ever seen. And it’s allowed to exist by the financial regulators who answer to Western governments. In these days of global markets, individuals and companies may be buying stocks, bonds or derivatives from a seller who is halfway across the world. Clearinghouses like Clearstream keep track of the “paperwork” for the transactions. Banks with accounts in the clearinghouse use a debit and credit system and, at the end of the day, the accounts (minus handling fees, of course) are totaled up. The clearinghouse doesn’t actually send money anywhere, it just debits and credits its members’ accounts. The money involved is massive. Clearstream handles more than 100 million transactions a year, and claims to have securities on deposit valued at $10 trillion. (full text).

Read: Denis Robert’s whole blog.

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Denis Robert – France

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Maria Reinat-Pumarejo – Puerto Rico

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She agrees with Martin Luther King Jr’s sentence: ‘We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends’.

Maria Reinat-Pumarejo has played a key role in ending the use by the USA of the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, as a military base. Her world view of peace and justice has energized and empowered working-class women to uproot racism and sexism. In 1992, her struggle against racism prompted her to cofound the Institute for Latino Empowerment (ILE). In 1995, in collaboration with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, ILE extended its efforts to include white people and other people of color in its mission, resulting in the Undoing Racism Organizing Collective in the Northeast. (Read all on 1000peacewomen 2005).

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Maria Reinat-Pumarejo – Puerto Rico

She works for the Institute for Latino Empowerment ILE *,
for the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond,
and for the East Asia-US-Puerto Rico Women’s Network against Militarism.

* has no own website, but is mentionned on others, like these: on: Haarlem World News; on: [AAACE-NLA] school segregation – Anecdotes; on: the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, on: Leadership & Empowerment Institute; and on: RESIST, Guide to Technical Assistance; etc. etc.

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Radhika Coomaraswamy – Sri Lanka

Linked with the International Centre for Ethnic Studies ICES.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

It is said about her: « She is a brilliant scholar, Radhika Coomaraswamy has created new conceptual and theoretical frameworks for understanding women and conflict ».

Read:

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Radhika Coomaraswamy – Sri Lanka

She works for the International Centre for Ethnic Studies ICES.

Sri Lankan lawyer and academic Radhika Coomaraswamy (born 1953) has written and published extensively on issues such as women and conflict, minority rights and governance. Through her work, this brilliant scholar has created new conceptual and theoretical frameworks for understanding women and conflict. As a senior UN official, she has laid down new standards for investigating and analyzing violence against women at all levels. (1000peacewomen 2005).

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Michel Bauwens – Belgium & Thailand

Linked with The Political Economy of Peer Production, with The Foundation for P2P Alternatives, with The cult of Ken Wilber, and with FIVE FUNDAMENTAL ERRORS.

He says: ”I guess I’m more of a serial entrepreneur: as soon as a company reaches a 25-40 staff barrier, I tend to loose interest because of the increased management workload, and so move on to new projects. Anyway in 1998, after selling the two companies I had founded, I had a kind of burnout. This was partly due to the fact that I had been combining my day job with the co-production of a three-hour TV documentary … It was called TechnoCalyps, the Metaphysics of Technology and the End of Man. It was an extensive meditation on the transhuman / posthuman impact of biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology ». (full interview text).

Listen to his 22 minutes Google Video on what is P2P (peer-to-peer), registred on October 10, 2006.

Listen to Interviews on Robin Good’s website.

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Michel Bauwens – Belgium & Thailand

Read: Peer to Peer and Human Evolution.

Read: We study the impact of Peer to Peer technology and thought on society.

Read: post autistic economic review.

Michel Bauwens (born 21 March 1958) is a Belgian integral philosopher and Peer-to-Peer theorist. He has worked as an internet consultant, information analyst for the United States Information Agency, information manager for British Petroleum (where he created one of the first virtual information centers), and is former editor-in-chief of the first European digital convergence magazine, the Dutch language Wave.

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Tracy Kidder – USA

Linked with Paul Farmer, and with Thierry Fagart.

He says: « I’m sickened by strip malls, gated communities, decaying, dying old downtowns. We’ve lost that sense of ancestry in a place, longevity … I grew up in Long Island, a place that vanished in front of my eyes. I grew up there in the ’50s, in the great building boom. It was pretty distressing – you go away and come home and find a whole town gone, a cloverleaf in its place … Nothing human is alien to me – that’s the state of mind I’d like to aspire to. You don’t get far with people by judging them, and one of the nice things of my profession is I don’t have to. It makes things a lot more fun, more interesting. It’s important to hang around with people for a while, let people know what they’re getting into. I try to make people have their eyes as open as they can be. I think, there’s a certain level of decency and honor ». (full text).

Listen to the Tracy Kidder interview with Don Swaim, 1985 (26 min. 37 sec).

Read: Pulitzer Prize winner gives readers insight.

Read: Arts and Lecture series continues.

For the rest of the Spring 2007-tour, put ‘Tracy Kidder’ into Google and click on ‘news’.

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Tracy Kidder – USA

Read: Tracy Kidder to talk about work of Paul Farmer at Case’s Fall Convocation.

He is an American author and Vietnam War veteran. Kidder may be best known, especially within the computing community, for his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Soul of a New Machine, an account of the development of Data General’s Eclipse/MV minicomputer. Kidder followed up with House, in which he chronicles the design and construction of the award-winning Souweine House in Amherst, Massachusetts House reads like a novel, but it is based on many hours of research with the architect, builders, clients, in-laws, and other interested parties. (full text).

Read: A son of privilege as Army officer in Vietnam.

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Carolyn Nordstrom – USA

Linked with Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies, and with Shadow Sovereigns.

She is Professor for political anthropology, peace and conflict resolution, civilians in war zones, medical anthropology, gender, culture theory, (specially for) Africa and Asia.

She says: « For some reason, I’ve always approached life with the question ‘Now, how could this be presented better, no matter what the product or what the civic activity ».

Read: Anthropology 2007.

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Carolyn Nordstrom – USA

She works for the University of Notre Dame, Department of Anthropology, (see course Information), and its Kroc Institute of Interntional Peace Studies.

She says also: I was born in Metter, GA, but I was raised in Collins, GA. Both of those towns are extremely small in comparison to some metropolitan area like Atlanta. I cannot speak much about Metter because I never lived there, but I can say with profound security that Collins was a breeding ground for “small town” ideology. The main focus of that ideology was that all members of that small society were to follow the social norm with very little deviance from it, if any at all. There were members of society that exhibited varying degrees of deviance form these norms and were regarded by other members of that community with the same variance of opinion. Nonetheless, not many people outwardly expressed their unique individualism without harsh, brutal confrontation from the more elite members of that community. What were the norms? The norms were that you were to live a good life—good means that you do what is right in the eyes of “the Lord”—provide for your family, go to Church, and talk about the deviant members of the society in order to manipulate them through isolation. (full text).

Read: African Studies Quarterly.

Read: ENGL 1101 Composition, by Dr. Angela Crow.

… She is also the recipient of the 2001-2002 Research and Writing Grant from the Program on Global Security and Sustainability of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation … (SSRC).

Read: the peace history commission.

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Francisco “Chico” Whitaker Ferreira – Brazil

Linked with The World Future Council, and with World Social Forum: Origin and Aims.

He says: “So many people thought that Lula’s election meant change was on its way, but instead we’ve been disappointe. It’s sad, but the big lesson that we learned from these last two years is that it is an illusion to think you can change the world by taking political power”. (full text).

… In February 2000, Bernard Cassen, chair of Attac and director of Le Monde Diplomatique, met in Paris with Grajew and Francisco Whitaker, of the Brazilian Justice and Peace Commission (CBJP), to discuss the possibility of such a forum … (full text).

… As Francisco Whitaker, a member of the organizing committee from Brazil noted, « The Forum is a wind of hope that has taken hold in all of our hearts. » Almost 5 thousand organizations from 131 countries participated along with 11,600 young people who stayed in tents at the International Youth Camp … (full text).

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Francisco “Chico” Whitaker Ferreira – Brazil

He says also: « The Forum as an incubator space for movements. The Forum’s Charta of Principles has a very advanced approach in the position against establishing for itself any kind of direction or leadership: nobody gets the right to speak in the name of the Forum – it doesn’t suit to speak in the name of a free space – or of its participants. Everyone – individuals and organizations – keep their rights to express themselves and to act during and after the Forum according to his convictions, assuming or not positions and proposals that are or have been presented by other participants, but never in the name of the Forum and of the participants altogether. The Forum is an open space, like the public gardens, and as it is specified in the Charta of Principles.

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Ruth Sando Perry – Liberia

Linked with The Perry Center, and with ECOWAS – The Economic Community of West African States.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « As a mother, I consider the children and their future my biggest priority » … and: « We understand that there are difficult decisions to make when you are faced with an unplanned pregnancy. We are here to help young single mothers prepare for these changes. It is important that each young woman makes the decision that is best for herself and her unborn baby, so that each may live a full, productive, and loving life. The Perry Center is a quiet, reflective place with counselors experienced in helping to guide women in crisis pregnancy situation ». (full text).

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Ruth Sando Perry – Liberia

She works for the NGO Peace Now, for the Perry Center, and also with ECOWAS – The Economic Community of West African States.

Ruth Sando Perry (born 1939) was a lecturer at the University of Liberia before settling in Monrovia where she worked in a bank and created the NGO Peace Now. As the first female Head of State and Chairperson, Council of State of the Liberia National Transitional Government, Ruth Sando Perry presided over the disarmament of the warring parties in Liberia, repatriated and resettled refugees and displaced people, and conducted internationally acclaimed free and fair democratic elections.

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Nela Martínez Espinosa – Ecuador (1912 – 2004)

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Read: Nela en la memoria – Un nido de colibrí, conchas de colores, flores y cartas, elementos que siempre acompañaron a Nela. Entre sus obras figuran « Cuentos de la Tortura », « Antología de Narradores Ecuatorianos », su colaboración en « Los Guandos » y numerosos poemas publicados e inéditos.

She said: « In the revolutionary spirit of 1944 it was logical to encounter the harshest machismo, after the storm of the armed fighting had passed and the presence of the military and the police. The city of Quito was taken by the people without even a single violent action. I was moved by the presence of the women who were there day and night with their children, carrying them on their backs or holding them by their hands. That powerful symbol was enough to enable us to liberate those persecuted and confined as political prisoners. It was not necessary to resort to repression to gain peace ».

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Nela Martínez Espinosa – Ecuador (1912 – 2004)

She worked for the Women’s Continental Front for Peace and Against Intervention.

She was a world fighter for peace, against military dictatorships and imperialism. She turned her indignation into a campaign for the human rights of both men and women. From different departure points, she contributed to the thoughts and actions behind the construction of citizenship for women. She was dedicated from a very young age to the struggle of the indigenous people and their process of self-determination and the historical appreciation of their identity.

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Beatriz Elena Rodríguez Rengifo – Colombia

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « For some time, I have understood that there are more valuable things than money, such as respect, our rights, feeling proud when you are in front of your children. You cannot buy that with money. »

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Beatriz Elena Rodríguez Rengifo – Colombia

Asociación de Mujeres Productoras de Cárnicos (Association of Women Butchers/Meatpackers of Caquetá’ Asomupcar)

Beatriz Rodríguez was born in Dosquebradas, Risaralda, Colombia. She was a sex worker in a bar called California. Through a municipal civil servant, a client of that bar, she got to know the mayoress, Lucrecia Murcia, who supported her in the development of programs to bring upon improvements for her and her work mates. So Beatriz, along with her companions, formed a micro-company of meatpackers/butchers and other projects to benefit women in their position and allow them to be economically self-sufficient.

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