Catégorie : World People

Disambiguation: your search tool will bring you out several Michael Edwards.

Linked with Alliance, with the Resource Alliance, and with The 21st Century Trust.

Michael Edwards is the Director of the Ford Foundation’s Governance and Civil Society Unit in New York, having worked in international development for the last twenty years, including periods spent living and travelling in Latin America, Southern Africa and South Asia. After a series of senior management positions with Oxfam and Save the Children, he moved to Washington DC to work as a Senior Civil Society Specialist in the NGO Unit of the World Bank. His writings have helped to shape a more critical appreciation of the global role of civil society, and to break down barriers between researchers and activists across the world. Michael was educated in England at the universities of Oxford and London, and now lives with his wife in the center of Manhattan. (Future Positive.org).

His two books:

• Future Positive, International cooperation in the 21st century;
• Civil Society;

find their publishing informations on Future Positive.org.

Global Civil Society: Expectations, Capacities and the Accountability of International NGOs, Oxford 28 March – 5 April 2003.

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Michael Edwards – USA

“Just another Emperor? The myths and realities of philanthrocapitalism”, by Michael Edwards, published simultaneously in London and New York, 10th March 2008.

He says: « To me that means three things that I’ll leave you with that in the hope that they provoke some initial questions for our conversation:

• Bringing social and economic democracy back into the conversation. Democracy requires both freedom and equality, yet (perhaps as a result of US dominance in this debate), freedom gets the lion’s share of the attention;
• Thinking in terms of participatory and deliberative democracy and not just representation – that’s where some of the most interesting innovations lie, like participatory budgeting and citizens forums;
• And being open to learning from non-Western experience where many of these innovations are strongest, like Brazil and India (e.g, importing participation in the local budget process by Labor government into the UK last year).

These changes would lay the basis for a different kind of conversation that sees democracy as something we co-create together, learning as we go, not something that is exported from one part of the world to another against a standard template or end point in time. And that I think would be a conversation with a lot more intellectual excitement, practical influence, ethical integrity and real purchase on the ground to which all of us as grant-makers could make a central contribution … (full conference text).

CIVIL SOCIETY: Field Statement of Current Programming (October 2003, 7 pages).

GOVERNANCE: Field Statement of Current Programming (October 2003, 7 pages).

Continuer la lecture de « Michael Edwards – USA »

Linked with Lynne Stewart’s Long Struggle for Justice, with Updating Sami Al-Arian – His Ordeal Continues, with Sami Al-Arian – USA & Kuwait, and with BBC: Imperial Tool.

Stephen was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. Raised in a modest middle class family, attended public schools, received a BA from Harvard University in 1956 and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of PA in 1960, following 2 years of obligatory military service in the US Army. He spent the next 6 years as a marketing research analyst for several large US corporations before becoming part of a new small family business in 1967, remaining there until retiring at the end of 1999. Since then he has devoted his time and efforts to the progressive causes and organizations he supports, all involved in working for a more humane and just world for all people everywhere, but especially for the most needy, disadvantaged and oppressed. Stephen’s efforts only in the last 6 months have included some writing on the various issues of personal concern like war and peace; social, economic and political equity for all; and justice for all the oppressed peoples of the world like the long-suffering people of Haiti and the Palestinians. (The Populist Party).

The Rules of Imperial Management, UN Peacekeeping Paramilitarism, Feb 15, 2007.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached by e-mail. Also visit his blog site, and listen to The Global Research New Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests.

The audio: THE GEORGE TRYMAN SHOW, on Feb 20, 2008, 2 hours.

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Stephen Lendman – USA

Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment, Review of Peter Hallward’s book, by Stephen Lendman, Part I, April 14, 2008 … and: Peter Hallward’s Damming the Flood, Part II, 9 pages, April 17, 2008.

Dandelion Salad, by Stephen Lendman Global Research, April 18, 2008.

He writes: … Parenti’s latest book, and subject of this review, is the newly updated eighth edition of one of his most noted and popular earlier ones – Democracy For the Few. In it, he shows how democracy in the nation really works. It dispels the fiction Americans are practically weaned on from birth, taught in school to the highest levels, and get daily from the dominant media … This is Parenti’s dominant theme – of a government, since inception, serving the privileged few at the expense of the neglected or exploited many. That’s hardly a textbook definition of democracy, yet it’s the model one we’re taught to believe we have serving everyone equally. Parenti says his book is intended to show how vital it is for everyone to critically examine our society as a step toward improving it. He stresses a nation’s greatness is measured by its freedom from poverty, racism, sexism, exploitation, imperialism, environmental devastation, and a fundamental opposition to war and pursuit of peace everywhere. Benjamin Franklin also said There never was a good war or bad peace, a notion unimaginable to our leaders today. (full text, Sept. 10, 2007).

Media Disinformation and the BBC, April 10, 2008.

Continuer la lecture de « Stephen Lendman – USA »

Linked with Muslim Women in Europe caught between traditions and secular ethos, and with Necla Kelek – Turkey and Germany. Sorry, I found no militant turkish women NGO.

Seyran Ateş (born 1963) is a German lawyer born in Istanbul, Turkey. Her article Making multiculturalism work. Multiculturalism details how the far left in Germany tolerates sexism and violence against women when it is done in the name of Islam . In a judgement regarding whether an Islamic schoolgirl could be exempted from gym class on March 24, 1994 (InfAuslR 8/92, S. 269), she quotes the ruling of a higher administrative court in Bremen: « it is irrelevant that adolescent Muslim women are prevented by the demands of their religion from achieving equal status as women in Western society ». Her views, highly critical of an immigrant Muslim society that is often more conservative than its counterpart in Turkey, have put her at risk. In an interview in January 2008, Ateş stated that she is now in hiding and will not be working on Muslim women’s behalf publicly (including in court) due to the threats against her. In one particular incident, she and her client were attacked by a woman’s husband in a German courthouse in front of onlookers who did nothing … (en.wikipedia).

She warns: « Minority protection with respect to Islam can only be had at the cost of the equal rights of women » … (full text).

Listen her audio interview on a german radio, 9.58 min, Oct. 1, 2007.

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Seyran Ates – Turkey

Human rights activist and lawyer Seyran Ates, Turkey, was named Germany’s woman of the year in 2005 for her work in defense of Muslim women in immigrant communities … (full text).

She says: « I see left-wingers as particularly culpable for the mistakes made in current integration policy, because for a long time they hindered any debate. Despite all that left-wing thought aspires to, they did not look closely enough at what was actually happening in these communities, in the cultures that were settling in Germany » … (full interview text, 2007).

Her german website.

Seyran Ates opened a loose-leaf notebook in her fourth floor apartment in the center of Berlin and flipped through the pages of hate mail. She read the letters in a monotone. The 43-year-old Turkish-born attorney had the face of a weary warrior … (full text).

Seyran Ates on flickr’s photo sharing.

Each year, according to UN studies, more than one million people are forced into marriage – and for many years now, Berlin-based lawyer Seyran Ates has been fighting to increase the German public’s awareness of the issue. Sigrid Dethloff reports … (full text, 22.04.2004).

Continuer la lecture de « Seyran Ates – Turkey »

Linked with Ex-UN prosecutor’s organ trading claims challenged, with The belated confession of Carla Del Ponte, and with Swiss block del Ponte over controversial book’s claims.

Carla Del Ponte (born February 9, 1947 in Lugano, Switzerland) was a Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals. A former Swiss attorney general, she was appointed prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ICTR in August 1999, replacing Louise Arbour. In 2003, the U.N. Security Council removed Del Ponte as the Prosecutor for the ICTR, and replaced her there with Hassan Bubacar Jallow in an effort to expedite proceedings in that Tribunal. She remained the Prosecutor for the ICTY until 1 January 2008, when she was succeeded by Serge Brammertz. Del Ponte was formerly married, and has one son … (full text).

Her Profile on BBC: … Del Ponte sees herself as the victim of political pressure … Numerous other men once wanted over the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s have been brought to trial by her office. They included the Serb leader regarded as a key instigator of the turmoil – Slobodan Milosevic … (full text).

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Carla del Ponte – Switzerland

She works now as the Swiss ambassador to Argentina (Embajada de Suiza, Buenos Aires).

… « Del Ponte hid the truth and left this information about the grave crimes committed against the kidnapped Serbs out, in this way helping the crime, although she received the list of names of those kidnapped and those who kidnapped them in 2001. She never arrested anyone and she must answer for this, » Spasić said … Del Ponte says in her book that she learned from a group of reliable journalists that some 300 Serbs were taken to Albania in the summer of 1999, after the end of the NATO bombing of Serbia and arrival of their forces in Kosovo. The victims had their organs removed and were then killed, the former prosecutor says … (full text).

“Moscow is carefully following developments regarding the former Hague chief prosecutor’s memoirs on activities in investigating war crimes,” the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in a statement … In its reaction to the Swiss ban, Russia said they were not surprised. Such discoveries, Moscow said, did not fit into the scenarios of a series of countries where “propaganda portrayed the Kosovo Albanians as great martyrs and therefore legitimised Kosovo’s independence” … (full text).

Organ smuggling accusations … : The Hunt (La caccia: Io e i criminali di guerra / the hunt: I and the war criminals), for the moment the book is available only in italian language:

Continuer la lecture de « Carla del Ponte – Switzerland »

Linked with A video called Firewall, and with Biofuels Are Famine Policy.

Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. (born September 8, 1922 in Rochester, New Hampshire) is an American economist, philosopher, political activist, and founder of several political organizations in the United States and elsewhere, jointly referred to as the LaRouche movement. He is known as a perennial candidate for President of the United States, having run in eight elections since 1976, once as a U.S. Labor Party candidate and seven times as a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination … (full long text on wikipedia).

He says first: « A diagnosis: The nation is not only very sick; the nation is terminally ill and we are in the final phase of a terminal illness« .

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Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. – USA

In These New York Times: Predident George W. Nero, August 6, 2006.

Then he says: « Corporate business is a gambling table. It is not an enterprise. It is not a business with a purpose. In the old days, somebody would have a business. The business would have a speciality. Their purpose was to be successful at that business and to have the business survive for the coming generations. But with the corporation, you have people who invest in a stock for one or two days. There is no real long-term commitment to doing something. There is a short-term commitment to becoming rich, but not a short-term commitment to building the future. They’re always looking for a short-term get-rich, they’re always looking for ME, not for what they do for the country. Therefore, forecasting is based on these kinds of ideas. But the world doesn’t work that way … (full interview text, Nov. 22, 2005).

Duggan Hoax Rewarmed Again, Nov. 8, 2006.

… LaRouche is the author of  » So, You Wish To Learn All About Economics? » and « The Science of Christian Economy ». Taxes & Spending:

• Increase federal spending and taxes–if needed to provide services and protection to the Americans.
• Regardless of increases or decreases, it is vitally important that federal spending and taxes are balanced.
• Full employment for all Americans should be federal policy.
• Advocates a national program modeled after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and its TVA, including a detailed plan to create a « Super-TVA » to upgrade and fix the country’s transportation network, with high-speed magnetic rail.

Such emergency infrastructure resolution would make millions of jobs, and be the first step toward America becoming a producer society again. His program reportedly influenced Kucinich to announce his running as an FDR Democrat. « We must shift from the Wal-Mart to reality. Reality means infrastructure building as the leading edge of a revival of durable goods production » … (full text).

It Happened in Berlin Last Week, July 4, 2005.

Continuer la lecture de « Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. – USA »

Linked with Echoes of 1968.

Todd Gitlin (born 1943) is an American sociologist, political writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He has written widely on the mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications. In the 1960s, Gitlin was a political activist. In 1963 and 1964, Gitlin was president of Students for a Democratic Society; he was elected, he writes, because « none of the other four candidates, each of whom was experienced, was willing to serve, » since « we mistrusted power, including our own! Recruiting leaders was hard. » Letters to a Young Radical, p. 117. Indeed, he writes, the SDS abolished its presidency and vice-presidencies in the mid-sixties. He helped organize the first[citation needed] national demonstration against the Vietnam War, held in Washington, D. C., on April 26, 1965, with 25,000 participants, as well as the first[citation needed] civil disobedience directed against American corporate support for the apartheid regime in South Africa – a sit-in at the Manhattan headquarters of Chase Manhattan Bank in 1965 … (full text).

His Homepage.

He says: « My generation of the New Left — a generation that grew as the [Vietnam] war went on — relinquished any title to patriotism without much sense of loss. All that was left to the Left was to unearth righteous traditions and cultivate them in universities. The much-mocked political correctness of the next academic generations was a consolation prize. We lost — we squandered the politics — but won the textbooks ». (wikipedia/quote).

Todd Gitlin Reviews Obama’s Speech, March 18, 2008.

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Todd Gitlin – USA

Video: The Mark Bauerlein – Todd Gitlin in Dialogue, 72 minutes. More on this page: Links mentionned in this dialogue:

• The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage;
• The Intellectuals and the Flag;
• Bruce Bartlett’s Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy;
• Wilfred McClay’s review of The Intellectuals and the Flag.

The Kagan Subtext, April 9, 2008.

Gitlin regrets that state of affairs. He suggests that in the United States, « the pot is still melting. There are clumps that don’t melt, that refuse to melt. » He was thrilled by Obama’s speech, but as a race warrior who’s been around a lot longer than the senator from Illinois, he’s enthusiastically skeptical: « I don’t know, » says Gitlin. « I suspend disbelief. That speech was flying on two wings and a lot of prayers. It is a very American hope on his part that you can face it and transcend it » … (full text, March 20, 2008).

He says also:  » … those who still cling to gauzy dreams about untainted militancy need to remember all the murders committed in the name of various radical ideologies that accomplished exactly nothing for the victims of racism ». (wikipedia/quote).

Todd Gitlin alerts us to a new Robert Kagan book excerpt in The New Republic. Kagan’s idea, it seems, is that since neoconservatism has proven such a complete and utter failure as an approach to the challenge of transnational terrorism and WMD proliferation, we ought to use use it as a guide for dealing with Russia and China instead. If you’re a sociopath like Kagan, a renewal of Cold War-style conflict with other great powers is good news because, as Todd says, it serves the goal of « conjuring a proper target for unilateralist belligerence » … (full text, April 10, 2008).

Too Much to Ask, March 23, 2008.

Continuer la lecture de « Todd Gitlin – USA »

Linked with The Raoul Wallenberg Institute, with Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Peking University Law School 2008-2010, and with The Jewish Virtual Library.

Raoul Wallenberg (August 4, 1912 – July 16, 1947?)[1][2][3] was a Swedish humanitarian sent to Budapest, Hungary under diplomatic cover to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. He was of the prominent Swedish Wallenberg family. Inspired by the the tale of the Scarlet Pimpernel[4], he worked to save the lives of Hungarian Jews in the later stages of World War II by issuing them protective passports from the Swedish embassy. These documents identified the bearers as Swedish nationals awaiting repatriation. It is impossible to determine exactly how many Jews were rescued by his actions, but Yad Vashem credits him with saving 15,000 lives[5] … (full text, see also References).

The Wallenberg web-page.

Raoul Wallenberg (* 4. August 1912 in Kappsta bei Stockholm; Schicksal nur bis Mitte 1947 bekannt) war ein schwedischer Diplomat … (Biographie auf de.wikipedia).

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Raoul Wallenberg – Sweden (1912 – 1947 ?)

Holocaust Essays: The Story of Raoul Wallenberg.

… Raoul’s grandfather, Gustav Wallenberg, took care of Raoul’s education. The plan was for him to continue the family tradition and become a banker, but he was more interested in architecture and trade … (full long text on Jewish Virtual Library, not dated).

An Angel in Rescue.

Introduction: Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat and businessman who saved a hundred thousand Jews from the Nazi Holocaust. If you ask anyone who Raoul Wallenberg is, the chances are, they haven?t heard of him. This great feat which he performed surely deserves more credit than that? Oskar Schindler, saved a thousand Jews from the holocaust. A mere figure compared to that of a hundred thousand. Schindler has had a book written about him, a film made about him, Raoul Wallenberg deserves more, and should be more well known to the world … (full long text on geocities, not dated).

Raoul Gustav Wallenberg and the Holocaust.

Continuer la lecture de « Raoul Wallenberg – Sweden (1912 – 1947 ?) »

Linked with The National Visionary Leadership Project.

James Forman (October 4, 1928 – January 10, 2005) was an African-American Civil Rights leader active in both the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party. Forman spent his youth growing up mostly in Chicago and spending summers with family in Mississippi. After finishing high school, he served in the Air Force in Okinawa during the Korean War. Discharged from the Air Force in 1952, he enrolled at the University of Southern California before an incident of police brutality involving two Los Angeles Police Department officers led to an emotional breakdown. He returned to Chicago and ultimately finished his undergraduate studies at Roosevelt University graduating in 1957. Forman spent most of the late 1950s and early 1960s working as a graduate student, journalist and teacher [Washington Post Obituary. Accessed 15 March 2007]. (full text).

The Washington Post Obituary, January 11, 2005.

Find many short videos about him and his life on the National Visionary Leadership Project.

This was his personal website.

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James Forman – USA (1928 – 2005)

You find a long Bio on the Georgetown University Law Center.

Forman served as president of the Unemployment and Poverty Action Council (UPAC) before returning to his academic studies, receiving a M.A. from Cornell University (1980) and his Ph.D from the Union Institute (1981). Foreman has also written several books including Sammy Young Jr.: The First Black College Student to Die in the Black Liberation Movement (1968), The Political Thought of James Forman (1970), The Makings of Black Revolutionaries (1972) and Self-Determination (1985). (full text).

His book: The Secret History of School Choice: How
Progressives Got There First.

Older than most civil rights activists, Forman gained the respect of SNCC’s staff of organizers because of his militancy and willingness to undertake mundane administrative chores that were avoided by other staff members. In 1964, after participating in the unsuccessful effort of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to unseat the regular all-white delegation at the national convention in Atlantic City, he and other SNCC workers went to Guinea at the invitation of the African government. After his return, Forman became increasingly outspoken in his criticisms of the federal government and of cautious liberalism. Within SNCC he advocated staff education programs to make civil rights workers more aware of Marxist and Black Nationalist ideas.

Continuer la lecture de « James Forman – USA (1928 – 2005) »

Linked with The American Civil Liberties Union ACLU.

Gregory T. Nojeim is a Senior Counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Director of its Project on Freedom, Security & Technology. CDT is a Washington-based non-profit organization dedicated to promoting democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. In this capacity, Mr. Nojeim conducts much of CDT’s work in the areas of national security, terrorism, and Fourth Amendment protections. Nojeim is also Co-Chair of the Coordinating Committee on National Security and Civil Liberties of the Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section of the American Bar Association. (full text).

He is Chief Lobbist of the National Legislative Office, on Patriot Act Reform.

He says: « The ACLU has always stood up for communities and individuals whose rights have been put at risk. It is the hallmark of our entire history. Since 9/11, Arab Americans have faced particular difficulties because the government has often focused its law enforcement efforts on Arab Americans. Some of the powers of which are used to target Arab Americans » … (full text).

A video: Greg Nojeim, Chief Lobbist of the National Legislative Office, on Patriot Act Reform.

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Gregory T. Nojeim – USA

Listen him on this short ACLU-video.

Nojeim works to limit the threat to privacy posed by governmental wiretapping and monitoring of Internet communications. He was instrumental in bringing together the broad coalition of groups from across the political spectrum that worked to strip overly intrusive wiretapping proposals from the 1996 anti-terrorism law. He has substantial expertise on the application of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and on the civil liberties protections it affords. Other areas of his expertise include governmental data mining, the PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the privacy implications of aviation security measures. (full text).

HEARING CHRONOLOGY: House Judiciary Committee Consideration of the USA PATRIOT Act, As of June 21, 2005.

He says also: « I chose this battleground—defending our civil liberties against encroachment by the federal government—because I love this country,” says the 45-year-old Nojeim, a veteran Constitutional lawyer who often testifies on Capitol Hill. “I’m the guy who stands up at the soccer game with his hand on his heart whenever they play the national anthem. As an American, I know the freedoms we enjoy are what make our country great. And those freedoms are worth fighting for—especially in light of the Patriot Act, which I’m convinced is threatening to undermine our Bill of Rights” … (full text).

The Truth about (Telecom) Immunity.

Continuer la lecture de « Gregory T. Nojeim – USA »

9th Sept 2017 – UPDATE of a weblink: Online Privacy Guide for journalists 2017.

Linked with The Women’s International Perspective WIP, with The Inside Story of Zimbabwe, and with the Association of Zimbabwean Journalists.

Sandra grew up in Zimbabwe. She moved to the UK in 2002 to do a masters degree in International Journalism at City University London. Although she planned to return to Zimbabwe to take up her job as political editor at the Daily News, the newspaper was closed down by the authorities just before she went back. Sandra decided to stay in London and works for the Association of Zimbabwe Journalists. She still hopes to return to Zimbabwe. (observers).

Matibenga urges Diaspora to influence March vote.

I think the biggest challenge for us is to be able to work and to be able to break a balance and to become women leaders in the newsrooms. Most newsrooms in Zimbabwe are not headed by women, despite the fact that women are the ones that really work hard. They toil for the newsrooms, but don’t get to get the positions like becoming an editor. I’m the only political editor in the whole country, and the first one. It was sort of like taboo to leave women in such positions. So our biggest challenge is to be able to get as many women as possible in leadership positions in the newsrooms. (full interview text).

Zimbabwe’s mock elections also start in London and New Zealand.

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Sandra Nyaira – Zimbabwe

Pre-election irregularities endanger Zim elections: U.S.

Courage Winner Sandra Nyaira’s Life in Exile: After winning the IWMF’s Courage in Journalism Award in 2002, Sandra Nyaira of Zimbabwe’s independent Daily News received a master’s degree in journalism from the City University in London. She never returned to her country. Instead, she became one of at least 90 Zimbabwean journalists now living in exile as a result of President Robert Mugabe’s crack downs on the independent press. Elizabeth Witchel of the Committee to Protect Journalists reported on Zimbabwe’s Exiled Press in the Fall/Winter issue of Dangerous Assignments … (full text, scroll much down). Read the CPJ article, October 19, 2005.

A cartoon, April 2, 2008: Would Zimbabwe really be better off without Mugabe?

Under current rules, Zimbabweans abroad are not allowed to vote, apart from embassy staff and others such as policemen serving with the United Nations duty. The “Rock the Vote” campaign includes billboards scattered around areas where large numbers of Zimbabweans live, especially inner-city suburbs like Berea, Hillbrow, Yeoville and Ellis Park. Similar billboards have been placed on the Zimbabwe-South Africa border. « Power to the People – We demand: one citizen, one vote, independently-run elections and an end to political violence, » reads one large poster outside Park Station, posted up by the non-government group Zimbabwe Democracy Now. Other organisations supporting the get-out-the-vote campaign include the National Constitutional Assembly, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum and Crisis in Zimbabwe, CIZ … (full text).

Fifteen Years of Courage: Sandra Nyaira.

Continuer la lecture de « Sandra Nyaira – Zimbabwe »