Catégorie : World People

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat’s Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973), (see books, texts, bio, references, footnotes etc., on wikipedia).

The remaining picture on his official website.

But see also ‘thE vOnnEgUt wEb‘.
He says: “Don’t use semi-colons. They stand for nothing … they only show you’ve been to college.” He follows this by commenting “All American literature is about how bad it is to be American”. A list ensues, including the Scarlet Letter, Death of a Salesman and Moby Dick. (full text).

And also: “All I wanted to do was support my family,” Vonnegut wrote in 1999. “I didn’t think I would amount to a hill of beans”. (full text).

On wikipedia you’ll get the links to most of the (american) obituary writings, (scroll down).

Kurt Vonnegut – USA (1922 – 2007)

Watch theis Google-Video: 37.59 min. the infinite mind;

ok, just go to Google-Video, put his name in the search tool, and you find pages of more Google-videos from or about Kurt Vonnegut.

And here some YouTube-Videos:

• 8.15 min. Kurt Vonnegut;
• 3.40 min. So it goes (about Kurt Vonnegut 1922 – 2007);
• 2.49 min. Fox News trashes;
• 7.50 min. Kurt Vonnegut;
• 6.23 min. Kurt Vonnegut is The Resident’s People;
• 3.10 Fox News Obituary Trashes Kurt Vonnegut;
• 1.04 min Kurt Vonnegut Speaks with OSU Students;
• 8.43 Kurt Vonnegut.
• Continuer la lecture de « Kurt Vonnegut – USA (1922 – 2007) »

Linked with Third World Traveler, with Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, with Lori Wallach – USA, with How the Free Market Killed New Orleans, with Economy and Human Rights – one, with The Peninsula Peace and Justice Center PPJC, and with The Human Condition Series.

He is an internationally known award-winning author and lecturer. He is one of the nation’s leading progressive political analysts. His highly informative and entertaining books and talks have reached a wide range of audiences in North America and abroad. (more on his Homepage).

He says: « The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology ». (Third world traveler).

Listen to his Google-videos:

• 1.00 hour « Terrorism, Globalism and Conspiracy« , Sept. 10, 2002.
• 1.08 hour « Race, Gender and Class Stuggle« , April 27, 2006.

Read: Mystery: How Wealth Creates Poverty In The World, By Michael Parenti, 24 April, 2007, Countercurrents.org.

Michael Parenti – USA

He received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. He has taught at a number of colleges and universities, in the United States and abroad. Some of his writings have been translated into Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

Listen to some of his many YouTube-videos:

Continuer la lecture de « Michael Parenti – USA »

She is Laureate for the Prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life.

Lijuan XIANG – China

She works for a kindergarten she created for rural children.

There are not many places where rural children have access to kindergartens, especially in Third World countries.

After successfully working in the city kindergarten of Dongyue Township, Xiang Lijuan (30) of Dong Yue Xiang Ping Qiao village (Sichuan Province) decided to return home to open a kindergarten for rural children.

Obstacles were immense. She had the care of an elderly mother and a two year old child. With no classrooms, no teachers, no equipment and no money, all she had was a dream and an unbending, unrenting will. First, she had to negotiate with local schools and government. Then she approached banks and large city kindergartens for support. After endless efforts, she secured a 60’000 yuan loan (US$ 7’500), which enabled her to open her Sunflower Kindergarten in 2002 with adequate equipment and professional teachers.

Under her expert leadership, each teacher became a loving mother to the children. After only three years, the success was so striking, she obtained a much more important loan, enabling her to expand to a larger, more professsional set-up in a better environment, allowing her to better incarnate her dream that rural children, too, have a right to the best.

Continuer la lecture de « Lijuan XIANG – China »

He says about himself:  » can be identified by bumps on head from ighting windmills Civil rights activist…anti-war activist…anti poverty activist and anti publisher rejection activist », (on AuthorsDen.com).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, David Truskoff: At the end of World War II, David Truskoff returned to his hometown of Rutherford, New Jersey after being discharged from the US Navy with honor, commendations and dreams of a peaceful world. The naiveté was short lived. In 1948 he believed in and worked for Henry Wallace, the Progressive Party candidate. (users.erols.com).

David Truskoff – USA

Read: Trickledown Economics Perpetuates War, By David Truskoff, 23 April, 2007.

Read also: The Confused American Left Ask, Am I A Racist? By David Truskoff, 20 April, 2007.

And finally read: What Do The Young Jews Know? By David Truskoff, 03 April, 2007.

And also read: Perhaps We can still avoid the Third Civil War, By David Truskoff, 10 March, 2007.

Continuer la lecture de « David Truskoff – USA »

Linked with The Inexplicable Enrichment Of Bush Cronies.

She is Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for OpEd News and investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government and corporate America. See there her 153 published articles.

She says: … « This war is going to bankrupt the US. A January 2007 study by Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz, who won a Nobel Prize in economics in 2001, and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes, estimated that the total costs of the Iraq war could be more than $2 trillion when the long-term medical costs for the soldiers injured so far are factored in. The only people who are benefiting from Bush’s war on terror are members of the Military Industrial Complex. Since 9/11, the pay for the CEOs of the top 34 defense contractors in the US has doubled, according to the August 2006 report, « Executive Excess 2006, » by the Institute for Policy Studies, and the United for a Fair Economy. The bill is rising so fast because the level of war profiteering is unprecedented … « . (full text).

..

Sorry, I could not find any photo of Evelyn Pringle – USA

About Iraq and its money:

• Read: Congress Must Cut Off Bush Family War Profits, April 21, 2007.
• Read: Mission Accomplished in Iraq by Bremer and CPA, Apr 20, 2007.
• Read: The Iraq Money Trail, April 18, 2007.
• Read: Iraq Money Trail to Bush Cronies Must End, April 17, 2007.
• Read: Troops Continue to Die For Bush’s Lies, April 9, 2007.

About Big Pharma:

Continuer la lecture de « Evelyn Pringle – USA »

Linked with GLOW – a global center for women’s politics, with France – l’Europe et la campagne présidentielle, and with Europäische Vernetzungskonferenz.

Born in 1979, FRANZISKA BRANTNER lives at present in Paris and writes her PhD thesis with Professor Wessels (University of Cologne) on the role of the USA in the process of European Union integration. She graduated in 2004 with a double diploma from the School of International & Public Affairs at Columbia University and of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris (Sciences Po), from which she graduated first of her class.

Franziska has participated at major international women’s rights conferences at the UN and in the NGO field. As a consultant for the United Nations Development Fund for Women, she has worked with young women in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. She also advised the Delegation of the European Commission to the UN.

She is member of the McKinsey College and fellow of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Franziska Brantner lived and worked in Tel Aviv, Washington, D. C., Paris, New York and Berlin. (Read on Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung).

Franziska Brantner – Germany.

She moderated, together with Claire Bortfeldt, the workshop ‘Fundamentalism, Feminism, and Faith in Europe’, on 10.09.2005: « With this workshop we intend to draw attention on the fact that many fundamentalist movements only accept one understanding of family, sexual rights and social relations, denying the fact that there always exist very different concepts in societies, hereby denying fundamental human and women’s rights », she says. (full text).

Download the 8 pages pdf-text in german: Religiöser Fundamentalismus gegen Frauenrechte, auf internationaler, EU und deutscher Ebene.

Continuer la lecture de « Franziska Brantner – Germany »

Linked with Third World Network TWN, with Speech about Third World Economics, and with WTO, The New Threats to Developing Countries and Sustainability.

He is a journalist, economist and Director of the Third World Network which is based in Penang, Malaysia. He is active in the civil society movement. He has attended the World Social Forum (WSF 2003, 2002), european social forum (2004) [1] and in 1999 and 2000, the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.

He says: ”the Rio process acknowledged a world environmental crisis and linked it to economic and development crises, focused on future and present needs, stressed equity in the environment and development debates, and promised aid to developing countries ». (sustainable developments).

See photos of ‘Fair Trade Fair and Symposium‘.

Martin Khor – Malaysia

Martin Khor is the Director of Third World Network (TWN). « TWN is one of a number of non-governmental organizations in different parts of the world which are concerned with understanding and influencing global policy. In this capacity he has acted as a strong advocate on behalf of citizens’ groups in the Third World on a range of international issues, including sustainable development, biosafety and other environmental questions, and the impact of globalization on the developing prospects of the South. » ( – from bio in Martin Khor’s book « Rethinking Globalization ».) This article was distributed at the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg, South Africa. – Read: WTO, The New Threats to Developing Countries and Sustainability … (full text).

Continuer la lecture de « Martin Khor – Malaysia »

Linked with Basel Institute on Governance, with Der Schmiergeldjäger Mark Pieth und die verbotenen Geschäfte mit Saddam.

Prof. Dr. iur. Mark Pieth (born 1953) is Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Read: OECD questions UK policing of bribery, by Katherine Griffiths, City Correspondent, published 15/03/2007, The Telegraph UK: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has « serious concerns » about the UK’s axing of the investigation into alleged corruption by BAE Systems in Saudi Arabia. The Paris-based organisation’s working party on bribery yesterday raised the possibility of « systemic » shortcomings in the British system on how corruption is policed and prosecuted. Mark Pieth, chairman of the anti-bribery group, said leaders such as Thabo Mbeki of South Africa had accused Britain, a signatory of the OECD’s anti-bribery convention, of double standards. By extension, the allegation hit the whole organisation, Mr Pieth said. « We look silly, » he said. (full text).

See also the same theme: on Belfast Telegraph; on tiscali.finance; on International Herald Tribune; on Forbes.

Mark Pieth – Switzerland

Go to Mark Pieth’s privat Homepage.

Since 1990 Prof. Pieth has been chairing the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions. He has published extensively in the field of economic and organised crime, money laundering, corruption, sanctioning and criminal procedure. He has served as Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Basel. From 2003 to 2005 he was Member of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the Iraq Oil-for-Food Programme by the UN Secretary General. He has also assumed various presidencies and memberships of national commissions in Switzerland (President of the Expert Group of the National Research Programme on Violence and Organised Crime, Former President of the Federal Commission on Data Protection in the Medical Profession, Member of the Swiss Federal Gaming Commission, Member of the Consultative Commission to the Federal Administration of Finances on the Prevention of Money Laundering etc.). Mark Pieth co-founded the Basel Institute on Governance, of which he is Chairman of the Board. He has been a consultant to corporations, international organisations and foreign governments on issues related to governance, participates in the Wolfsberg AML Banking Initiative, as a facilitator and is Board Member of the World Economic Forum Partnering against Corruption Initiative PACI. (full text).

Continuer la lecture de « Mark Pieth – Switzerland »

Linked with Kudirat Initiative for Democracy KIND. Hafsat Abiola is a young activist who works to promote women, youth, and democracy in Nigeria, her home country, and around the world. She is a founding member of several initiatives including Global Youth Connect, Youth Employment Campaign, and Vital Voices: Women in Democracy. She is a member of the World Wisdom Council and the World Future Council. Hafsat is the author of many articles published in international and national media, and assistant editor of Imagining Ourselves, an international anthology of women, that will be published in 2006.

She says: « I don’t know where the idea came from, but immediately after hearing of my mum’s assassination on the 4th of June, I knew I would set up an organization that would honor her and promote her commitment to restoring democracy in Nigeria. But what exactly would the organization do? I had no idea. My mum’s work suggested an answer. Her joy during her involvement with the pro-democracy movement had come from working with women and youth, especially market women and students. In a political terrain where leaders often demonstrated extreme opportunism, she was inspired by the integrity and commitment of these two groups and had felt that political, social and economic transformation in Nigeria was not possible without their participation. So in the summer and fall that followed, I gathered close friends together in several small meetings to think through what memorializing my mother’s commitment to democracy could look like … « , (full text , click on about and scroll down).

Hafsat Abiola – Nigeria

Hafsat is the Executive Director of the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy, KIND, an NGO that seeks to empower democracy and development in Nigeria by strengthening organizations and creating initiatives that advance women. KIND’s main programme is Kudra, a programme that offers leadership training to 750 young women across Nigeria each year.

Continuer la lecture de « Hafsat Abiola – Nigeria »

Linked with giordano bruno stiftung, with The American Atheist, with International League of Non-Religious and Atheists, with Atheist Alliance International, with Leitkultur Humanismus und Aufklärung, with Ex-Muslims form anti-religion group in Germany, with Manifesto of the Third Camp against US Militarism and Islamic Terrorism, and with the brights.

He says: ”The search for scientific knowledge is, as one can see from this and as James Randi has repeatedly emphasised, by definition open-ended. It would, however, be a grave mistake to mistake this open-endedness in principle with any form of arbitrariness. For as long as no better explanatory possibilities are at our disposal, every scientist is obliged to vigorously defend the exiting scientific explanatory pattern against irrationality ». (full text).

He says also: « … With our religion-free zones, we want to offer asylum to all of those who feel persecuted by this state-sponsored holiness ». (full text).

Michael Schmidt-Salomon – Germany

Read: Conference Leading culture Humanism and Enlightenment: Perspectives of secular politics in Germany;

Dr. Fiona Lorenz, Trier, Germany: Project: « What would I need a God for! Conversations with non-believers and apostates ». I am looking for interviewees on the topic of atheism and religion. Many people cannot imagine life without god / religion / church.

Continuer la lecture de « Michael Schmidt-Salomon – Germany »