Roger Willemsen – Germany

Roger Willemsen, geboren 1955, beendete sein Studium mit einer Promotion über die Ästhetik Robert Musils. Nach Tätigkeiten als Übersetzer und Korrespondent hatte er 1991 seine erste eigene Fernsehsendung bei Premiere, der sich « Willemsens Woche », « Nachtkultur mit Willemsen » und « Willemsens Musikszene » anschlossen. Außerdem veröffentlichte er mehrere Bücher, drehte und produzierte zahlreiche Filme und zeichnete verantwortlich für das « Expo »-Projekt « Welcome home. Künstler sehen Deutschland ». (Mehr bei Perlentaucher.de).

Roger Willemsen – Germany

Als Nachfolger von Daniel Cohn-Bendit und Elke Heidenreich moderiert Roger Willemsen seit dem 3.2.2004 den „Schweizer Literaturclub“. Die renommierte und älteste Literatursendung im deutschsprachigen Fernsehen wird vom Schweizer Fernsehen am ersten Dienstag des Monats um 22 Uhr 15 ausgestrahlt und von 3sat am Sonntagmorgen wiederholt. Der Moderator Willemsen ist zugleich Gastgeber und Kritiker und wird, wie jeder andere Teilnehmer, pro Sendung eine Neuerscheinung besprechen und einen Literaturtipp abgeben.

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Art Spiegelman – USA & Sweden

First: here the image results for Art Spiegelman; and also here: Lambiek.net.

Born in Stockholm in 1948, Spiegelman rejected his parents’ aspirations for him to become a dentist, and began to study cartooning in high school and drawing professionally at age 16. He went on to study art and philosophy at Harpur College before joining the underground comics movement. As creative consultant for Topps Candy from 1965-1987, Spiegelman designed Wacky Packages, Garbage Pail Kids and other novelty items, and taught history and aesthetics of comics at the School for Visual Arts in New York from 1979-1986. In 1980, Spiegelman founded RAW, the acclaimed avant-garde comics magazine, with his wife, Francoise Mouly. His work has since been published in many periodicals, including The New Yorker, where he was a staff artist and writer from 1993-2003. He has since published a children’s book entitled Open Me… I’m A Dog, as well as the illustration accompaniment to the 1928 book The Wild Party, by Joseph Moncure March. (Read more on Pantheon Graphic Novels).

Art Spiegelman – USA & Sweden

He said: « Maus grew out of a comic strip I did in 1971 for an underground comic book: a three-page strip that was based on stories of my father’s and mother’s that I recalled being told in childhood… In 1977 I decided to do [a] longer work, [and] I set up an arrangement to see my father more often and talk to him about his experiences… Although I set about… to do a history of sorts, I’m all too aware that ultimately what I’m creating is a realistic fiction.

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Beatrice Weder di Mauro – Switzerland & Italian

Linked with our german presentation Der Euro bringt Deutschland Vorteile.

Beatrice Weder di Mauro is a Professor of economics at the University of Mainz, a member of the German Council of Economic Experts and a research affiliate at the Center for Economic Policy Research, (CEPR) London. Previously she worked as an economist at the International Monetary Fund and at the World Bank, Washington and served on the Council of Economic Advisors of Switzerland and as a consultant for various international organizations including the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank, the IMF, the United Nations University and the OECD Development Center. She had visiting positions at Harvard University and at the United Nations University. She holds a PhD from the University of Basel.

Beatrice Weder di Mauro – Germany

Bio: born August 3, 1965, Education and Awards: University of Basel, Department of Economics, Lizentiat 1989, Ph.D., 1993, Habilitation 1999. Science Prize for Outstanding Research, University and City Council of Basel 1999.

Professional Career:

1993 – 1994: Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Basel, Switzerland; 1994 – 1996: Economist International Monetary Fund, Washington D.C. ; 1996 – 1997: Economist, The World Bank, Washington D.C; 1997 – 2000: Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Basel; 2000 – 2001: Associate Professor of Economics, University of Basel; since April 2001: Professor of Economics, University of Mainz; since August 2004: Member of the German Council of Economic Experts.

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Julien Florence Mona Saroinsong – Indonesia

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

Linked with our presentation of Crisis Center SAG SULUTTENG.

She says: « Humanity is universal. Do not think of only one particular group that needs to be rescued; we should try to make everybody survive. »

Julien Florence Mona Saroinsong – Indonesia

She works for the Crisis Center SAG SULUTTENG.

Julien Florence Mona Saroinsong (born 1958) is a full-time lecturer and researcher at a university in Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia and a volunteer at the Crisis Center of Sinode Am church network. In 2001, when thousands of refugees from violent conflicts in Poso, Central Sulawesi and Maluku poured into North Sulawesi, Mona visited refugees and used her networks as a church activist to provide them with assistance. She also trained volunteers and refugees in trauma healing and organized dialogues between conflicting religious communities in Poso and Maluku.

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Kiran Bedi – India

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

She says: The dark labyrinths of India’s prison system would never have been exposed to sunlight had Kiran Bedi not exercised her humaneness and her unique approach to rehabilitation.

Kiran Bedi – India

She works at Tihar Prison. In 1994, she set up the India Vision Foundation, an NGO that works on prison reform, drug abuse prevention, empowerment of women, and assistance to the mentally disabled.

See also her bio on kiranbedi.com, with a video to be shown.

And see this other good bio about her.

Kiran Bedi (born 1949) is India’s best-known woman police officer. In a ferociously male bastion, she has dug in her heels, using the police service as a vehicle for social change. Kiran, with her firm footing, has been also using the police service as a medium for social change. She sees prisons and jails as an opportunity to bring criminals back to society’s fold, reversing the dehumanization for which prisons are known. She began meditation classes and education and vocational training programs for prison inmates and put in place an unprecedented democratic panchayat system in prisons.

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Orhan Pamuk – Turkey

(Ferit) Orhan Pamuk is the author of six novels and the recipient of major Turkish and international literary awards. He is one of Europe’s most prominent novelists, and his work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in Istanbul (see randomhouse.com).

(Ferit) Orhan Pamuk – Turkey

As one of Eurasia’s most prominent novelists, his work has been translated into more than forty languages. He is the recipient of major Turkish and international literary awards.

In 2005, lawyers of two Turkish professional associations brought criminal charges against Pamuk [1] after the author made a statement regarding the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1917 and the massacre of 30,000 Kurds in Anatolia. The charges were dropped on 22 January 2006. (Read more on wikipedia).

Bio: Orhan Pamuk’s Biography: He was born in Istanbul on June 7, 1952. He spent all his life in Istanbul, except three years in New York. After attending the architecture program in Istanbul Technical University for three years, he finished the Institute of Journalism at the Istanbul University. He started writing regularly in 1974.

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Sevim Arbana – Albania

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

linked with our presentation NGOs and Groups working for Albania.

Linked also to the presentation of NGO’s Protest for Women’s Rights in Albania.

She says: « Another world is possible! »

..

Sevim Arbana – Albania

She works for the Group ‘Useful to Albanian Women’ (UAW); and for the ‘Woman Bridge for Peace and Understanding’.

Sevim Arbana, born 1951, was one of the first activists of the democratic movement in Albania and the founder of the organization Useful to Albanian Women (UAW). She is also a human rights activist who supports groups in need and was a founder of the peace movement, Woman Bridge for Peace and Understanding, in the Balkans.

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Nina Karpachova – Ukraine

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

Linked to our presentations of the Ukrainian Parliament Commission for Human Rights.

She says: « To love and protect people. To follow the dictates of my conscience and always fight for the rights of people, their honor and dignity. »

She works for the Ukrainian Parliament Commission for Human Rights; the Hope – Center for the Protection of Children’s and Women’s Rights; and the World Congress of Ukrainian Lawyers.

Nina Karpachova – Ukraine

Nina Karpachova was elected Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights in 1998. Her top priorities include safeguarding individual’s rights to a fair trial, freedom of speech, the rights of orphans, the disabled, people affected by HIV/AIDS, victims of Chernobyl, and persons deprived of liberty. She advocates for the rights of migrant workers and has taken action against trafficking in women. From early on, she boldly denounced torture and defended the right to peaceful assembly. She has been instrumental in bringing Ukraine to sign international rights conventions.

Nina Karpachova (48) was born into a family of lawyers. Her childhood and youth were spent in Kerch in Crimea. This ancient Greek colony, known as Panticapaeum, was once the capital of the Bosporus Kingdom. Here she attended secondary school, simultaneously studying piano at music school and gymnastics at a sports academy.

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Sobhi Hadid – Syria & France

Sobhi Hadidi, a prominent Syrian intellectual, he writes mainly in Arab and in French, but is sometimes translated in english, by Bahjat Suleiman in the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

Sobhi Hadid – Syria & France

On April, 2005 appears one of this articles in english in Alternative Online.org, but found also on June 19, 2005 on SyriaComment.com: (with this comment: Sobhi Hadidi’s article published in the Lebanese As-safir newspaper in mid-2003 is one example where he was the first to warn of a demographic earthquake in Lebanon, should Syria withdraw its forces).

What kind of change from within does, Washington want in Syria? Any person who has been following the history of the relations between the White House and the governing regime in Damascus during the past three decades since the late Syrian president Hafez Assad launched the reformist movement at end-1970 will not be surprised by the statement released by Adam Ereli, deputy spokesman of the US State Department.

Ereli was commenting on the meeting that gathered top US state officials (Elizabeth Cheney and John Hanna) with American civil society activists of Syrian origin. He made clear that the aim of the meeting was not to study alternatives to the Bashar Assad regime but to support the Syrian people’s desire for reform, freedom, and opportunity…from within the currently prevailing system!

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Mehdi Mozaffari – Iran & Denmark

Linked with our presentations How to go on with radical Islam, and What Is the Difference Between Islam and Islamism?, and Democracy or Islamocracy.

Mehdi Mozaffari, Professor of Islamic Studies from Iranian origin and exiled in Denmark, Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark.

He is the author of several articles and books on Islam and Islamism. (See on this blog).

Fatwa: Violence & Discourtesy, by Mehdi Mozaffari – Iran & Denmark, Aarhus University Press, 1998, 213 pp., pbk. ISBN 87 7288 776 1

The author reveals some mysteries about Ayatollah Khomeini, the man who personally led the Islamic revolution in Iran and was consequently responsible for certain cardinal events that have dramatically influenced the entire world. Therefore, it is by no means an exaggeration to argue that the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 is one of the most important political events in the second half of the twentieth century … , … the fatwa delivered by Ayatollah Khomeini on 15 February 1989, thereby sentencing Salman Rushdie to death, is the central point of the book, but it is also used by the author to explain the motives for carrying out the Islamic Revolution and the nature of the Islamic Republic. Mozaffari gives an explanation of fatwa as a specific instrument for regulation of life in Islamic societies and researches its historical origins and development. (Read the rest of this article on Aarhus University Press).

He said: « Despotism in its various forms (tribal, military, religious, and kingship) is the general and invariable trend of the Middle East. Faced with this hopless and dangerous situation, a liberal external intervention seems to be right and just. It is in this perspective that President George W. Bush’s initiative to the democratization of the greater Middle East must be situated ».

Amazon Books: Globalization and Civilizations; Authority in Islam: From Muhammad to Khomeini; Fatwa: Violence and Discourtesy; Security Politics in the Commonwealth of Independent States: Southern Belt; and others, also in different languages.

links:

Rushdie, et al.’s Manifesto … ;

No religion now;

Labour Net Austria;

Ayman Zawahiri, Not bin Laden … ;

a Danish link:

Dr.scient.pol. Mehdi Mozaffari … ;