Mois : mai 2008

Linked with Anti-War.US, and with some newest anti-war articles.

David Harris (born 1946 in Fresno, California) is an American journalist and author. He is known chiefly for his role as an anti-war activist during the Vietnam War, most notably as a leading opponent of the Draft … He has written several other books, as well as many articles for the Rolling Stone, the New York Times Magazine and other periodicals. On October 27, 2004, Harris published a new book which draws on rare interviews with American, Iranian, and European participants in the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, called The Crisis: The President, the Prophet, and the Shah – 1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam (see rewievs below). In it, Harris tells the story of the 444 days from an insider’s perspective. (full text and Biography).

He tells: … « I was transported, as federal prisoners are transported, in leg irons with a chain through my belt loops and my hands shackled to the chain in my belt loops. With myself and two federal marshals, one on each side of me, we got on the elevator in Oakland; and we got up about three or four floors and stopped, and in steps a woman who had business up in the courthouse, I guess. She got in and the door closed, and she looked at me and I’d been in jail a month at this point and been on strike and hadn’t had a shower for almost that entire month. I’m all chained up and she looks at me and says, Boy, what did you do to get all chained up like that? You must be an awful bad man!’ I looked at her and I said, I didn’t kill anybody. And she said, Oh, you are a bad man » … (full text).

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David Harris (the protester) – USA, the Vietnam War draft resister David Harris addresses the AFSC peace event, « Remember the Draft », Lydia Gans photo.

Vietnam War overview.

His book: The Crisis: The President, the Prophet, and the Shah 1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam, 470 pages, October 27, 2004, ISBN:0316323942 – The conflict between militant Islam and the West was catalyzed in Iran in 1979, making this the best kind of history: a book that helps us understand not only the past, but the present. Harris traveled to Iran and Europe to interview participants whom previous books had ignored, so for the first time we also get the full, inside story of what happened. A few book reviews:

• … He barely discusses the origins of militant Islam as a political movement. His account is not so much about the three main actors cited in the title—President Jimmy Carter, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the shah—as about the maneuverings of their top aides … (Middle East Forum);
• … So when the embassy staff saw the Muslim Students running around the courtyard « like little kids in an amusement park, » in the words of one Marine, they assumed this would be a repeat of the Valentine’s Day seizure. Surely rescue would soon be on its way, … (Goliath);
• … In the coffee shops of the Middle East, where only conspiracies are believed and the simple truth is considered naivete or duplicity, America’s motives are invariably assumed to be malicious … (NY Times);
• the book on Google Scholar-research (but there are also other David Harris’);
• and on Google Book-search – schowing comments, references etc, (but there are also other David Harris’);
• Listen David Harris on this audio of WNYC-radio, March 2, 2005, telling about the 444 days.

Buy the book on amazon.

Continuer la lecture de « David Harris (the protester) – USA »

Linked with Zoe’s Ark, with Children do not belong to their parents, with Chad’s children, with Mes réactions concernant les enfants du Tchad, (yes, last year I believed what mass-medias told us), with Marc Garmirian – Lebanon and France, and with the betrayal on Darfour’s children.

Eric Breteau, the Chairmain of the notorious „The Ark of Zoe“, that Non-Governmental Organization that dominated the news some six months back in connection with alleged orphans from the Darfur region, spilt the beans the other day by claiming that French officials backed their endeavor to surreptitiously extricate 103 orphans from that region last fall and to convey them to France. A couple of days after receiving the presidential pardon of President Idriss Debi Itno from Chad, Eric Breteau at last has voiced and couched his side of the story. Breteau has opined that advisers to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France as well as officials of the French minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner were not only privy to and aware of their agenda but also gave them the go-ahead and the backing to take orphans from the Darfur region to foster families in France. It should be noted that president Debi grant the members of this organization presidential pardon because France staved off the overthrow of his regime some weeks ago. Breteau alleged that it was agreed on that the former first lady Cecilia Sarkozy and the French minister of Justice – Attorney General Rachida Dati would officially welcome the said children at an airport in Paris … (full text, April 17, 2008).

He says: in this french 3 minutes TV-interview (my translation):  » … they were orphans … the proces in N’Djamena showed after 5 minutes they came from Darfour, not from Chad … and that the so called families were not their parents … but then it was said: you are condemned in any way … (YouTube: Arche de Zoé, Eric Breteau: « c’étaient des orphelins », April 08, 2008.

Chad president pardons French charity workers, April 1, 2008.

He says also: … « One can not organize such an operation without the benefit of support in political high places, » Breteau was quoted as saying on the Le Figaro website … (full text) … and same in french: (Breteau, qui a repris des forces après avoir semblé très affaibli par ses cinq mois de détention, assure aujourd’hui encore que: « on ne peut pas organiser une telle opération sans bénéficier de soutiens politiques haut placés ») … (full text).

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Eric Breteau – France

Zoe’s Arch on wikipedia, last modified on 17 March 2008.

He says also: « the adoption was to be discussed later, it was as an option in the head of all French participants ». .. (full long text, in July 2007, thus BEFORE going to Darfur).

His fresh book in french « les dessous de l’affaire d’Etats » (the hidden part of the states affair), ISBN: 978-2-259-20922-9, Plon, 2008.

You knew this was coming, right? Eric Breteau, the leader of the Arche de Zoé, claims that he had the backing of the French government for his operation, that he received advice from « advisors of Nicolas Sarkozy and Bernard Kouchner, » and that Rachida Dati and Cécilia Sarkozy were set to welcome 103 « rescued children » personally at the Vatry airport. He has written a book in captivity and will be marketing it assiduously with a full media blitz. (on French Politics).

… « The presidential pardon is accorded to Eric Breteau, Emilie Lelouch, Dominique Aubry, Alain Peligat, Philippe Van Winkelberg and Nadia Merimi, » said a presidential decree, read on state radio in the former French colony. (full text, March 31, 2008 ).

Arche de Zoé: Éric Breteau contre-attaque, April 7, 2008.

Continuer la lecture de « Eric Breteau – France »

One of the most ingenious American crime and mystery writers, who published science fiction to overcome – as he said – the too real aspect of detective fiction. Brown also wrote television plays for Alfred Hitchcock series. Brown’s plots were inventive, he used often humour and paradoxes, and his sex scenes were gleefully provocative … (full long text).

He said: « Base your villain on someone you like. That’ll give him some sympathetic traits and make him much more believable ». Mouse, by Fredric Brown: Bill Wheeler was, as it happened, looking out of the window of his bachelor apartment on the fifth floor on the corner of 83rd Street and Central Park West when the spaceship from Somewhere landed … (full short story).

SOLIPSIST, a 5 minutes video, based on a Fredric Brown’s short story.

A Homepage dedicated to Fredric Brown’s life and work.

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Fredric William Brown – USA (1906 – 1972)

His writing career.

He said also: « There are no rules. You can write a story, if you wish, with no conflict, no suspense, no beginning, middle or end. Of course, you have to be regarded as a genius to get away with it, and that’s the hardest part – convincing everybody you’re a genius ». (thrillingdetective.com).

Books from 1955 with US copyright not renewed. (KingKongDemon).

… For anyone who only knows Brown’s writings by his vast number of humorous stories and novels, The Lights in the Sky Are Stars may come as a shock, for although optimistic, it is a serious novel, although a moment of levity occurs when Max describes an old science fiction novel which he is sure is now out of print and which turns out to be Brown’s own What Mad Universe, sadly currently, temporarily we can only hope, out of print. Although The Lights in the Sky Are Stars may not be as fun a read as What Mad Universe or Martians, Go Home, it does present a different side to Fredric Brown and should be more widely read than it is.
(SFsite.com).

The story is « Answer », from Angels and Spaceships, by FredricBrown (Dutton, 1954).

… Fredric Brown’s work continued in print after his death in1972. A decade later, his many stories written for magazines and anthologies earlier in his career were collected for the first time in a definitive edition. It ran to 16 volumes.

Continuer la lecture de « Fredric William Brown – USA (1906 – 1972) »

Linked with The Human Rights Education Associates HREA.

Felisa Tibbitts is director and co-founder of Human Rights Education Associates HREA, an international non-governmental organisation dedicated to education and learning about human rights. HREA was founded in 1996 in Amsterdam as the successor organisation to the human rights education programming that Ms. Tibbitts directed for the Netherlands Helsinki Committee from 1992 to 1996 … (International Network 1/2).

Watch her Blog from Darfur: Felisa Tibbitts, Executive Director of HREA, was in Sudan in June to evaluate the effectiveness of training for the African Union peacekeeping forces. She kept a blog while traveling to the various regions of Darfur, June 2007.

Building Human Rights Communties in Education.

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Felisa Tibbitts – USA

She works for HREA.

Service Learning, Lessons, Plans ans Projects, 134 pages.

She writes: … Another important dynamic is the interaction of order and culture. Human rights education affects both. An example can be found in the Pakistani law against blasphemy. In Pakistan, no one committed blasphemy until the government passed a law forbidding it. In other words, there was disorder, the government intervened, and this had an effect on culture. Another example can be drawn from the experience of Bhutan. The king declared that his decisions would be based not on his people’s rights but on their happiness. He then decided that people’s happiness would be improved by wearing particular clothes. In other words, the king introduced (dis)order, and this has an effect on culture. Human rights education must examine this interaction … (on page 3/5 of the full long text).

Testimony of Felisa Tibbitts before the Massachusetts Joint Judiciary Committee Hearing on the Human Rights for All Bill (HB706), June 7, 2005.

She says: « we have really built some kind of consensus over the last years about key features of human rights education.

• Education in and for HR belongs in the schooling sector
• We are talking about the full range of human rights
• It is the responsibility of governments to carry out HRE
• Participatory methodologies should be used
• Human rights education has to do with thinking, feeling and doing.

Continuer la lecture de « Felisa Tibbitts – USA »

Khalid al-Maaly, born in as-Samawa, Iraq in 1956 is a leading Arab writer, poet and publisher. He has published seven books of poetry in German, as well as in Arabic, and translated other Arab poets into German. From Cologne, Germany, where he currently lives, he wrote along with Mona Naggar in German a « Lexicon of Arab Authors in the 19th and 20th Centuries. » More recently, he gained attention for an essay in the Berliner Zeitung on the dual nature of Arab intellectuals, in which he suggests that many leading thinkers display differing attitudes on issues like human rights and foreign policy before Western and domestic audiences. (wikipedia).

His poems on geocities.

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Khalid al-Maaly – Iraq and Germany

The story of a daring publisher.

He says about himself: … First of all I would like to establish this: I am someone who loves to read. I am also a writer. And as an Arabic reader and writer I have soon found out that many works of the great thinkers of Europe have not been translated into Arabic and, if they have been, not from the original language. This is also the case with Nietzsche. Thus Spoke Zarathustra was, for a long time, the only book by Nietzsche that was translated into Arabic. This is really astonishing! And this translation of 1937, for example, was done from French. As it became clear to me, I began to translate and have translated those books that I myself have read and liked. Already early on Nietzsche counted as one of my favorite authors. Therefore it was obvious for me to translate his work into Arabic some day. Now this day has arrived. And of course I see myself in my activity as a publisher also as a mediator of culture, as a translator of cultures that begin to touch, cross over into, and intertwine with one another in the act of trans-lation » … (nietzsche circle.com).

Three poems, (from 21 Iraqi Poets).

He writes: … The Arab intellectual behaves like a despotic father. No internal family matter may be exposed to the outside world; regardless of what the reality may be, a façade of unbroken unity must be maintained. This is especially evident with respect to such matters as relations with Israel, the scandal over the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the attacks of 9/11, the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, or the recent war in Lebanon. In private talks with such people, one hears opinions that are radically different from what they publish in the newspapers the next day. It is as if the views propounded in the Arab media are not based on independent thinking, but formulated as opportunistic statements for public consumption … (full text).

Philosophy on stage#2.

Continuer la lecture de « Khalid al-Maaly – Iraq and Germany »

Linked with Amy Goodman’s ‘Empire’, with Democracy Now, and with Leslie Cagan – USA.

Amy Goodman, born April 13, 1957 in Washington, D.C. is an award-winning American liberal broadcast journalist and author. A 1984 graduate of Harvard University, Goodman is best known as the principal host of Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now program, where she has been described by the Los Angeles Times the peace and human rights movements – and support of the independent media – are the hallmarks of her work. As an investigative journalist, she has received acclaim for exposés of human rights violations in East Timor and Nigeria. … (full text).

Her Investigative journalism career.

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Amy Goodman – USA

She works for the radio and TV station Democracy Now.

She is interviewing As’ad AbuKhalil, professor of political science at the California State University, Stansilaus and the creator of the Angry Arab News Service blog.

Listen, read and watch her on this Tavis Smiley page.
King Features managing editor Glenn Mott said, “Amy Goodman’s syndicated column is unique, in that it brings an award-winning journalist and firebrand from independent media to newspapers. Goodman has said, ‘I see the media as a huge kitchen table that stretches across the country, one where we all sit around to debate and discuss the most critical issues of the day: war and peace, life and death. Anything less than that is a disservice to a democratic society.’ In practice, Goodman’s is a civic journalism with a belief in the craft’s obligation to public life. Her syndicated column is meant for people who want to read the news and analyze its content, not just for information’s sake, but for thought » … (full text).

Download the video: Independent Media In A Time Of War, 29.13 min.

She says: « With a career spanning more than six decades, Gore Vidal is one of America’s most respected writers and thinkers, authored more than twenty novels, five plays. His recent books include Dreaming War, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace and Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia. His latest is a memoir; it’s called Point to Point Navigation … (full text Interview of Gore Vidal, May 14, 2008).

Her Bio on Americans Who Tell the Truth.

Amy Goodman didn’t know if anyone was listening. It was the morning of September 11, 2001, and the host of the muckraking radio news program Democracy Now! was broadcasting from her studio in a converted firehouse just blocks from the World Trade Center. She was hunched over her microphone, intent on painting an audio portrait of the « horrific scene of explosions and fires, » but the truth was she didn’t know if anyone could hear her. The phone lines were dead or temporarily blocked, and she had already overshot her slated hourlong broadcast time. More serious, she had recently been banished from her professional home at Pacifica Radio after a hostile internal shake-up, and she was only being aired by twenty or so affiliate stations … (full long 6 pages text, May 5, 2005).

a book: Standing Up to the Madness, Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times, by Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, and David Goodman, ISBN: 1401322883.

Continuer la lecture de « Amy Goodman – USA »

A leading Swiss doctor who gave up a distinguished career in his native country to devote his life to helping HIV/AIDS sufferers in Zimbabwe tonight was presented with the European of the Year 2007 Award by Reader’s Digest magazine. Dr. Ruedi Luthy, 65, received the award and 10,000 Swiss francs for his HIV/AIDS foundation from Switzerland’s Foreign Minister and next president, Micheline Calmy-Rey, at a packed and highly emotional ceremony in Zurich. (full text PRnewswire).

… Er war Professor an der Universität Zürich. Er hatte eine gutgehende Praxis. Und er war der bekannteste Fachmann für die Behandlung von Aids-Kranken in der Schweiz: Dr. Ruedi Lüthy. Im Jahr 2003 schloss er seine Praxis in Zürich und wagte mit 60 noch einmal einen Neuanfang … (full text SF1 1/2).

Reader’s Digest Honors Dr. Ruedi Luthy as the European of the Year 2007, Jan. 18, 2007, and same: Swiss Aids expert is European of the Year.

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Ruedi Luthy – Switzerland and Zimbabwe

Click first on the button for a swiss german/german/english spoken video of 25.00 min.!

Books he participates:

• Current Chemotherapy: Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of Chemotherapy, Zurich/Switzerland, 18-23 September 1977
  by Walter Siegenthaler and Ruedi Luthy
  Hardcover, American Society for Microbiology, ISBN 0914826166 (0-914826-16-6);
• Challenges of the 1990’s, New Diseases and New Therapies: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS): Merck Sharp and Dohme International, Medical Advisory Council, the Old Course Hotel St. Andrew’s Scotland, September 12 and 13, 1991, Vol. 199
  by Ruedi Luthy, R. Gordon Douglas, Medical Advisory Council Merck, Sharp and Dohme Inte … (Barnes and Noble).

He says: « I HAD TO HELP – I could not bear sitting in y lovely home while hundreds die of Aids in Zimbabwe every day.” These were the thoughts of Professor Ruedi Lüthy, the eminent Swiss HIV and Aids specialist. In Africa AIDS is the cause of an imminent humanitarian disaster. A countless number of people are already infected with HIV, millions are dying of Aids and tragically millions of children have become orphans. It is time for us to reach out to help » … (DIVA international)

Detection of low copy numbers of HIV-1 proviral DNA in patient PBMCs by a high-input, sequence-capture PCR (Mega-PCR).

His preview profile on BiomedExperts, and: Latest papers.

He says also: « Samuel Gerber designed several excellent solutions for a clinic expansion for us under difficult economic and political circumstances (in Harare, Zimbabwe). His support on difficult legal and financial issues was highly professional. We are grateful to him for this superb achievement, which he donated to us without charge as a contribution to humanitarian assistance ». (Samuel Gerber.ch).

Europeo del año.

Continuer la lecture de « Ruedi Luthy – Switzerland and Zimbabwe »