Jagan Suba Gurung – Nepal

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

As a single woman seeking higher education and working for the improvement of women’s lives, Jagan Suba Gurung stands out in her Gurung community village. Her involvement in women’s empowerment and community development has made her an icon for societal alteration in a largely conservative social setting.

It is said: As a single woman promoting higher education and working to improve women’s lives, Jagan Suba Gurung has become a challenging icon for change in a traditionally conservative social setting.

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Sorry, no photo able to copied found for Jagan Suba Gurung – Nepal. But you may see her picture in this pdf-document (find her by scrolling down to page 9).

In 1990, when Jagan Suba Gurung began to work with women in her community, women did not generally step out of their homes in the evening and nights to attend adult literacy classes. It was an uphill task for her to launch such revolutionary programs in her village, Ghndruk, a Gurung hamlet located in the Annapurna Conservation Area, a protected area rich in environmental and cultural diversity.

However, much has changed in over a decade: Jagan’s work, which involves appraisals, home visits, and organizing meetings and adult literacy classes, has made a crucial difference:

  • women have availed of educational opportunities, and are able to make critical decisions about their lives; children’s health and levels of education have improved;
  • their mothers are today well aware of the value of nutritious food and reproductive health issues, and have contributed hugely to cleaning up their villages through clean-up campaigns;
  • women have been encouraged to send their children to daycare centers and to school, and have become involved in nature conservation;
  • organic farming and filtering water to make it potable are new activities that have entered their lives.

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Pablo Ouziel – Spain

Linked with The Grim Reality of Economic Truths, and with Failed Fascist States.

Pablo Ouziel is an activist and a freelance writer based in Spain. His work has appeared in many progressive media including Znet, Palestine Chronicle, Thomas Paine¹s Corner and Atlantic Free Press. (full text).

And: He is a sociologist … located in Barcelona, Spain.
And: Pablo Ouziel has international experience in Business Development and Corporate Communications having worked from London and New York, developing communications strategies and dealing with investor relations for many world leading companies. He was also co-founder of Latinia Corporation and Appareo Corporation, and currently is CEO of Can Poeti SL, a branding communications company which he runs together with his wife, and focuses on supporting projects around the globe in the areas of sustainability, ecology and health. Pablo also sits on the Board of Directors of Mas Claperol, the oldest organic dairy farm in Catalunya, Spain, (on Atlantic Free Press, scroll down, down, down … ).

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sorry, no picture found for Pablo Ouziel – Spain

He says: « If one believes that Auschwitz was a consequence of the rise of fascism, it’s certainly too late now to avoid Guantanamo » … (in failed fascist states).

Lame Duck citizens and the global economy.

But it has got to happen. “Fascism is here today because we allowed it to be here,” writes Pablo Ouziel in his excellent short piece, “Failed Fascist States.” Yes, we allowed it to be here. We have been wretchedly stupid. And now we’ve got to wake up, look straight at it, and get rid of it. Otherwise, as said, we are doomed. Paul Craig Roberts is capable of looking straight at it, or at its effects … (full text, March 23, 2008).

Geopolitical Rebirth, Feb. 18, 2008.

He writes also: « One cannot deny that corporate greed, political fraud and financial theft, are upon us with such catastrophic magnitudes that the average citizen has lost all hope in equality and fairness. Democracy has become the slogan of the powerful to justify their actions before the masses, Christ has been caricatured as the symbol of irrelevance, and our climate and ultimately us, are suffering this calamity. All this is within the grasp of anyone who watches CNN with a bit of intuition and reads between the lines » … (full text).

Forgetting Gandhi on International Nonviolence Day.

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Paul Wellstone – USA (1944 – 2002)

Linked with The Wellstone Action, and with The real threat.

Paul David Wellstone (July 21, 1944 – October 25, 2002) was a two-term U.S. Senator from the U.S. state of Minnesota and member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is affiliated with the national Democratic Party. Before being elected to the Senate in 1990, he was a professor of political science at Carleton College. Wellstone was a progressive and a leading spokesman for the progressive wing of the national Democratic Party. He served in the Senate in the 102nd, 103rd, 104th, 105th, 106th, and 107th congresses from 1991 until his death in a plane crash on 25 October 2002, 11 days before he was to stand in the midterm US senate election. His wife, Sheila, and daughter, Marcia, also died in the crash. They had two other grown children, David and Mark, who now co-chair the Wellstone Action nonprofit group … (full long text).

His Death.

excerpt chapter 3: … We know that in 2002 Vice President Lon Cheney told Senator Paul Wellstone that “If you vote against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you. There will be severe ramifications for you and the state of Minnesota.” We know that Wellstone did vote against the war in Iraq. And we know that soon afterward he was assassinated. This fact is terrifying. It is a matter not of politics clean or dirty, but it is a matter of terrorism … (full long text).

Wellstone Act will enable all to do well, March 14, 2008.

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Paul Wellstone – USA (1944 – 2002)

Watch him on the video: Charlie Rose with WELLSTONE (and SHORTZ and ANVERSA), Charlie Rose Inc., 57.03 min, 16 July 2001.

WASHINGTON – Five years after Paul Wellstone’s death, the U.S. House is poised to pass a mental health and addiction bill named for the late Minnesota senator who championed the cause in the last years of his life … (full text, March 4, 2008).

His other military votes.

Paul Wellstone was the only progressive in the U.S. Senate. Mother Jones magazine once described him as, « The first 1960s radical elected to the U.S. senate. » He was also the last. Since defeating incumbent Republican Rudy Boschowitz 12 years ago in a grassroots upset, Wellstone emerged as the strongest, most persistent, most articulate and most vocal Senate opponent of the Bush administration. In a senate that is one heartbeat away from Republican control, Wellstone was more than just another Democrat. He was often the lone voice standing firm against the status-quo policies of both the Democrats and the Republicans … (full text, and scroll down for more photos).

Wellstone and the Gulf War.

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Maude Barlow – Canada

Linked with International Forum on Globalization, with the Blue Planet Project, with the Council of Canadians, with the World Future Council, .

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

Maude Victoria Barlow (born May 24, 1947) is a Canadian author and activist. She is the national chairperson of The Council of Canadians, a progressive citizens’ advocacy organization with members and chapters across Canada. She is also the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, which works to stop commodification of the world’s water. She is also a director with the International Forum on Globalization, a San Francisco based research and education institution opposed to economic globalization; fellow with the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies; a board member of Food & Water Watch, the national US organization fighting for corporate and government accountability as it relates to food, water, and fishing; and a founding member of the European-based World Future Council … (full long text).

She says: « I go crazy when I see certain things and I have to find out why they happen. And I have to tell people. I have to do something so that other people will also take action ».

Listen her short video statement on Connected Life.

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Maude Barlow – Canada

She works for the Council of Canadians, for the International Forum on Globalization, for the Blue Planet Project, and with the World Future Council.

Kenyan children who have lost their eyes to river blindness; trash, blood, and sewage being dumped into rivers in Bolivia; huge, World Bank-funded dams turning fresh water to poison by blocking their flow. When it comes to the suffering caused by water shortage, water pollution, and water privatization (big private corporations buying up countries’ and towns’ water rights), Canadian activist Maude Barlow has seen it all … (full text).

An ideal future communication infrastructure … !

Maude Barlow will give documentational proof as to what the end results will be.There are places in other parts of the world where this has taken place and the price of a gallon of water is more than a gallon of milk … (full text).

the Canadian environmental activist Maude Barlow, this year’s guest speaker, will present a talk titled ‘Too Late to Panic – Protecting Canada’s Water and Energy Supplies.’ Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, as well as the founder of the Blue Planet Project, working internationally for the right to water … (full text).

… on the National Speakers Bureau.

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Nadine Gordimer – South Africa

Nadine Gordimer (born 20 November 1923) is a South African writer, political activist and Nobel Prize in literature laureate. Her writing has long dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa. She was active in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days when the organization was banned. She has recently been active in HIV/AIDS causes … (full long text).

Her 1991 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech.

Dozens of prominent South Africans have signed a statement condemning a racist video which surfaced at the Free State University earlier this month. The list of 81 signatories includes renowned authors Nadine Gordimer and Andre Brink, journalists John Perlman and Max du Preez, retired judge Arthur Chaskalson, cartoonist Zapiro, and academic Phillip Tobias … (full text, March 7, 2008).

Her video: Nadine Gordimer on racism, 3.25 min, 3 Oct 2007;

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Nadine Gordimer – South Africa

The Salon Interview with Nadine Gordimer, not dated.

A team-work video: Superpower Priciples, U.S. Terrorism Against Cuba, by Bernie Fox, 55 min 51 sec – 28 Oct 2006, with the participation of Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, William Blum, Leonard Weinglass, Nadine Gordimer, and others … edited by Salim Lamrani, and published by Common Courage Press.

She says: « Learning to write sent me falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life » (The Guardian).

Cynics may note that this is otherwise pretty familiar territory: The appointment of Suzanne Vega to the judges in 2001 caused some minor consternation at the time, and Nadine Gordimer has also announced that she won’t allow her books to run for the prize. Indeed, today’s headline star AS Byatt first expressed her reservations about the prize back in 1996, its inaugural year … (full text, March 18, 2008).

Her Political and literary activism.

Recently I discovered another writer – novelist and short story writer – whose new works I will await with great excitement and anticipation. That means he joins a short list that includes Ward Just, Nadine Gordimer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Lorrie Moore and Ian McEwen. He is Jim Shepard, and he teaches writing and literature at Williams College … (full text, Feb. 28, 2008).

Writing And Being.

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Women Workers' Cooperative WWC – Hong Kong, China

They are proposed as a group for the 1000 women Nobel Peace Price 2005.

The Women Workers’ Cooperative WWC was established in the 1990s when Hong Kong industries were moved north to mainland China. The WWC opens up a new space that is based on mutual support and cooperation: women workers have the opportunity to rediscover and reactivate themselves through cultural and economic involvement. The Women Workers Cooperative WWC is a continuous self-strengthening group.

They say: « We can control our own fate through united force and be creative ».

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Women Workers’ Cooperative – Hong Kong, China

The Women Workers’ Cooperative WWC was established in the 1990s when Hong Kong industries were moved north to mainland China. Similar to situations in other countries, women workers were the first to be retrenched, as people believed that they could easily return home and resume full-time the care-taking role. In Hong Kong, it was assumed that women workers could easily switch to the then flourishing service industry and it was only a short-term adjustment issue.

It has however been neglected that many women workers had to continue working as a means of livelihood. And the sad and cruel reality was that these women workers, who entered the factories when they finished primary school, were in their mid 30s in the 1990s. They had encountered enormous hardships and difficulties in mastering new skills while their previous experiences had little, if not none at all, market value. Many remained unemployed for a long time. Many have had to take on jobs that are very low paying, with unreasonably long hours, and nasty working conditions.

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New Territories Female Indigenous Residents' Committee – Hong Kong, China

They are proposed as a group for the 1000 women’s Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Formed in October 1993, the New Territories Female Indigenous Residents’ Committee NTFIRC was active in the 1994 campaign to abolish the discriminatory ordinance on women’s rights to inherit property in the New Territories. Along with other groups, they encouraged their sisters to fight for their rights, using peaceful means, like signing petitions and singing songs, to lobby for public support.

They say: « The women are brave to form the (New Territories Female Indigenous Residents’ Committee) NTFIRC and to exercise their political rights in the face of violent reaction from conservative patriarchal powers ».

Excerpts of the books:

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New Territories Female Indigenous Residents’ Committee – Hong Kong, China

There were six core members in the Committee, including Tang Ying, Cheng Lai Sheung, So Ngan Shing, Tang Mui, Tang Yuen Tai and Wong Shui Lai.

They work with the Hong Kong Federation of Women’s Centres.

The success of the campaign has not only guaranteed their civic rights, it has also contributed to the women’s and civil society movements.Indigenous women living in the New Territories of Hong Kong have long been deprived of the right to inherit land and were subject to the discriminatory New Territories Ordinance. Many became poor and homeless on the deaths of their fathers because their relatives seized their properties after their fathers died. In 1993, indigenous women formed the New Territories Female Indigenous Residents’ Committee (NTFIRC) to fight for their rights.

All of them had suffered because of this discriminatory custom. Apart from Madam So Ngan Shing and Madam Cheng Lai Sheung who have received primary education, the others members are illiterate. And they live in poverty. Here are two stories of the committee members: Madam Cheng Lai Sheung (52) and single, is a villager of Ma Tin Tsuen in Yuen Long. She has two brothers and she is the eldest daughter. All her life she was told that she had to work to improve her brothers’ living conditions.

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Shuk Man "Selina" Sun – Hong Kong, China

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

A Hong Kong native, Shuk Man « Selina » Sun (43) was ordained pastor by the Hong Kong Blessed Minority Christian Fellowship (Hkbmcf), a Christian group for sexual minorities. Selina serves as the pastor of the Hkbmcf and actively promotes dialogue and understanding between church organizations and communities. She stands firm on the side of this group and helps rebuild their self-esteem and confidence. In the past few years, membership of the Hkbmcf has steadily increased and sexual minorities are coming to be accepted by the church and society … (1000peacewomen).

She says: « People are biased against those of different sexual orientation. Isolation does more damage. Let’s learn to put away prejudice, be more flexible, and see people with Christ’s heart ».

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Shuk Man « Selina » Sun – Hong Kong, China

She works for Hong Kong Blessed Minority Christian Fellowship HKBMCF.

(She is) a Hong Kong native, Selina, Sun Suk Man (43) holds masters degrees in Divinity and Sacred Theology. She engaged in pastoral work for some ten years before joining the Hong Kong Blessed Minority Christian Fellowship (HKBMCF) in 2003.

Established in 1992, HKBMCF is a Christian Church for sexual minorities, and the only one of its kind in the territory. It was formed by a group of homosexual Christians. Its membership includes people with different sexual orientations. In the first decade of its formation, HKBMCF went through a period of instability and uncertainty, facing suspicion and disapproval from the institutional Church and even among some fellow homosexual Christians.

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Judy Thongori – Kenya

Linked with Displaced women tell of misery in the chaos.

Judy Thongori is the Chairperson of CREAW and heads the board that comprises of eight (8) members. Her goal is to work in development and legal initiatives that gear towards achieving an equitable society in which there is zero tolerance to Gender-Based Violence and respect for human rights. She has the experience of seventeen years of practice as a lawyer with six of those years in implementing programmes on women’s rights issues. Part of her work has involved provision of legal services to the under-privileged and taking on public interest litigation. She has been in the forefront in spreading legal awareness through public awareness, seminars, workshops and the media. She has also been proactive in lobbying for laws that are responsive to the needs of women. Judy is married to John Thongori and they have two children. (CREAW).

She says: « Kenya lacks an automatic domestication clause, which provides ways for ratifying and implementing international covenants and charters. Thus, international agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and the Beijing Platform for Action remained undomesticated ». (full long text).

Read: Gender and Economic Growth in Kenya, 161 pdf-pages.

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Sorry, no photo found for Judy Thongori, Kenya.

Prostitution is illegal under Tanzanian law, and there is also a prohibition against brothels and defilement of children below age 14. The law similarly forbids child pornography and prostitution and considers any sexual act with a girl below the age of 18 to be rape, which is punishable by life imprisonment. However, enforcing these provisions is very difficult, because, although the law considers sex below the age of 18 to be rape, other provisions set the legal age for marriage at 15. The penalties for raping an adult woman are also very strict, with imprisonment ranging from a minimum of 30 years to a maximum of life. (Judy Thongori, in “The Proposed Amendments to the Laws on Rape and Defilement: Do the Proposed Amendments Fill the Gaps?,” 3 December 2003). In addition, the offender must pay the victim compensation for damages suffered as a result of the rape (ECPAT International Online Database, 24 April 2003).

ECPAT International, a network of organisations and individuals working together to eliminate the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
Judy has front line experience of providing legal services to poor women. She has acted in public interest litigation aimed at increasing their access to justice. A key aspect of her work has been to empower women and other marginalised sections of society through training and media campaigns. She trains to build capacity for self-representation through the justice systems, and on proactive advocacy for responsive laws and policies. She has worked with the judiciary and with Parliament on programmes to increase justice for women, and is currently a Visiting Justice for a women’s prison in Nairobi. (full text).

Matter: whether Sexual Harassment amounts to Sex Discrimination Under International Law and the Kenyan Constitution. Legal Expert Mr. Wachira Maina and National Lawyer Ms. Judy Thongori, September 2004.

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Sebastien Fath – France

Linked with Pluralism of gate identities or pluralism of competing identities, and with ASR Association for the Sociology of Religion.

A specialist in the study of Evangelical Protestantism, Sebastien Fath is currently a full-time researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research CNRS. He lectures at Sorbonne University Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes EPHE, and is in charge of a scientific research program on contemporary mutations of religion in Western societies. He is the author of ten books and has recently published Dieu bénisse l’Amérique. La religion de la Maison Blanche (Paris: Seuil, 2004), Militants de la Bible aux Etats-Unis. Evangéliques et fondamentalistes du Sud (Paris: Autrement, 2004. This book was awarded the Chateaubriand History Prize), and Du ghetto au réseau. Le protestantisme évangélique en France 1800-2005 , (Geneva, Labor et Fides, 2005). He is born 1968 in Strasbourg, France … (full text).

He writes: « In describing Christianity in France, History and Sociology have had lasting difficulties escaping from the “sect-church” opposition. The heavy dominance of Catholicism is a probable reason. Contrarily to the American situation, characterized by a competitive religious market in which religions are structured in various “denominations”, the French landscape seems to be defined as religiously “dry”, in a very secularized context. Today, with declining churches, the dominant trend would be the “decomposition” of religion, instead of its restructuration. This process takes two forms : “religious bricolage”, or narrow sectarian belonging. The field of Evangelical Protestantism invites us to question this interpretative scheme » … (full long text).

Barack Obama et le vote religieux, Janvier 4, 2008.

His english blog: FRENCH WINDOWS, Asterix goes Global – Civil Society, Religion & Politics, Evangelicalism.

Sébastien FATH, son Weblog scientifique et citoyen (en français).

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Sebastien Fath – France

His book: Politics and Religion in France and the United States.

Both France and the USA do like to teach the World about values. These two great democracies share a common emphasis on universal rights, and it is no surprise if the world debate about the Iraqi war in 2003 turned around what France and what the US had to say. How to explain that? By going back to History, particularly in studying the relationship between politics and religion in France and the US … (French Windows, scroll down to Dec. 14, 2007.

GSRL Groupe Société, Réligions, Laïcités au EPHE/CNRS.

He writes also: « The White House [has been] taken hostage by a fundamentalist sect » (Mercier 2003:44). This kind of comment, found in the columns of a major, Catholic friendly, weekly magazine is quite revealing of the French perception of religion. The president of the United States is not portrayed as a church member, because the word « church » is too positive a term for what the journalist wishes to say about the American President. Thus, he is shown as being under the influence of a « sect » (or « cult »), which is synonymous with bad religion. The « churchsect » dichotomy is characteristic of the French way of seeing religion. This might partly explain why Ernst Troeltsch’s approach of religion has only been discovered in the 1980s, decades after Max Weber’s sociology (Seguy 1980). While Weber usually favored a dual approach of religious structures (church/sect) familiar to the French, Ernst Troeltsch adopted a more nuanced view: he included the mystic type and the « Free church » model. (full long text).

Religion et Sociologie: 29 articles sur le protestantisme évangélique et 14 articles sur les USA et leur mutation socio.réligieuse.

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