World People's Blog

Linked with Friends of South Asia FOSA, .

He is … a writer, blogger and journalist who currently makes his living as a technical writer based in Silicon Valley.

He says: « I have lived in Nigeria (including Sokoto and Gusau), Pakistan, and both coasts in the US. As a journalist, I have been editor of « The Teenager, Pakistan »; a Columnist for « Mag » (an English weekly in Pakistan); and have edited various newsletters, in Pakistan and in the US. Amongst recent publishing credits are « Spider, » Pakistan’s Internet magazine …  » (full text).

This Wiki is part of my website. As of now, this Wikispace is more up to date than the rest of the site … (full text).

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iFaqeer – Pakistan & USA

Talk to him on ‘User talk, iFaqeer on FFXICLOPEDIA‘.
He writes:

• I blog extensively at iFaqeer.blogspot, and WadiWallah.blogspotRickshaw.blogspot (by Vijay Kumar Madugula), and contribute to Urdu-ke-Naam.blogspot (with poesy of Zaheer « Zak » Kidvai), a blog focused on the Urdu language, Sufi poetry, mysticism and the culture around that mix, as well as PakistanFutures.blogspot, which is devoted to Pakistan. I hope to bring a synthesis of all of that to this space;
• My professional life has included technical writing and journalism in both the US and Pakistan. Technical writing assignments have included a Pakistani electronics manufacturer, an offshore software house; Cisco, Mentor Graphics and Cadence in the US;
• I am the founder (or one of the founders) of the Human Rights Project at ProgressiveIslam.org, the Genealogy Wiki and WikiPakistan;
• Work in the Human Rights field started as a Working Committee member of the War Against Rape in Karachi and try to keep himself aware and involved in Human Rights and political issues in Pakistan the US and around the world;
• I am also a co-founder/early member of the Friends of South Asia FOSA, an organization focused on peace and human rights in South Asia (India, Pakistan and the rest of that region).
• A life-long current affairs-and-politics geek (runs in the family), I have been following current affairs generally, and Pakistani, Indian and American politics in particular for most of my life – and just starting to get involved in the US (about life, technology).

… (full text).

Technology, Society and We, The People (Pilot) – iFaqeer: I am starting a regular commentary segment on WBT-TV, a Business and Technology program on Comcast Channel 15 in San Jose, California … (full text).

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Linked with People’s Union for Civil Liberties PUCL, and with RUPANTAR.
Dr Binayak Sen is a paediatrician, public health specialist and national Vice-President of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) based in Chhattisgarh state, India. Dr Sen is noted for extending health care to the poorest people, monitoring the health and nutrition status of the people of Chhattisgarh, and defending the rights of indigenous tribal people. In May 2007, he was detained in connection with his human rights work, raising global concern about his welfare. In a statement immediately preceding his arrest, Dr. Sen said, « For the past several years, we are seeing all over India – and as part of that in the state of Chhattisgarh as well – a concerted programme to expropriate from the poorest people in the Indian nation, their access to essentials, common property resources and to natural resources including land and water… The campaign called the Salwa Judoom in Chhattisgarh is a part of this process in which hundreds of villages have been denuded of the people living in them and hundreds of people – men and women – have been killed » … (full long text).

See video: protest against PUCL activist’s arrest, 2.40 min., Nov. 17, 2007.

His CV, July 2007.

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Binayak Sen – India

He says: … « I was not doing anything secret. Whatever I did was in the cause of human rights and not to further the interests of CPI (Maoists) ». (full text).

Dr Sen says he was treating the ailing 70-year old prisoner Sanyal. But the government thinks otherwise. Sen has been charged with “criminal offense” for visiting the ailing terrorist in the jail. (full text).

Binayak Sen: Victim of State vendetta, summer 2007.

Meanwhile, a few new sites have appeared dedicated to publicizing my brother’s work. Apart from the Save Binayak campaign from a group of doctors in the UK, there is also a blog and a wikipedia entry on him. This must be somewhat embarrassing to Dada, who would much rather talk about the issues and the institutions than his own work. This is one of the reasons why I am only beginning to find out about the extent of the work he and his wife Dr. Ilina Sen (a demographer and social analyst who also founded a NGO called Rupantar in Raipur) have done in the area of public service. (full text).

IAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION – URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME, June 26, 2007.

Read articles published through PUCL: PUCL seen by Pushkar Raj; Peoples Union for Democratic Rights; Binayak Sen arrested, by Rajendra K. Sail, November 2, 2007; Legal delays result in a standstil: Dr. Binayak Sen’s case: At the trial court, Raipur, October 8, 2007; State repression in M.P. is politically motivated, Oct. 5, 2007.

Background information on Dr. Binayak Sen: His name is Binayak Sen. He had a distinguished academic career in Vellore, graduating in Medicine and later acquiring an M.D. in Paediatrics. From 1976 to 1978, he was a faculty member at the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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Linked with Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques IRIS, and with Disarmament and development.

Dr. Pascal Boniface is the Founder and Director of IRIS, the Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques (Institute for International and Strategic Relations), France. He is also a consultant on strategic issues for the French Department of Defense and Department of Foreign Affairs … Dr. Pascal Boniface has published or edited more than thirty books on international relations, nuclear deterrence and disarmament, European security and French international politics. He frequently writes articles on international politics for national newspapers (Le Figaro, Libération, Challenges). He also publishes regular analyses in international newspapers, such as Al-Ittihad (United Arab Emirates), La Vanguardia (Spain) and Al-Raya (Qatar). (full text).

Dr. Boniface is a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (scroll down).

He says: « The spectators of a football match can enjoy the mythical excitement of battles taking place in the stadium, and they know that neither the players nor they will suffer any harm ». (full text).

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Pascal Boniface – France

Ecoutez sa video: ‘PASCAL BONIFACE: L’ANTISEMITISME DE CHANTAGE‘, 8.06 min., Nov. 3, 2007.

He says: « There are more black faces in the national side, than in the whole of the Assemblee Nationale ». (full text).

Those who the gods may destroy, they grant their wishes. Zinedine Zidane may be pondering that bit of ancient Greek wisdom today. Having announced that he would end his professional career with the World Cup, Zidane had his wish fulfilled. After France barely survived the tournament’s first round, Zidane performed at the top of his game and led the team to the brink of a second World Cup championship. But instead of finishing his career in triumph, or at least with an ovation, he was ejected from the final for head-butting an Italian player. There have been few such tragic moments in football history. (full text).

The French Left and political Islam, secularism versus the temptation of an alliance, September 2006.

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Linked with Institut Européen en Sciences de Religions IESR.

Jules Régis Debray (born 1940) is a French intellectual, journalist, government official and professor. He formerly engaged in Che Guevara’s activities, especially in Bolivia where he was arrested and jailed in 1967. He is today better known for his theorization of mediology, a critical studies of signs and transmission of signs in human society, and was a member of the 2003 Stasi Commission, named after Bernard Stasi, which was at the origins of the 2003 French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools. (full text).

Philosopher Alain Badiou and writer Régis Debray are among the numerous other French intellectuals attacked by BHL for their views on international affairs. (full text, Nov. 1, 2007).

Son site internet en français.

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Régis Debray – France

Endnote: Jean-Pierre Chevènement resigned as Defense Minister in 1991 in protest against President Mitterrand’s decision to take France into the first U.S. war against Iraq; he ran as an independent candidate for President in 2002 and supported Ségolène Royal’s candidacy in 2007, serving as an advisor. Born in Jerusalem, Rony Brauman was president of Médecins sans frontières from 1982 to 1994; he has become a sharp critic of Israel and of the Kouchner-BHL line on « humanitarian intervention » by military means. (full text).

Then a few more steps – reading Franz Fanon and Regis Debray on the liberating potential of revolutionary violence, for example, and wondering whether it might ever apply in the United States. Before you know it, friends have created a bomb factory in your basement. But this does not happen overnight – and it involves really complicated and unstable combinations of deep seriousness and self-delusion. (full text, Nov. 11, 2007).

He writes:  » … The guerrilla force is independent of the civilian population, in action as well as in military organisation; consequently it need not assume the direct defence of the peasant population. The protection of the population depends on the progressive destruction of the enemy’s military potential. It is relative to the overall balance of forces: the populace will be completely safe when the opposing forces are completely defeated … By restricting itself to the task of protecting civilians or passive self-defence, the guerrilla unit ceases to be the vanguard of the people as a whole and deprives itself of a national perspective … By choosing to operate at this level, it may be able to provide protection for the population for a limited time.

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Linked with The Grand Delusion, and with Friends Of the Article V Convention FOAVC.

He writes: Essay Painful 9/11 Truth 9/4/07: « Many technical analyses cast doubt on the official explanation of the collapse of three World Trade Center buildings, including those presented by an impressive new group: Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. More difficult than discovering the truth, however, is convincing most of the public to accept the bitter truth. When it comes to 9/11, we face the strong belief that only al-Qaeda caused 9/11. But analyses by many experts reveal the collapse of the three WTC buildings was not caused by the two airplanes exploding into the twin towers. Without getting into details that one can spend many hours examining on a number of websites, the general view is that the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition.. (full text, scroll down).

Sprawl Kills, Joel S. Hirschhorn’s website, including commentary, news, book excerpts, consulting, and a newsletter.

TPM café, Joel S. Hirschhorn’s blog.

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Joel S. Hirschhorn – USA

Read: Voting As Political Narcotic, by Joel S. Hirschhorn, Nov. 08, 2007.

He is Professor of Metallurgical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1965 – 1978. Senior Staff Member, Congressional Office of Technology Assessment 1978 – 1990. Testified more than 50 times before Congress on technology, science, and environmental issues. Former Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources, National Governors Association. Dr. Hirschhorn has been a consultant to industrial and chemical companies, DOE laboratories, state governments, and public interest organizations. Co-founder of Friends of the Article V Convention. Member, Board of Directors, National Foundation for Environmental Education. Member, Board of Directors, Sustainability Now! Author of more than 150 papers, articles, guest editorials, and book chapters on environmental science and technology. Author of Delusional Democracy: Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government (2007), Sprawl Kills (2005), New Community Design to the Rescue (2001), Growing pains: Quality of Life in the New Economy (2000), Prosperity without Pollution (1991), Materials Science (1975), Introduction to Powder Metallurgy (1969). (full text).

Does Larry Sabato Really Want A Constitutional Convention? October 21, 2007.

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Hu Jia (Chinese: ooo; pinyin: Hú Jiā; original name ooo; born July 25, 1973 in Beijing), with online name Freeborn, is one of China’s most prominent environmental activists and AIDS activists, was involved as an auxiliary member of the team to save the Tibetan Antelope and served as the Executive Director of the AIZHI Institute of Health Education, one of the founders of the AIDS NGO Loving Source. (wikipedia).

Gao Zhisheng’s First Contact with Outside World Since His Unlawful Secret Arrest, Nov. 3, 2007.

He says: “They listen to my phone, they read my emails. They know everything. There is no avoiding it” … “I will become a full time democracy activist” … “In the past 20 years and more China’s economy has developed immensely. But the political system remains the same: it’s still just the one party in power. That is why there is conflict in the society” … “I believe I have been born to fight for justice. I can’t stand injustice. Even at school I was always the one who defended girls who were teased or bullied” … (more texts in this article).

China To Face UN Human Rights Body’s Scrutiny in 2009, Nov. 12, 2007.

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Hu Jia – China

China crackdown on dissidents before congress, Oct. 16, 2007.

2007/11/9 ooo June 4 disabled Qi was again restricted exit (automatically translated by google from chinese): June 4 Adams Qi is disabled, he is suffering from diabetes, hypertension and hepatitis C. ooo … As he is suffering from high amputation and a number of chronic diseases肢残, if not healed skin left, prosthetics need very high technical standards, ooo … The Chinese mainland’s enterprises failed prosthetics. ooo … Australia churches and friends for a part of the donor resources Qi, Qi arrangements
Zhiyong to Hong Kong to check and the production of artificial limbs … (more text).

Web dissent on the rise in China, Oct. 16, 2007.

The Year of the Dog – A Chinese activist’s story – Hu Jia spent 168 days under house arrest in 2006. This year promises to be little different. FEBRUARY 7, 2006: Today Hu Jia is free. No one stops him as he walks into a restaurant in downtown Beijing. The small, bespectacled man in his 30s who sits down at the table is one of China’s most prominent dissidents, and in the last couple of weeks Hu has been so closely monitored by the state security apparatus that it has been difficult to arrange a meeting with him.

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