#3
Sorta like Davis-Mothan. Except for the snow, lack of vehicle care, snow, no rattlesnakes, snow, crappy stuff that will never be used again, snow....
[Maghrebia] Women's rights activists this week drafted a strategy to prevent violence against women in the Arab world that promotes legislative and awareness-raising campaigns, training, and wider dissemination of data and research.
Why do people waste their time on such things when they could do something that actually made a difference, such as set up micro-lending corporations that empower women by helping them become financially independent, run self-defence workshops so they can learn to defend themselves against attackers (Anonymoose has talked a bit about this kind of thing), sponsor girls' schools, sponsor technical schools so women can develop salable skills and set up their own businesses... Changing the laws will only matter when the women are capable of demanding that the changes be enforced. Cultural changes will only occur when the women have been pushing back successfully for the better part of a generation, regardless of the enlightenment among the elites.
The strategy was drawn up by participants in a Tunis workshop aimed at sharing experiences in the field of fighting violence against Arab women. The three-day event kicked off on December 6th and was organised by the Arab Women Organization (AWO).
"The strategy ... stress[es] the need to protect women from violence and to prevent it through laws, legislation, awareness, training, dissemination of the women's rights culture, the culture of non-violence, and provision of national data, research and statistics on the phenomenon," AWO member and secretary-general of Jordan's National Council for Family Affairs, Haifa Abu Ghazala, said on Tuesday at the event.
Participants examined a range of themes and ways to prevent violence against Arab women. They also shared experiences and experiments in the field of strategies, policies, programmes and methods of intervention on the national level.
Experts at the event said that Arab women suffer from four forms of violence: domestic violence, community violence, institutional violence and violence in armed conflicts.
According to AWO Secretary-General Waduda Badran, the forms of violence against women in Arab countries "differ according to environments, regions, social classes, and cultural and age categories. As a result, the confrontation mechanisms also vary."
Badran added that the Arab world's current situation "requires ... comprehensive strategies that include short, medium and long-term measures based on an in-depth and comprehensive vision of the nature of societies and nature of women's standing therein".
For her part, the head of Morocco's Department of Women, Family and Children's Affairs, Saida Idrissi, said that Tunisia's presidency of the AWO would "give renewed momentum to joint Arab action through supporting and activating the commitments of Arab countries, foremost among which is the drafting of an Arab strategy for combating violence against women".
"The main aim of this workshop is to share experiences and experiments, and to draft a unified Arab strategy with guidance from several successful experiences, such as those of Tunisia and Morocco, especially in the field of activating women's participation in public and political life," added Idrissi.
At the close of the workshop, participants issued a statement urging AWO "member states to issue periodic national reports on the reality of violence against women, and to draft an Arab pilot law in the field of protecting women from violence".
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Why do people waste their time on such things when they could do something that actually made a difference, such as ...
... converting as much of the Muslim world as possible to another religion? Good point.
#3
Why do people waste their time on such things
Because that would entail actually doing something. It's much easier to schedule awareness campaigns, training (?)and writing memos.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/12/2009 3:51 Comments ||
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#4
I have a radical idea of how to accomplish this, but thus far noone has volunteered to actually attach the bell to the cat.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe decries factionalism and urges his party members to unite in order to defeat its coalition partner MDC.
Opening the ZANU-PF's fifth National People's Congress in Harare and the first congress since losing absolute grip on power to Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Mugabe regretted the divisions in his ZANU-PF party.
This year, Mugabe was forced into a unity government with Morgan Tsvangirai, who is now prime minister, after ZANU-PF lost its parliamentary majority in the 2008 polls and the presidential race which he apparently won ended in dispute.
Addressing more than 5,000 delegates of his party on Friday, the 85-year-old leader called upon his party members to unite so that they can defeat the MDC, which he claims was created by the British in an attempt to destroy his Zanu-PF party.
He said the divisions were "eating up" his party. "The party is fighting itself. It's eating itself up," he stressed.
Mugabe and his ZANU-PF have ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, when they took control as the magnanimous liberators from white-ruled Rhodesia.
After almost 30 years in power, the once prosperous nation is now in economic ruins, where life expectancy is only 34 and millions depend on foreign food aid to survive.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2009 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] The crown prince of top OPEC oil exporter Saudi Arabia returned to the kingdom on Friday after spending most of the year in Morocco following medical treatment in the United States.
Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, thought to be about 85, underwent an operation in New York in February and then went to Morocco.
Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, thought to be about 85, underwent an operation in New York in February and then went to Morocco, authorities said at the time without saying what he was suffering from.
The royal court said in a statement earlier this week that the treatment had been successful, without giving further details.
After seven months of hints that he was coming home, his son and deputy defense ministry Prince Khaled bin Sultan had announced his imminent return on November 29, suggesting Sultan had recovered his health.
"He has completed the treatment period and stopped taking medication about two months ago," Khaled had said.
In March, King Abdullah appointed Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz as second deputy prime minister, cementing his rank in the royal family hierarchy.
Prince Nayef has been interior minister for more than 30 years and is one of the conservative forces in the royal family which has given the religious establishment vast influence in a country applying a strict version of Sunni Islam.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
It's good he got his medical treatment in the US before Queen Botox and Dingy Harry destroy it. Opportunity knocks.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/12/2009 1:09 Comments ||
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Wonder if he was "chipped" during treatment....
#3
Apologies to our Anglican members, but this man does not seem to get it. He personifies the tepid new-age mush-headed weakness of the High Church, and then wonders why Muslims get more attention?
The Archbishop also called the Pope's invitation to Anglicans theologically rather eccentric. The irony...
While the Labour party regards itself as at the forefront of social recognition for such diverse and new religious movements such as the Jedi Knights, there are few in our party willing to fully embrace your proposed belief system based on sacrificing automobiles to your "Robot High Lord Voltron."
And while you might find personal gratification on your most sacred of hold days, Fnord Day, or June 23rd on the secular calendar, there is little support for a national holiday compelling all citizens to "Don lederhosen and scuba flippers, and rub honey and chicken feathers o'er each other to tuba serenade."
And I would personally like to add that while blending elements of your Druidic faith with Anglicanism is taken with some grace by Labour, your proposal of offertories of human flesh as burnt sacrifice is generally seen as outside of your duties as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Therefore, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, we would officially request that you cease and desist with the practice altogether and immediately. As well as that thing with the goats.
Ousted Honduras President Manuel Zelaya is due to meet his elected successor, Porfirio Lobo, in the Dominican Republic. President Leonel Fernandez said he expected the two to meet on Monday however neither have confirmed this.
Mr Zelaya is under siege in the Brazilian embassy in Honduras following his return to the country in September. He refuses to accept the election of Mr Lobo as his successor, and wants to serve out the remainder of his term. But Congress in Honduras voted overwhelmingly against allowing him to do so, something Mr Zelaya has said "ratifies the coup". Earlier this week the government blocked a plan for the ousted president to fly to Mexico, saying he could only leave the country if he was offered formal asylum elsewhere.
Mr Fernandez said he expected the two men to meet in Santo Domingo to discuss how to resolve the political crisis in Honduras. He said Mr Zelaya would arrive on Sunday, followed by Mr Lobo the next day. He said he would meet them separately before any joint discussions could take place, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reported.
"As of Sunday and Monday, we will have both figures of the Honduran political world in the Dominican Republic," he said.
There has been no confirmation as yet whether the interim government that came into power following the June coup had agreed to allow the meeting the go ahead or how Mr Zelaya would even travel to the region. In Honduras, information minister Rene Zepeda, said there had been no request from either Mr Zelaya or the Dominican Republic seeking permission for the ousted president to leave the country without fear of arrest on charges of treason and abuse of power.
Mr Zelaya told AP he was "thankful" to President Fernandez for trying to arrange a meeting but also did not confirm if the meeting with Mr Lobo had actually been organised. Mr Lobo, who is due to assume the Presidency in January, has also not publically confirmed his attendance.
The BBC's Central America correspondent Stephen Gibbs says many details about the meeting still remain unclear; it may be that the invitation from President Fernandez is more of an open challenge to all sides to find a compromise and not a genuine breakthrough.
#3
how's Z getting out of the Brazilian embassy? Diplo pouch? I think he still has criminal charges against him
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/12/2009 9:29 Comments ||
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He sure does, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Honduran Congress refuse to waive those.
After all, let Mel go abroad and he's just going to cause trouble, no matter what he 'promises'. Better to grab him and try him (fairly, of course) to show that at least in Honduras, no man is above the law. There's a novel lesson in Latin America.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/12/2009 10:06 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] A new report reveals that Colombia's controversial 2008 cross-border attack on the Ecuadorian soil was made possible through intelligence provided by the US. A 130-page report released by the Ecuadorian government revealed on Thursday that the Colombian commandos relied on the US intelligence to attack an Encampment of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) base in Ecuador.
The cross-border attack resulted in the death of the rebel group's second-in-command, Raul Reyes, and 24 others.
The bombing, just inside Ecuador, unleashed a diplomatic uproar in the region, with Venezuela and Ecuador deploying thousands of troops to their respective borders with Colombia.
Quito decided to end its Manta cooperation agreement with Washington by denying it a renewal of the military base's lease. Ecuador's withdrawal from the deal led the US to sign an agreement with Colombia to base its troops in the Andean nation.
The accord has strongly been condemned by regional countries, which denounce the move as a provocative measure.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2009 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] Deposed Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya says that he would remain in the tin foil room at the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa until January 27, 2010 at the latest.
"However, I would like to leave as soon as possible, obviously with the support of the Brazilian government," Zelaya told Brazil's Globo television.
Zelaya exiled in a military-backed coup in June, secretly slipped back into Honduras in September and has remained at the heavily fortified Brazilian embassy ever since is absolutely aware that when his mandate ends, he will need to go elsewhere," said the Brazilian embassy's charge d'affaires Francisco Catunda.
On Thursday, Zelaya, who has steadfastly insisted he be returned to power, rejected a Mexican offer for safe passage that he said would require him to relinquish his claim to the presidency.
The chances of his return to power were eroded by a November 29 election that was recognized by a number of nations, including the United States, Brazil and Costa Rica.
The winner, Porfirio Lobo, is set to take office after Zelaya's term expires next month.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2009 00:00 ||
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North Korea on Thursday accepted the South's offer of H1N1 flu drugs. Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters the government made the offer to help it fight H1N1 flu through the liaison channel at the truce village of Panmunjom. "In response through the same channel, the North notified us of its acceptance of the offer."
It will be the first humanitarian aid to the North by the Lee Myung-bak administration.
At a session of the National Assembly's Committee on Budget and Accounts, Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said, "We're going to send North Korea enough doses of the antiviral drugs for 500,000 North Koreans."
The government will set aside this amount from its stockpile of drugs for about 5.9 million people. A ministry official said, "We're going to discuss the quantities and how to deliver them through liaison officers at Panmunjom."
Meanwhile, the government Thursday lowered the flu alert level by one notch as of Friday since the spread has slowed. Accordingly, the military revoked the furlough ban for soldiers imposed in an effort to prevent spread of the disease.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/12/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Which will promptly be hold for hard cash in China.
Posted by: ed ||
12/12/2009 10:05 Comments ||
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Optimist.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/12/2009 10:08 Comments ||
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EU carbon trade is a crime, and it is organized. BTW, Iowahawk has a nifty step by step article, with pictures, spreadsheets, the whole works, on how to make your own hockey stick graph of climate change. Check it out.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/12/2009 1:15 Comments ||
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We will look back at this some day as the biggest Ponzi scheme ever devised.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/12/2009 4:10 Comments ||
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This is what Carbon Trading looks like in the United States of America. The EU Eeeh You, Humbug!
#2
They should put them in an outdoor holding pen for 24 hours so they can get a taste of global warming in action. Temps are around freezing at the moment.
EU leaders ended a Brussels summit with a three-year deal to pay 7.2bn euros (£6.5bn; $10.6bn) to help poorer nations cope with climate change. The EU contribution is part of a global "fast start" package being debated at the UN Copenhagen summit. But leaders of poorer nations and some aid agencies described the sum offered by the EU as inadequate.
Groups representing poorer nations most at risk from climate change added their voices to the call for a bigger financial commitment. Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping, representing the G77 bloc of developing nations and China at the Copenhagen talks, accused EU leaders of acting like "climate sceptics".
"They are essentially saying that the problem does not exist," he told a news conference. "Their pledge does not address financing in its totality. We want to know where the money is coming from. Is it overseas development aid or not? When Gordon Brown says the cost of climate change will be irreparable, is he really being true?"
Dessima Williams, chairwoman of the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), said even the global sum on the table at Copenhagen was not enough.
"We just had a (Commonwealth) meeting in Trinidad where the figure of $10bn per year was put on the table and that was woefully inadequate," she said. "One cannot do sustainable development - making the transformations in energy for example - with such a small pot of money."
Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei was also sceptical.
"It will be relatively easy for developed countries to come up with a number for the short term for three years," he said. "But what shall we do after three years?"
Some aid groups said the EU pledges included funds from existing budgets. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose nation held the rotating EU presidency during the summit, acknowledged that the pledges were "a combination of new and old resources".
"Almost all of the money is likely to be simply a relabelling of existing aid commitments," said Anne-Catherine Claude, of ActionAid. "Many EU members have a track record of repackaging or re-announcing existing aid commitments. This appears to be the case here too."
Oxfam EU climate change adviser Tim Gore was also disappointed.
"In Brussels today, EU leaders only offered small sums of short-term cash. Worst of all, this money is not even new - it's made up of a recycling of past promises, and payments that have already been made," he added.
Announcing the deal at the Brussels summit, Mr Reinfeldt said all 27 EU member nations would contribute and that the EU was doing its "fair share". The UK was the largest contributor at £500m ($800m; 553m euros) a year followed by France and Germany.Eastern European countries, which had protested they were too poor to pay, have also made contributions although some are merely symbolic. Many, like Poland, say they are unable to give cash and have offered instead a percentage of the future sale of unused carbon credits. But diplomats admit there is no guarantee how many of those will be sold.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/12/2009 12:29 Comments ||
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EU leaders ended a Brussels summit with a three-year deal to pay 7.2bn euros (£6.5bn; $10.6bn) to help poorer nations cope with climate change fill the Cayman Islands bank accounts of UN apparatchiks, buy lots of new Toyota Land Cruisers (in white, please...and don't forget the leather upholstery and satellite radio) for NGO grandees, and undertake a Presidential Palace Improvement Program for Third World kleptocrats.
There. Fixed it.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
12/12/2009 12:50 Comments ||
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#3
I am sure that 0bama will promise to print up the rest...
Posted by: abu do you love ||
12/12/2009 1:03 Comments ||
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Many, like Poland, say they are unable to give cash and have offered instead a percentage of the future sale of unused carbon credits.
I wish I had something really clever or intelligent to say in response to the above quote. But all I can come up with is these people are living in fucking Bizzarro World.
WASHINGTON -- The federal government must continue to provide grant money to the national community organizing group Acorn, a federal court ruled Friday, saying that the House violated the Constitution when it passed a resolution barring the group from receiving federal dollars.
A judge at the United States District Court in Brooklyn issued a preliminary injunction that nullifies the resolution and requires the government to honor existing contracts with the group and review its applications for new grants unless the Obama administration appeals the decision.
The court ruled that the resolution amounted to a "bill of attainder," a legislative determination of guilt without trial, because it specifically punishes one group.
That provision plays a crucial, but rarely necessary, role in maintaining the balance of powers, said Eric M. Freedman, a professor of constitutional law at Hofstra Law School. "It says that the Congress may not act as judge, jury and executioner. That is precisely what the Congress sought to do in this case, and the district court was entirely right to enjoin it."
In the opinion, Judge Nina Gershon wrote of Acorn, "They have been singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding, in the absence of any judicial, or even administrative, process adjudicating guilt."
The Justice Department said it was still reviewing the ruling Friday night.
Judge Gershon's opinion made a point of separating the court's ruling from the controversy surrounding Acorn, which is short for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
The House acted after the organization came under fire for a series of embarrassing scandals, most notably the disclosure by conservative activists of videotape showing Acorn counselors giving mortgage advice to people posing as a pimp and a prostitute interested in setting up a brothel. Even before that, Republicans attacked the group, accusing it of voter registration fraud in 2008.
Jules Lobel, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the suit on behalf of Acorn, said the resolution was the first time Congress had ever singled out one group for punishment. "Whenever you challenge a statute of Congress, it's always a significant political battle," Mr. Lobel said.
The chief executive of Acorn, Bertha Lewis, issued a statement calling the ruling a victory for the group and "the citizens who work through Acorn to improve their communities and promote responsible lending and homeownership."
In a lawsuit filed last month, Acorn argued that it was penalized by Congress "without an investigation" and had been forced to cut programs that counsel struggling homeowners and to lay off workers.
#1
The court ruled that the resolution amounted to a "bill of attainder," a legislative determination of guilt without trial, because it specifically punishes one group.
Charles I is laughing in his grave. The royal judiciary has just taken back the power of the purse won in the English Civil War. There is no entitlement to the public treasury other than that determined by the legislative branch. It is not a bill of attainder taking money away as punishment, as in forfeiture, but the withholding of money that belongs to the people. The Founding Fathers would have impeached this judge before the week was out if this was attempted in their time.
#2
So it is legal for the government to turn the money spigot on but illegal to turn it off once it is turned on.
Look at this from the opposite perspective:
It is legal for government to take money from us to give to someone but illegal for them to let us keep our money once they have started taking it from us.
THAT right there is a telling commentary of the unsustainable idiotic philosophy of the left.
#3
interesting legal theory, that Congress cannot single out a group for punishment, but they can and often do single out a group for gain and benefit? Some are more equal than others?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe decries factionalism and urges his party members to unite in order to defeat its coalition partner MDC. 
WASHINGTON -- The federal government must continue to provide grant money to the national community organizing group Acorn, a federal court ruled Friday, saying that the House violated the Constitution when it passed a resolution barring the group from receiving federal dollars. 
That provision plays a crucial, but rarely necessary, role in maintaining the balance of powers, said Eric M. Freedman, a professor of constitutional law at Hofstra Law School. "It says that the Congress may not act as judge, jury and executioner. That is precisely what the Congress sought to do in this case, and the district court was entirely right to enjoin it."
The House acted after the organization came under fire for a series of embarrassing scandals, most notably the disclosure by conservative activists of videotape showing Acorn counselors giving mortgage advice to people posing as a pimp and a prostitute interested in setting up a brothel. Even before that, Republicans attacked the group, accusing it of voter registration fraud in 2008.
