BBC NEWS

Two more Western reports say that international efforts are failing to make Afghanistan a stable state.
The Atlantic Council says that Nato is not winning in Afghanistan and Oxfam warns that the country faces a humanitarian disaster.

On Wednesday, the Afghan Study Group said more Nato troops were needed to take on the Taleban.
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Interview with Gustavo Moncayo

CARACAS, Jan 29 (IPS) - The hatred between Colombian guerrilla leaders and President Álvaro Uribe is a major factor hindering the search for an agreement to secure the release of the hostages taken by the insurgents, “peace walker” Gustavo Moncayo, whose son has spent 10 years in the hands of the insurgents, told IPS.

Moncayo said he was in favour of granting belligerent status to the guerrillas if that could contribute to the release of more than 40 hostages, and he advocated creating an international committee to monitor the situation of the captives, starting with their state of health.
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By Lionel Beehner - USA TODAY

Effective diplomacy doesn’t have to originate at the State Department. Scoff all you want, but celebrities have unique tools to change the world.

You might not see your favorite movie star on the red carpet this year, not with a writers’ strike showing little sign of abating. But your favorite celebrity just might show up in some far-flung conflict zone.
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By Tahir Qadiry

MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Jan 30 (IPS) - An Afghan court has sentenced a 23-year-old journalist to death for blasphemy, apparently after criticising the Prophet Mohammed’s views on women’s rights, and downloading and circulating material from the Internet.

Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, a reporter on the Jahan-e Now (The New World) daily newspaper and student of journalism at Balkh University, was arrested on Oct. 12 and charged with offending Islam and the Koran.
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By Rita Freire

Day of Global Action’s success is due to richness found within differences and to the real desire for a better world.

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

Ciranda interviews Roberto Sávio, from IPS Agency and member of the WSF International Council.

Ciranda: This time, the WSF seems to have taken a risky step when decided to bet on a global and decentralized action, which could even have been a non-forum if we consider last years’ mobilization difficulties. Do you think this was the right decision?
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Analysis by Alejandro Kirk*

SANTIAGO, Jan 29 (TerraViva/IPS) - Unlike the massive gatherings of past years, the World Social Forum’s “Global Day of Action” Saturday did not fill avenues around the world, nor did it make headlines in any major progressive media outlet, let alone mainstream ones.

Yet, to Cándido Grzybowski of Brazil, one of the most influential leaders of the movement, the initiative was successful because people in 72 countries were once again able to “reassert their citizenry".
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French Activists Fight Female Genital Mutilation

by Sylvia Poggioli *

January 26, 2008 · Female genital mutilation is an ancient rite practiced mostly in some sub-Saharan and North African countries. Many Muslims in that part of the world wrongly believe it’s dictated by Islam.

In recent decades, the practice has spread to immigrant communities in Europe.

Women activists in France have led the campaign in prosecuting those responsible for excisions performed on young girls, and the United Nations now considers the practice a human rights abuse.
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Analysis by Mario Osava

CAMPO GRANDE, Brazil, Jan 28 (IPS) - For many people, the World Social Forum (WSF)’s influence and effect is waning, perhaps because it has outpaced public opinion and the dominant political processes, but not the real needs of the times, which require complex and urgent solutions.
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Curveball: Reporter Bob Drogin on “Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War”

By AMY GOODMAN

We speak with Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin about his new book, Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War. It examines how a former Iraqi taxi driver helped build the Bush administration’s case for war by making false claims about Saddam Hussein’s alleged biological and chemical weapons programs. Bob Drogin, national security reporter for the Los Angeles Times and author of the book Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War.
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By Alejandro Kirk

The WSF didn’t produce the progressive wave in Latin America by itself; nevertheless, it would be difficult to imagine it without (the presence of) the WSF, says Cândido Grzybowski, director of iBase (Brazil) and member of the WSF’s International Committee.

What is the main political objective of the Global Day of Action, and how effective is it likely to be?
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‘Interview with Joao Pedro Stédile

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 24 (IPS) - Joao Pedro Stédile thinks that the World Social Forum (WSF) should remain a debating arena for civil society, because with all its breadth and variety, to attempt to agree on resolutions is “an illusion.”

The Brazilian landless movement activist is also in favour of holding the WSF every three years, instead of annually, he said in an interview with IPS correspondent Mario Osava.
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Laura Carlsen

It’s becoming a platitude to refer to Latin America as the region of hope, and from here in Mexico the perception is tempered by a reality that looks more ominous than hopeful. Throughout Latin America, attempts to build more just and peaceful societies have met with a thousand obstacles, both internal and external. But what has rightfully captured the attention of the world is that there are efforts at real change in the hemisphere. And “hope” is not defined by guaranteed success, but by belief in an animating vision.
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Interview with Aminata Dramane Traoré

BAMAKO, Jan 22 (IPS) - Aminata Dramane Traoré, one of the leaders of the anti-globalisation movement in Mali, reckons that the World Social Forum (WSF) is a representative movement that is essential to the common struggle of people oppressed by a “violent world economy” which often flouts fundamental rights.

Traoré – a writer and former minister of Culture in Mali – spoke with the IPS correspondent Almahady Cissé about international economic relationships and the future of the WSF.
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TRASFONDO

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”
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By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 22 (IPS) - The sharp decline in deaths among infants and children worldwide during the past century is “one of the great success stories in international public health", the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said Tuesday.

The annual number of child deaths has been halved, from roughly 20 million in 1960 to 9.7 million in 2006.
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Chico Whitaker

Dear Friends,

When I read the first question of the CACIM’s proposition to evaluate the WSF ("Is the World Social Forum approaching a point of crisis?"), without seeing who was asking the question, I thought immediately: all right, here we have again somebody for whom the WSF must “fold up its tent”.

Then I saw that it was Jai Sen who signed the text and I said: no, Jai is involved from the beginning in the WSF process, and I know he wants really to stimulate an “open debate, discussion, and serious thinking about the future of the Forum in general”. I decided then to bring to it my ideas, hoping my English will be understandable (propositions of corrections will be welcome…).
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By WARREN HOGE

UNITED NATIONS — Three years after the United Nations adopted a groundbreaking resolution to help it intervene to stop genocide, even longtime supporters of the rule acknowledge that it has not helped the organization end the violence in Darfur.

The General Assembly resolution, approved in 2005, held nations responsible for shielding their citizens from mass atrocities and established the right of international forces to step in if nations did not fulfill this new “responsibility to protect.”
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Interview with Boaventura de Sousa Santos

COIMBRA, Portugal, Jan 21 (IPS) - The movement against capitalism, injustice and oppression requires a strong convergence of social organisations that have fully accepted their differences, said sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos, who predicted serious future difficulties for World Social Forum (WSF) meetings.

Due to “the rise of militarism and paranoia over security, in future many activists will be prevented from travelling to other countries by being denied entry visas, because a new kind of criminalisation of social protest is under way,” he said in an interview with IPS correspondent Mario de Queiroz.
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M. Marcos Terena (*)

After 22 years of planning, struggle and hope, and crediting the perseverance of indigenous leaders, last September the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on Indigenous Rights. In spite of numerous obstacles, discrimination, and social alienation, this measure is a clear indication that the spirit of our ancestral communities retains a defence that the conquest was not able to annihilate.
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Interview with Philip Coyle from the Centre for Defence Information

PRAGUE, Jan 18 (IPS) - The U.S. project to enlarge its missile defence system to Eastern Europe is a wasteful enterprise that will make the world unstable, says Philip Coyle, senior advisor to the independent Centre for Defence Information in Washington, and expert on worldwide military research, defence and security policy.

Coyle also served as assistant secretary of defence and director of operational test and evaluation at the Pentagon during former U.S. president Bill Clinton’s tenure.
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IRIN

BEIRUT, 16 January 2008 (IRIN) - The attack on a US embassy vehicle on 15 January that killed three Lebanese represents a dangerous expansion of political violence in the country to include international targets, and shows that al-Qaeda-inspired extremists are attempting to push the politically deadlocked country towards civil war, said analysts.
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Zoltan Dujisin

PRAGUE, Jan 15 (TerraViva) - As another crucial civil society event approaches, questions are once more raised over the almost non-existent participation of civic actors from post-socialist Europe.

In line with the World Social Forum’s new approach of holding several simultaneous events around the world, many European countries have announced a myriad of actions for Jan 26, but east of Germany only Romania and the Czech Republic are shyly participating in the WSF’s “Global Action Day.”
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IRIN

HARARE, 15 January 2008 (IRIN) - HIV-infected women living in rural areas are finding it increasingly difficult to access life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) and tend to be more marginalised than those living in urban areas, non-governmental organisations say.

“Rural women who need ARVs find themselves in a quandary because levels of income for a rural household tend to be low,” said Tariro Kutadza, provincial coordinator of the Zimbabwe AIDS Network (ZAN) in the northern province of Mashonaland West.
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By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (IPS) - The Pentagon’s announcement here Tuesday that it is dispatching some 3,200 marines to Afghanistan underlines both Washington’s mounting concern about the strength of the Taliban insurgency and the growing sense here that the central front in its nearly six-and-a-half-year-old “war on terror” has moved back to its South Asian roots.
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Analysis by Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (IPS) - Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the Jan. 6 U.S.-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran’s military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows.
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By William Wallis

January 14 2008 19:59

For a brief moment, Kenyans seemed to have summoned the collective muscle necessary to hold their rulers to account. Across the country on December 27, they assembled peacefully and in record numbers to vote. As results came in from a parliamentary contest that ran alongside presidential polls, it transpired that a generation schooled in the post-colonial politics of patronage and graft was being shown the door.
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‘Interview with Abdul Tejan Cole, head of Sierra Leone’s Anti Corruption Commission (ACC)

FREETOWN, Jan 14 (IPS) - Since assuming office last September, Sierra Leone’s new president, Ernest Bai Koroma has publicly vowed to fight corruption. Koroma recently appointed Abdul Tejan Cole as the Anti Corruption Commissioner.

IPS Correspondent Wurie Bah spoke to Cole in Freetown about the challenges facing the commission in its fight against corruption in Sierra Leone:
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Brenda Norrell

Apache land owners on the Rio Grande told Homeland Security to halt the seizure of their lands for the U.S.-Mexico border wall on Jan. 7, 2008. It was the same day that a 30-day notice from Homeland Security expired with the threat of land seizures by eminent domain to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
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Interview with Abdul Tejan Cole, head of Sierra Leone’s Anti Corruption Commission (ACC)

FREETOWN, Jan 14 (IPS) - Since assuming office last September, Sierra Leone’s new president, Ernest Bai Koroma has publicly vowed to fight corruption. Koroma recently appointed Abdul Tejan Cole as the Anti Corruption Commissioner.
(more…)

Tom Barry

In the war of ideas over immigration, liberals are in disarray. Anti-immigration advocates have created the ideological frameworks—security, rule of law, nationalism—that now frame the raging immigration debate. Meanwhile, immigration advocates find that their own humanitarian, economic, and historical arguments supporting liberal immigration flows have little resonance in the public debate.
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By Paul Weinberg

TORONTO, Jan 11 (IPS) - As the Conservative government of Stephen Harper awaits a panel report on Canada’s military role in Afghanistan beyond February 2009, when the current mandate expires, there is widespread unease among analysts on both sides of the North American border that operational decisions are deep-sixing political goals and about the possibility of a widening conflict.
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BBC

Many African countries now have more doctors and nurses working in richer countries abroad than they have at home, research shows.

There has long been concern about the exodus of African medics, but the Human Resources for Health study suggests the problem may be greater than assumed.

Several countries, including Mozambique and Angola, have more doctors in one single foreign country than at home.
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Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (IPS) - Despite the official and media portrayal of the incident in the Strait of Hormuz early Monday morning as a serious threat to U.S. ships from Iranian speedboats that nearly resulted in a “battle at sea", new information over the past three days suggests that the incident did not involve such a threat and that no U.S. commander was on the verge of firing at the Iranian boats.
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By Mark Scott

Britain leads the EU’s bid to reconsider an energy source that can reduce oil dependence and emissions – but comes with baggage of its own.

In its search for ways of reducing carbon emissions, Britain is leaving no stone unturned. For the heavily polluting energy sector, that means taking another look at nuclear power, which will get a boost on Jan. 10 when the government is expected to greenlight the construction of Britain’s first nuclear power plants in almost 15 years.
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Interview with Roberto Savio, member of the International Committee of the World Social Forum

ROME, Jan 9 (IPS) - Roberto Savio is probably among the best informed insiders at the World Social Forum (WSF). He has been on its international committee since it was created in 2001, and since 2003 he has been coordinator of the ‘media, culture and counter-hegemony’ thematic area.

He founded the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency in 1964, as well as other news and information organisations, always with an emphasis on the developing world. He is now IPS President Emeritus. He is co-founder of Media Watch International, based in Paris, and Chairman of the Board of the Alliance for a New Humanity, a foundation promoting the culture of peace.
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By ANDREW C. REVKIN

January 8, 2008

The ancient frozen dome cloaking Greenland is so vast that pilots have crashed into what they thought was a cloud bank spanning the horizon. Flying over it, you can scarcely imagine that this ice could erode fast enough to dangerously raise sea levels any time soon.
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By Moe Yu May

RANGOON, Jan 8 (IPS) - Burma’s military leaders lived up to their reputation as repressive rulers on the day this country celebrated 60 years of independence from British rule. This erstwhile capital’s main road was closed for two hours on the morning of Jan. 4.

Elsewhere in this city of dilapidated colonial-era buildings, security officers in plain clothes and officials from townships were visible on the streets to monitor possible anti-junta protests. Near the Sule Pagoda road, where pro-democracy protestors had marched last September, members of the feared riot police stood guard.
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By Elles van Gelder

JOHANNESBURG and PLUMTREE, South-Western Zimbabwe, Jan 7 (IPS) - Sikhumbuzo* was only 18 when he left Zimbabwe for South Africa. He managed to find a job, and sends home close on 150 dollars a month in cash and goods – although he can’t say how many people he supports.
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SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH KENYAN NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE WANGARI MAATHAI

Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate and environmental activist Wangari Maathai served in President Kibaki’s government until 2005. She spoke to SPIEGEL about the outbreak of violence and the prospects for peace in Kenya.
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Herb Keinon ,

THE JERUSALEM POST

Jan. 3, 2008

While Israel won a four-decade battle in 2000 to get accepted into one of the UN’s regional groupings critical for full incorporation into the world body, only now is full integration into the UN system taking place as Israel is finally participating in regular deliberations of UN agencies dealing with the environment and human settlement.
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By Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Jan 4 (IPS) - A group of civil society activists has called for immediate boycott of Uzbek cotton produced by forced child labour.

Unlike other developing countries, they say, child labour in the cotton sector of Uzbekistan is not the result of poverty but of a coercion policy adopted by the central government.
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By Frances Williams in Geneva

Published: January 2 2008 20:11 The head of the United Nations refugee agency has accused the rich world of failing to respond adequately to the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, even as its multinationals “systematically loot” the country of its resources.

In an interview with the FT shortly after his return from the DRC, António Guterres, UN high commissioner for refugees, said western assistance came nowhere near meeting people’s needs in a vast country where continuing instability and widespread poverty had created one of the worst humanitarian situations in the world.
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By William Fisher

NEW YORK, Jan 2 (IPS) - The U.S. government’s spotty record in obtaining convictions of people charged with providing “material support” to terrorist organisations is adding new impetus to the efforts of prominent constitutional lawyers to seek substantial changes in the law.

The latest failure in a terrorism-financing prosecution came late in 2007, when a Texas jury failed to render any guilty verdicts in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), once the largest and most prominent charity dedicated to supporting Palestinian and other Muslim causes. Several HLF officials were charged with giving money to Hamas, the militant Palestinian organisation designated a terrorist group by the U.S. in 1995. The trial ended with a mix of acquittals and deadlocks.
(more…)

by Richard Moore *

Friends,

Up until December 3rd, it was very difficult to predict what might
happen in 2008. We had every sign that a nuclear attack was being
prepared for Iran. There was talk of the neocons declaring a national
emergency, suspending the Constitution, and cancelling the next
election. Basically, the neocons seemed to be out of control,
deranged almost, and we didn’t know what might be coming our way.
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Analysis by Constanza Vieira

CARACAS, Jan 2 (IPS) - - “Uribe, reflect, my brother, let’s work for peace,” said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez when the release of three hostages by Colombia’s FARC guerrillas was postponed over the New Year’s holidays.

In a chaotic New Year’s Eve press conference at the presidential palace in Caracas, under a starry sky filled with fireworks, the Venezuelan leader appealed to what speaks loudest to his Colombian counterpart, Álvaro Uribe: business.
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