The Taliban’s use of children as suicide bombers in Afghanistan is an egregious affront to humanity that should cease immediately, Human Rights Watch said today. In the latest incident, on August, 27, 2011, residents of Baharak district in northeastern Badakhshan province captured a 16-year-old wearing a suicide vest as he was on his way to blow up a local mosque.
Yesterday, the Taliban responded to the accusations from what they called "propaganda media outlets" in a statement on their English language "Voice of Jihad," denying the consistent and overwhelming evidence that they regularly recruit, coerce, force and trick children into blowing themselves up. The Taliban response is illuminating in several respects, from their delusionally euphemistic term "martyrdom-seeking operations of Mujahideen" in place of suicide bombers, to their stated reasons for not using children. They claim to not use children, not because it's revolting and inhuman, but because children are not tactically useful. The response reveals the Taliban's stunning lack of human empathy in that there is no wholesale rejection of the idea of children as collateral, a give-away that...More >>
Over the last week, as per the usual tradition, the news media are doing their reflective segments on the year during those days between Christmas and New Year’s Day. The personalities and pundits ask pensively what kind of a year we’ve had and what lies ahead.
The practice stretches back a long way. I have a copy of The Province newspaper published on December 31, 1937. New Year's Eve fell on a Friday that year and the newspaper cost 10 cents. The front page’s headline is “Britain and France Guardians Against Conflict”. Europe was on the brink of war, watching nervously the aggressive and unabashed expansion of fascist movements in Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan.
The article’s author, a one Pertinax, noted as a “Famous French Commentator on World Affairs” opens with the following musings on the now yellowed pages:
With the New Year’s almost here, let us pause for a moment for an accounting. In what condition do we find the world today? What progress toward peace or war has been made during the last twelve months?
One of the most outstanding tendencies we must note
The United Nations, the body founded in the wake of the Holocaust and the horrific consequences of unchecked fascism, has once again signalled just how far off its foundation it's slid over the last 60 years. In a resolution on extrajudicial, arbitrary and summary executions, a specific reference to sexual orientation has been dropped from the list of unjustified reasons for executions, after several Arab and African countries banded together in a bid to have the reference removed.
In effect, the United Nations, the world body mandated to uphold the universalism of human rights, will not be defending the rights of human beings not to be murdered by their governments on account of their sexual preferences-- not even on paper this time.
The amendment to remove "sexual orientation" was put forward by Mali and Morocco and hailed by African and Islamic member states, changing the wording of the 2008 resolution which explicitly mentioned sexual orientation. Thus, in 2010, we have a resolution that is weaker than its predecessor: it's regress instead of progress in the develoment of international...More >>
Over the last week, as per the usual tradition, the news media are doing their reflective segments on the year during those days between Christmas and New Year’s Day. The personalities and pundits ask pensively what kind of a year we’ve had and what lies ahead.
The United Nations, the body founded in the wake of the Holocaust and the horrific consequences of unchecked fascism, has once again signalled just how far off its foundation it's slid over the last 60 years. In a resolution on extrajudicial, arbitrary and summary executions, a specific reference to sexual orientation has been dropped from the list of unjustified reasons for executions, after several Arab and African countries banded together in a bid to have the reference removed.
