Today, after twelve months of flooding, hundreds of affected families continue to live in the IDP’s (Internally Displaced Person) Relief camps i.e. Chawal Godam, Razziqabad, Musharf Colony and Urban City in Karachi.

These families are homeless and destitute due to the terrible flood of 2010 that broke the embankments of the Indus in Sindh. The floodwater rushed through their villages, sweeping away their homes, their possessions and their livelihoods. They came to the relief camps with only the clothes on their back.

Under their Disaster Management Program, Caritas Pakistan Karachi is actively involved in helping these families survive, by providing them with food hampers, hygienic kits, kitchen utensils, thatched shelters and mosquito nets.

The Livelihood Program coordinator, Mr. Mansha Noor, states that the main objective of the International Kitchen Gardening Day was to train IDP’s women in building their own small vegetable gardens for their self-consumption.

The facilitator said, “Through the Gardening Program we were able to empower the IDP’S women by teaching them to avoid the use of chemicals and grow organic food. The aim of the Kitchen Gardening International Day was to promote the production of healthy vegetables for self-consumption and eat chemical-free vegetable so as to improve the health and nutrition of those who cannot afford pricey basic commodities.”

In a message, Mr. Dominic Gill, Executive Secretary of Caritas Pakistan Karachi said that Caritas Karachi is working hard with flood victims to help them live with dignity and respect and help them go home. He said that it is a matter of survival for the affected families to eat healthy and nutritious food. Gardening at home will enable them to eat chemical free vegetables, which will improve their families’ health and nutrition as well as reduce their daily and monthly expenses.

On behalf of the IDP’s women, Ms. Haseena thanked Caritas Karachi and its Livelihood Program for their cooperation and support and celebrated the International Kitchen Gardening Day.

Last but not least Mr. Mansha Noor thanked Mr. Khuda Ganuj for his cooperation and support to successfully organize the International Kitchen Gardening Day Program with IDP’S women at the Relief Camp.

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Landmines continue to exact pain and loss of lives, mostly of children and civilians. In Afghanistan, for example, all deaths by landmines are on those under 18. In an attempt to eliminate forever the use of landmines, Handicap International calls for the universalization of the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty.

The Ottawa Treaty, officially known as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, intends to eliminate anti-personnel landmines around the world.

As of September 2011, there were 158 States Parties to the treaty and 38 states which are not party to it. Among the countries which have not signed the treaty are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (People’s Republic of China, Russia and the United States) and, among others, India, Israel and both Koreas, where landmines remain active in the Demilitarized Zone.

A party to the treaty must not only cease the production and development of anti-personnel mines, but must also destroy its stockpile within four years, although it may retain a small number of mines for training purposes. The treaty also calls on States Parties to provide assistance to mine-affected persons in their own country, and to assist other countries in meeting the Mine Ban Treaty obligations.

In its last annual report, recently released in Bangkok, Handicap International found that at least three States which are not party to that treaty used anti-personnel landmines in 2011. According to this organization, Libya, Burma and Israel used these weapons in 2011. Also, independent armed groups in Afghanistan, Colombia, Burma and Pakistan also used landmines between 2010 and 2011. Paul Vermeulen, Head of Advocacy and Institutional Relations at Handicap International calls the persistent use of landmines “unacceptable and extremely worrying.”

In addition to the countries still using landmines, other countries such as Belarus, Greece, Turkey and Ukraine have not yet met the deadline for destroying their stockpiles, in violation of the treaty. The Landmine Monitor 2011 reports that during this year there have been thousands of new victims of anti-personnel landmines. According to Handicap International, “79 countries and territories are still contaminated by these weapons.”

It is estimated that more than 500,000 survivors of accidents caused by landmines and unexploded remnants of war still need lifelong assistance, and the funds allocated for this provision fall short of meeting the victims’ needs. It is estimated that only 10 percent of funding is allocated to victims’ assistance.

There has been some progress, however. Since the treaty’s entry into force in March 1999, signatory nations have destroyed more than 44 million mines. In 2010, decontamination of mined land reached an unprecedented level: Almost 177 square miles of land were demined and more than 1.6 million unexploded remnants of war were destroyed, according to Landmine Monitor 2011. On December 2, 2009, Rwanda was declared free of landmines. On June 18, 2010, Nicaragua was also declared free of landmines and on June 14, 2011, Nepal became the second country to be landmine-free in Asia.

In addition to the treaty, there are two basic clauses of international humanitarian law that prohibit the use of landmines: the first, all means and methods that “fail to discriminate between those taking part in the fighting and those, such as civilians, who are not, the purpose being to protect the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian property,” and second, those means and methods that “cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.”

From November 28 to December 2, the 11th Meeting of States Parties to the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty will be held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, one of the most affected land-mine countries in the world. This meeting will be a special occasion to remind States of their obligations, particularly in terms of victims’ assistance. It will also be useful to remind people of the barbaric nature of the use of these mines.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.

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Increasingly, there are calls for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to release taxes Israel owes to Palestinians. Unless Netanyahu releases those funds, Israel runs the risk of confronting another Palestinian intifada, warn several international groups.

Taxation in the Palestinian territories is a complex issue. It may involve payment to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and/or Israel within the context of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. On other occasions before, Israel has withheld Palestinians taxes, in retaliation for actions by the Palestinians.

For example, in June 2008, Israel withheld taxes owed to the Palestinian Authority. This action was apparently taken as retaliation for what the Israeli government interpreted as Salam Fayyad’s (the PA Prime Minister) attempt to undermine relations between Israel and the European Union.

The more than $100 million now withheld by the Israeli government’s express its opposition to the Palestinian Authority’s policy of pursuing United Nations membership, renewing power-sharing with Hamas and as a “punishment” for the Palestinian Authority recent incorporation into UNESCO.

The transfer by the Israeli government of money to the Palestinian Authority is made up of custom duties, taxes on Palestinian purchases of Israeli goods and other taxes on Israeli fuel bought by the Palestinians. The money is critical to pay tens of thousands of people, among them the Palestinian Authority security forces who work on preventing attacks on Israelis and whose professionalism has won praise both from Israel and the United States.

Although Prime Minister Netanyahu has fully backed Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz on this move, in the past Defense Minister Ehud Barak had described this kind of delay as “capricious.” He indicated that these were Palestinian funds and that if the Israeli government refused to transfer those funds it was a violation of international agreements.

While other Israeli defense officials said that cutting funds to the Palestinians threatens’ Abba’s moderate Palestinian Authority, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that he vehemently opposes the release of Palestinian funds, and stated that Palestinians use the money from tax revenues to fund housing for terrorists. He also threatened to dismantle the governing coalition if the funds are released.

UN Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry warned the Security Council that freezing the transfer of Palestinian funds undermined the PA’s state-building gains and the security forces in charge of upholding law and order in the West Bank. According to Oussama Kanaan, the International Monetary Fund’s mission chief in the West Bank and Gaza, unless the transfer of funds proceeds normally before December 1, up to one million Palestinian workers would go unpaid.

In addition, in recent days, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and senior American officials urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to release the funds, as did Tony Blair, the representative of the Middle East peace quartet.

In a recent editorial, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz stated, “None of Netanyahu’ reasons are relevant or legitimate. The money is Palestinian money, and it must go to the Palestinians. The fact that Israel collects these funds is a technicality, and doesn’t justify acts of abuse and revenge. Concern for the Likud primaries and the struggle with Lieberman over right-wing votes are putting Israel’s national security at risk and making a third intifada more likely.”

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.

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In my life I have continuously interacted with two very different worlds… My work for instance takes me to scenarios highly varying from each other… times when surrounded by sober looking men with curly beards and angry eyes that are wrinkled on sides by continuous fierce gazes in a small village of Balochistan for a mobilization meeting of Sughar and times when women in skirts walk around talking to each other, even talking to men, sipping from hot black coffee talking about women status, women roles in politics and business in a meet-up at Washington DC.

The distinction in all this amazes me tremendously at times but yet the biggest time of amazement for me and my team is when at the very same time of the year one of these groups of people starts talking highly of the other but without notifying them exactly. I am talking about the international days of Human Rights, International Day for Women and yes the very times of coming 16 days of Activism on violence against women.

The irony of this situation is even humorous at times as those for whom the world fights for demanding their rights and their status, are not even aware of any such thing as a campaign against honor killings or Domestic Violence.

In Sughar Women Program, of Participatory Development Initiatives (PDI) our daily interaction is with the tribal communities of Pakistan towards providing socio-economic empowerment to women by women entrepreneurship to end violence in the name of honor. I remember our recent gathering with the women in a community where we shared about the coming 16 days of activism when activists would fight strongly on their case to rid them of violence and from injustice, and everyone merely shook their heads, knowing nothing about all this……This time, though we knew that something ought to be done, but with a very unique plan of action!

We have thus decided to bring for the first time, my two different worlds together! We are going to celebrate the coming 16 days of activism with the tribal women of Sindh and Balochistan and plan to take their voices to the global talk! We plan to do this by creating a small video (max 2 minutes) everyday for the 16 days, of a talk given by a tribal woman in the communities where we work, in which she talks directly to the activists, to the civil society and to the government demanding her rights and claiming her space in sphere of activism!

We at Sughar have recently partnered with Media Voice Films in Pakistan who have shown amazing skills in making films for social change! This group have dedicatedly took the responsibility of creating the videos while another partnership with Take Back the Tech in Pakistan and Bytes for All that focuse on digital advocacy are planning to help us get the videos across to millions of people in a day! We hope to build further the chain of collaborations to seek support in reaching out to more and more people who watch these videos and connect with the part of the world that has been far way for long!

We are really excitedly preparing for the coming 16 days of activism but more excited and proud are the women who plan to reach out to the world on behalf of all the other women in their community! Let their excitement and pride win by joining us in launching these videos every single day of the 16 days to your networks and groups of people you are connected with! Join us today on facebook to confirm your participation in this exciting plan to take local voices to the global talk!https://www.facebook.com/SugharWomen

What can you buy with $13 million? If you're Coca-Cola, you can buy enough influence with the National Parks Service to cancel plans to make the Grand Canyon more environmentally friendly.

Plastic water bottles are the biggest single source of garbage in America's most iconic national park. So the National Parks Service had a plan: ban the sale of plastic water bottles in the Grand Canyon and invest in refillable water stations instead. The park was just weeks from implementing the ban and then Coca Cola stepped in.

When a Change.org member who's dedicated himself to stopping plastic waste, saw that Coke forced the Grand Canyon to keep selling plastic water bottles, he started a petition to bring back the bottle ban.

Plastic bottle waste doesn't just harm the Grand Canyon. Bottles can get swept up by the Colorado River, which runs through the park, and then dumped into the ocean. Countless animals and environments are forever harmed by plastic waste that originates in the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon National Park wouldn't be the first to ban the sale of plastic water bottles. In 2008, Zion National Park in Utah banned plastic water bottles. The National Park Service even gave the park an environmental achievement award for eliminating 60,000 plastic bottles from the park in its first year.

Supporters of the ban fear that the National Park Service is becoming increasingly dependent on corporate donations as its budget shrinks, making our national parks vulnerable to pressure from companies like Coke.

It's important to show the National Park Service that people don't want Coca-Cola to call the shots in our nation's parks, especially when it comes to protecting the environment.

Please add your name to the petition calling on the National Park Service to reinstate the ban on selling plastic water bottles in the Grand Canyon by accessing the link below.

http://www.change.org/petitions/director-national-park-service-save-the-grand-canyon-from-coca-cola-ban-plastic-bottles-in-the-park

Thanks for being an awesome change-maker!

Change.org

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A widespread perception that Congress people respond increasingly to special interests has received additional support from a person who knows something about it. In a cynical interview with Lesley Stahl, from “60 minutes” Jack Abramoff, one of the most notorious lobbyists in recent times, explains the tactics that he used in dealing with people in Congress. In addition, he gives a chilling assessment of recent reforms intended to change this situation.

In 2011, it was estimated that there were over 13,000 registered federal lobbyists based in Washington, DC. They spend huge amounts of money on their work, up to $3.5 billion in 2010 according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Their competence as individuals, groups or corporations to lobby the government is protected by the right to petition clause in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

For his illegal activities, in 2006, Abramoff pleaded guilty to defrauding Indian tribes of tens of millions of dollars on issues associated with Indian gaming, and corruption of public officials, in a Washington, D.C., federal court. He served most of a six-year sentence after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy, honest services fraud, and tax evasion.

He was deft at influencing legislation, and one of his strategies was to make some Indian tribes make substantial campaign contributions to select members of Congress. In addition, Abramoff spent large sums of money providing congressmen with free flights to the world’s best golf destinations such as St. Andrews in Scotland. He also provided them with free meals at his upscale Washington restaurant Signatures, and the best tickets to all the area’s sporting events. He said that he spent a million dollars a year on those tickets and on different other venues.

When asked by Ms. Stahl if he could state how much it costs to corrupt a congressman, he answered, “I was actually thinking of writing a book –“The Idiot’s Guide to Buying a Congressman”- as a way to put this all down.

According to Abramoff, the best way to get a congressional office to be responsive to his demands was to offer a staffer a job that could triple his salary saying, “You know, when you are done working on the Hill, we’d very much like you to consider coming to work for us.” At that moment, said Abramoff, we owned them. They were going to do everything that he requested. Neil Volz, one of the staffers Abramoff was referring to said in that program, “Jack Abramoff could sweet talk a dog off a meat truck, that’s how persuasive he was.”

It is not a memory Abramoff now feels proud of. As he said, “Look. I did things and I was involved in the system I should not have been in. I’m ashamed of the fact that I was there, the very reason why now I am speaking about it. And now I am trying to do something, in recompense, is the fact that I thought it was – it was wrong of me to do it.

After these events, Congress passed what many consider the most sweeping new ethics rules since Watergate. Although the bill regulating lobbyists’ activities incorporated the Lobbying Transparency Act of 2006 legislation which governs lobbyists’ activities, some senators and a coalition of good-government groups stated that the bill was too weak. It is an opinion that Abramoff would certainly agree with.

Abramoff doesn’t believe in the least that these reforms are going to be effective. As he stated, “The reforms efforts continually are these faux-reform efforts where they’ll change, they’ll tweak the system. They’ll say, ‘you can have a meal with a congressman if they are standing up, not sitting down”.

For Abramoff, the system has not been cleaned up at all. As he said, “But the people who are actually in the system are the people who are making reforms. That is why he says that the most important measure to be taken is to prohibit members of Congress and their staff from ever becoming lobbyists in Washington.” According to the online disclosure site LegiStorm, 5,400 former congressional staffers and almost 400 former lawmakers have become lobbyists over the past decade.

When considering how to limit the power of lobbyists, former congressman Lee Hamilton, Director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University, wrote, “I’d even go further. I favor the radical steps of prohibiting members of Congress from accepting contributions from firms that lobby them, and banning lobbyists from contributing to members they lobby.”

In addition, Hamilton believes that Congress needs an institution, similar to the Congressional Budget Office, to give it “unbiased and unvarnished analysis of pending issues each week. But the last word on this is Abramoff’s, “If you make the choice to serve the public, public service, then serve the public, not yourself. When you’re done, go home. Washington is a dangerous place. Don’t hang around."

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.

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A new study based on the practical application of stem cell research offers hope for the treatment of heart disease. In addition, if the initial results of this study are confirmed, its findings can be applied for the treatment of several other serious diseases. In the study, heart failure patients who were given adult stem cells taken from their own bodies showed dramatic and lasting improvement of their condition.

Embryonic stem cells are cells that have the ability to divide for indefinite periods in culture, and to give rise to specialized cells (such as heart muscle cells, blood cells or nerve cells) under certain physiologic or experimental conditions. Adult stem cells, also called somatic stem cells, can be found in many organs and tissues in the body.

The study involved 16 patients, and used adult cardiac stem cells which had been collected from the patients’ hearts during coronary bypass surgery. The cells thus obtained were purified and prepared for infusing them back into the damaged tissue.

Although bone marrow stem cells --which are much easier to extract and prepare-- had been used in other studies to reverse the damage caused by heart attacks, they were not as effective as cardiac stem cells.

Fourteen patients in the study who showed a good response to the treatment had an increase in their heart blood-pumping capacity from 30.3 percent before the treatment to 38.5 percent afterward the treatment. Seven patients out of those 14 underwent also magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which showed that there was less dead heart muscle tissue one year after the treatment than before.

Dr. Roberto Bolli, director of cardiology at University of Louisville and lead author of the study published in The Lancet, considers this one of the biggest advances in cardiology in his lifetime. What is particularly important in this study is that the positive results are caused by the fact that it addressed the fundamental problem, replacing dead tissue with new cardiac muscle, according to Bolli. Seven control patients in the study who didn’t receive the stem cell treatment showed no improvement in their condition.

Dr. Bolli also indicated that this procedure may also benefit patients whose heart damage was up to three and a half years old. Another advantage of this procedure is that the quantity of cells need for the procedure - estimated in between one to two million - can be prepared from a heart biopsy, eliminating the need for surgery.

The cells obtained from biopsy can then be re-infused back into the heart through a catheter while the patient is awake. Another advantage of the use of adult stem cells is that they are less likely to be rejected by the immune system of the patient. This is a considerable benefit since immune rejection needs to be circumvented by immunosuppressive drugs which may cause serious side effects on the patients.

Mike Jones, who suffered a massive heart attack in 2004, and who was the first patient to receive this treatment in July 2009, stated that the procedure not only gave him more years to live but also a better quality of life.

Although there was considerable optimism with these results some experts expressed caution. One of them, Dr. Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, told the BBC that although these results were encouraging they still need to be confirmed in the final completed trial, and that it was still necessary to understand the mechanism that is producing the effect.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD), which includes hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke and congestive heart failure, has ranked as the number one cause of death since the early 1900s. It is estimated that approximately 2,600 Americans die of CVD each day. Given the aging of the population and the dramatic increases in other diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, CVD will increasingly become a serious health concern. In this context, the benefits of this new procedure should not be underestimated.

Cesar Chelala, MD, PhD, carried out research in molecular genetics at The Public Health Research Institute of the City of New York.

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The killing under torture in a maximum security prison in Cairo of Essam Ali Atta Ali, a 24-year-old Egyptian, raises concern on the role of the Egyptian military in the “New Egypt.” His death was likened to that of Khalid Said, who was beaten to death by the police in Alexandria last year. What Atta’s death show is that the same abuses that were perpetrated under former president Hosni Mubarak continue, and that true democracy and respect for people’s rights are still a long way off in Egypt.

Atta was arrested last February, convicted of “thuggery.” He was sentenced to two years in prison. According to the Interior Ministry, he was also carrying an unlicensed weapon. He is one of 12,000 cases who, according to human rights activists in the country, have been tried by military, instead of civilian, courts. In contrast, Mubarak and his cronies are being tried in civilian courts and their trials are expected to last for months or even years.

“The military justice system should never be used to investigate or prosecute civilians. Military courts are fundamentally unfair, as they deprive defendants of basic fair trial guarantees,” states Amnesty International. One may recall, in this regard, George Clemenceau’s statement that, “Military justice is to justice as military music is to music.”

What makes his case special, however, is that it proves that torture and assassination continue to be practiced in Egyptian jails. Atta was sodomized to death by prison guards who used hoses to inject water into his mouth and anus which produced profuse bleeding leading to his death. A statement from the military government attributed Atta’s death to “unknown poisoning” and said that prison guards tried to save him.

According to his father, however, after being tortured for more than an hour other prisoners pleaded with the prison guards to stop torturing him. When the guards stopped, he was transferred to Kasr El-Aini hospital where he died an hour later. After seeing Atta’s bloodied body for a short time at the morgue, where she was verbally abused by the guards, Aida Seif al-Dawla, an official at the El-Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, called Atta “the second Khalid Said”.

When the military adopted a calming behavior during the revolt in Tahrir Square many thought, or hoped, that this event signaled a change in the military’s policy towards its former associates. They also thought that the military was going to open the way for the creation of authentic democracy in Egypt. History shows, however, that once the military assume direct power, they only relinquish it by force or after a serious national crisis, as has been proved in Argentina, Chile and in many other countries worldwide.

The continued practice of torture in Egyptian jails is only one of many Tahrir activists’ complaints against the ruling military junta. Activists are concerned that the military would like to perpetuate their rule, either holding power for as long as possible or by opening the way for one of their own to become president.

Recently, several hundred posters appeared in Cairo and Alexandria, calling on Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to run for president, feeding people’s fears that the military may want to indefinitely remain in power. Two members of the military council recently stated that the military plans to retain full control of government after the election of Parliament begins in November and until a new president is elected, a process that could well extend into 2013 or even longer.

In the meantime, and following the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, the SCAF not only kept the state of emergency but has broadened the law’s mandate, including now “aggression against freedom to work, sabotaging factories and holding up transport, blocking roads and deliberately publishing false news, statements or rumors.” The law gives security forces wide powers of search, arrest and detention and shows the big divide between people’s demands and actions by the military, which in 2010 had promised that it would use the law only to combat terrorism and drug trafficking.

The evidence of systematic torture, expanding the reach of the emergency law and the military’s heavy hand in quelling civilian protests such as the one on October 9 in which 27 people –mostly Christians- were killed raises serious doubts about the military allowing peaceful dissent and allowing democracy in the country. Slowly, and surely, the Egyptian military is lifting its democratic mask.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.

Concurrently, Abbas Bayati, an Iraqi Member of Parliament and ally to al-Maliki, announced: “The government’s decision based on closing down Camp Ashraf is irrevocable and will be implemented; the United Nations and European Union have also been notified of it.” He said, “this organization has three options: either return to their country and benefit from the public amnesty law; or a third country hosts them; or else the government will separate the camp and disperse them in various provinces, treating them as individuals and not as an organization.”

Also on November 6th, a mullahs’ hireling identified as Wathiq Moussavi released a statement in the name of ‘Najaf office’ of mullah Mohammad Ali Gorgani saying as, “The PMOI in Ashraf are an infidel group. They should be annihilated completely and in an ultimate manner.” Gorgani is a mullah residing in Qom who supports Khamenei and has never had an office in Najaf.

Earlier on October 27, acting Iraqi Interior minister of Iraq said, “Ashraf will be closed at the end of the year and its residents will be dispersed throughout Iraq to facilitate sending them to Iran or other countries.” The Iranian regime’s foreign ministry had also informed on October 23rd of a seven-point agreement with the Iraqi government for closure of Ashraf.

All signs indicate that the Iranian regime and its Iraqi proxies are planning for an unprecedented massacre. Through stonewalling and obstructing measures, they are preventing the initiation of the UNHCR’s process to reconfirm Ashraf residents’ refugee status in a bid to set aside all barriers in the path of this massacre.

The residents of camp Ashraf urge the U.S. President, Secretary of State and other relevant American officials, along with the UN Security Council and Secretary-General and the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq regarding a predictable bloodbath, calling for their immediate action to expedite the beginning of Ashraf residents’ refugee status reconfirmation process and prevent a new humanitarian catastrophe.


Shahriar Kia is a spokesman for residents of Camp Ashraf and a political analyst educated in the United States, who currently resides in Ashraf, Iraq.

• Photograph by Flickr user Strange Luke and used under a creative commons license. •

In order to convince the Bedouin tribes, the government even sets up more difficulties on their already harsh way of living. The Bedouins are trapped between the urban settlements, the power cables and the roads and are not even able to reach their wells. This also makes it very difficult for them to have a sufficient agriculture.

Reasons for the government to relocate the Bedouin tribes are not only caring but also mostly political nature. One major reason would be expansion of the nearby settlement bloc. Another reason could be the fear of upsetting Arab-Jewish relations by letting the Bedouins stay in the desert area.

By enforcing the resettlement of the Bedouin tribes, the Israeli government authorities certainly interfere in the sphere of human rights of the Bedouin population.

This raises the following question: Is it even tolerable that a government is able to exercise political power to such an extent that it violates human dignity?

Two Israeli human rights organizations, the Public Committee Against Torture (PCAT) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) have released a report, Doctoring the Evidence, Abandoning the Victim, in which they claim that medical professionals in Israel fail to document and report injuries caused by the ill-treatment and torture of detainees by security personnel. The report states that the doctors’ behavior is a violation of their ethical code.

The report, based on 100 cases of Palestinian prisoners brought to PCAT since 2007, “reveals significant evidence arousing the suspicion that many doctors ignore the complaints of their patients; that they allow Israeli Security Agency interrogators to use torture; approve the use of forbidden interrogation methods and the ill-treatment of helpless detainees; and conceal information, thereby allowing total immunity for the torturers.”

Although the Israeli government denies torturing or ill-treating prisoners, included in the report are evidence of beatings, being held for long periods in stress positions, sleep deprivation and threats. In addition, doctors are accused of not keeping proper medical records of injuries caused during interrogations. In this regard, the report notes “countless cases wherein individuals testified to injuries inflicted upon them during detention or in interrogation, and yet the medical record from the hospital or the prison service makes no mention at all.”

The report deals with medical professionals who have witnessed, participated in or been in contact with prisoners who have been interrogated by the Shin Bet internal security service, which has often been accused of inflicting physical or psychological violence on Palestinian prisoners. Either through direct action or through their silence, medical professionals were complicit with what goes on in the interrogation places, says the report. It also says that medical staff in prisons “approves the use of forbidden interrogation methods and the ill-treatment of helpless detainees; and conceals information thereby allowing total impunity for the torturers.”

“Palestinian political prisoners and detainees incarcerated by Israel are subject to harsher pre-trial detention laws (e.g., lengthy prohibition on meeting with lawyers), interrogations and conditions of confinement than other prisoners and detainees held in Israel. In Israel Security Agency (ISA or shabak) facilities, testimonies taken by human rights organizations in past years indicate clear patterns of torture and/or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees,” stated in 2010 the Public committee against torture in Israel.

According to this committee, detainees being held in the Ashqelon, Jalameh, Petakh-Tikva and Moscobiya facilities are routinely subjected to inhuman and degrading detention treatment during their interrogation by the ISA. It is mainly Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians from the OPT who are detained and interrogated in these facilities. However, only the new report deals with medical personnel participation or acquiescence in torture.

“In Israel it is illegal to abuse inmates, including security prisoners,” stated Israel government’s spokesman Mark Regev. “Guidelines have been passed to the relevant authorities. If years ago the guidelines were not clear, they are today. And if there are allegations of wrongdoing against people in custody, they are investigated thoroughly,” he added.

However, the evidence cited in the new report by PCAT and PHR Israel, indicates that abuses continue. As Dr. Ishai Menuchin and Ran Cohen, Executive Directors of the PCAT and PHR Israel respectively state, “We are hopeful that this report will help the medical system change its ways and those of the doctors who ignore their ethical obligations. The world will be a better place if the doctors conduct themselves in a moral fashion.”

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.

Last week, the Michigan state Senate passed an anti-bullying bill, but minutes before they voted, Republican lawmakers inserted special language into the bill to create a huge loophole stating: Bullying done because of a "sincerely held religious or moral conviction" isn't covered by the law.

Rather than protecting students, the new law actually provides a road map that teaches kids how to bully -- and how to get away with it. This is outrageous. Students shouldn’t be bullied for who they are.

Some legislators are wavering in the face of public outrage, and Republican Speaker of the House Jase Bolger is now said to be considering a stronger, more comprehensive version of the bill, but we need your help to keep up the pressure.

Please sign the petition demanding the Michigan House of Representatives pass a comprehensive anti-bullying law that will actually protect students.

Thanks for being an awesome change-maker!

The 3rd i's Ninth Annual San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival starts tonight in San Francisco. Fans of Bollywood (I am raising my hand) will be able to see films through Sunday November 13. This is a great chance to see films on the big screen - including the historic Castro Theater - that rarely get a nationwide distribution in the US.

Here are my picks for the festival:

- Big in Bollywood: Roxie Theater on Wednesday 11/9 at 7:20 p.m.
- Patang (The Kite): Roxie Theater on Friday 11/11 at 7:20 p.m.
- I Am Sindhutai Sapkal (Mee Sindhutai Sapkal): Castro Theatre on Saturday 11/12 at 2:30 p.m.
- A Letter of Fire: Castro Theatre on Saturday 11/12 at 5:10 p.m.
- Delhi Belly: Castro Theatre on Saturday 11/12 at 9:15 p.m.
- Way of Life: Roxie Theater on Sunday 11/13 at 12:20 p.m.
- What is Time?: Little Roxie on Sunday 11/13 at 6:00 p.m.
- Pudhupettai: Roxie Theater on Sunday 11/13 at 7:20 p.m.

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute

Interest in high-speed rail (HSR) is growing around the world and the number of countries running these trains is expected to nearly double over the next few years, according to new research by the Worldwatch Institute for Vital Signs Online. By 2014, high-speed trains will be operating in nearly 24 countries, including China, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United States, up from only 14 countries today. The increase in HSR is due largely to its reliability and ability to cover vast geographic distances in a short time, to investments aimed at connecting once-isolated regions, and to the diminishing appeal of air travel, which is becoming more cumbersome because of security concerns.

The rise in HSR has been very rapid—in just three years, between January 2008 and January 2011, the operational fleet grew from 1,737 high-speed trainsets worldwide to 2,517. Two-thirds of this fleet is found in just five countries: France, China, Japan, Germany, and Spain. By 2014, the global fleet is expected to total more than 3,700 units.

Not only is HSR reliable, but it also can be more friendly than cars or airplanes. A 2006 comparison of greenhouse gas emissions by travel mode, released by the Center for Neighborhood Technologies, found that HSR lines in Europe and Japan released 30–70 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger-kilometer, versus 150 grams for automobiles and 170 grams for airplanes.

Although there is no universal speed definition for HSR, the threshold is typically set at 250 kilometers per hour on new tracks and 200 kilometers per hour on existing, upgraded tracks. The length of HSR tracks worldwide is undergoing explosive growth in order to meet increasing demand. Between 2009 and 2011, the total length of operational track has grown from some 10,700 kilometers to nearly 17,000 kilometers. Another 8,000 kilometers is currently under construction, and some 17,700 kilometers more is planned, for a combined total of close to 43,000 kilometers. That is equivalent to about 4 percent of all rail lines—passenger and freight—in the world today.

By track length, the current high-speed leaders are China, Japan, Spain, France, and Germany. Other countries are joining the high-speed league as well. Turkey has ambitious plans to reach 2,424 kilometers and surpass the length of Germany’s network. Italy, Portugal, and the United States all hope to reach track lengths of more than 1,000 kilometers. Another 15 countries have plans for shorter networks.

But in Europe, France continues to account for about half of all European high-speed rail travel. HSR reached an astounding 62 percent of the country’s passenger rail travel volume in 2008, up from just 23 percent in 1990, thanks to affordable ticket prices, an impressive network, and reliability. And in Japan, the Shinkansen trains are known for their exceedingly high degree of reliability. JR Central, the largest of the Japanese rail operating companies, reports that the average delay per high-speed train throughout a year is just half a minute. On all routes in Japan where both air and high-speed rail connections are available, rail has captured a 75 percent market share.

Further highlights from the research:

• A draft plan for French transportation infrastructure investments for the next two decades allocates 52 percent of a total of $236 billion to HSR.


• In 2005, the Spanish government announced an ambitious plan for some 10,000 kilometers of high-speed track by 2020, which would allow 90 percent of Spaniards to live within 50 kilometers of an HSR station.


• Currently, China is investing about $100 billion annually in railway construction. The share of the country’s railway infrastructure investment allocated to HSR has risen from less than 10 percent in 2005 to a stunning 60 percent in 2010.


• Intercity rail in Japan accounts for 18 percent of total domestic passenger-kilometers by all travel modes—compared with just 5 to 8 percent in major European countries and less than 1 percent in the United States.


• In France, rail’s market share of the Paris-Marseille route rose from 22 percent in 2001 (before the introduction of high-speed service) to 69 percent in 2006. In Spain, the Madrid-Seville rail route’s share rose from 33 to 84 percent.

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• Photograph by Flickr user Lars Plougmann and used under a creative commons license. •

Manes Feston is a Malayan mother who recently gave birth to triplets. Unfortunately, only her one son Feston survived but his siblings died shortly after she gave birth to them in a bush next to the road.

It was winter and Manes and her husband were far away from the next hospital. Moreover, they were a desperately poor family and therefore, they couldn’t afford extra blankets to keep the children warm and safe.

Manes and her family are not the only ones who are exposed to this cruel reality of life. The majority of the population is desperate for finding work and earning some money and that’s why many people end up in the informal economy or as seasonal workers. Given that in this small country in the Southern Africa region, social safety nets which provide health insurance, unemployment payments and financial support don’t exist for this invisible part of the economy, these people don’t have a choice but to watch their children die.

However, there is still hope. Several non-governmental organizations focus on the support of poor families in Africa by providing food and health supplies or financial aid. Furthermore, several aid programs came into being in order to deliver financial assistance and social support like the Decent Work Country Program in August 2011.

But can those independent and mostly voluntary non-profit organizations (NGOs) really help in eliminating these problems of the poorest of the poor in Malawi?

Hank Skinner is scheduled to die on November 9. But the state of Texas may execute him without even conducting DNA tests on all of the evidence from his trial, despite a decade of requests from Hank and his lawyers.

Hank has been on death row since 1995 for the murders of his girlfriend and her two adult sons, and has steadfastly professed his innocence. Since his conviction, the star witness against Hank has recanted her testimony, and others have implicated another man as the killer.

Hank has just days to live. His family created an organization called "Justice 4 Hank," and they're fighting for a DNA test for Hank. They started a petition on Change.org asking the Gray County District Attorney and the courts to order full DNA tests to determine if Hank is actually guilty -- and to prevent Texas from possibly executing an innocent man.

At the time of his trial, the prosecution conducted DNA tests on the clothes Hank was wearing -- but declined to test the rest of the physical evidence, including a rape kit, the murder weapons, several hairs clutched in the victim's hand, and a bloody windbreaker that strongly resembles that of the man accused by others of being the true murderer.
Since the year 2000, Hank has been requesting that the office of the District Attorney that prosecuted him order DNA tests on the remaining evidence. But the DA's office has continuously denied those requests, saying Hank should have requested the tests before his trial.

The Gray County District Attorney's office has neglected to order these tests for more than a decade without consequences. By signing this petition, you can let members of that office know that their actions are being watched, and that it is unacceptable to send a potentially innocent man to his death without collecting all the relevant evidence.

Hank could die as soon as next week. Please sign the Change.org petition created by "Justice 4 Hank" and demand the Gray County District Attorney order a DNA test on the rest of the evidence before the execution. Click here to add your name:
http://www.change.org/petitions/in-the-interest-of-justice-grant-dna-testing-to-hank-skinner

Thanks for being an awesome change-maker!

- The Change.org team

More than 5 months have passed since Iraqi forces last carried out a brutal attack against a refugee camp in Iraq housing 3,400 Iranian dissidents - 1,000 of which are women. That attack left 36 people dead, including 8 women, and 375 other men and women were left injured. The residents of this camp are Iranian exiles, members of the resistance movement struggling against the theocratic dictatorship ruling Iran.

For the past 2 years they have been living under siege. Iraqi forces, stationed in and around the camp, have exposed the residents to all sorts of restrictions and psychological pressures. At behest of the mullahs in Tehran, the Iraqi Prime Minister has announced he is going to shut down the camp by year’s end; which could only mean that another massacre is in the making.

Based on requests submitted by the residents - for reconfirmation of their status - UNHCR has announced that under international law, Camp Ashraf residents are protected persons; urging the Iraqi Prime Minister postpone his deadline, giving the legal process a chance to take its due course which might lead to a long-standing resolution of the crisis. The Iranian regime and the Iraqi PM, however, are hurling stones in the way of this process and have begun preparations for an upcoming assault.

Is the world going to stand idly by and watch another massacre perpetrated against defenseless residents in Camp Ashraf who have no means of protecting themselves?

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi leads the Iranian resistance. While attending an international conference in Brussels last Wednesday October 19 she reproached EU governments and the U.S. for their negligence in addressing the deadline set by the Iraqi government for closure of Camp Ashraf which may very well lead to another massacre. She warned that should Iraq’s disobedience and its evasion of international laws - in its effort to obliterate camp Ashraf residents - not be contained today, tomorrow would be too late. She also revealed that based on information obtained by the Iranian resistance, the government of Iraq, having received orders from the Iranian supreme leader, Khamenei, using the ultimatum for closure of Camp Ashraf as a pretext, is making preparations for another attack. As such, the Iraqi government hinders efforts by UN organs aimed at finding a solution for Camp Ashraf; including pressure exerted on UNHCR and its efforts in affording the residents legal status.

For nearly 2 years, the 300 loudspeakers, erected by notorious Qods force and the Iranian intelligence agency around the camp, have been used to blare insults and threats at the residents - specially targeting female residents - around the clock and every day of the week. The Qods force is the same organization implicated, recently, by the U.S. Department of Justice for its role in the plot to kill the Saudi ambassador as well as Americans.

The negligence and indifference exhibited by western governments towards an atrocity that looms ahead of us cannot be overlooked. The extensive political, military, and economic ties which exist between Iraq and western governments, gives them great leverage which could be used in obliging Iraq into respecting international laws. The time has come for the UN secretary general and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to expedite efforts for stationing a UN monitoring team in Camp Ashraf to help save the lives of 3,400 Iranian immigrants. They must call for annulment of the unjust ultimatum set with the sole aim of obliterating opponents of the main state sponsor of terrorism in the world.

The policy of appeasing the mullahs and turning a blind eye on terrorist activities by the Qods in Iraq, resulting in the death of many American soldiers, has only emboldened the terrorists to extend their operations to Washington D.C. It’s high time President Obama listen to calls from across the globe and warnings from Camp Ashraf’s defenseless residents. If not, what is bound to happen in Camp Ashraf will never be forgiven.

Asefeh Immami was only 6 months old when, due to her parents’ opposition to the mullahs and because her father was on the death row, she had to leave Iran, along with her family, and come to Camp Ashraf – now home to 3,400 Iranian dissidents in Iraq.

Christopher Johnson’s execution by the State of Alabama creates serious doubts about the justice of a measure that is widely criticized by human rights advocates throughout the world. According to the group Equal Justice Initiative, the Alabama Supreme Court planned the execution without even engaging in a meaningful review of the case.

Christopher Johnson was convicted of killing his son in 2005. Johnson’s attorneys claimed that he wasn’t guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. However, during the trial, Johnson asked the trial judge for permission to represent himself. Despite ample evidence that Johnson had a long history of mental illness, the judge allowed him to do so. Although during his detention Johnson showed destructive behavior associated with mental illness, the trial judge sentenced Mr. Johnson to death. He was executed on October 21, 2011.

There were several mitigating circumstances for Johnson’s behavior. He was sexually molested by an uncle from age seven to twelve; he started taking drugs at sixteen, and throughout his childhood he was placed in programs for children with severe behavioral problems. Death sentences imposed without consideration for mitigating circumstances are inherently unreliable, held the U.S. Supreme Court.

An even more egregious case is the execution of the mentally retarded. Such was the case of Milton Mathis, 32. Despite considerable body of evidence showing that Mathis was clearly retarded, the Supreme Court denied his appeal for clemency and he was executed in Texas last June 21st. He became the 470th individual put to death in Texas in modern times.

According to Amnesty International, executing the mentally ill –those who don’t understand the reasons for their punishment- violates the U.S. Constitution (Ford v. Wainwright, 1986). In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the common law rule that the “insane” cannot be executed.

In a 1986 opinion by Justice Thurgood Marshall, he reasoned that executing them didn’t serve any punitive goals and that Florida’s procedures for determining competency to stand trial were inadequate. After he was reevaluated, Alvin Bernard Ford was transferred to Florida State Hospital for treatment and found to be incompetent to be executed. There is widespread international criticism of the death penalty. Carlos Duguech, Director of the radio program Peace in the World in Argentina told me, “The death penalty is the failure of the social order, is the worst scourge that contaminates society.”

In reference to minors and the mentally ill, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions said that, “Governments that continue to use the death penalty with respect to minors and the mentally ill are particularly called upon to bring their domestic legislation into conformity with international legal standards.” And in 2000, the UN Commission on Human Rights urged all states that maintain the death penalty “not to impose it on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder; not to execute any such person.”

Since 1983, over 60 people with mental illness or retardation have been executed in the United States. A striking case was that of Viet Nam veteran Manny Babbitt. Because of his heroism during the war, he had been awarded a Purple Heart for his heroic behavior during the war. After returning from Vietnam, Babbitt’s life revolved around drugs, medications and mental institutions. He also suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He screamed for help, saying, “I am going to hurt somebody.”

During what seemed to be a burglary attempt, he struck a woman in the head and she died of a heart attack. The details of his crime seem to indicate that he had a flashback to his actions during the war. He wrapped his victim in a blanket and tagged her as if she were a captive soldier on the battlefield. Manny’s brother turned him into the police, and was promised counseling and support for his brother. Instead, he was tried by an all-white jury (Manny Babbitt was black) and was executed on May 4, 1999. After he was executed for his crime, he received a funeral with military honors.

The American Bar Association passed a 2006 resolution calling for the exemption of those with serious mental illness from imposition and execution of the death penalty. The National Association of Mental Health estimates that five to ten percent of those on death row have serious mental illness.

One of those in death row is Scott Panetti, convicted for the murder of his parents-in-law Joe and Amanda Alvarado on September 8, 1992, in Texas. He was sentenced to death in 1995, although he had a long history of mental illness. He was hospitalized, both voluntarily and involuntarily, for mental illness 14 times before his arrest for capital murder in 1992.

After his conviction, Sonia Alvarado, Panetti’s former wife and daughter of the victims filed a petition stating that he should have never been tried for his crimes, since he was suffering from paranoid delusions at the time of the killings. And Panetti’s mother said, “He did a terrible thing, but he was sick. Where is the compassion? Is this the best our society can do?”

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.

Juan E. Méndez is a well-known Argentinian human rights activist. His stellar life and career includes representing political prisoners, protecting migrant worker’s rights, enduring torture and administrative detention, being adopted by Amnesty International as a “Prisoner of Conscience,” and being expelled from Argentina.

Always one to share his knowledge to further the human rights cause, he has taught Human Rights Law at American University’s Washington College of Law, Georgetown Law School, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and University of Oxford.

So, it was only fitting for current American University colleagues, faculty, students and friends from far and wide to come together on October 26, 2011 to listen to him speak at an event titled Human Rights Defender: A Conversation with Professor Juan Mendez, as part of the American University’s Washington College of Law’s International Week’s Human Rights Defender Speaker Series and then to celebrate him later at a reception and book signing in honor of the recent book he wrote with Marjory Wentworth titled Taking A Stand: The Evolution of Human Rights, during which he was also presented with an award.

The event which was hosted at the Law School’s Dean’s Suite by Dean Claudio Grossman was the Washington DC stop of his book launch tour to promote the book. Some of what this very modest man with much empathy for the underserved shared with attendees is below.

The title of the book is Taking A Stand and the subtitle is The Evolution of Human Rights. I wrote the book as a reflection of the impact human rights has had on my life, to reflect not only on the growth, but also to acknowledge the challenges.

Mario Yacub, one of the 120 lawyers who disappeared in Argentina was one of the people who positively influenced me in my life and career. The late Emilio Mignone was also one of my human rights mentors in Argentina. His son in law, Mario del Carril, wrote his biography titled, La Vida de Emilio Mignone, "Justicia, Catolicisno y derechos Humanos." Through him I learnt what we as a society owe to the victims of human rights violations.

As we celebrate the transition to democracy, we must remember that things haven't always been this way and join in the struggle for institutional reform, which has progressed immensely to the point that organizations are now able to do what they couldn't previously, including people working on human rights reports in the middle of danger zones. Now this is standard procedure.

Bob Goldman was another source of inspiration and well-founded information to me, again in the area of how to fight impunity for human rights crimes, and also on how to apply the laws of war to all parties to an armed conflict. When writing the book, I drew on my personal experiences as a victim and my professional experiences as a lawyer and professor to show that there are lessons to be drawn from the past and that there parallels to current real life human rights situations.

The book is a way to illustrate and enable people to understand how far we've come to make the international human rights groups diverse in their composition, effective in their procedures to uncover outstanding occurrences for organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and sufficiently equipped with the ability to create effective policies and rules. The fact that they can do all these things now is an achievement.

I end the book on a note of hope and challenge because blatant offenses against human dignity like torture haven't disappeared, and subtle but equally brutal punishments such as solitary confinement are now being more broadly used. My book is a social reflection on how we as a global community can work to successfully forge ahead in the path of human rights.

Author’s Note: My personal view of the book is that it is a must have for anyone interested in human rights from a personal or professional perspective. To attest to the quality of the book’s content, copies were sold out at the reception. The book is available everywhere including www.amazon.com. Pick up your copy to learn about the work of this great human rights activist.

Read more on Juan E. Méndez at Wikipedia.

Imagine putting your ear right next to an industrial fan. Or imagine hearing a Formula 1 car circling your house. Or imagine a bunch of mosquitoes nesting on your eardrum. That’s kind of what Gaza sounds like right now. Even though you never know where they might strike next, I feel safe and unendangered, but I know that’s just my naivety popping in to say hello.

I’m mostly irritated. And frustrated at the gall of the IDF for punishing militants for a supposed crime that they haven’t yet committed, and their surprise that Gaza responded with rockets. Action and reaction- it’s basic physics.

And I’m sad for the ease with which over ten people were killed in one day. These days people die without even knowing why. Now, this does scare me.

With the heavy fist that is squashing our neighbours in Egypt and the constant menace from above, I suddenly realise how uncertain the future is. It is becoming a crazy world to live in.

Two days ago I was awoken by the loudest plane I’ve ever heard and, for a minute, I thought I was back in the UK and an aeroplane was passing overhead. It was an F-16, of course. I actually chuckled to myself when I imagined that, back home, I would have been woken up by chickens. Or heavy rain. Or the smell of homebaked bread.

Right now the drone is so low that they can probably see what I’m typing on my laptop (hi bitchezzz)

Life is bizarre and that’s all I have to say.

Unafraid. So bring it.