Tag: Judith Klinghoffer

That is the question posed by many readers. Dan Smith deals with that subject in the 6th edition of the Atlas (p.22). Here are the differences of income between the poorest 20% of the population and the richest 20% in selected countries according to UNDP Human Development Report 1998:

Over 20 times: Brazil, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Panama

10 to 20 times: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Dominica, Guinea, Honduras, Kenya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Seychelles, South Africa, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

5 to 10 times: Algeria, Bolivia, China, Ecuador, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Jordan, Laos, Madagascar, Morocco, Niger, Singapore, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Uganda, Vietnam.

3 to 5 times: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.

Inequality in the US is greater than that in Europe but it soes not reach the proportions of the level of the countries listed above.
posted by Judith

this time by John Kay in the Financial Times. It’s well worth reading not the least because it includes the following paragraph:

The debate has become so polarized that it is more and more difficult to pick one’s way through it. The best recent short guide to the issues I know was published on the eve of the Gleneagles summit by the Economic Affairs Committee of Britain’s House of Lords. The report is balanced in approach and conclusions, and has therefore received little attention. The most trenchant paragraphs describe the ways in which politics, science and advocacy have become entwined. The voices of people who know how little we know are routinely drowned by those who claim to know far more than they or we do.

posted by Judith

Well, Now they advertize.

This is what happens when the West is divided and reformists blow it.

And these men wanted to be entrusted with nuclear feul, not to mention, nuclear weapons.
posted by Judith.

First, she refuses to forget about the brutal murder of Zahra Kazemi in the Iranian jail. Now she speaks out about the brutal hanging of the gay boys.

Bravo.

posted by Judith

Your blog is a wonderful resource, perhaps especially for straight neocons like me. I check in intermittently, but always with the expectation — nearly always satisfied — that I’ll learn something I didn’t know before.

But you do your readers a disservice by simply linking to the gay UK blog from which you apparently learned of these hangings last week. First, in doing so you risk allowing your readers to treat a crime against two gay youngsters as simply that: A very public and barbarous crime against two gay men. I’d be surprised if I’m the only opponent of the Iranian regime who has often felt that the feelings we’ve long maintained against it were longer in theory than in experience. Just for example, it’s one thing for the State Department to forever keep Iran tops on its list of sponsors of terror; it’s another thing altogether to witness so vividly the revolting impulses that animate this and every radical Muslim opponent of civilization.

Second, there’s a third photograph on the official Iranian website of the two young men moments before their deaths, being interviewed — yes, interviewed — presumably by somebody with official Iranian press credentials. This photograph, on a state-sanctioned website, of two clearly devastated human beings being hounded by a caricature of a Western-style press is among the most wretched and haunting images I’ve seen. Moreover, we see in this photograph not two young gay men, but two men, simply, facing death at the hands of a regime that, it turns out, is really quite deserving of civilized loathing.

That so few of us today truly hate the Iranian government — hate it reflexively and without reservation — speaks perhaps to the easy-going nature of our easy-going western lives. But please, let us never forget that while the Iranian regime is certainly anti-gay — and you are right to emphasize this truth — it is also, and even more significantly, anti-human. And this is the deeper truth to which the photographs of these young men’s deaths bear witness. Peter Greenman
posted by Judith

Andrew is kind enough to let me read your emails. Keep them coming. But if you wish to have your comment automatically posted and even debated, you can do so on my History News Network blog .
posted by Judith.

CAFTA needs to be ratified and we hear again about the danger of America losing more manufacturing jobs and getting stuck with only poorly paid service ones. So, it’s time to focus attention on some surprising statistics found in Dan Smith’s State of the World Atlas. It’s a highly recommended resource.

It has a chart comparing regional GDP per person of countries dominated by agriculture, industry and services (2000 of the latest available data). The numbers speak for themselves:

Africa: Tanzania-agriculture-$523. Niger-industry-$746. Kenya-services-$1022.

Central Am.: Nicaragua-industry-$2366. El Salvador-services-$4497.

East. Europe: Ukraine-agriculture-$3816. Macedonia-industry-$5086. Poland-services-$9051.

SE Asia: Indonesia-agriculture-$3043. Brunei-industry-$16779. Malaysia-services-$9068.

Brunei has few people and lots of oil.

posted by Judith

First comes the news that:

“Pope Benedict XVI will become the second pontiff in history to enter a synagogue when he visits his native Germany next month.

In a sign of his determination to mend fences with Judaism and other world religions, the Pope has announced that he will visit the Jewish place of worship in Cologne, which was destroyed by the Nazis but rebuilt after the Second World War.

Then comes the implication that Jewish blood is still different:

Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday deplored attacks in “countries including Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Britain”.

Israel said he had failed to mention a 12 July suicide bombing in Netanya that killed five Israelis.

The foreign ministry said it would be interpreted as “granting legitimacy to… terrorist attacks against Jews”.

posted by Judith.

1. Amnesty international warns that terrorists, sorry “armed groups”, “like other parties to the conflict in Iraq, are required to comply strictly with international law in all their acts and remain accountable for their actions.”

2. Last night former CIA agent Michael Scheuer told Jim Lehrer that he was tired of hearing Al Qaeda members described as haters. “They are not haters,” he said empathetically, “they are lovers . . . .” Jim stared. So Scheuer added: “of their religion.”

Now I know that any CIA agent can go native. Is that the reason the American and British intelligence services are so clueless when it comes to these Jihadists – they actually fell under their spell? Another case of the Cambridge five?

3. Bad Neo-cons (including Havel have the gall to rally to the cause of jailed ex-Revolutionary Guard, argues Paul Harris.

That’s only because Bush prefers a dead Ganji, answers Iranian Blogger Hossien Deraghshan. (Thanks Frieda for the info).
posted by Judith.

“Absolutely heartbreaking”is the correct description. Just look at these pictures and you will know what I mean.
posted by Judith.