By Geraldine Fagan Three young women from the Russian feminist art collective Pussy Riot were handed down two-year prison terms on 17 August for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” (Criminal Code, Article 213, Part 2). The three had performed a short “punk prayer” immediately in front of the iconostasis in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the [...]
Russia: Pussy Riot, Blasphemy And Freedom Of Religion Or Belief
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EU Wins Nobel Peace Prize: Farce Or Allergy? – OpEd
By Sergei Duz The European Union has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012. During the announcement, the Norwegian Noble Committee pointed to the “historical role played by the EU in uniting Europe”. “The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights [...]
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Eni Completes Sale Of 30% Minus One Share Of Snam To Cassa Depositi E Prestiti
Eni said Monday it has completed the sale of 1,013,619,522 shares of Snam S.p.A. (“Snam”), equal to a 30% minus one share of the voting share capital of the company, to Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (“CDP‘). CDP will pay a total consideration of approximately 3.517 billion euro, of which approximately 1.759 billion euro has been [...]
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The US Housing Market’s “Phantom Inventory” – OpEd
The housing market is getting better. It’s getting better all the time. Foreclosure activity is down, sales are picking up, shadow inventory is shrinking, and prices are rising for the first time since President Obama launched his First-time Homebuyer Credit program in 2009 which juiced the market for a couple of months before demand fizzled [...]
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Solheim And Prabhakaran – OpEd
By Sebastian Rasalingam Mr. Eric Solheim has used the book launch of BBC’s Frances Harrison to claim that he and the `international community’ offered an “organized end to the war which included the LTTE handing over weapons, registering LTTE caders and every single Tamil civilian supervised by international authorities and theUN, the US, India, etc.” [...]
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Syria Denies Cluster Bomb Allegations
By Henry Ridgwell The Syrian army Monday slammed Human Rights Watch allegations that in recent days it has begun widespread attacks using Russian-made, banned cluster bombs. “The Syrian army does not possess this kind of bomb,” the army said in a statement. “Such reports are baseless and a part of a disinformation campaign.” In a [...]
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Global Cyber War: New Flame-Linked Malware Detected
A new cyber espionage program linked to the notorious Flame and Gauss malware has been detected by Russia’s Kaspersky Lab. The anti-virus giant’s chief warns that global cyber warfare is in “full swing” and will probably escalate in 2013. The virus, dubbed miniFlame, and also known as SPE, has already infected computers in Iran, Lebanon, [...]
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Shielding Israel: Inter-Faith Dialogue, Anybody? – OpEd
By Stuart Littlewood I wonder if Abe Foxman and his mates ever read the Scottish poet Rabbie Burns… especially this verse from ‘To a Louse’ (1785): O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us It wad frae monie a blunder free us An’ foolish notion What airs in [...]
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First Arab Watch Report Chides Governments – Analysis
By Bernhard Schell Though legally bound by their respective constitutions to honour basic economic and social rights, Arab government usually violate such rights in practice, which partly explains the socio-political eruptions in the region, widely known as the Arab Spring. This is the upshot of the first Arab Watch Report by civil society organizations of [...]
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How Legalese Can Help Free Palestine – OpEd
By Matt Meyer What does it take to break a ‘crime of silence’? That was the stated purpose for Bertrand Russell’s original 1966 International War Crimes Tribunal on the Vietnam War, just as it was for last weekend’s New York session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine. Though some activists see such public reviews as [...]
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Ultras Force Indefinite Suspension Of Egyptian Soccer League – Analysis
A decision to indefinitely postpone the lifting of an eight-month ban on professional soccer in Egypt constitutes a milestone in an increasingly successful campaign by militant fans to root out corruption, force reform of the country’s hated security forces and ensure that senior officials responsible for the deaths of supporters and protesters are held accountable. [...]
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Can The Palestinian Authority Lead With Non-Violent Civil Disobedience? – OpEd
By Dawoud Abu Lebdeh Last month, large protests swept through major cities in the West Bank. In some places the demonstrations escalated into destruction of public property and a display of anarchy, while in others they were calm and collected. Peaceful or otherwise, the various demonstrations shared a common grievance: the economic policies of Prime [...]
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Memo To The President: Your Next Debate – OpEd
To: POTUS From: Robert Reich RE: Upcoming debate Your passive performance in the last debate was damaging because it reenforced the Republican claim that you’ve been too passive in getting jobs back and in responding to terrorism abroad. That doesn’t mean you have to “come out swinging” this time. You need to be yourself, and [...]
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Renewables For The Future Of Japanese Energy Security – OpEd
By Sheilagh MacFeeley Energy security in Japan had been based primarily on nuclear power, prior to the Great East Japanese Earthquake that took place on March 11th, 2011. Poor in resources, the island nation sought to diversify by becoming less reliant on fossil fuel imports, maintaining goals to drastically reduce emissions. Nuclear offered a way [...]
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China Nuclear Power Units Get Their Domes
China continues to progress with its construction of new nuclear power reactors. Within the space of a couple of weeks, the milestone of installing the dome of the reactor containment building has been achieved at two more units – Fuqing 3 and Changjiang 2. The reactor dome of unit 3 at the Fuqing nuclear power [...]
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Mercedes-Benz A-Class Receives Environmental Certificate
With fuel savings of up to 26 percent, emissions as low as 98 g CO2/km, a best-in-class Cd value of 0.27 and all petrol-engine variants complying with the Euro 6 emissions standard, the A-Class sets new benchmarks in efficiency. Its high environmental performance has now also been confirmed by the inspectors at the TÜV Süd [...]
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Ten Years After Bali: Rise Of The Darul Islam Super-Organism – Analysis
Ten years after the 2002 Bali bombings, the dominant “kinetic” approach to counter-terrorism in Indonesia has reached its limits. Fresh approaches are needed to deal with a constantly evolving and resilient super-organism of extremism. By Kumar Ramakrishna ON THE tenth anniversary of the suicide bombings in Bali on 12 October 2002 by Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists [...]
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Judging Putin – OpEd
It’s time for Russian president Vladimir Putin to get serious and shape up his own image. By William Dunkerley Fifty years ago, the Cuban Missile Crisis was the buzz-topic in America about Russia. Today, it’s the Pussy Riot, a group of exhibitionists who call themselves musicians fighting oppression. In the 1960s Americans fretted over Khrushchev [...]
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S5 Versus P5: The Rise Of The Small States? – Analysis
The Forum of Small States (FOSS) is emerging from its hitherto low profile at the United Nations in step with its growing influence. A related group called the “Small Five” (S5) is making a quiet but potentially significant impact on reforming the veto system enjoyed by the Permanent Five (P5). By Yang Razali Kassim ON [...]
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ASEAN At 45: A Case For Principled Realism – Analysis
Regional flare-ups over territorial sovereignty have placed ASEAN’s cohesion and solidarity under the spotlight. The ability of ASEAN to stay neutral in its own backyard is increasingly challenged by the clashing interests of big powers. ASEAN states should temper the pursuit of national interests with established principles. By Benjamin Ho ASEAN’S COHESIVENESS and capability were [...]
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