Behind a great man…

… Probably it is better to rephrase that.

Hillary Clinton announced, without big surprise, that she is running to the Presidency. This makes her the second woman that is trying to reach a G7 country Leadership (the other is Segolene Royal in France). If both win we will have a unique scenario. For the first time we will have 3 female leaders at G7 or 2 Female leader with the veto power at the Security Council of the U.N.

Will this change Politics? Is this the dream time of feminists? Is it good? Well I don’t have a straight answer for these questions. I don’t think that gender will influence the politic world and also I don’t think that they are prerequisite for being a leader. But this scenario shows us that some barriers are being broken. It is not a huge step but rather a small step to a more equalitarian and representative society.

Iraq's Absentee Government

The New York Times has an interesting article about the problem of the Iraqi Parliament members not showing up for sessions.
They're paid hansomly, with additional funds for security - and yet still do not bother to show up.

Some of Iraq’s more seasoned leaders say attendance has been undermined by a
widening sense of disillusionment about Parliament’s ability to improve Iraqis’
daily life. The country’s dominant issue, security, is almost exclusively the
policy realm of the American military and the office of the prime minister.

While a large part of the problems in Iraq are unquestionably security related - part of the problems might also be related to the fact that the Iraqis don't feel like they have control over their own government. Even the Iraqi government doesn't feel like it is in control. Maybe if the Parliament were allowed to make a difference the members would start taking it more seriously.

Moshe Katsev

Moshe Katsev the President of Israel is facing charges of Rape, and is being urged to resign rather than bring the office of President into disrepute.

America's image

According to BBC World Service poll, the global view of the United States’ role in world affairs is negative. This questionnaire was taken across 25 different countries (you can see it here).
Of the 25 countries only 3 countries (Philippines, Nigeria and Kenia) strongly think that USA influence in the world is mainly positive.
For me this is not surprising, but rather a confirmation of what i imagined.
With the recent disasters in terms of foreigner affairs, with Iraq as major example, USA proved these lasts years that it is not prepared to be in the position that it is now - the major, and probably only, super power in the world. I don't now if it is the responsibility of that role or if it the vanity of the name, but they failed completly.

DOOMSDAY CLOCK

ATOMICCRISIS AND CLIMATEENDANGERMENT: WORLD TO END IN 'FIVE MINUTES'
The Doomsday Clock a symbolic clock with which prominent scientists denounce how close we are to the ending of the world, is put two minutes closer to midnight.Its now five to twelve.Motives are the crisis surrounding nuclear programmes of North Korea an Iran and the changing of climate.Its the first time climate is reason to change the clock.
The Doomsday clock was established in 1947 when it was put at 7 minutes for twelve.Since then it is put forward and backward 18 times.Closest to midnight, 2 minutes, it was put in 1953 when the USA succeded a test of a hydrogen bomb.Farthest from midnight, 17 minutes, it was put in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.

London Eye

Having spent my first week in London (my debut experience in an Anglo-Saxon country), I had one of my best experiences in a foreigner country. And it was an experience that I won’t forget. The multi racial city that is London, the environment of freedom and sympathy of the people were overwhelming.

It was really good to feel this experience of (in my opinion) a true multi-cultural city, where more then pointing out the differences I felt that it only matter the human being for itself.

I don’t know if London is unique or if I only saw the best of the city and citizens. In a world where people judge easily others cultures I have to admit (and probably I am making the same mistake) that it is difficult to be in a city where freedom is more respected. And being this site about freedom (freedom of speech), I had to start my first post of 2007 with this little reference to this city.

Respect, not race

With the British National Party grabbing a few headlines at the moment, I thought that I'd offer my own take on the issue of nationality and citizenship as my first WoS post of 2007.

Coming from a pretty multicultural city, I’ve worked alongside people from across the world, some of whom I’ve considered good friends. Most of the time, when either bitching about work or sharing a drink, their ethnicity or their reasons for coming to Britain simply hasn’t struck me as important – a brief topic of conversation, at best.

In a desperate attempt to make my English degree mean something, I like to put this down to my love of reading. Bear with me. On my bookshelves sit cherished works by the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafka, and various other writers from a diverse range of backgrounds. If I’ve learnt only one thing from this esteemed collection of writers (and that’s quite possible) it’s that the character of a person is far more interesting and important than where they come from. Things like nationality or ethnicity don’t define someone, but their outlook on life can.

In his excellent essay on identity, ‘Citizens of the World’, K. Anthony Appiah tells us that one of the last pieces of advice his father left him was that, wherever he lived, he should try to leave it “better than you found it”. A perfect motto for the internationalist outlook. That’s what’s important to me: If someone respects their fellow citizens then, regardless of where they came from, I’m more than happy to live alongside them.

Greenpeace: profiteering from whaling too

According to the environment section of The Guardian, the environmental organisation Greenpeace have been making more money from whaling than Iceland. These claims were made by Captain Paul Watson, the co-founder of the Greenpeace Foundation and Greenpeace International.

Captain Watson flatly refused to attend last years Greenpeace office Christmas party, he argued that the Greenpeace campaign against whaling was really all about 'making whale "snuff flicks" and exploiting bleeding, suffering whales to wring out every emotional dollar it could from the public'.

Greenpeace have indeed made boatloads of money from weeping over whaling, $103m (£53m) according to The Guardian - and for what? For sailing two ships to the Antarctica in 2005, taking a few photos and holding up a couple of banners?

In defence of immigration

Most people these days (even in Britain) seem to accept that immigrants make great contributions culturally, politically and economically to the nation they migrate to. Even the critics of Britain's current open-door policy find it difficult to dismiss the benefits gained from the current wave of immigrants from Eastern Europe - except, Migrationwatch that is.

Having said that, the chairman of Migrationwatch, Sir Andrew Green, actually conceded that of 'course many immigrants make a useful contribution to the economy but, taken in total, the economic benefit is at best marginal'. The fact that the host nation and the immigrants themselves both benefit seems to be lost somewhere in translation. Indeed, it is left to the astute blogger, Tim Worstall, who kindly reminds us all that such benefits is normally known as 'Pareto improvement'.

Who needs the British National Party when we've got Migrationwatch?

Saddam Hussein's Execution

You can watch the complete video of Saddam’s execution here. And by complete I do mean that you can watch the actual hanging.

I’m posting this because I believe that if a society allows it to happen, they should be able to watch it.

Christmas Whish List

This is a time for people to ask for presents. I don’t believe in Santa Claus but to be safe I will write him the following letter:

"Dear Santa Claus,

I don’t know if I was good this year so I don’t ask you much. Well I won’t ask you big presents like a winner lottery ticket, a house, a car, an Ipod or the new Playstation3. No, this year I just want to hear some words from some particular persons. This are the phrases that I want to hear:

From George W. Bush: “I quit!!!”
From Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “I have just cancelled all the nuclear projects to create a nuclear bomb”
From suicide bombers: “Not today, not tomorrow, and not ever!”
From Palestine Authorities: “We will live in peace”
From Israel Authorities: “We will live in peace”
From Ben Laden: “What I did was wrong”
From all countries in the world: “We won’t break the obligations of the charter of the UN”
From the G7 Leaders: “We forgive the undeveloped countries debt”

Well, Santa Claus, for now it is what I remember (if I know anymore I will write you again).

I don’t think it is much. Do you?

Best Regards,

Stran"

[Final Note: I will take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas! I hope that everything you wish will come true!]

An help on Freedom of Speech

[Note: if you find this product important please link or send this post or advertise the content of it]

I never thought of talking on this site about a product, but I think this one can make a change on the use of Internet in countries that have censorship. On the 1st of December it was release the Psiphon software. This software is a "censorship circumvention solution that allows users to access blocked sites in countries where the Internet is censored. Psiphon turns a regular home computer into a personal, encrypted server capable of retrieving and displaying web pages anywhere.
Psiphon operates through networks of trust. There are Psiphon providers who install and administer a Psiphon server (psiphonode) in an uncensored country, and Psiphon users (psiphonites) who log in and access the server from a country that censors the Internet". (taken from here).

You can download this software for free from the Psiphon site (click here). The idea is that the Psiphon providers will have a secure URL that Psiphon users can use when navigating the web. This URL is only given by the providers to persons that they want by the process of social networking (emails, posting on blogs, etc...). Since I am not a Web software expert I urge you to go to the site to know more (they have a good explanation on their FAQ which is in English, Spanish and Chinese) .

I already downloaded it and I am currently still learning how to use it. I know that for now probably it will be easy for the countries that have censorship to single out this addresses and find who is using it (i am not completely sure about this statement) but in the future if there is a massive existence of Psiphon providers it will be eventually impossible for authorities to single out and block this URL's.

I don't know if I am being too optimistic but I really think that we can make a difference by using this software and contribute to reinforce the freedom of speech and the free use of the Web.
Sometimes a little effort can make a huge difference, I hope that this will be the case.

Poverty: what is to be done?

The Conservative press consultant Ellee Seymour, provides a good piece on what poverty is like in her neck of the woods, Norfolk, England.

As to the question of 'what is to be done'? It seems that many on the right in Britain haven't got the faintest idea. I argued that rapid and unprecedented economic growth should do the trick for the worst off in our society.

However, in the comments section, I thought it was rather worrying, that even amongst some Tories', who are normally pro-economic growth - there was a palatable air of disdain about the notion of rapid economic growth - what seems to me to be an obvious answer to poverty.

Christianophobia

When cartoons depicting Islam in an unfavourable light were published by a Danish newspaper there were calls for censorship, bomb threats, death threats and Danish embassies set on fire - as far as I recall, there was little response from the non-Muslim Danish public.

However, when a small Christian congregation tries to get a few squatters evicted from their building there's a 1000-strong protest involving clashes with the police.

TIME's Person of the Year 2006

First of all congratulations to us, net users!!!

Taken from Time (to see the complete article click here)

"(...)But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It's not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it's really a revolution.

And we are so ready for it. We're ready to balance our diet of predigested news with raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing. You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television.

And we didn't just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open-source software.

America loves its solitary geniuses—its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses—but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user-created Linux. We're looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it's just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy.

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you. (...)"

The Future of European Union

Today is the final day a summit of the leaders of EU in Brussels. Many issues were debated and the most important ones were the enlargement of EU, the reform of EU and EU constitution. Of course the most mediatic topic was the Turkey's application. It was decided to slowdown this process. To the others aspiring members the message was dubious: "We understand the need to combine the strategic vision of enlargement with the capacity of integration of the European Union" said Jose Manuel Barroso, Commission President (Taken from here)

In my opinion this constant indecision about the enlargement of EU is affecting all the processes inside the EU. In the past 5 years the main focus was in integrating new countries in the Union and we totally abandon the reinforcement of the internal relations and institutions. There were "injuries" that didn't heal and there were no effort in doing that.

There is still no common voice in foreigner affairs (the Iraqi crisis was a good image of that) and most of the population of the countries inside the Union still have a negative image of the politics of the Union (the politicians are guilty for this because they used the excuse of EU rules to implement unpopular politics).

We need to have clearer goals for the Union, so for me the future of this Union passes through this definition before more countries enter it.

I am a strong Federalist supporter, can this be future?
Well, I hope so!

Zimbabwe

Middle Classes Tooling up

First Post is reporting that the middle classes are quietly arming themselves with a variety of weaponary easily available on main land europe. A Smith & Wesson being far more effective than an ASBO unquote.


Its hardly surprising, the Police are largely in effective against crime, and where as I once I would have intervened in street disturbances, there is no way that I would contemplate doing so, as the chances of getting stabbed a really quite high, and the probability of getting shot in Bristol is also quite high. CCTV has not reduced crime, merely displaced it to the suburbs.


I feel I am entitled to defend my home and family by whatever means are available, sadly the Law does not agree. If the State is failing to protect the Citizen, the Citizen is entitled to protect himself.

EU-Turkish talks in balance as crunch week begins

[Taken from Reuters by Mark John]

"BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU foreign ministers met on Monday for crucial talks on how to penalize Turkey for failing to normalize trade with Cyprus at the start of a week that could derail Ankara's troubled entry negotiations with the bloc.

EU capitals are split between those who would shed no tears if talks with the large, mainly Muslim nation collapsed, and others who say Europe must embrace a strategic partner to bridge the Western and Islamic worlds and secure a future energy hub.

Even before the meeting started, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said positions were too far apart for agreement to be reached on Monday, raising the specter of a crisis summit of the 25-nation bloc on Turkey from Thursday.

But he told German ARD television: "I am very confident that there will be an agreement at the end of this week."(...)"

ID Cards

The Telegraph is reporting a youGov poll that there is is significant opposition to the intrduction of ID cards.70% of the 50% opposed said it was on priciple. There is no logical evidence that ID cards would prevent terrorism, home grown terrorists would be entitled to one anyway, and what is man made can be replicated, as the BBC programme 'my passports and I will show'. For all the pretence of combatting terrorism, the proposed introduction of ID cards is largely seen for what it is, another attempt by government to take control over our private lives.

GUTHRUM