Month: January 2009
You are being lied to about pirates
Source: The Independent
Some are clearly just gangsters. But others are trying to stop illegal dumping and trawling.
Who imagined that in 2009, the world’s governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy – backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China – is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labelling as "one of the great menaces of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell – and some justice on their side.
Unfinished Tasks for the President of Europe
On December 30, the last working day of the French Presidency of the 27-member European Union, the Foreign Ministers met in Paris to analyse the conflict in Gaza and to propose a cease-fire. President Nicolas Sarkozy is now on his way to the Middle East to talk with the officials of Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Israel about such a cease-fire and follow-up negotiations. Nicolas Sarkozy
Stop Bombing Gaza: Video of NYC Protest
Stop bombing Gaza demonstration in New York City, December 30th 2008 in front of the Israel consulate. Held in solidarity with demonstrations all over the world.Photo: Stanley W. Rogouski
Peak Soil
Oil is what most of us think of as a strategic resource, yet in the long run it is soil which is the more important. Even so, people's eyes tend to glaze over when talk turns to soil conservation, maybe because it's so much easier to see the immediate relevance of rising gas prices and climate change in these days of peak oil.Photo: Andrew Kokotka