Argentina approved a gay marriage law early this morning, making the country the first in Latin America where same-sex couples can wed. Same sex couples will now be granted the same rights, responsibilities and protections that married couples have. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s government supported the bill and defied the Catholic Church’s opposition to the law.
For most Britons July 7, 2005 will be remembered as the day that al Qaeda terrorists attacked London. But five years on, no link has been established between the 7/7 bombers and al Qaeda. While it’s possible that two of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Sidique Khan, may have visited training camps in Pakistan and met with al Qaeda operatives there is no evidence of this.
Haiti during the World Cup is much like my hometown of New Orleans was during the Superbowl. Don’t try to make plans with anyone to do anything during a game. (In the more cash-rich New Orleans, the ban on non-game-related activity stretched back a day or two before a game, because there was food and alcohol to be purchased and a feast to be cooked.) I make the mistake of trying to go to a cell phone office during that time; employees sit hypnotized in front of the big-screen TV, unwilling to be distracted by clients.
By bringing together local women of different ethnicities in Kyrgyzstan to collaborate on rebuilding their communities, women are addressing the root causes of the violence in their region: years of unaddressed mistrust and separation among ethnic groups, as well as crumbling social infrastructure and welfare systems.
It has taken some years, but now the numbers are coming in and adding up. The ongoing so-called war terror in Afghanistan is openly revealing its imperial character as the US geological service proudly reports of fantastic mineral finds in Afghanistan. In June the BBC said that Afghanistan may have more than a trillion dollars worth of untapped mineral deposits (1). However this appears to be yesterday’s news, and critics, with eyebrows raised, have already started questioning the purpose and motivation for launching an apparently old news story.
As at any international gathering of public health specialists and women’s advocates, there was hope, hype, and a bit of hypocrisy when more than 3500 participants from 140 countries convened for the “Women Deliver 2010” conference in Washington, DC June 7 to 9. “We’re at a tipping point,” claimed Jill Sheffield, Founder and President of Women Deliver, an organization aimed at monitoring progress toward meeting specific Millennium Development Goals established by the United Nations for 2015.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019