AVAAZ: The people vs recession

I just copy and paste the E- Mail for you to read

Dear friends,  The global recession has already plunged over 100 million people back into poverty and unemployment -- but this week, we could turn the tide of economic destruction. Right now, French President Sarkozy, the new chair of the G20 group of the world's largest economies, is deciding the group's agenda. Over 300 top economists have urged the G20 to launch a coordinated global investment plan that saves millions from grinding hardship. But governments are doing the opposite - going it alone, slashing spending, and blaming each other. President Sarkozy often seizes opportunities for dramatic popular action -- a massive outcry to him this week can persuade him to lead. Former UK PM Gordon Brown has urgently appealed to Avaaz to act - click below to watch his appeal, forward this email, and sign the petition for a Jobs and Justice plan, to be personally delivered to Sarkozy when we reach 500,000 voices: http://www.avaaz.org/en/global_economy_gb_video_2/?vl The global recession has already put 34 million people out of work and thrown 60 million people back into poverty, but governments across the world are doing exactly the wrong thing: proposing deep cuts to public services, implementing protectionist policies and reducing global development assistance – plans that destroy still more livelihoods and threaten our social fabric. This is a familiar story: in the 1930s, amidst the Great Depression, governments sought to "reassure the markets" by slashing services and balancing budgets. But this backfired entirely: the cuts shut more and more of their citizens out of the economy, which only made the economic crisis worse. It's precisely when the markets are failing that governments must step in together to fill the gap. We have already lost a great deal of ground, but it's not too late. The discredited economists who spurred the old bubble economy are giving way to a new wave of fresh thinkers -- including, surprisingly, the powerful International Monetary Fund, which is finally questioning its past insistence that countries in crisis cut their budgets. Brown and other prominent figures are making the rounds to world leaders to encourage this global plan. But they are the first to say that they need a mass movement to make it happen. Let's raise our voices now for leadership to create jobs and protect citizens from poverty: http://www.avaaz.org/en/global_economy_gb_video_2/?vl Economic collapses can threaten everything we care about. When countries turn inwards, they abandon cooperation on issues like climate change, fighting global poverty and nuclear disarmament. They blame each other and groups of their own citizens -- leading to xenophobia, conflict and, as in the 1930s, the rise of awful political movements like fascism. But cooperation can build success upon success: as we recognize that our destinies are interlinked, a joint recovery can pave the way to the world we all believe in. Let's seize this moment to raise a cry for that greater vision -- of an economy that lifts us all towards a brighter future. With hope, Ben, Stephanie, Ricken, Alex, Paula, Maria Paz, Alice and the rest of the Avaaz team P.S. Winning a global economic revival will take time. But this moment, when the G20 is deciding its priorities, is a pivotal chance to make a difference. Join the call for a global jobs recovery here: http://www.avaaz.org/en/global_economy_gb_video_2/?vl More information: The Challenges of Growth, Employment and Social Cohesion - Joint ILO-IMF Conference in Cooperation with the Office of the Prime Minister of Norway: http://www.osloconference2010.org/conference Analysis: Sarkozy to press currencies role for G20: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6850VN20100906 G20 urged to implement commitment to jobs, social protection: http://finchannel.com/Main_News/Jobs/75493_G20_urged_to_implement_commitment_to_jobs,_ The wrong cure. What experts say: http://falseeconomy.org.uk/cure/what-do-the-experts-say The Economy: Why They Failed http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/dec/09/economy-why-they-failed/?pagination=false

They send a video as well where the former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown sends an urgent message, recorded in Bhalswa slum in Delhi, India. At this moment  85.067 have signed. The goal is to get to 100.000

With over 100 million thrown back into poverty and unemployment, experts agree we urgently need a global jobs plan to stop the recession. Gordon Brown has appealed to Avaaz for a massive outcry to persuade the G20 group of nations to act -

This is the petition:

To President Nicolas Sarkozy and the leaders of G20 nations:

We call upon you to cooperate on a bold plan for global sustainable economic recovery, focusing on green job creation and investment in the future. Cooperative global leadership is necessary to prevent a downward economic spiral and lift tens of millions of people out of poverty.

NUTRITION LABELS GIVE BRUSSELS INDIGESTION // Financial Times

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At a recent lunch debate in Brussels, the question of the day for assembled pundits was this: How many servings does a bag of biscuits contain?

That question lies at the heart of one of the fiercest debates in Brussels these days – over the creation of a new Europe-wide system of nutrition labels for food. A proposal to reshape the system for the first time in more than a decade faces a key vote in the European parliament on Tuesday.

The debate may not carry the weight of the Greek debt crisis, which could re-shape the European Union. Nor does it have the urgency of the Copenhagen climate talks.
  But nutrition labels would represent one of the most visible and enduring consumer measures by a bureaucracy generally dismissed by its subjects as remote and unintelligible. The fight is also a reminder of Brussels’ complicated love of labels. In the last year, the EU has considered new labels for energy efficiency, tyres, and organic produce. New labels to denote heritage sites are in the works.

To politicians, labelling schemes offer a simple response to the regulatory challenges of an increasingly confusing and uncertain world. Yet they tend to carry unintended consequences that make their implementation agonising.

The recent overhaul of energy efficiency labels is a case in point. It was held up for months amid fights over such questions as what shade of green to use on a colour spectrum, and whether to keep the existing “A to G” efficiency scale or broaden it with new “A+”, “A++”, and “A+++” designations. Companies such as Siemens demanded the pluses so that the next generation of appliances would not relegate today’s refrigerators and toasters to “B” or even “C” status. They hired lobbyists and public relations firms to make their case.

Yet the passions unleashed by energy efficiency pale in comparison to the battle over nutrition labels, which were drafted with the salutary goal of giving Europe’s increasingly obese and diabetes-afflicted consumers a quick and easy way to understand what they are eating.

They have since descended into a wrestling match between industry, politicians and consumer groups about the proper font size and location on a package, what information labels should include, and how far they should go in terms of interpreting nutritional information.

“It’s become a free-for-all,” said one operative from the CIAA, a food industry trade group that includes such members as Coca-Cola and Nestlé. BEUC, a European consumer organisation, has called for colour-coded icons – red, amber and green – on the front of each package to inform consumers how much fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt it contains per 100g.

Predictably, most food companies, who would rather greet shoppers with an appealing logo than a health warning, want to relegate all but the number of calories per serving to the fine print on the back of the package. The mere mention of so-called traffic lights gives them indigestion.

“Are you going to put a red light on panettone in the Christmas season?” expostulated one Italian food executive, touching on the inherent sensitivity of developing a system for a 27-nation bloc with diverse eating cultures.

Yet the essential question in the debate is what constitutes a serving? While it may be easy to determine with a can of soda or a ready-made meal, it is less obvious for, say, a packet of biscuits. Depending on how it is measured, of course, a portion makes all the difference between a responsible snack and a red light. “It certainly should be possible by one means or another to come up with an agreed portion size,” Geoff Thompson, a Danone executive, said recently.

But industry has squandered its credibility after tricks such as presenting a 100g chocolate bar as two portions and not one. Nor is science much help. Barbara Livingstone, a professor at the University of Ulster argues that portion size is in flux, and even changes depending on the “context” in which consumers eat – at home, for example, as against a restaurant.

“I think we’re only beginning to appreciate that consumers’ behaviour in relation to portion size is very complex,” she says, raising the question of whether Brussels’ labellers had again bitten off more than they could chew 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Written by JOSHUA CHAFFIN in Brussels
Published: March 15 2010 19:03 | Last updated: March 15 2010 19:03
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010 at:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a0b3f988-3063-11df-bc4a-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss&nclick_check=1


Picture: It is a paint from Lee Woods ( from Cornwall, U.K.) and it's called
"Science and Progress in the Auvergne" © by Lee Woods

Tell President Jintao and China: Free Tibetan Filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen- The Petition at Care 2 in USA and Amnesty International in Germany.

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http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/336219057


"Little over two years ago, plainspoken businessman Dhondup Wangchen bought a small camera and began interviewing monks and yak herders for his documentary film Leaving Fear Behind. He bravely gave a voice to Tibetans living under China's rule. Sadly, after finishing the film, he was arrested and his own voice was silenced.

As a prisoner of the Chinese government, Wangchen:

* endured torture to extract a confession.
* contracted hepatitis B and is denied adequate treatment.
* had the lawyer he chose replaced with a government-appointed one--violating his right to choose his own counsel and denying him access to independent legal assistance.

Wangchen's arrest and sentence of 6 years in prison prove that the Chinese government will not allow Tibetans any expression that opposes Chinese rule. Tell the Chinese government to release Dhondup Wangchen and to uphold the right to freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial in future cases."


I have just signed. May be it will help to liberate him, may be not... but if we do not try the answer is going to be NO again and again.

Amnesty International in Germany writes this:

"Bitte schreiben Sie höflich formulierte Briefe an die Justizministerin und fordern Sie sie auf, Dhondup Wangchen umgehend und bedingungslos freizulassen. Dringen Sie darauf, dass eine gründliche und unparteiische Untersuchung der von Dhondup Wangchen erhobenen Foltervorwürfe durchgeführt wird und die Verantwortlichen vor Gericht gestellt werden.
Schreiben Sie in gutem Chinesisch, Englisch oder auf Deutsch an:

Minister of Justice Wu Aiying Buzhang Sifabu
10 Chaoyangmen Nandajie
Chaoyangqu
Beijingshi 100020
VOLKSREPUBLIK CHINA
(korrekte Anrede: Your Excellency)

Standardbrief Luftpost bis 20 g: € 1,70
Senden Sie bitte eine Kopie ihres Schreibens an:

Botschaft der Volksrepublik China
S.E. Herrn Wu Hongbo
Märkisches Ufer 54
10179 Berlin
Fax: 030-27588221
E-Mail: chinesischeBotschaft@debitel.net
chinaemb_de@mfa.gov.cn
de@mofcom.gov.cn


Sources:
Foto von Amnesty International in Germany, site:
http://www.amnesty.de/briefe-gegen-das-vergessen/2010/3/dhondup-wangchen?destination=suche%3Fwords-advanced%3Ddhondup%2Bwangchen%26search_x%3D0%26search_y%3D0%26search%3DSuchen%26country%3D%26topic%3D%26node_type%3D%26from_month%3D0%26from_year%3D%26to_month%3D0%26to_year%3D%26form_id%3Dai_search_form

This link is long, I know: it was the only one it works properly as I have tried to go into the site after writing this Review (no idea why!).

You can find there the complete information about this issue but in Amnesty International here as well:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA17/011/2009/en/82100598-017f-4023-8acb-204cc0281def/asa170112009en.html

Book: „The Soros Lectures at the Central European University" by George Soros

SOROS WOULD MAKE IT HARDER FOR PEOPLE LIKE HIM TO MAKE BILLIONS

By Mark Memmott

The man who famously "broke the Bank of England" in the early '90s by playing within the regulatory system of the time to make $1 billion as the pound sterling crumbled, continues to make the case for better regulations that would make it much harder for people like him to make so much money.

Billionaire George Soros has been advocating for, as he wrote recently at TheMotleyFool, regulations that are "international in scope."

In a conversation earlier today with Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep, readily admitted that "it would have denied me some opportunities for making money" if rules and regulations had been tighter over the years.
Soros has just published a new book, The Soros Lectures, which spells out his thinking on "finance, capitalism and open society." 

This video offers a taste of what those lectures were like: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1125995047?bctid=49755285001

Sources: 

1.  http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/03/soros_would_make_it_harder_for.html

2. http://www.georgesoros.com/books/detail/the_soros_lectures_at_the_central_european_university/

here you can load the second lecture as well  which is named  "Financial Markets". This book  is published in 2010.

CHiNA EXECUTES BRITON FOR DRUG SMUGGLING

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By Patti Waldmeir in Shanghai
Published: December 29 2009 05:35 | Last updated: December 29 2009 05:35


China has executed a British national despite pleas from the UK government, which claimed he was mentally ill and unfit to stand trial.
Tuesday’s execution of Akmal Shaikh, a British citizen caught smuggling heroin to China, prompted immediate condemnation by Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister.
“I condemn the execution of Akmal Shaikh in the strongest terms, and am appalled and disappointed that our persistent requests for clemency have not been granted,” Mr Brown said in a statement issued by the British Foreign Office. ”I am particularly concerned that no mental health assessment was undertaken.”

A father of five, Mr Shaikh, was killed on Tuesday in Urumqi, the capital of China’s westernmost province of Xinjiang.

Mr Shaikh’s execution is the first of a European Union national in China in 50 years, according to the charity Reprieve, which campaigns for death row prisoners globally. China carried out more executions than the rest of the world put together last year, Amnesty International said.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Chinese Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Mr Shaikh. The official Xinhua news agency said the UK government failed to provide sufficient proof that Mr Shaikh was suffering from mental illness.
According to family members, Mr Shaikh – who said he did not know that drugs were in the suitcase – travelled to China in the belief that he was going to be helped to begin a career as a singer.
A few years earlier, he left the UK for Poland with the aim of starting an airline. A preliminary psychological report prepared by Reprieve concluded that he suffered from “delusional psychosis”.

The execution could worsen relations between the two countries but early signs of Chinese public opinion showed widespread approval for the move.
On the website Sohu.com, all respondents commenting on news of the impending execution approved of it. One commented that ”during the (19th century) Opium Wars, illegal drugs came from the UK to China, bringing shame to China. Now we should fight against heroin from overseas, and whoever has broken the law should be sentenced to death.”

“This is not about how much we hate the drug trade. Britain as well as China are completely committed to take it on,” the British foreign secretary, David Milliband, said in a statement emailed to reporters. “The issue is whether Mr Shaikh has become an additional victim of it.”

Earlier this year, Beijing caused a diplomatic rift with the Australian government by detaining four employees of miner Rio Tinto, including on Australian passport holder, on charges of spying. The men were accused of using confidential commercial information to give the Australian miner the upper hand in annual iron ore price negotiations.


________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

By Geoff Dyer in Beijing
Published: December 28 2009 15:09 | Last updated: December 28 2009 15:09


A British man is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday in China for heroin smuggling, in a case which has drawn international condemnation of China’s criminal justice system and death penalty procedures.

Two relatives of Akmal Shaikh pleaded for clemency on Monday in Urumqi, capital of China’s north-western Xinjiang province where he is due to be executed after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal last week. Appeals for leniency from Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, have also been rejected.

Mr Shaikh, 53, was arrested in September 2007 after being detained in Urumqi with 4kg of heroin in his suitcase. His family and lawyers claim that he suffers from mental illness and that he was duped into bringing the drugs into China.

“We strongly feel he is not rational and he needs medication,” his cousin Soohail Shaikh told Associated Press on Monday. According to human rights groups, he would be the first European to be executed in China for more than half a century.

Although China does not publish figures on the death penalty, Amnesty International estimates there were at least 1700 executions last year – the highest number in the world – and other human rights groups believe the real figures could be much higher. Legal experts say that in the 1980s and 1990s, China significantly expanded the numbers of non-violent crimes that could receive a death penalty.

The death penalty has been the subject in recent years of a concerted reform effort, including a 2006 decision that all death sentences would be reviewed by the Supreme Court. State media reported that the Supreme Court overturned 10 per cent of all death sentences last year. In July, a senior official at the Supreme Court said that in the future the death penalty should be reserved for a much smaller list of serious crimes and said that lower courts would be encouraged to issue more suspended sentences.

Although China’s legal system does allow for mental illness to be taken into account in criminal cases, Mr Shaikh’s family say that his mental condition has never been evaluated during the trial process and appeals. Reprieve, the UK prisoner advocacy group, arranged for a psychiatrist to attend the trial in Urumqi last year. However, he was not allowed to interview Mr Shaikh or attend the judicial hearing.

According to family members, Mr Shaikh – who says he did not know drugs were in the suitcase – travelled to China in the belief that he was going to be helped to begin a career as a singer. A few years earlier, he left the UK and moved to Poland with the objective of starting an airline. A preliminary psychological report prepared by Reprieve concluded that he suffered from “delusional psychosis”.

China has defended the conviction, arguing that Mr Shaikh’s legal rights were protected. “This case has been dealt with according to law. Drug smuggling is a grave crime in international practice,” said Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry. “During the trial, the litigation rights and lawful interest of the defendant have been fully guaranteed.”

Jerome Cohen, an expert on the Chinese legal system at New York University, said in some past cases Chinese courts had reduced death sentences to life imprisonment after allowing a mental examination of the defendant. Given Mr Shaikh’s condition, “one might have expected the Supreme People’s Court to comply with Chinese law and international legal standards by requiring a thorough mental evaluation”, he said.

Earlier this year, state media reported that as many as two-thirds of organ donors in China could come from executed prisoners. Huang Jiefu, vice minister for health, said the government was establishing a nationwide organ-donation system to try to clamp down on the black market in organs from executed prisoners, although he admitted that hospitals sometimes bent the rules because of the large potential profits.



Death data
●China does not publish figures for executions, because they are considered a state secret. However, Amnesty International estimates at least 1,700 people were executed in 2008, although the “real figure is undoubtedly higher”.

●The number of executions has dropped sharply in recent years from as many 15,000 a year a decade ago.

●Zhang Jun, vice-president of the Supreme People’s Court, said in July the number of capital crimes should be significantly reduced and more suspended sentences issued. More than 60 crimes can draw the death penalty.



Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Staatsminister Neumann lässt Ausstellung zensieren // Presseportal: DIE ZEIT

11.11.2009 | 08:00 Uhr


Hamburg (ots) - Staatsminister Bernd Neumann hat eine Ausstellung im Deutschen Historischen Museum in Berlin zensieren lassen. Wie ein Sprecher des Museums gegenüber der ZEIT bestätigte, war kurz vor der Eröffnung der Ausstellung "Fremde? Bilder von den Anderen in Deutschland und Frankreich seit 1871" eine große Texttafel auf Wunsch des Kulturstaatsministers ausgetauscht worden. Das Ministerium lieferte auch die neue Formulierung.

Afrikanischer Praktikant besucht einen landwirtschaftlichen Betrieb in der DDR, Fotografie, 16. August 1961
(Foto: Berlin, Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum) 

Der vom Museum ursprünglich vorgesehene Text, der der ZEIT vorliegt, hatte mit den Sätzen geendet: "Neue Gesetze über Staatsangehörigkeit und Zuwanderung schufen erst seit der Jahrtausendwende die neuen Rechtsgrundlagen. Während innerhalb Europas die Grenzen verschwinden, schottet sich die Gemeinschaft der EU zunehmend nach außen ab. Die Festung Europa soll Flüchtlingen verschlossen bleiben." 

 

In der nun ausgestellten Version wurden die letzten beiden Sätze gestrichen und durch folgenden Satz ersetzt: "Das Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge fördert seitdem staatlicherseits die Integration von Zuwanderern in Deutschland."

Dieter Gosewinkel vom Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, der als Geschichts- und Rechtswissenschaftler im wissenschaftlichen Beirat der Ausstellung sitzt, kritisierte gegenüber der ZEIT den Eingriff in die Arbeit des Museums: "Der Ausstellungstext hatte ursprünglich eine ganz andere Aussage. Eine Aussage, die nicht aus wissenschaftlichen Gründen korrigiert, sondern aus politischem Kalkül gestrichen wurde."

 Dem Deutschen Historischen Museum war bei seiner Gründung vor gut zwanzig Jahren Schutz vor politischer Einflussnahme zugesichert worden.

Pressekontakt: Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen,den kompletten ZEIT-Text senden wir Ihnen für Zitierungen gern Mittwoch, ab 10.00 Uhr, zu. Bei Rückfragen wenden Sie sich bitte an Elke Bunse, DIE ZEIT Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit (Tel.: 040/---------, Fax: 040/----------, E-Mail: ----------).  

Quelle: Die Zeit Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit

Link

Recession spurs ‘lipstick entrepreneurs’- Financial Times

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Category:	Other

By Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor

The recession is accelerating growth of a generation of “lipstick entrepreneurs” who will reshape society and change the way people work, according to a report published on Tuesday.

http://link.ft.com/r/ZE9K33/E7YIS/DX7V7/BM5BXF/1T8HV/VU/h

Very interesting article about new tendences at work's world

Foto from Domenicosavioboy a member from MPY as well.

Amnistía Internacional: Carta de un preso palestino.

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Category:	Other

Cada vez que firmas para apoyar una acción de Amnistía Internacional, estás ayudando a mejorar la vida de personas privadas de sus derechos fundamentales.

Personas como SAEED YASSIN, defensor de derechos humanos palestino que ha estado encarcelado sin cargos, en Israel, durante más de tres años.

La buena noticia es que Saed fue puesto en libertad el 22 de octubre. Unos días antes, todavía desde la prisión, agradeció a Amnistía Internacional y a todos sus colaboradores y colaboradoras el trabajo para conseguir su liberación.

Te hacemos llegar fragmentos de su mensaje de agradecimiento:

“A los empleados, los voluntarios y los partidarios de Amnistía Internacional les escribo desde la prisión, encerrado detrás de sus muros y alambradas (...). Su solidaridad conmigo hace más fácil mi encarcelamiento porque sé que mis palabras son oídas en sitios lejanos, en Europa y América. Hay gente que trabaja para mi libertad y actúa para que se haga justicia en mi caso y para frenar la injusticia. (...) Os doy las gracias, a cada uno de vosotros, por todos los esfuerzos que hacéis por mí.”

BLANK CUBAN TICKER SENDS SIGNAL

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By Marc Frank in Havana           
Published: July 27 2009 01:01 | Last updated: July 27 2009 01:01


The US has turned off a Times Square-style news ticker – a source of irritation for the Castro government – at its diplomatic mission in Havana that since 2006 streamed propaganda and news into the night, western diplomatic sources said.

The measure is the latest in a series of initiatives by the Obama administration as it seeks to engage Cuba and to end 50 years of enmity viewed in Latin America and the Caribbean as a relic of the cold war.

“It is a beginning – and it is encouraging. It has to do with the atmosphere. It suggests that we are moving toward a more normal diplomatic relationship,” said Wayne Smith, who opened the US mission’s Interests Section under President Jimmy Carter.


The crimson ticker – five feet high and running through 25 windows of the Swiss embassy building that hosts the US mission on Havana’s sea-side drive – began to stream messages on January 16 three and a half years ago, to mark Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday at the height of tension with the Bush administration.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up,” was the ticker’s first message.

Then president Fidel Castro dug up the mission’s parking lot a few feet from the front door in response, to replace it with 138 flag polls reaching 100ft in the air to conceal the ticker. Mr Castro also marched a million people by in protest and erected billboards around the building depicting the Bush administration as linked to anti-Castro terrorists. All contact between Havana-based US diplomats and the Cuban Foreign Ministry was declared at an end until the ticker ticked no more.

It is believed the ticker was turned off late last month.

“That they turned off the ticker is important – and that nobody has noticed is significant, too,” a western diplomat said.

“The Cubans could have howled victory – but [they] said nothing, indicating they are serious about improving relations.”

The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some local contact may have resumed already. Easing of travel restrictions for US and Cuban diplomats in each other’s capitals was expected soon. US diplomats stationed in Havana and Cubans in Washington are currently restricted to a 25-mile radius from the Interests Sections.

It appears the standoff about the US mission – an attraction for tourists and a symbol of relations with the Bush administration – is winding down. The Cuban government took the billboards down soon after Barack Obama took office. There have been no marches past the building since Raul Castro took over from his ailing brother Fidel in February last year.

The US broke off relations with Cuba in 1961 and declared a trade embargo in 1962. Interests Sections were established in Washington and Havana in 1977. The US is the only country in the western hemisphere that does not have normal relations with Cuba.

The Obama administration has lifted restrictions on Cuban American travel to the Communist-run Caribbean island and the sending of remittances. Immigration talks, called off by the Bush administration, resumed this month. Cuba has expressed interest in broadening discussions to include drug trafficking, human smuggling and disaster preparedness.

“We’re . . . seeing if, as we change some of the old approaches . . . we [see] movement on the Cuban government side,’’ Mr Obama told reporters.

Mr Smith was in Havana last week to lead a delegation on disaster co-operation, particularly after hurricanes. Among its members were Retired Lieutenant General Russel Honore, former commander of the Joint Task Force Katrina, and Stewart Simonson, former assistant secretary for emergency preparedness of the Department of Health and Human Services from 2004 to 2006.

General Honore, who advocates normal relations, said the delegation was well-received: “Everyone should stop looking in the rear view mirror. A failed state so near to home is not in our interest.”

He said turning off the ticker was a good thing and it would be better if the two countries looked forward by working on a host of security related issues from immigration to drug trafficking and coping with the hurricanes that regularly pass over Cuba on their way to the United States.

“Peace and prosperity are in the interest of both countries as we are neighbours and there are now many Cubans in the United States,” he said.





Source: 
© The Financial Times Limited 2009
Photo: I found it online sometime ago... probably a work from Andy Warhol.



See this one too. That one is a very important first step:
USA AGREES TO END CUBA'S O.A.S. EXILE
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1e764c8e-508d-11de-9530-00144feabdc0.html

LIU XIAOBO: Chinese dissident formally arrested // Chinesischer Bürgerrechtler angeklagt // Handelsblatt & The Times Online

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Category:	Other

June 24, 2009
Jane Macartney in Beijing


China’s most prominent dissident has been arrested formally after more than six months in detention at a secret location near Beijing on charges that could bring a lengthy prison term.

Liu Xiaobo had been held virtually incommunicado under “residential surveillance”, being allowed only two visits from his wife, since he was taken from his Beijing home on December 8 – a day before publication of a document that he co-authored calling for democracy in China.

State media said: "Liu has been engaged in agitation activities, such as spreading of rumours and defaming of the Government, aimed at subversion of the State and overthrowing the socialism system in recent years." The arrest was made by the Beijing Public Security Bureau today.

It said that Mr Liu, 53, had confessed to the charges. This is the first time the long-time critic of the Government has faced such serious charges. He could be sentenced to a maximum of 15 years, his lawyer Mo Shaoping, said. He told The Times that he would demand an immediate meeting with Mr Liu.

Mr Liu's wife, Liu Xia, told The Times that the police came to her home in western Beijing this morning and handed her a formal document notifying her of the charges against her husband. “They have just been to my home. I am very worried and must speak to our lawyer,” she said.

Mr Liu was a well known and outspoken literary critic in the 1980s but sprang to international fame for his role during the student-led demonstrations centred in Beijing in the spring of 1989.

Mr Liu, along with a famed Taiwanese pop singer and two other intellectuals, joined the students in Tiananmen Square on June 2 in a hunger strike in support of their demand for greater freedom of speech and more democracy and to call for an end to corruption. He was with the students when tanks rolled into the heart of the city on the night of June 3 and 4 and helped to persuade the demonstrators not to make a stand and to leave the square without loss of life. Hundreds were killed elsewhere in the city in that crackdown.

He was detained for nearly two years in Beijing's notorious Qincheng prison, where China’s most prominent political leaders and dissidents have been held in the past few decades, but was not formally charged.

He continued to voice his criticism of the authorities and the Communist Party system. He was sentenced to three years of re-education through labour in the 1990s because of his repeated calls to the Government to reconsider its verdit that the student demonstrations were “counterrevolutionary”.

He was among the 303 initial signatories of Charter 08, a manifesto consciously modelled on the Charter 77 drawn up by Vaclav Havel in the former Czechoslovakia, but is the only one to have been detained. Since his arrest several thousand people have added their names to the charter that demands democracy in China.

Ms Liu told The Times in a recent interview:: “Xiaobo had thought he might be taken in for the anniversary of June 4 but he didn’t think that Charter 08 would cause his arrest.” She issued an appeal last week asking President Obama to raise his case.

Mr Liu's case has drawn intense international criticism, with the European Union and the United States demanding his quick release.

Novelists such as Salman Rushdie and the Italian Umberto Eco, as well as Nobel laureates in literature including the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, have also campaigned for him to be set free.






 


Source from Timesonline,com: 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6566723.ece

Photo source: Reuters____________________________________________________________________________

24.06.2009, 11:31 Uhr
Demokratiebewegung


Die chinesischen Behörden haben Anklage gegen einen der prominentesten Bürgerrechtler des Landes, den Schriftsteller Liu Xiaobo, erhoben. Dem 53-Jährigen wird vorgeworfen, Gerüchte verbreitet und die Regierung diffamiert zu haben.
Liu Xiaobo, eines der prominentesten Mitglieder der chinesischen Demokratiebewegung, wird angeklagt. Quelle: ReutersLupe


HB PEKING. Dem vor einem halben Jahr inhaftierten Liu werde vorgeworfen, Gerüchte verbreitet, die Regierung diffamiert und sich damit eines Umsturzversuches schuldig gemacht zu haben. Das berichtete die staatliche Nachrichtenagentur Xinhua unter Berufung auf die Polizei.

Nach seiner Festnahme im vergangenen November hatten 150 Intellektuelle aus aller Welt - darunter die Schriftsteller Umberto Eco und Salman Rushdie - den Bürgerrechtler unterstützt und seine Freilassung gefordert. Der 53-jährige Liu war wenige Tage vor der Veröffentlichung der sogenannten "Charta 08" verhaftet worden. In dem Papier hatten die 303 Unterzeichner dargelegt, wie sie sich den Reformprozess in China hin zu einer liberalen Demokratie vorstellen. Gleichzeitig wird in der Charta, die dem Vorbild der "Charta 77" aus der früheren Tschechoslowakei folgt, ein Mangel an Freiheit, Gleichheit und Menschenrechten in China beklagt.

Neben Liu Xiaobo sind mindestens 100 weitere Unterzeichner der Erklärung verhaftet oder verhört worden. Der Schriftsteller wird nach Informationen der chinesischen Menschenrechtsorganisation China Human Rights Defenders an einem geheimen Ort unter Hausarrest festgehalten. Lius Anwalt dürfe seinen Mandanten nicht mehr vertreten, da er selbst die "Charta 08" unterzeichnet habe.

Die US-Menschenrechtsorganisation Human Right Watch sieht in der Festnahme des Schriftstellers den signifikantesten Fall des Vorgehens gegen Dissidenten in China seit zehn Jahren. Nach Darstellung der chinesischen Führung werde alle Fälle die Menschenrechte betreffend "im Einklang" mit dem Gesetz behandelt. Alle internationalen Appelle werden als "Einmischung" betrachtet.

Liu Xiaobo ist einer der bekanntesten Kritiker des kommunistischen Machtapparats in China und der Regierung seit Jahrzehnten ein Dorn im Auge. Ungeachtet aller Einschüchterungen durch die Staatssicherheit hat der Schriftsteller immer wieder seine Stimme für politische Reformen, Demokratie und Meinungsfreiheit erhoben. Obwohl Dissidenten während der Olympischen Spiele 2008 nicht mit ausländischen Journalisten sprechen sollten, war Liu Xiaobo zu Interviews bereit. Er kritisierte die Unterdrückung von Anwälten und Bürgerrechtlern im Zusammenhang mit den Spielen.

Vor einem halben Jahr wurde er festgenommen. Die offizielle Anklage wirft ihm jetzt einen Umsturzversuch vor. Er soll Gerüchte verbreitet und die Regierung diffamiert haben. Die Festnahme des bekannten Schriftstellers hatte im vergangenen November international eine Welle an Protesten ausgelöst. 150 Intellektuelle aus aller Welt, darunter die Schriftsteller Umberto Eco und Salman Rushdie setzten sich für eine Freilassung des 53- Jährigen ein.

Der im Dezember 1955 in Changchun in Nordostchina geborene Liu Xiaobo zählt seit zwei Jahrzehnten zu den wichtigsten Denkern der stark dezimierten Demokratiebewegung in China. Er steht seit 2003 dem chinesischen Pen-Club unabhängiger Schriftsteller vor.

Im Moment wird Liu Xiaobo Berichten zufolge an einem geheimen Ort unter Hausarrest gehalten. Doch er saß auch schon im Gefängnis: Bereits nach der blutigen Niederschlagung der Demokratiebewegung am 4. Juni 1989 kam Liu, der damals für seine Literaturkritiken und philosophischen Schriften bekannt war, fast zwei Jahre in Haft. Er hatte das Vorgehen der Studenten verteidigt und eine Aufklärung des Massakers gefordert. Liu verlor dabei auch seinen Posten als Dozent an der Universität. Nach seiner Haftentlassung wurde er wieder in der Dissidentenszene aktiv. 1996 landete er für drei Jahre in einem Umerziehungslager.

Mit der Entwicklung des Internets in China wurde Liu Xiaobo einer der profiliertesten Kritiker der chinesischen Blockaden von Webseiten und der Verfolgung systemkritischer Internetautoren. Die internationale Organisation Reporter ohne Grenzen zeichnete ihn 2004 mit ihrem Preis für Pressefreiheit aus.

Nach den Unruhen der Tibeter im März vergangenen Jahres forderte Liu zusammen mit anderen Bürgerrechtlern einen Dialog der Regierung mit dem Dalai Lama und echte Religionsfreiheit auch in Tibet. Dennoch wandte er sich gegen Forderungen nach einem Boykott der Olympischen Spiele in Peking. In einem Interview mit der Deutschen Presse-Agentur dpa wies Liu damals die überzogenen Hoffnungen im Westen zurück, dass die Spiele in China zu mehr Freiheit führen könnten. "Für solche Veränderungen wären vielmehr politische Reformen nötig."

Liu Xiaobo zählt zu den Mitorganisatoren der "Charta 08", einer Petition für mehr Freiheit und Demokratie in China. Der Name des Appells lehnt sich an die "Charta 77" aus der früheren Tschechoslowakei und deren gleichnamige Bürgerbewegung an. Kurz vor Veröffentlichung der "Charta 08" zum 60. Jahrestag der Allgemeinen Menschenrechtserklärung der Vereinten Nationen wurde Liu Xiaobo im vergangenen Jahr verhaftet.

 





Quelle von Handelsblatt:
http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/chinesischer-buergerrechtler-angeklagt;2389713;0

Foto Quelle: Reuters