Pen Thoughts

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Tens of thousands of Somalis are feared dead in the world's worst famine in a generation, the UN said Wednesday, and the US said it will allow emergency funds to be spent in areas controlled by Al Qaeda-linked militants as long as the fighters do not interfere with aid distributions. Exhausted, rail-thin women are stumbling into refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia with dead babies and bleeding feet, having left weaker family members behind along the way. "Somalia is facing its worst food security crisis in the last 20 years," said Mark Bowden, the UN's top official in charge of humanitarian aid in Somalia. "This desperate situation requires urgent action to save lives ... it's likely that conditions will deteriorate further in six months." The crisis is the worst since 1991-92, when hundreds of thousands of Somalis starved to death, Bowden said. That famine prompted intervention by an international peacekeeping force, but ...

The Assad regime is counting on a sectarian survival instinct, confident that Alawite troops — however underpaid and overworked — will fight to the bitter end. The majority will find it hard to do so. After enough mindless violence, the instincts on which the regime has banked could push its forces the other way. Having endured centuries of discrimination and persecution from the Sunni majority, Alawites see their villages, within relatively inaccessible mountainous areas, as the only genuine sanctuary. That is where security officers already have sent their families. They are unlikely to believe that they will be safe in the capital (where they feel like transient guests), protected by the Assad regime (which they view as a historical anomaly) or state institutions (which they do not trust). When they feel the end is near, Alawites won’t fight to the last man in the capital. They will go home.

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." Noam Chomsky

Can the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Asad withstand the wave of popular protest which has this year overthrown the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt and is threatening others -- notably in Libya, Yemen and Bahrain? Even in usually tranquil and well-ordered Oman, the Sultan has had to yield some of his powers. Will Syria be next? Is there any reason why it should escape? In this infectious moment of “Arab awakening,” are not Syrians making much the same demands as those voiced by others? The demands now stirring the blood of young people across the Middle East fall into three broad categories, of which the first two may be described as political and economic. Political demands are for freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, freedom to form political parties, freedom to choose one’s own representatives in free elections, and freedom from police brutality, torture and arbitrary arrest. The release of political prisoners and an independent judiciary are also important political dem...

Everything I need to know about life, I learned from Noah's Ark ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------ One : Don't miss the boat. Two : Remember that we are all in the same boat. Three : Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark. Four : Stay fit When you're 600 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big. Five : Don't listen to critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done Six : Build your future on high ground. Seven : For safety's sake, travel in pairs. Eight : Speed isn't always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs. Nine : When you're stressed, float a while. Ten : Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals. Eleven : No matter the storm, when you are with God, there's always a rainbow Out from Mohammad ElMachnouk Posts

You took my empty dreams And filled them every one With tenderness and nobleness, April and the sun. The old empty dreams Where my thoughts would throng Are far too full of happiness To even hold a song. Oh, the empty dreams were dim And the empty dreams were wide, They were sweet and shadowy houses Where my thoughts could hide. But you took my dreams away And you made them all come true -- My thoughts have no place now to play, And nothing now to do. Sarah Teasdale

The Democrats were handed a golden opportunity to transform U.S. politics for years to come--and they blew it. Alan Maass looks at how it happened--and why. November 5, 2010 BARACK OBAMA thinks you really ought to be more patient. "It took time to free the slaves," he said in a speech at the end of September. "It took time for women to get the vote. It took time for workers to get the right to organize." Well...he's certainly right about that. The struggles of the past that changed the world didn't happen overnight. But Obama wasn't just making an observation about history. This was his excuse for how little the Democrats have done to meet the expectations of their supporters--they need more time. The real question is: More time for what? The Democrats haven't moved at even a snail's pace on so many of the issues that motivated millions of people to support them in 2008--keeping people under threat of foreclosure in their homes, creating good-pa...

By Patrick Seale With growing insistence, some influential Israelis are beginning to press the Netanyahu government to seek to make peace with Syria -- even if the price-tag is the return of the entire Golan to Syrian sovereignty. The latest example of this campaign is an interview which Major-General (res.) Uri Saguy, 66, gave on 11 June to the Israeli daily Yediot Aharanot, in which he declared that “I believe that a political agreement between Syria and Israel is a military national interest of the highest order.” Of all Israelis, whether soldiers or civilians, Saguy can probably claim to have the greatest first-hand knowledge of the Syrian file. He fought on the Golan Heights in both the 1967 and 1973 wars, and was wounded twice. He commanded the elite Golani brigade, was head of the General Staff’s operations department in the 1982 Lebanon war, served as head of Southern Command, and then as chief of military intelligence from 1991 to 1995. He has advised several Israeli prime m...

Refugees International Statement: Washington, D.C. -- Refugees International today expressed disappointment that President Barack Obama failed to recognize the plight of Iraqi refugees during his speech marking the end of combat operations in Iraq. In his address to the nation last night, on August 31, President Barack Obama failed to take the opportunity to highlight the humanitarian plight of the Iraqi people. For the half a million refugees unable to return home, and the one and a half million Iraqis displaced inside the country, the end of U.S. operations in Iraq does not mean that peace has returned. Their original homes and communities are either destroyed or insecure, and they remain in a dangerous and unsettled limbo. "The Obama administration has provided funding and resettlement opportunities for Iraqis. But resolving the displacement issue is a long-term project, requiring U.S. funding and engagement and commitments from the Iraqi government to give them the help they ...

Friday 27 August 2010 Amnesty International calls for the eight men, all detained after taking part in a protest against poor safety conditions, to be tried by a civilian court for recognizable criminal offences. Amnesty international has condemned the trial before an Egyptian military court of eight factory workers, all civilians, detained after taking part in a protest against poor safety conditions at the factory, following an explosion which killed one of their fellow workers. The trial of the eight workers from Helwan Factory for Engineering Industries (Military Factory No. 99) resumes at the military court in Nasr City, in the east of Cairo on Saturday. It is the first such trial since the authorities amended the Military Justice Code in June to allow workers in a military factory to be tried before a military court for “stopping work in utilities of public interest" and "assault on freedom to work”, preventing others from working. "Trials of civilians before milit...