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Poets seek like-minded souls online
msnbc.com -- Poetry could be the best kept secret of Internet publishing. In the time it takes many a sluggish computer to download the software needed to read an e-book, you could have read half a dozen poems online.

posted by West 9:35 AM

 

Nations Vow Rapid Cooperation to Feed the Hungry
ROME, Italy, June 13, 2002 (ENS) -- The World Food Summit: Five Years Later is ending with what United Nations officials see as positive results for global food security and sustainable development. Hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the summit sought to meet the challenge of feeding the world's 800 million hungry people. In a Declaration issued today, government leaders of 180 countries resolved to accelerate efforts to reduce hunger. They called on all parties - governments, international organizations, civil society organizations and the private sector - to reinforce their efforts so as to act as an international alliance against hunger."

posted by West 7:47 AM

 

Palestinians still want peace
WASHINGTON, June 10 (UPI) -- "There is still an overwhelming desire for peace among the Palestinians," said Hannan Ashrawi, a Palestinian rights activist, speaking only two days before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrived in Washington to confer with President George W. Bush on the continuing Middle East conflict. Ashrawi, who is also a representative to the Arab League, was the keynote speaker at the 19th Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee's award dinner, last Saturday. Addressing a crowd of some 2,000 people, Ashrawi started out by joking about the high-tech audio-visuals and giant screens that were installed in the hotel's ballroom to allow those sitting in the back to see and hear her. Ashrawi said that the Palestinians were more used to a different type of American high-tech. "We have seen the "made in USA" missiles," she said, referring to U.S.-made armaments used by the Israeli military. Ashrawi said the Israelis wanted "total curtailment" of the Palestinians, and that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon represented a grave danger for the Palestinians. "Not since the Nakba have we witnessed such a decisive moment in history."

posted by West 6:47 PM

 

India and Pakistan Cool War Talk
NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -- Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan have toned down their war rhetoric ahead of a visit this week by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who will renew international efforts to avert conflict in South Asia. "I think the chance of war is minimal," Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told Malaysia's New Sunday Times newspaper in an interview after talks last week with U.S. envoy Richard Armitage. Rumsfeld, in Kuwait Sunday at the start of a tour of Gulf Arab states, is due to visit Pakistan and India in the next few days to keep up pressure on the two neighbors with specific proposals for a way out of the crisis. Musharraf said the long dispute with India over the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir was an obstacle to peace, but "the threat of war in the last four or five days has diminished."

posted by West 1:07 PM

 

WELCOME TO THE NEW WORLD ORDER: Sept. 11 attacks spur largest Global war build up since the end of the 'cold war'
GENEVA, Switzerland, June 7 (UPI) -- The deep reductions in defense spending worldwide in the 1990's, thanks largely to the end of the Cold War, came to a end in 2000, and the trend has once again started to move in the opposite direction, especially since the Sept. 11 attacks, a recent survey said. The Sept. 11 attacks, have "directly affected" arms control and international security relations and has led many countries to beef-up their military postures, the survey found. "The Conversion Survey 2002: Global Disarmament, Demilitarization, and Demobilization," compiled by analysts at the Bonn International Center for Conversion, fears that the gains of the last decade will be eroded as countries move to strengthen their armed forces. The sharp increase in defense outlays by the United States "very likely will force other countries to follow suit," said Patricia Lewis, Director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research. In 2000, global military expenditures, the Bonn center estimates, totaled $761.8 billion with industrialized countries accounting for 75 percent, of which the U.S. alone accounted for 43 percent, and developing nations, 25 percent. "The Americans are increasing their military expenditures, as are India and Pakistan, and the Europeans will also be obliged to increase their expenditures, and the Chinese are Chinese are also modernizing their military and their nuclear arsenal," said Dr. Jozef Goldblat, vice president of the Geneva Peace Research Institute. NATO countries such as France and Germany are under tremendous pressure form the Americans, who think they do not spend enough, to increase their expenditure, and there's also pressure on Japan by the U.S., Goldblat said.

How is peace possible in the midst of yet another military build up? Because it is the only logical solution.

posted by West 11:21 PM

 

Africa Recovery Plan Hinges on Peace, Security
DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) - African leaders pledged on Wednesday to fix regional conflicts, promote good governance and fight epidemics they say could scuttle their ambitious plan to help Africa stand on its own feet. At the opening of the World Economic Forum's Africa summit in the port city of Durban, the leaders said that the continent's goal of a single voice in seeking to raise finance for its grand projects would fail without peace. They spoke of finding a solution to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- potentially one of Africa's richest nations but virtually reduced to beggar-status by war. The leaders said peace in the former Zaire was key to resolving security concerns in Rwanda, Burundi and partially Uganda and injecting investor confidence in the region. They said ending the Congo war, which has been raging since 1998, also meant no further haven for any Angolan rebels, which would cement peace in the oil-rich country and boost African prosperity.

posted by West 4:24 PM

 

The Guardian Middle East Dialogue
(Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, June 5, 2002)
Outsiders were brought in - Peter Taylor, the BBC documentary maker, delivered an hour-long crash course on the recent history of Northern Ireland; Chris Patten gave the view of the Middle East from Brussels; Lord Levy, the prime minister's special envoy to the region, gave a window into London's thinking; while Peter Mandelson suggested how the Israeli and Palestinian peace camps might present anew their vision to two electorates who have grown cynical of the very notion of a peace process. But the moments of electricity came when the peacemakers, would-be or past, spoke directly to each other. . . . Three Israelis, each with impeccable dovish credentials, all but pleaded with Palestinians around the table to understand the harm suicide bombings do to the peace cause. "When Israelis see a grandmother killed with her granddaughter, they think that whoever can do such a thing must be inhuman," said one. "And that's the most dangerous thing of all. Because once they believe the enemy is inhuman, then they will agree that any action can be taken against you." . . . "Lets face it," said a Palestinian, as steeped in compromise and negotiation as anyone else there. "You don't trust us and we don't trust you. You think that we are involved in suicide bombings and we think you are involved in assassinations." . . . Suddenly those from the Middle East realised that Northern Ireland's peace was not perfect. They had not resolved their conflict; rather they had devised a mechanism for managing it. The Good Friday agreement did not settle the fundamental, constitutional question but postponed it. It was, Mark Durkan admitted, a hologram: what you saw depended on where you stood. For him that was a strength. "I would rather deal with the politics of the last ambiguity than the politics of the last atrocity." . . . Perhaps the most heartening action plan was the simplest of all. Our participants resolved to meet again - this time, despite the obstacles, on their own patch and under their own steam. They want to keep this new channel open. They had, said one, seen "terrorists who had become statesmen". To see that was more than inspiring, he insisted; it was liberating. Over three intense, extraordinary days, Israelis and Palestinians could break free from the pessimism and despair of their own region and see what Northern Ireland had taught them: that with courage and determination, peace is possible.

posted by Lorenzo 8:28 AM