UNIFEM, Violence Against Women, & the Global Significance of Sonia Sotomayor Going to SCOTUS

Nicole Kidman, UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador


Media figures have misrep- resented a remark that Sotomayor made in a speech published in 2002, claiming that she suggested, in the words of Fox News' Megyn Kelly, "that Latina judges are obviously better than white male judges." Further advancing the falsehood, numerous media figures have asserted that Sotomayor made a "racist statement." In fact, when Sotomayor asserted, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," she was specifically discussing the importance of judicial diversity in determining race and sex discrimination cases. ... Myths and falsehoods surrounding the Sotomayor nomination, Media Matters, 5-27-09

UNIFEM, Violence Against Women, & the Global Significance of Sonia Sotomayor Going to SCOTUS

By Richard Power

Judge Sonia Sotomayor will be the first Latin American and only the third woman to ever be sworn into a seat on SCOTUS. The moment that Barack Obama, the first African American President of the USA, announced her as his nominee, the reactionary element within the body politic launched a disciplined but savage attack.

The fury will likely die down over time, simply because "there is no there there," but the visciousness of this coordinated campaign of abuse demands a powerful response, and this response should be framed in a global context.

The effort to protect and empower women in all societies, and at all strata of all societies, is an essential component of the overarching, global movement to rescue humanity from itself and establish a viable future for the generations to come.

The hatred spewed by Gingrich, Beck, Limbaugh, Rove and others in the past 48 hours should be called for what it is, i.e., misogynistic and, yes, racist (mirror, mirror on the wall). Indeed, the verbal wet work of Gingrich, Beck, Limbaugh, Rove and the others that has bled out over the air waves is nothing less than an act of violence against women.

Ironically, the remark that they seized on -- "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life" -- is indeed Sotmayor's personal expression of a great and impersonal truth. And that great, impersonal truth is that simply swearing more women, and particularly more women of color, into more offices (high and low) in every nation throughout the world, will in itself improve our chances of survival as a species.

As the reactionary element unleashed its attack dogs, I happened to be reviewing UNIFEM's recently released annual report.

When United Nations fails, it usually fails very loudly and very visibly. But when the UN succeeds, it often does so quietly and without a great deal of visibility. UNIFEM, the United Nations's Fund for Women, is a compelling example of such successes.

UNIFEM works in several vital areas: strengthening women’s economic security and rights, ending violence against women, reversing the spread of HIV and AIDS among women and girls, and achieving gender equality in democratic governance in times of peace as well as war.

It is in this context that the nomination of Sotomayor should be celebrated and fought for fiercely through this coming summer. Her swearing in will constitute another quiet but powerful victory in the course of human evolution, and nothing less.

Violence against women is not something that is just physical, it is also verbal; nor is it something far away in some impoverished part of the world, it is right here infecting our own culture and our own body politic.

Here are four excerpts from UNIFEM's 2008-2009 Annual Report, highlighting work in Africa, the Americas, Europe and Asia:

In Burundi, significant progress was made when the traditional judicial institution for conflict resolution, the Bashingantahe, amended its Charter to allow for the effective involvement of women. UNIFEM supported the sensitization of the Bahingantahe on women’s rights and its role in addressing violence against women. For the first time, women are now admitted to participate as judges in the judicial sessions. Following the amendment, women comprise 40 percent of the judges in each session. A direct outcome has been an increase in cases of sexual violence heard by the Bahingantahe; more women are now willing to break the silence on violence and report cases of abuse.

In Nepal, UNIFEM in partnership with the National Commission for Women and local NGOs, supported efforts that contributed to securing a historic 33 percent representation of Voting in Nepal: advocacy and information campaigns helped secure a historic 33 percent representation of women in the Constituent Assembly, an interim body elected to draft the country’s new Constitution after the political strife of recent years.
Interventions included ensuring that the Constituent Assembly Election Act as well as the manifestos of political parties incorporated women’s needs, such as proportional representation of women in decisionmaking, free and accessible health care and a focus on economic and social rights. Booklets with biographical information of 1,000 women helped introduce potential candidates to the public. Radio and TV spots were broadcast as part of a civic education campaign that improved understanding of the electoral process and the importance of women in government. The investment paid off: on April 10 2008, Election Day, women voters outnumbered men. Nearly 3,500 women contested, representing 35 percent of all candidates – a stark contrast to previous elections in which the percentage of women candidates had never exceeded 6 percent.

Women using public transport can now feel safer in Mexico City. The burgeoning transport system used by millions has gotten a facelift aimed at preventing violence against women in buses and subways. The Safe Travelling programme provides specialized security personnel in select locations and dedicated women-only buses at certain hours, along with reserved entrances and compartments within subway cars. For the women in one of the world’s largest cities, these quality transport upgrades mean better access to education, health services and job markets. The improvements came after Mexico City pioneered a gender-responsive budget in 2008 that earmarked 1.12 percent of the city’s public resources for gender equality measures. In 2009, additional funds will be allocated to support access of violence survivors to justice and services. Gender responsive budgets ensure that the allocation of public resources benefi ts women and men equally. Since 2000, UNIFEM has worked with governments and civil society partners to introduce and advance this approach in over 30 countries.

To enhance women’s economic security and rights, UNIFEM in 2008 also partnered with the Government and civil society in Moldova to survey the situation of women in the labour market. The assessment informed the landmark National Action Plan on Employment of 2008. The plan mandates a review of the Labour Code, now underway, to address the areas of persistent discrimination faced by women, such as wage inequity, continued preference to employ men, and lack of job opportunities especially for young women of reproductive age in both the private and public sector. The amended Labour Code is expected to increase women’s employment and feed into the country’s efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, including Goal 3, which focuses on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

To download the full report, click here.

Some Related Posts

Human Rights Update: UNIFEM Works for Achievement of the "Missing Goal" -- Ending Violence Against Women

UNIFEM Asks You to Take a Stand in the Global Fight to End Violence Against Women; It Will Cost You Nothing But the Time to Type Your Name

Human Rights Update: Most Basic Rights of Women Under Attack in Iran, the Congo & Even in Evo Morales' New Bolivia

Human Rights Update: Ending Violence Against Women is a Global Imperative; UNIFEM Launches Campaign

In This Century of Crisis, Empowering Women is Vital if the Human Race is to Prevail, i.e., Evolve

Global Campaign Against Poverty 10-17-07: Stand Up & Speak Out -- Raise Women Up, Defend Them Against Violence & Oppression, Put Them in Power

Human Rights Update 9-6-07: In the 21st Century, Sane Men are Feminists -- UNIFEM Works to Dismantle the Edifice of Dysfunction

Hard Rain Journal 2-17-07: UN Millennium Goals and Human Rights Update -- Healing Balm for the World? Feed Children, Empower Women

For a directory of Words of Power Human Rights Updates, click here.

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant -- Carnival (1999)

Hard Rain Late Night: Natalie Merchant -- Carnival (1999)



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Of Yeats, Genocide and the Biosphere -- Looming Deadlines that Frame Our Future and Determine Our Legacy

The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears
Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,
And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries
Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.
We who still labour by the cromlech on the shore,
The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,
Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you.
Master of the still stars and of the flaming door. The Valley of the Black Pig (Wind Among The Reeds, 1899)

Of Yeats, Genocide and the Biosphere -- Looming Deadlines that Frame Our Future and Determine Our Legacy

By Richard Power

Five decades and five years into this incarnation, it is natural that I am not only proud and grateful for all that I have done and experienced, but also haunted by all that was lost along the way, as well as all that might never come to be.

But overshadowing both of these preoccupations is another one, brimming with urgency and profundity: what shall I do to make a significant difference with the rest of this life?

In Left-Handed Security, which I published at the end of 2007, I suggested that four looming deadlines framed our future:

1. Will the USA choose reason or madness in the 2008 election? It chose reason. No matter how frustrating many of Obama's moves have been and will continue to be, it is still the difference between reason and madness. And consequently, there is hope that our democratic institutions can slowly be restored to health.

2. Will the nations of the world reach a meaningful agreement on the Climate Crisis in 2009? There is nowhere to turn after Copenhagen. Bold, rapid and sweeping action must be taken, on a planetary scale. It is a long shot, but there is still a chance, and it is do or die.

3. Will the world achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015? Even if we had no Climate Crisis, we would still be confronted with dire sustainability issues in regard to water, sanitation, etc. Most of the forward momentum was lost over the eight years between 2000 and 2008; and most of what was left got kicked out of it all in the global financial meltdown and the resultant economic contraction. There will be hell to pay if we do not get this vital initiative back on track.

4. Every evening, the sun sets on another missed deadline in regard to suffering of Darfur. Will the human race meet its responsibility to end the genocide? Or will we allow our governments to continue to fret and posture and play semantic games? The facts on the ground are worse today than they were even six months ago.

Not a very encouraging status report.

But I am confident that the world is older than several thousand years, and that the fossils of dinosaurs are not an elaborate, divinely concocted hoax to test our faith. In other words, evolution, with its imperative to adapt or perish, is still the natural law of this world, and so we will soon see if we can follow reason and love out of the labyrinth of our own ignorance before it is too late.

The image included with this post is the tombstone of one of my heroes, W.B. Yeats, the great Irish poet, patriot and mystic. His life and work have offered me solace and inspiration since I was a little boy who should have been far too young to be concerned with such serious matters.

But the lines of poetry Yeats chose to have inscribed on his tombstone spoke to me even as a child; and they have continued to speak to me ever more compellingly as the years have spiraled away and downward into currents of both the Liffey and the Lethe:

Cast a cold eye,
On life, on death,
Horsemen pass by.

In my thirties and forties, as I explored the vastness of the Tibetan wisdom, I came to realize the deeper meaning of that beautiful Celtic sentiment; it speaks of the fecund emptiness known to those who have truly embraced martial arts or meditation.

If you are free of everything, then you can do anything.
Well, at least, that is the attitude to cultivate.

The outcome of it all is beyond our control.

As always, I encourage you to follow events in Darfur on Mia Farrow's site, it is the real-time journal of a humanitarian at work; the content is compelling, insightful and fiercely independent.

For a Words of Power Archive of posts on the Crisis in Darfur, click here.

If you have not already joined the Alliance for Climate Protection, Al Gore and I urge you to do so. Click here.

For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.

For an archive of Words of Power posts on UN Millennium Development Goals, click here.

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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Climate Crisis Update: Seven Vital Talking Points in the Outreach to Win Hearts & Minds

The "Primitivist" Henri Rousseau painted "The Dream" in 1910. It now hangs in Manhattan's MOMA


Climate Crisis Update: Seven Vital Talking Points in the Outreach to Win Hearts & Minds

By Richard Power

The Climate Crisis is An Aspect of Our Global Reality: Just as we now live in a global economy, in which the good and bad that happens in one region of the planet impacts every other region, just as cyberspace encompasses the whole of human civilization, without borders, time zones or even any sense of physical distance, and just as the global economy and cyberspace interpenetrate each other to the point at which they exist as two aspects of a single global reality, we must now accept the truth that climate is a third interpenetrating aspect to this global reality. Any attempt to proactively engage in any endeavor to impact one or another aspect of this single global reality will either fail or have only limited impact without recognition of the oneness of all life on this planet.

The Climate Crisis is the Bleeding Edge of Our Sustainability Meltdown: Understand that the Climate Crisis is, in actuality, simply the most urgent and all-encompassing element of an overall Sustainability Crisis already confronting our species. Even if we had not accelerated global warming to lethal levels with the burning of fossil fuels, we would still be facing global crises due to unsustainable approaches to population, water, food, energy and sanitation. But ironically, even though the Climate Crisis aggravates some of these other sustainability issues, in particular, water and food, it also demands the adoption of new models of green living, which will by extension resolve most of these issues, in particular, food, water and energy.

The Climate Crisis Rivals Nuclear Proliferation as Our Top Security Threat: The Climate Crisis is the No. 1 or No. 2 threat to human civilization. No rational view of global or national risks and threats can arrive at any other conclusion. The only debatable issue is whether or not nuclear proliferation should be No. 1 or No. 2. Arguably, it is a tie for No. 1. Nuclear war could end human civilization in a matter of minutes. The Climate Crisis could end human civilization in within a century. But the Cold War demonstrated that at the very least the threat of nuclear war can be mitigated. Unless we act urgently, drastically and globally, the destruction that will result from our Climate Crisis is inexorable.

The Climate Crisis is Not Only A Sustainability Issue, and A Security Issue, It is A Public Health Issue: Some people you encounter will resonate with the Sustainability angle, others will resonate with the Security angle, but many who do not resonate with either can be put in touch with the immediacy of the Climate Crisis by articulating the profound public health issues involved. As a recent report compiled by The Lancet medical journal and experts from the Institute for Global Health at University College London, "Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century." (Agence France Press, 5-13-09)

Overcoming the Challenge of the Climate Crisis Requires A Multi-Dimensional Quest: The Climate Crisis cannot be successfully mitigated without sweeping national action and comprehensive global cooperation among the governments of the world. Of course, at every stage, what governments do will likely be done too slow and accomplish too little. So they must be pushed by the scientific community, activist organizations, enlightened business leadership and public opinion. At the same time, as this pressure is applied to our own governments and the community of nations as a whole, alternative courses of action must be developed through which the scientific community, activist organizations, enlightened business leadership and public opinion can impact the climate directly regardless of what governments do or fails to do. Simultaneously, 24x7, each individual must transform his or her life-style and personal environmental in whatever ways are practical and meaningful.

The Role of Nuclear Power in Overcoming the Challenge of the Climate Crisis is An Open Question: Although nuclear energy offer an alternative to the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the burning of fossil fuels, it creates its own highly dangerous waste, which cannot be adequately neutralized or safely disposed of. Furthermore, the building of nuclear power plants establishes high-risk target, which can with sufficient force, be weaponized and turned on the populace of its surrounding environs. And these are only two of several serious issues that must be dealt with in any rational consideration of the role of nuclear power in coming to grips with the Climate Crisis. Nevertheless, next time your flight is coming in to land at a major metropolitan airport anywhere on the planet, whether in the stone-cold dead of winter, or the stifling heat of summer, look out over the city below, consider the millions of lives concentrated there, and ask yourself how we keep all of this going over this next century. The role of nuclear power is a subject of fierce debate. If you want to be a credible, you must understand both sides of the argument. (See Climate Crisis Update -- Global Warming & The Nuclear Option, A Convergence of National Security Issues)

Overcoming the Challenge of the Climate Crisis Requires A New Economic Model, Not An Old Ideological Dichotomy: The global financial system and the global economy it fuels has experienced a Sustainability Meltdown of its own. And indeed, the sustainable issues that threaten our economic security are intricately and inextricably intertwined with those that threaten our environmental security. We need new economic models. But if we become entrapped into the 19th and 20th Century ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism, or lost in its shadows, we will not succeed in developing those new 21st Century models. Look for inspiration in the exquisite organization of organic life rather than in the agonizingly short-sighted organization of human society hitherto. (For an archive of Words of Power posts on Economic Insecurity, click here.)

If you have not already joined the Alliance for Climate Protection, Al Gore and I urge you to do so. Click here.

For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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Hard Rain Late Night -- Brian Eno & David Byrne -- Everything That Happens (2008) & Mea Culpa (1981)

Hard Rain Late Night -- Brian Eno & David Byrne -- Everything That Happens (2008) & Mea Cula (1981)





Click here for Hard Rain Late Night Music Video -- Archive

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Where There is Smoke There is Fire -- Words of Power from Wilkerson, Ventura, Whitehouse, Soufan & Pelosi

Read Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on America's Anti-Torture Tradition


Ali Soufan: This amateurish technique is harmful to our long-term strategy and interests. It plays into the enemy’s handbook ...It also taints sources, risks outcomes, ignores the endgame, and diminishes our moral high ground. Democracy Now!, 5-14-09)

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: This is idiocy of the first order that Dick Cheney is putting out.” Raw Story, 5-13-09

Jesse Ventura: I’ll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders. Larry King Live, 5-12-09

Speaker Pelosi: We needed to elect a new President. We did; and he has banned torture. ... I have long supported creation of an independent Truth Commission to determine how intelligence was misused, and how controversial and possibly illegal activities like torture were authorized within the Executive Branch. The Gavel, 5-14-09

Where There is Smoke There is Fire -- Words of Power from Wilkerson, Ventura, Whitehouse, Soufan & Pelosi

By Richard Power

I promised you an important post on the Climate Crisis, but as someone who spoke out on torture over the eight year of the Bush-Cheney regime, and for the sake of continuity and context within this archive of these tumultuous times, I feel compelled to record some recent developments and weigh in on these issues.

In response to former VICE _resident Cheney's latest harm offensive, the most eloquent refutations and rebukes were offered by US Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Retired), the distinguished former Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, and one of the heroes of the patriotic front during the last eight years, and former Governor Jesse Ventura, who is worthy of respect as a genuine independent and freethinker, and a former US Navy Seal.

On the air with Rachel Maddow, Col. Wilkerson said:

You notice that Dick Cheney always says ‘7 1/2 years,”" Wilkerson told Maddow. “That’s because he has the honor of being — or the dishonor of being — the man on whose watch 3000 Americans died. More Americans died from a terrorist attack under Dick Cheney’s leadership, if you will, than any other president in our history.”
“The reason we have not had another attack in this country,’ Wilkerson continued, “is over 200,000 Americans who have been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. … We have had 200,000 Americans overseas presenting al Qaeda with very, very lucrative targets — and therefore, why would they want to come here? This is idiocy of the first order that Dick Cheney is putting out.” Raw Story, 5-13-09

On the air with Larry King, Gov. Ventura said:

VENTURA: That’s right. I was water boarded, so I know — at SERE School, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence — every one of us was water boarded. It is torture.
KING: What was it like?
VENTURA: It’s drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you — I’ll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders. Larry King Live, 5-12-09

Those who are swept up in the brouhaha over whether or not to release the torture photos at this moment are missing the real news of this cycle. These horrific photos will be released sooner than later, one way or another.

If there is anything important at all in the story it is that the very reason for blocking their release, i.e., the threat to US military personnel on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, offers further, irrefutable corroboration of the truth that the Bush-Cheney regime's torture has been disastrously counter-productive for the USA.

The real news of the news cycle was what Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and his witness, FBI interrogator Ali Soufan, established not only about the credibility of George Bush but also about the utter travesty of the Bush-Cheney regime's torture program. Everything worthwhile that was gained not from torture but from traditional methods promoted by decent human beings from George Washington to the authors of the Geneva Accords.

ALI SOUFAN: The interrogator uses a combination of interpersonal, cognitive and emotional strategies to extract the information needed. If done correctly, this approach works quickly and effectively, because it outsmarts the detainee using a method that he is not trained nor able to resist. The Army Field Manual is not about being soft. It’s about outwitting, outsmarting and manipulating the detainee.
The approach is in sharp contrast of the enhanced interrogation method that instead tries to subjugate the detainee into submission through humiliation and cruelty. A major problem is it—it is ineffective. Al-Qaeda are trained to resist torture, as we see from the recently released DOJ memos on interrogation. The contractors had to keep requesting authorization to use harsher and harsher methods.
In the case of Abu Zubaydah, that continued for several months, right ’til waterboarding was introduced. And waterboarding itself had to be used eighty-three times, an indication that Abu Zubaydah had already called his interrogators’ bluff. In contrast, when we interrogated him using intelligent interrogation methods, within the first hour we gained important actionable intelligence.
This amateurish technique is harmful to our long-term strategy and interests. It plays into the enemy’s handbook and recreates a form of the so-called Chinese wall between the CIA and the FBI. It also taints sources, risks outcomes, ignores the endgame, and diminishes our moral high ground. ...
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: On September 6, 2006, President Bush stated the following: “Within months of September 11, 2001, we captured a man named Abu Zubaydah. ... As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that [Zubaydah] had received training on how to resist interrogation. And so, the CIA used an alternative set of procedures.”
Does that statement by the President accurately reflect the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah?
ALI SOUFAN: Well, the environment that he’s talking about, yes, it reflects—you know, he was injured, and he needed medical care. But I think the President—my own personal opinion here, based on my recollection, he was told probably half-truth.
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: And repeated half-truth, obviously. His statement, as presented, does not conform with what you know to be the case—
ALI SOUFAN: Yes, sir.
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: —from your experience on-hand.
ALI SOUFAN: Yes, sir. Democracy Now!, 5-14-09)

In another fascinating twist in the narrative, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has now made a definitive statement addressing insinuations from both the right and the left. If our society continues on as an open one (and yes, that is still in question), history will be kinder to Speaker Pelosi than the progressive blogosphere has been:

Throughout my entire career, I am proud to have worked for human rights, and against the use of torture, around the world. ...
I unequivocally oppose the use of torture by our government because it is contrary to our national values. ...
The CIA briefed me only once on some enhanced interrogation techniques, in September 2002, in my capacity as Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee.
I was informed then that Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques was legal. The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed. ...
We needed to elect a new President. We did; and he has banned torture. ...
I have long supported creation of an independent Truth Commission to determine how intelligence was misused, and how controversial and possibly illegal activities like torture were authorized within the Executive Branch.
Until a Truth Commission is implemented, I encourage the appropriate committees of the House to conduct vigorous oversight of these issues. The Gavel, 5-14-09

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

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The Climate Crisis is Advancing *Invisibly* Only If You Have Shut Your Eyes; It is Escalating *Silently* Only If You Have Plugged Your Ears

Frida Kahlo's Roots


France's Aquitaine coast stretches north from the Spanish border to the Gironde river estuary, encompassing rocky bluffs, giant lagoons, deltas, beaches and Europe's largest dune. Now climate change has laid siege to this natural oasis, dramatically speeding up the erosion of the 270 kilometre-long (168 miles) Atlantic coastline and threatening local communities. Rising seas threaten renowned French coast, Agence France Press, 4-26-09

Climate change would force Australia's Aborigines off their traditional lands, resulting in "cultural genocide" and environmental degradation, a human rights watchdog warned ... Agence France Press, 5-4-09

Fire must be accounted for as an integral part of climate change, according to 22 authors of an article published in the April 24 issue of the journal Science. The authors determined that intentional deforestation fires alone contribute up to one-fifth of the human-caused increase in emissions of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas that increases global temperature.Fire Is An Important And Under-Appreciated Part Of Global Climate Change, National Science Foundation, 4-23-09

The Pacific Northwest has spent two decades retooling dams, rebuilding damaged watersheds and restoring stream flows to keep salmon from disappearing. ... No matter what actions the world takes to reduce greenhouse gases, river temperatures in more than half of the lower-elevation watersheds may exceed 70 degrees by 2040 - too hot for salmon. All we do now to save salmon could mean nothing, Idaho Statesman, 5-3-09

Rivers in some of the world's most populous regions are losing water, according to a new comprehensive study of global stream flow. The study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), suggests that in many cases the reduced flows are associated with climate change. The process could potentially threaten future supplies of food and water.Water Levels Dropping In Some Major Rivers As Global Climate Changes, Terra Daily, 4-28-09

Scientists have calculated that the world has already produced about a third of the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that could be emitted between 2000 and 2050 and still keep within a 2C rise in global average temperatures. At the current rate at which CO2 is emitted globally - which is increasing by 3 per cent a year - countries will have exceeded their total limit of 1,000 billion tons within 20 years, which would be about 20 years earlier than planned under international obligations.Steve Connor, Climate Chaos Predicted by CO2 Study, Independent/UK, 4-30-09

Vice President Al Gore, testifying to Congress, told GOP global warming deniers that they are the victims of "the Bernie Madoffs of global warming." ... "They ordered the censoring and removal of the scientific review that they themselves conducted, and like Bernie Madoff, they lied to the people who trusted them in order to make money." Gore tells GOP deniers they’re victims of ‘the Bernie Madoffs of global warming.’ Think Progress, 4-9-09

The Climate Crisis is Advancing *Invisibly* Only If You Have Shut Your Eyes; It is Escalating *Silently* Only If You Have Plugged Your Ears

By Richard Power

The Climate Crisis and the Crisis in Darfur are Words of Powers' two highest priorities.

Just to close the loop on my recent posts, Mia Farrow ended her hunger strike for Darfur on the 12th day, at the urging of her doctor. Her place was taken by Richard Branson, who carried it on for the next three days. Rep. Donald Payne took over for Branson and will carry it on the next three days.

I will continue to follow this story, and I will do whatever I can, day after night, to increase awareness and outrage about the Crisis in Darfur.

I also want to note that U.S. journalist Roxana Saberi, who had recently conducted her own hunger strike to protest her false conviction and wrongful imprisonment, has been freed by the Iranians.

But in this post, and the next, I will focus on Words of Powers' other highest priority, i.e., the Climate Crisis.

Here are seven stories from recent weeks. Even though their import spans the globe, they only skim the surface of the dire straits into which we have drifted.

France's Aquitaine coast stretches north from the Spanish border to the Gironde river estuary, encompassing rocky bluffs, giant lagoons, deltas, beaches and Europe's largest dune.
Now climate change has laid siege to this natural oasis, dramatically speeding up the erosion of the 270 kilometre-long (168 miles) Atlantic coastline and threatening local communities. ...
Cliffs are sliding into the sea, beaches are disappearing, dunes that protect forests, towns and roads are in danger, and the tourism trade is in jeopardy, local experts said. Rising seas threaten renowned French coast, Agence France Press, 4-26-09

Climate change would force Australia's Aborigines off their traditional lands, resulting in "cultural genocide" and environmental degradation, a human rights watchdog warned Monday. ...
"Problems that indigenous Australians will encounter include people being forced to leave their lands, particularly in coastal areas," the report said.
"Dispossession and a loss of access to traditional lands, waters, and natural resources may be described as cultural genocide; a loss of ancestral, spiritual, totemic and language connections to lands and associated areas." Agence France Press, 5-4-09

"The tragic fires in Victoria, Australia, emphasize the ubiquity of recent large wildfires and potentially changing fire regimes that are concomitant with anthropogenic climate change," said David Bowman of the University of Tasmania. "Our review is both timely and of great relevance globally." ...
The authors state, "Earth is intrinsically a flammable planet due to its cover of carbon-rich vegetation, seasonally dry climates, atmospheric oxygen, widespread lightning and volcano ignitions. Yet, despite the human species' long-held appreciation of this flammability, the global scope of fire has been revealed only recently by satellite observations available beginning in the 1980s." ...
[Jennifer Balch, a member of the research team and a postdoctoral fellow at NCEAS] notes that a holistic fire science is necessary, and points out fire's true importance. "We don't think about fires correctly," she said. "Fire is as elemental as air or water. We live on a fire planet. We are a fire species. Yet, the study of fire has been very fragmented. We know lots about the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, but we know very little about the fire cycle, or how fire cycles through the biosphere." Fire Is An Important And Under-Appreciated Part Of Global Climate Change, National Science Foundation, 4-23-09

Fish that spawn in the south and in the summer will die first as the world warms. Idaho's high-elevation runs may offer one of the best chances the species has.
he Pacific Northwest has spent two decades retooling dams, rebuilding damaged watersheds and restoring stream flows to keep salmon from disappearing.
The United States has invested billions in the effort - $350 million in 2004 alone - by far the most money spent on any endangered species.
But a new threat is more devastating than the gill nets that sent dozens of salmon runs into extinction. It is more deadly than the hydroelectric turbines that still kill millions of migrating smolts. In fact, it raises doubts about whether salmon will survive in the Northern Pacific at all.
Climate change already has made rivers warmer and spring runoff earlier, disrupting the life cycle of the fish that are an icon of the region.
No matter what actions the world takes to reduce greenhouse gases, river temperatures in more than half of the lower-elevation watersheds may exceed 70 degrees by 2040 - too hot for salmon. All we do now to save salmon could mean nothing, Idaho Statesman, 5-3-09

Rivers in some of the world's most populous regions are losing water, according to a new comprehensive study of global stream flow. The study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), suggests that in many cases the reduced flows are associated with climate change. The process could potentially threaten future supplies of food and water. ... The scientists, who examined stream flow from 1948 to 2004, found significant changes in about one-third of the world's largest rivers. Of those, rivers with decreased flow outnumbered those with increased flow by a ratio of about 2.5 to 1.
Several of the rivers channeling less water serve large populations, including the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India, the Niger in West Africa, and the Colorado in the southwestern United States. In contrast, the scientists reported greater stream flow over sparsely populated areas near the Arctic Ocean, where snow and ice are rapidly melting. Water Levels Dropping In Some Major Rivers As Global Climate Changes, Terra Daily, 4-28-09

"If we continue burning fossil fuels as we do, we will have exhausted the carbon budget in merely 20 years, and global warming will go well beyond 2C," said Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who led the study, published in Nature.
"Substantial reductions in global emissions have to begin soon - before 2020. If we wait longer, the required phase-out of carbon emissions will involve tremendous economic costs and technological challenges. We should not forget that a 2C global mean warming would take us far beyond the variations that Earth has experienced since we humans have been around."
It is the first time scientists have calculated accurately the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can be released into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2050 and still have a reasonable chance of avoiding temperature rises higher than 2C above pre-industrial levels - widely viewed as a "safe" threshold.
The scientists found the total amount of greenhouse gases that could be released over this time would be equivalent to 1,000 billion tons of CO2. This is equivalent to using up about 25 per cent of known reserves of oil, gas and coal, said Bill Hare, a co-author of the study. Steve Connor, Climate Chaos Predicted by CO2 Study, Independent/UK, 4-30-09

Vice President Al Gore, testifying to Congress, told GOP global warming deniers that they are the victims of “the Bernie Madoffs of global warming.” After Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) mocked global warming as being responsible for the woes of the Dallas Cowboys, Gore said that he and other climate change deniers have been receiving bad information. He pointed out that a front-page story in today’s New York Times reveals that the largest corporate polluters in the United States censored their climate scientists in 1995:
The largest corporate carbon polluters in America, 14 years ago, asked their own people to conduct a review of all of this science. And their own people told them, “What the international scientific community is saying is correct, there is no legitimate basis for denying it.” Then, these large polluters committed a massive fraud far larger than Bernie Madoff’s fraud. They are the Bernie Madoffs of global warming. They ordered the censoring and removal of the scientific review that they themselves conducted, and like Bernie Madoff, they lied to the people who trusted them in order to make money. Gore tells GOP deniers they’re victims of ‘the Bernie Madoffs of global warming.’ Think Progress, 4-9-09

If you have not already joined the Alliance for Climate Protection, Al Gore and I urge you to do so. Click here.

For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Al Gore,George Monbiot, An Inconvenient Truth,Laurie David, Stop Global Warming!, The Eleventh Hour, Organic Gardening, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hard Rain Late Night: Erykah Badu -- The Other Side of the Game

Hard Rain Late Night: Erykah Badu -- The Other Side of the Game



Click here for Hard Rain Late Night Music Video -- Archive

Erykah Badu, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Darfur Crisis Upate: Mia Farrow on 11th Day of Her Hunger Strike

Day 11 -- I'm really struggling today. Mia Farrow, 5-7-09

Darfur Crisis Upate: Mia Farrow on 11th Day of Her Hunger Strike

By Richard Power

Larry King deserves a kind word here for following up on Mia Farrow's hunger strike for Darfur -- even if the segment was sandwiched between James Carville and a woman who had her face rebuilt after it was shot off. So far, Larry King's is the only show on any prime time cable news network to interview her or give the story any degree of the respect it deserves.

On Monday, the Los Angeles Times discovered the story; yesterday, the New York Times discovered the story. When will the story hit the White House press room?

Here is a brief excerpt from the transcript of this second Larry King show segment, followed by Mia's video blog from Day 10.

Remember the point of the hunger strike is to get as many people as possible to contact the White House online (www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/) or by telephone (202-456-1111) and tell President Obama that "it is not acceptable for you to watch a million or more Darfuris die of starvation, thirst and disease."

The immediate goal of this action is to prevail upon the international community to force either the return of the expelled aid agencies or at least the admission of other aid agencies to replace them.

KING: Welcome back. Tonight, we're kicking off our impact your world series. Every few weeks, we'll focus on a cause and show you ways to help that cause. Tonight, we're focussing on the crisis in Darfur. What better person to do it with than Mia Farrow, who's in the second week of her fast to draw attention to the plight of the people of Darfur. How are you feeling, Mia?
MIA FARROW, ACTRESS: I feel OK, Larry. I think the first six days were the hardest. I have low energy, but, strangely, it's kind of a spiritual journey. I have less tolerance for TV. I listen to a lot of Bach. I try to read. And sometimes I just look out the window.
But thank you for doing the show on Darfur. That's the reason I'm doing this and it's great that you're doing the show. ...
KING: I understand someone is with you, Mohamed [Yahya]. He's from Darfur, is that right?
FARROW: That's right. Yes, he's a respected Darfuri leader here in the United States. He has news of Darfur.
KING: Mohamed, are things getting any better?
YAHYA: Unfortunately, Mr. Larry, things doesn't go very well. And it's really getting worse and worse, especially after the government of Sudan expelled about 16 aid workers, the organizations who are supporting my people in Darfur, giving them food, shelter, water and medicine.
And right now, so many people dying. Hundreds of people dying, especially kids, due to Meningitis and disease, and Cholera, so many difficult situations in Darfur right now.
KING: Mia, what can ordinary Americans do to help?
FARROW: Everyone can call the White House ... 202-456-11. And ask President Obama to please, please make good on those campaign pledges to help to bring an end to the suffering in Darfur. And I know a lot of -- I received tremendous support from all over the world. And some supporters have set up a website, FastDarfur.org, where you can go there and figure out from them what else you can do. ...
KING: ... When we come back, she received the nation's first face transplant after having her face blown off with a shotgun. You will not believe how she looks now. Don't go away. Larry King Live, CNN, 5-6-09

[NOTE: If you are reading this via your free e-mail subscription to Words of Power, click here to go to Mia Farrow's video blog for Day 10 of her hunger strike. But if you are reading this post at Words of Power on the WWW, you will find it embedded below.]

Day 10 of Mia Farrow's Hunger Strike for Darfur, Video Blog

Day 10 of Mia Farrow's Hunger Strike for Darfur, Video Blog



As always, I encourage you to follow events in Darfur on Mia Farrow's site, it is the real-time journal of a humanitarian at work; the content is compelling, insightful and fiercely independent.

For a Words of Power Archive of posts on the Crisis in Darfur, click here.

Here are other sites of importance:

Dream for Darfur

Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities

Genocide Intervention Network

Divest for Darfur.

Save Darfur!

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

Darfur, Divestment, Enough, UN, Genocide, Mia Farrow, Dream for Darfur, Sudan, Investors Against Genocide, Richard Power, Words of Power

Hunger for Justice: A Tale of Two Brave Women -- Mia Farrow & Roxana Saberi

UPDATE: As of early am 5-6-09, CNN is reporting that Roxana Saberi has ended her hunger stike, at the request of her parents. The story does not mention the forced-feeding reported on 5-5-09. Why? If it was inaccurate, it should be noted as inaccurate, if it is unverified, it should be not as yet unverified. Strange that it is not mentioned at all.


And never think your voice won't count. The government considers that every single call represents 10,000 people (voters). The late Sen. Paul Simon said, of the Rwandan genocide-if just 100 people from each district had called or written, our government would have taken action to prevent the slaughter in Rwanda. Mia Farrow, 5-5-09

The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the well-being of convicted Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who has been treated at Evin Prison's hospital during a hunger strike to protest her confinement ... Committee to Protect Journalists, 5-5-09

Hunger for Justice: A Tale of Two Brave Women -- Mia Farrow & Roxana Saberi

By Richard Power

In Connecticut, Mia Farrow is on Day 9 of her hunger strike for the people of Darfur.

"Please, please contact the White House," she writes. "Leave word that it is not acceptable for you to watch a million or more Darfuris die of starvation, thirst and disease." You can contact the White House online (www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/) or by telephone (202-456-1111). She is calling for Obama and other world leaders to work urgently for the return of the 16 humanitarian agencies that were driven out by the Thugocracy in Karthoum. (I have included her latest video blog below.)

I urge you to heed her request.

Meanwhile, in Iran, photo-journalist Roxana Saberi, who has gone on her own hunger strike to protest her imprisonment by the misogynistic regime in Tehran, is being force-fed intravenously.

Here is an excerpt from Der Spiegel's interview with Saberi's father:

Der Spiegel: SPIEGEL: Legal officials in Tehran dispute the fact that your daughter is actually refusing to eat.
Saberi: My daughter is a very determined woman. She said that she wants out of the prison -- "dead or alive". As her parents, we take that very seriously and we are very concerned. My wife and I have attempted to talk Roxana out of this action. But as far as I know, she has only been drinking water with a little bit of sugar for the past 10 days. Der Spiegel, 5-4-09

And yet today in the US mainstream news media more ink and air time has been given to the death of of actor, comedian and chef Dom Deluise than to either of these two stories of personal courage and conscience.

Our culture too is dying of malnourishment.

[NOTE: If you are reading this via your free e-mail subscription to Words of Power, click here to go to Mia Farrow's video blog for Day 9 of her hunger strike. But if you are reading this post at Words of Power on the WWW, you will find it embedded below.]



As always, I encourage you to follow events in Darfur on Mia Farrow's site, it is the real-time journal of a humanitarian at work; the content is compelling, insightful and fiercely independent.

For a Words of Power Archive of posts on the Crisis in Darfur, click here.

Here are other sites of importance:

Dream for Darfur

Enough: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities

Genocide Intervention Network

Divest for Darfur.

Save Darfur!

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

Darfur, Divestment, Enough, UN, Genocide, Mia Farrow, Dream for Darfur, Sudan, Investors Against Genocide, Roxana Saberi, Mia Farrow, Richard Power, Words of Power

Late Night Hard Rain: Emmylou Harris -- Darkest Hour is Just Before Dawn (Budapest, 1988)

Hard Rain Late Night: Emmylou Harris Darkest Hour is Just Before Dawn (Budapest, 1988)



Click here for Hard Rain Late Night Music Video -- Archive

Emmylou Harris,You Tube, Late Night, Music, Richard Power, Words of Power

Global News Media Update: Across the Planet, Having A By-Line Demands Courage, But in the USA, for Every Danny Pearl, There are 100 Anderson Coopers

George Orwell, author of 1984 and Animal Farm, was also a BBC journalist


"Global declines in press freedom" persisted last year, with setbacks highlighted in Israel, Italy, Taiwan, Hong Kong and elsewhere across the world, an annual survey said Friday. ... "This marked the seventh straight year of overall deterioration. ... Given the current economic climate, which is certain to place a further strain on media sustainability and diversity in rich and poor countries alike, pressures on media freedom are now looming from all angles and are increasingly threatening the considerable gains of the past quarter-century," the report said. CNN, 5-2-09

“The 12 ‘Enemies of the Internet’ - Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam - have all transformed their Internet into an Intranet in order to prevent their population from accessing ‘undesirable’ online information,” Reporters Without Borders said. Reporters Without Borders, 3-12-09

Day Six: I find I am needing less sleep. Hunger and headaches have gone. I feel clear-minded and somewhat emotional. Also spiritual. Except for the visits with my family, there is nothing but my thoughts. I do have a TV in my room and sometimes I watch it but more and more I feel inclined to read, meditate and pray. Mia Farrow, 5-2-09

Global News Media Update: Across the Planet, Having A By-Line Demands Courage, But in the USA, for Every Danny Pearl, There are 100 Anderson Coopers
By Richard Power

As I have noted over the years (most recently in While Journalists Risk Their Lives Across the Planet, the US Mainstream News Media Continues to Misinform & Misdirect on the Economic Crisis), in other parts of the world, journalists risk their lives for the truth, in the USA, it is rare to find one that will risk even their job.

As I write this post, Mia Farrow is on the sixth day of her hunger strike for the people of Darfur. On the first night, Larry King gave her a few minutes at the end of his show, after a segment on Swine Flu, and a segment on the death of actress Bea Arthur. And elsewhere in the US mainstream news media? Nothing or next to nothing.

You can follow her video-blogging on her own site and via the power of You Tube. (I have embedded her broadcast from Day Five at the end of this post.)

What would it cost one of the cable news networks (or all of them) to run her video blog posts every night? Several minutes of air time? What would it do for awareness of the plight of the people of Darfur? What would it gain the networks in good will? It could even be used as a justifiable foil with which to generate controversy about the Obama-Biden administration's first 100 days.

But the US mainstream news media apparently has no interest in Jefferson's vision of its role in the life of this nation.

For every Danny Pearl, there are one hundred Judith Millers.

For every Roxana Saberi, there are one hundred Mara Liassons.

For every Bill Moyers there are one hundred Anderson Coopers.

Consider this story from CNN on the tightening of controls over news media freedom throughout the world.

Meanwhile, here in the USA, and especially on TV, freedom of the news media is frittered away on the dumbing down of the populace with unimportant and sensationalistic stories and the distortion of real news stories with the propagation of false and half-false memes.

Here are a few examples --

There is no genuine debate on what constitutes torture. It was decided on long ago, clearly defined, and signed on to by treaty. And yet, in general, the US mainstream news media perpetuates the false meme that it is a debatable issue.

There is no genuine debate any more about the reality of the climate crisis, or its severity, or its origins in the burning of fossil fuels. And yet, in general, the US mainstream news media perpetuates the false meme that these three issues are the subject of rational debate.

Just as it propagates the false meme of "the success of the surge" in Iraq. Tell me, if you knock out a rapid dog with a tranquilizer gun, will it no longer be rapid when it comes to it senses again?

Similarly, in general, the US mainstream news media refuses to acknowledge the reality that not only is single payer universal healthcare the preference of most of the US electorate, it would also be less expensive than what we don't have now.

In the USA, the freedom of the news media is not greatly compromised by the government, it is greatly compromised from within and above, i.e., from the Board Room and at the C-Level, on behalf of energy, pharma, insurance, banking, telecommunications and yes defense industry interests. And this compromising is carried out not so much overtly as it is through the pressures of corporate culture. Of course, the US mainstream news media is not alone in its denial and dysfunction, the US political establishment, in general, also perpetuates these false and half-false memes.

Why? The extreme concentration of wealth exerting its influence on public debate in the corridors of government as well as on the air waves.

And yes, those of us fortunate enough to have convenient Internet access and the unstructured time to do our own research get our news from diverse source throughout the world via cyberspace. But as Reporters Without Borders pointed out in their report on "Enemies of the Internet," that resource too has been targeted by those who want to hold on to power to further exploit both humanity and nature. (Of course, the report does not go into the velvet glove approach being attempted in the USA. Click here to learn more about the struggle for Net Neutrality.)

Our ability as a nation to exert power and influence on behalf of endangered journalists throughout the planet is seriously weakened by the embarrassing fact that our own mainstream news media is little more than an extension of corporate power.

You will note I have inserted an "in general" in my use of the phrase "US mainstream news media," because, after the debacle of the media's full participation in The Hunting of the President in the 1990s and their faint-hearted complicity in the abomination of the Bush-Cheney era, there is a crack in that high wall, and the crack has several seams, which are getting larger and larger. Light is seeping through. There is an hour a week on PBS, i.e., Frontline. There are three hours a night on MSNBC (five hours if you can the repeats), i.e., Olbermann, Maddow and now Schultz. And there is still the miracle of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central.

There is hope, and there has been a modicum of change, but both are fragile, and there is a long way to go. Progressive talk radio, arguably, the most powerful force of all, is hanging on by a thread -- not because it is unsuccessful, but because it has been too successful. (Click here to learn more.) Bastions of the Web-based information rebellion, like indefatigable Buzzflash, have to struggle for the money to keep going month to month.

And, of course, meanwhile, you will have to follow Mia Farrow's hunger strike for the people of Darfur here and at www.miafarrow.org.

"Global declines in press freedom" persisted last year, with setbacks highlighted in Israel, Italy, Taiwan, Hong Kong and elsewhere across the world, an annual survey said Friday.
Freedom House, a nongovernmental organization that supports democracy and freedom of the media, said in its annual press freedom survey that "negative trends" outweighed "positive movements in every region, particularly in the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and North Africa."
"This marked the seventh straight year of overall deterioration. Improvements in a small number of countries -- including bright spots in parts of South Asia and Africa -- were overshadowed by a continued, relentless assault on independent news media by a wide range of actions, in both authoritarian states and countries with very open media environments."
Israel -- once the only country to be consistently rated free by the group in the Middle East and North Africa -- was ranked as "partly free" because of the Gaza conflict. ...
Elsewhere in the Middle East, there are concerns about harassment of journalists and bloggers in Libya, Iran, Syria, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. The drop in violence in war-torn Iraq helped journalists move around the country, and a new law in the Kurdish region gave journalists "unprecedented freedoms."
Hong Kong, which is part of China, also dropped in rankings from free to partly free, a reflection of "the growing influence of Beijing over media and free expression in the territory." ...
The worst-rated countries in the world are Myanmar, Cuba, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea and Turkmenistan.
"Given the current economic climate, which is certain to place a further strain on media sustainability and diversity in rich and poor countries alike, pressures on media freedom are now looming from all angles and are increasingly threatening the considerable gains of the past quarter-century," the report said. CNN, 5-2-09

Reporters Without Borders ... issued a report entitled “Enemies of the Internet” in which it examines Internet censorship and other threats to online free expression in 22 countries.
“The 12 ‘Enemies of the Internet’ - Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam - have all transformed their Internet into an Intranet in order to prevent their population from accessing ‘undesirable’ online information,” Reporters Without Borders said.
“All these countries distinguish themselves not only by their ability to censor online news and information but also by their virtually systematic persecution of troublesome Internet users,” the press freedom organisation said. Reporters Without Borders has placed 10 other governments “under surveillance” for adopting worrying measures that could open the way to abuses. The organisation draws particular attention to Australia and South Korea, where recent measures may endanger online free expression. Reporters Without Borders, 3-12-09



For a Words of Power Archive of posts on the Crisis in Darfur, click here.

For Words of Power's archive of posts on Corporate News Media Complicity, Power of Alternative Media, Propaganda & Freedom, click here.

Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.

Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Danny Pearl, Roxana Saberi, Mia Farrow, Bill Moyers, Freedom House, Darfur, Reporters Without Borders, Media Matters, Blogosphere Richard Power,