World’s Most Dangerous Countries for Women

A veiled Afghan woman waits with her son, whose legs have been amputated, for alms on a street in Kabul, August 4, 2008. (Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

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WATCH: Hamza Al-Khatib, Syrian Boy, Brutally Killed In Custody [GRAPHIC VIDEO]

A 13-year-old Syrian boy detained by government forces has been brutally killed, his wounds displayed in a shocking video. The boy, identified as Hamza al-Khateeb, was shot, burned, and had his penis cut off when his body was returned to his family.

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WATCH: Disappearance, then discovery leads to ‘honor killing’ outrage

CNN reports on Ayah Baradiyya, a young Palestinian women in the West Bank, murdered by her uncle and whose killing has incited a call to the Palestinian Authority to change the penal code that barely punishes those who slaughter for “honor.”

The Rainbow Europe Map (May 2011)

The Rainbow Europe map reflects European countries’ laws and administrative practices which protect or violate the human rights of LGBT people. This Map does not reflect the social situation of LGBT people.

U.N. human rights investigators called on the United States on Friday to disclose whether there had been any plan to capture Osama bin Laden and if he was offered any “meaningful prospect of surrender and arrest.”

[Martin Scheinin of Finland, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, speaks during a news conference in Tunis January 26, 2010. Photo credit: Reuters/Zoubeir Souissi]

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China has massively expanded its economic ties to countries across Africa in recent years, sparking criticism from human rights groups, who accuse Beijing of helping some of Africa’s worst governments stay in power.

China adopts a policy of not interfering in domestic politics, while Western countries sometimes make aid conditional on “good governance”.

The cable, published by the Guardian newspaper, quotes Johnnie Carson, US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, who had been meeting oil company representatives in Lagos.

He describes China as “a very aggressive and pernicious economic competitor with no morals”.

“China is not in Africa for altruistic reasons,” he says. “China is in Africa primarily for China.”

He adds: “A secondary reason for China’s presence is to secure votes in the United Nations from African countries.”

He argues that China is not seen in Washington as a military or security threat at the moment. But he says there are, what he calls “tripwires” in Africa for the US when it comes to China.

“Have they signed military base agreements? Are they training armies? Have they developed intelligence operations? Once these areas start developing then the US will start worrying,” he says.

“The United States will continue to push democracy and capitalism while Chinese authoritarian capitalism is politically challenging. The Chinese are dealing with the [Zimbabwean president] Mugabe’s and [Sudanese president] Bashir’s of the world, which is a contrarian political model.”

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[via:caraobrien]

Glen Greenwald’s acount from February of the Democrats’ dubious support of the public option during healthcare reform elucidates the reasons why I left the Democrats and joined the Green Party. Here he goes for the jugular, indicting the party’s pattern of “support” for progressive policy measures:

This is what the Democratic Party does; it’s who they are.  They’re willing to feign support for anything their voters want just as long as there’s no chance that they can pass it.  They won control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections by pretending they wanted to compel an end to the Iraq War and Bush surveillance and interrogation abuses because they knew they would not actually do so; and indeed, once they were given the majority, the Democratic-controlled Congress continued to fund the war without conditions, to legalize Bush’s eavesdropping program, and to do nothing to stop Bush’s habeas and interrogation abuses (“Gosh, what can we do?  We just don’t have 60 votes).

Greenwald exposes Democratic posturing at its most repugnant: in the extension of win-less wars and the disavowal of rule of law, civil liberties, and human rights of American citizens and foreign nationals in detention.

The Guantánamo Diaspora

An infographic of where Guantánamo detainees were transferred to according to the recent WikiLeaks cables released to the public.

[via:uzairm]

Don’t Ask! Don’t Kill!

Amen.

Indeed, the myopia of “gay rights” often throws broader socio-political progressivism under the bus in order to extend our own civil liberties. In New York, Empire State Pride Agenda’s endorsement of Andrew Cuomo is an example of supports a candidate who has said to be for marriage equality but whose attacks on organized labor, demonization of public employees, slashing of social services, and essentially gutting working people, the under- and unemployed, and the poor, is not the kind of politician that will help a majority of who aren’t already upwardly mobile and interested in getting hitched for the benefits.

[via:queermovieman]

Amnesty International’s Pink Tank

LOVE IS HUMAN RIGHT