Month: June 2010

IRIN

“Many children living in Cairo’s informal settlements eat carbohydrate- and calorie-rich meals and not enough protein.” PHOTO/Amr Emam/IRIN

CAIRO, 23 June 2010 (IRIN) – For seven-year-old Ahmed Yasser, it is normal to have just a crust of bread to munch on throughout the afternoon as he plays with other children in a narrow alley in the sprawling slum of Arab al-Maasarah, 20km south of Cairo.

“What else can the children eat?” Yasser Ali, Ahmed’s father, told IRIN. “The last time we ate protein was a month ago when a charity sent us a kilo of beef.”

IRIN for more

by DAHR JAMAIL

The tar sands mining project in Alberta, Canada, is possibly the largest industrial project in human history and critics claim it could also be the most destructive.

The mining procedure for extracting oil from a region referred to as the “tar sands,” located north of Edmonton, releases at least three times the CO2 emissions of regular oil production procedures and will likely become North America’s single largest industrial contributor to climate change.

Green Left for more

by FELICITY ARBUTHNOT

‘They make a desolation and call it peace
Who is the guardian tonight of the Gates of Paradise?’
Agha Shaid Ali, The Country Without a Post Office, Poems 1991-1995.

‘The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew and locusts came,
Great is the hand that holds Dominion,
Over Man, by a scribbled name.’
Dylan Tomas, 1914-1953.

It was blogger BlaiseP who on 22 May expressed the senseless horror, the destruction of the irreplaceable, in another Iraq tragedy. He wrote of a man he had never met and of a grief despairing, hopeless, immitigable:

New Internationalist for more

by CHARLES Q. CHOI

A new map of uranium on the moon has revealed the lunar surface to be a poor source of the radioactive stuff, but it could help solve mysteries as to how the moon formed.

Christian Science Monitor for more

by Aasi Mehmood Zamini

Come down!

For a while today!

Speak thee

And let me speak!

Come down

For a while

Do watch the world,

Engineered by you!

Some are inferior/poor

Some are superior/rich

Who belong to you?

Do mark them!

Wrinkled is the veil,

Torn shirt she puts on,

The naked she looks,

Who daughter is that girl?

She begs before stranger men,

Offer alms to your people!

Without breakfast

And bare-footed,

She ploughs

In the scorching beam,

Unbuttered pieces of meal,

She takes with spoilt molasses

Come down to taste it

A single time!

‘AASI’ was bestowed with insight

That utters the truth and tormented for,

“Why I am called atheist then”

Come to get [insight] it back!

(Translated from Sindhi by Hisam Memon)

*(Title provided. Ed.)

Indus Asia Online Journal

For the original Sindhi poem visit the above site.

INDIAN EXPRESS

Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka plan to learn Tamil language to create greater harmony and heal the decades old animosity between the majority Sinhalas and the minority Hindu community in the country.

Indian Express for more

(Submitted by Pritam Rohila)

SOUTH ASIAN MEDIA NET

MALE: Government of Maldives has signed an agreement with UAE’s Supreme Fuel Trading FZE on managing the Male’ International Airport for 30 years. Mahmood Raazee, Chairman of the Privatization Committee also said that the company would begin managing the airport within 90 days and Supreme is expected to present its management plan within 180 days of signing the contract.

South Asian Media Net for more

More GRITtv

GRIT TV

by NANDINI SUNDAR

“Security personnel with the body of a suspected female Maoist after the June 16 encounter in the Ranjha forests near Lalgarh.” PHOTO/Outlook India

If the security forces can treat dead women like hunting trophies, not only trussing their bodies to poles, but taking pride in displaying their kill, is it surprising that their behaviour towards the living is so atrocious? After every deadly attack by the Maoists, ‘civil society actors’ are summoned by TV channels to condemn the incident, substituting moral indignation for news analysis. And yet, the same media is strangely silent on police or paramilitary atrocities against civilians. On June 9, The Hindu published stories of rapes in and around Chintalnar in Dantewada by special police officers (SPOs) of the Chhattisgarh government. To my knowledge, no one’s asked P. Chidambaram, Raman Singh or the Chhattisgarh DGP to condemn these incidents or even asked what they are going to do about it. These are people in positions of power, who are elected or paid to uphold the Constitution, and the ‘buck stops with them’, not with ordinary citizens.

Outlook India for more

Let this picture then tell the lie about India shining. Let this picture be the turning point of the struggle for genuine democracy. Let this picture be carried around in every demonstration to show the world how G20 Manmohan’s India follows the Geneva conventions.

Counter Currents for more

(Submitted by Mukul Dube)

by NUSRAT ARA

With a smile, Gul remembers newspaper stories about a woman spoiling the expensive golf course. She says she was under heavy pressure from the management to solve the problem.

Most of the chemicals for eliminating white grubs are not allowed in India so Gul had to find a solution herself.

She enlisted the help of a local agricultural university, where two research students worked with her for many weeks on possible solutions. In addition to using chemicals on the bugs, they came up with a special fence that wards off bears and other wild animals by sending electromagnetic waves. Gul happily describes how their point-by-point remedy is regarded “as a reference on the problem of white grubs today.”

Womens Enews for more