Group items tagged

WASHINGTON, D.C. | January 19, 2012 The Mayors for Freedom to Marry campaign will meet on Friday in Washington, the nation's capital, to garner support for same-sex marriages nationwide. The campaign is led by the Mayor of San Diego, California, Jerry Sanders. Joining Sanders in Washington is Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as well as the mayors of Boston, Chicago and Houston. Freedom to Marry was fonuded in 2003 by Evan Wolfson, the father of the modern marriage movement. The campaign's mission is to garner support, grow the national majority for marriage and end federal marriage discrimination through the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. The San Diego Mayor, previously opposed to same-sex marriage, in a Los Angeles Times report states that he "could not accept the idea that his daughter Lisa is less worthy of forming a lasting relationship because she is a lesbian."

"The World Bank announced this week that it expects to launch a website in December outlining its plan to create a "civil society support facility" with global outreach. The Bank hosted the SID-Washington Civil Society Workgroup on November 26th in a session entitled, "The World bank's Proposed Civil Society Initiative: Where did it originate and what is its Purpose?" John Garrison, the Bank's Senior Civil Society Specialist, did not announce the location of the facility except to confirm that it will not be housed within the Bank's sprawling Washington complexes (thankfully, since Bank entry points are now more cumbersome than Homeland Security screenings at Dulles )."

WASHINGTON, Apr 24 (IPS) - A massive overhaul of U.S. development assistance is needed, says a new report from an influential Washington think tank. While the "heightened rhetorical attention" given to democracy issues by George W. Bush's administration w

Univision, the premier media company serving the U.S. Hispanic community, announces that it will host a Historic Education Town Hall with with President Barack Obama that will be taped and then later aired as a television news special entitled Univision News Presents: The Moment is Now - The President, Hispanics and Education. The Town Hall will be held on Monday, March 28, 2011 and hosted by Univision's news anchor Jorge Ramos at the following location: Bell Multicultural High School 3101 16 Street, NW 9405 Washington, DC 20010 The Town Hall event will give President Barack Obama the opportunity to engage with students, parents and teachers about education and Hispanic educational achievement. The event will also focus on better preparing students for college and 21st century careers, greater parental engagement in education, and the politics of reforming the educational system according to a Press Release. The Town Hall will be taped at Bell Multicultural High School from from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. EDT and will air without commercial interruptions at 7 p.m. EDT/PDT, 6 p.m. CDT on the Univision Network, and closed-captioned in English on CC3 where available. The event will also be streamed online at www.EsElMomento.com in English and Spanish as well as simulcast on Univision Radio in Spanish. PRESS INFORMATION: Beginning at 8 a.m. EDT although subject to change, pre-registered members of the press are invited to cover and will have access to wi-fi, a mult box and feed to the Town Hall taping. In addition, refreshments will be served. It is asked that all media RSVP by Saturday, March 26. RSVP/CONTACTS: Carolina Valencia - (646) 673-6494, cvalencia@unvision.net Paula Alvarez - (347) 268-7408, pmalvarez@univision.net ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: In the lead up to the Town Hall, students, parents and teachers will have the opportunity to submit an education-related question for President Obama. Questions can be submitted to Univision until Sunday, March 27, 2011 thro

WASHINGTON, Mar 27 (IPS) - A bipartisan, blue-ribbon task force is urging the United States to formally announce a policy of "positive engagement" with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and send an observer to its 2010 Review Conference. In a report

While the administration rolled out the red carpet to welcome Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington this week, the real action wasn't around the elegantly set tables at the Obama's first state dinner. It was across the street at the U.S. Cham

WASHINGTON, Jul 15 (IPS) - In her first comprehensive policy address since becoming secretary of state nearly six months ago, Hillary Clinton Wednesday called for a "multi-partner'' - as opposed to a "multi-polar" - world" and defended President Barack Ob

WASHINGTON, Jul 21 (IPS) - Several international companies are named as helping to prolong the more than 12-year conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in a new report by the British-based group Global Witness, released Tuesday. http://www.glo

"Sami Al-Haj should never have been held so long," said secretary general Robert Menard in a statement released in Washington. "US authorities never proved that he had been involved in any kind of criminal activity. This case is yet another example o

WASHINGTON, Jun 10 (IPS) - A radical foreign policy idea put forth by presumptive Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has drawn cheers of support from sources as varied as his campaign's neo-conservative backers to liberal internationalists

WASHINGTON, 10 jun (IPS) - El generalizado aplauso a la propuesta de crear una "liga de democracias", formulada por el candidato oficialista a la presidencia estadounidense John McCain, no impidió escuchar algunos abucheos.

Political speeches and even policy analysis from Washington, Ottawa, and the capitals of Europe about promoting democratization have tended in the past two decades toward generalities and platitudes. This research asks what Western and international agenc

WASHINGTON, Mar 11 (IPS) - Scores of Middle East and democracy experts released an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday asking him to focus more of his foreign policy efforts at making reforms in the region, including boosting human rights.

The global economic crisis could, perhaps perversely, highlight democracy's resilience and appeal despite the evidence that global freedom is in retreat for the third year successive year, a Washington meeting on Freedom after the Freedom Agenda heard tod

WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (IPS) - Despite the possibility of isolated violence and other problems, close watchers of Iraq's upcoming provincial elections say that a relatively smooth process there could be a bellwether for better days ahead, according to a new r

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (IPS) - A commission led by three former Latin American heads of state has called the 30-year U.S. "war on drugs" in Latin America a failure and urged a drastic change in policy. The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy iss

WASHINGTON, Apr 7 (IPS) - Human rights groups welcomed the conviction of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison Tuesday on charges of murder and kidnapping.

For the past decade, the United States has been promoting national transformation in the Balkans. In pushing the independence of Kosovo, Washington policy makers apparently believed that Serbia would acquiesce, most nations would recognize the newest inde

WASHINGTON, Mar 16 (IPS) - The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama should work hard on areas of common interest with Russia in order to build a "partnership, however uneasy," that would serve Washington's interests in key areas, including non-pr

WASHINGTON, Mar 19 (IPS) - The U.S. should stop focusing on universalising Western democracy and instead work on constructing an international order that grants full legitimacy to responsible non-democratic states, argues an influential new paper that has