Written by Mary Kaldor Marika Theros    Friday, 12 December 2008 17:10 Human security ought to be the goal of any Obama surge in Afghanistan, not defeat of Al Qaeda

Do read Mary Kaldor excellent piece over at Open Democracy.She writes about Afghanistan and says

The neo-Taliban: A year on The success of a reinvigorated Afghan insurgency – albeit qualified by overstretch and internal tensions – guarantees that 2009 will be another tough year of combat, writes Antonio Giustozzi for openDemocracy.By Antonio Giustozzi

Secure Afghanistan Human security ought to be the goal of any Obama surge in Afghanistan, not defeat of Al Qaeda. By Mary Kaldor and Marika Theros.

Sunni, Shi’a and the “Trotskyists of Islam”Fred Halliday9 February 2007The tensions between Islam's two major traditions are rooted more in current geopolitics than in differences of faith, says Fred Halliday.

The Taliban Written by Antonio Giustozzi    The success of a reinvigorated Afghan insurgency – albeit qualified by overstretch and internal tensions – guarantees that 2009 will be another tough year of combat

ISN - The protest wave in Greece following the police shooting of a student should be seen in the light of the country’s post-1973 history, writes Kostas Gemenis for openDemocracy

Published on openDemocracy, by Theo Hobson, Dec. 9, 2008. To honour the English writer John Milton on the 400th anniversary of his birth is to acknowledge his persistent otherness in the country he tried to transform, says Theo Hobson.

Kathleen Blake Bohne writes at OpenDemocracy about the legalization debate in Mexico.

On migration OpenDemocracy has a selection of articles concerning immigration to Britain, of which the articles by Paul Kingsnorth and Shamser Sinha are worth examining. Kingsnorth attacks the left's "general confusion over immigration" and claims immigration is used to depress labour standards in Britain. To take the first point:

Today marks the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

openDemocracy has a primer on why the current climate-change conference in Poznan matters.

In the wake of the attacks on Mumbai, former Indian army officials have called for a shift in strategy and training to enable the army to better combat urban terrorists. Saskia Sassen is a professor of sociology at Columbia University working on a project about cities and war. She writes at OpenDemocracy about the growing phenomenon of urban warfare, which puts cities and their residents on the front lines.

From Open Democracy If You Had A World Without Doctors And Only Drug Companies - That Is How The Rich Feel When Their Financial Advisers Also Sell Them The Products - The Subprime Packaged Derivatives. Why Would One Wonder About The Present Malaise? Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 28th, 2008 by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com) Shiller’s ‘no shill’ solution, Tony Curzon Price Robert Shiller was at London’s ippr talking about the subprime crisis and another prescient book of his:

Dan Sperber: Claude Lévi-Strauss at 100: echo of the future (Lévi-Strauss was the pioneer of a true “cognitive anthropology” - OpenDemocracy, 28.11.08)

Transnationalism http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/umma_2904.jsp"Transnational Umma: Reality or Myth?By: Fred HallidayWritten: June 10, 2005

One year after re-introducing the Tridentine Mass and two years after the Regensburg address, Benedict XVI's popular new traditionalism has re-ignited the Catholic culture wars. By John Casey for openDemocracy.net

G20's world: join a group read , Tony Curzon Price $(".sort").hide();                     opendemocracy.net 21 hrs ago 62 related          The G20 communique from their November 15th Washington meeting isreproduced below. Join me in doing a group read/comment of the text. Isit what we need from our leaders? Are the principles right? What ismissing? What does it mean? To join in, follow these steps: 1) get a diigo account 2) join the oD-G20-communique group 3) start using diigo to add notes and comments to any part of the text below. I recommend you do this either through the diigolet functionality, or, my preferred option, through installing the diigo toolbar. When viewing the communique, select "View Comments" from the diigolet button or the toolbar to see what is being said or asked about the document. When viewing the communique, select "View Comments" from the diigolet button or the toolbar to see what is being said or asked about the document. ======== 1.... [read full story]                     Add Comment There are also 62 related articles View all news articles about*:

[These summary articles nearly always leave out something major. In this case, climate change is mentioned briefly under the section on the global economic recession, not as a causal factor, certainly not as a bigger market failure than the Great Depression (a view put forward several years ago by Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist of the World Bank), but as one of a list of factors including unsustainable inequality, social tensions, dysfunctional or absent governance that have to be "factored in" to a solution.

Nicolas Sarkozy: world leader, local problem Written by Patrice de Beer    Wednesday, 12 November 2008 17:22 The ambitions of France's president extend to a dominant role in Europe and a powerful position on the global stage. But he is bound to discover that all politics is local, says Patrice de Beer.