Skip to main content

Home/ History Readings/ Group items matching "amnesty" in title, tags, annotations or url

Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or url

Sort By: Relevance | Date Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
25More

The future belongs to Right-wing progressives - UnHerd - 0 views

unherd.com/...ngs-to-right-wing-progressives technopoly utopianism right-wing fascism progressive culture politics crisis UK US
shared by Javier E on 13 Apr 24 - No Cached
  • the only subset of Right-wing thought in the West today that doesn’t feel moribund is actively anti-conservative. The liveliest corner of the Anglophone Right is scornful of cultural conservatism and nostalgia, instead combining an optimistic view of technology with a qualified embrace of global migration and an uncompromising approach to public order.
  • in much the same way as the Western Left seized on Venezuela under Chávez as a totemic worked example of this vision, so too the radical Right today has its template for the future: El Salvador under Nayib Bukele
  • These moves have drastically reduced the murder rate in a previously notoriously dangerous country
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • Since coming to power in 2019, Bukele has declared a still-to-be-rescinded state of exception, suspended the Salvadorean constitution, and locked up some 70,000 alleged gang members without due process.
  • This trait also makes him a touchstone for the Right-wing movement that I predict will replace “conservatism” in the 21st century. This outlook owes more to the Italian Futurist Filippo Marinetti than conservatives of the G.K. Chesterton variety
  • yet, Bukele’s strongman tactics have made him wildly popular with Salvadoreans, who doubtless enjoy a reported 70% reduction in the country’s previously extremely high murder rate. They have also made Bukele a rock star for the online Right. This group, fond of complaining about spineless leaders, fraying Western law and order, and the bleeding-away of political agency into international institutions and NGOs, regards the spectacle of a strongman leader with good social media game as something like a fantasy made flesh.
  • Arguably, it’s as much his embrace of technology that accords Bukele the mantle of poster-boy for a futuristic Right. Whether in his extremely online presence, his (admittedly not completely successful) embrace of Bitcoin as legal tender, or the high-tech, recently rebuilt National Library, funded by Beijing and serving more as showcase for futuristic technologies than as reading-room
  • Western critics, though, point to allegations that he has corrupted institutions by packing them with allies, not to mention, according to Amnesty International, “concealed and distorted public information, backed actions to undermine civic space, militarised public security, and used mass arrests and imprisonment as the sole strategies for counteracting violence in the country”.
  • is perhaps most visibly embodied in American technologists such as Elon Musk, Mark Andreessen or Peter Thiel. As a worldview, it is broadly pro-capitalist, enthusiastically pro-technology and unabashedly hierarchical, as well as sometimes also scornful of Christian-inflected concern for the weak.
  • We might call it, rudely, “space fascism”, though N.S. Lyons’s formulation “Right-wing progressivism” is probably more accurate. Among its adherents, high-tech authoritarianism is a feature, not a bug, and egalitarianism is for fools. Thinkers such as Curtis Yarvin propose an explicitly neo-monarchical model for governance; Thiel has declared that: “I no longer believe freedom and democracy are compatible.”
  • El Salvador is thus the most legible real-world instance of something like a Right-wing progressive programme in practice. And along with the tech enthusiasm and public-order toughness, the third distinctive feature of this programme can be gleaned: a desire not to end international migration, but to restrict it to elites.
  • For Right-wing progressives, polities are not necessarily premised on ethnic or cultural homogeneity — at least not for elites. Rather, this is a vision of statehood less based on affinity, history or even ethnicity, and more on a kind of opt-in, utility-maximisation model
  • As a worldview, it’s jarring to cultural conservatives, who generally value thick ties of shared history and affinity
  • Right-wing progressives generally accord greater political value to gifted, high-productivity foreigners than any slow-witted, unproductive coethnic: those within Right-wing progressive circles propose, and in some cases are already working on, opt-in startup cities and “network states” that would be, by definition, highly selective about membership.
  • As for those still wedded to the 20th-century idea that being Right-wing necessarily means ethnicity-based nationalism, they are likely to find this outlook bewildering.
  • Yet it’s still more heretical to egalitarian progressives, for whom making migration and belonging an elite privilege offends every premise of inclusion and social justice.
  • Right-wing progressives, by contrast, propose to learn from the immigration policies of polities such as Singapore and the Gulf states, and avert the political challenges posed by ethnic voting blocs by imposing tiered citizenship for low-skilled migrants, while courting the wealth and productivity of international elites
  • Bukele’s proposal suggests a pragmatic two-tier Right-wing progressive migration policy that courts rich, productive, geographically rootless international “Anywheres” of the kind long understood to have more affinity with one another than with less wealthy and more rooted “Somewheres” — but to do so while explicitly protecting cultural homogeneity on behalf of the less-mobile masses.
  • There are larger structural reasons for such pragmatism, not least that population growth is slowing or going into reverse across most of the planet.
  • At the same time, impelled by easier transportation, climate change, social-media promises of better lives elsewhere, and countless other reasons, people everywhere are on the move. As such, like a global game of musical chairs, a battle is now on for who ends up where, once the music stops — and on what terms.
  • How do you choose who is invited? And how do you keep unwanted demographics out? Within an egalitarian progressive framework, these are simply not questions that one may ask
  • Within the older, cultural conservative framework, meanwhile, all or most migration is viewed with suspicion.
  • The Right-wing progressive framework, by contrast, is upbeat about migration — provided it’s as discerning as possible, ideally granting rights only to elite incomers and filtering others aggressively by demographics, for example an assessment of the statistical likeliho
  • od of committing crime or making a net economic contribution.
  • In Britain, meanwhile, whatever happens to the Tories, I suspect we’ll see more of the Right-wing progressives. I find many of their policies unnerving, especially on the biotech side; but theirs is a political subculture with optimism and a story about the future, two traits that go a long way in politics.
5More

Fareed Zakaria: Romney is the GOP's pretzel candidate - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_story.html republican consensus policy fiscal immigration
shared by Javier E on 27 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • shouldn’t it puzzle us that Romney is so “incompetent” (also from Noonan), given his deserved reputation for, well, competence? He founded one of this country’s most successful financial firms, turned around the flailing Salt Lake City Olympics and was a successful governor. How did he get so clumsy so fast?
  • the problem is not Romney but the new Republican Party. Given the direction in which it has moved and the pressures from its most extreme — yet most powerful — elements, any nominee would face the same challenge: Can you be a serious candidate for the general election while not outraging the Republican base?
  • Why won’t Romney, an intelligent man, fluent in economics, explain his economic policy? Because any sensible answer would cause a firestorm in his party.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • It is obvious that, with a deficit at 8 percent of gross domestic product, any solution to our budgetary problems has to involve both spending cuts and tax increases. Ronald Reagan agreed to tax increases when the deficit hit 4 percent of GDP; George H.W. Bush did so when the deficit was 3 percent of GDP. But today’s Republican Party is organized around the proposition that, no matter the circumstances, there must never be a tax increase of any kind.
  • The Republican Party has imposed a new kind of political correctness on its leaders. They cannot speak certain words (taxes) or speculate about certain ideas (immigration amnesty) because these are forbidden. Romney has tried to run a campaign while not running afoul of his party’s strictures. As a result, he has twisted himself into a pretzel, speaking vacuously, avoiding specifics and refusing to provide any serious plans for the most important issues of the day.
1More

Bayern President Faces Prison in Tax Evasion Case - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rison-in-tax-evasion-case.html tax fraud Germany
shared by Javier E on 23 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • The left-wing opposition scuttled an accord between the German and Swiss governments that would have offered amnesty to people like Mr. Hoeness in exchange for back taxes. Instead of the chance to anonymously pay what he owes, he has become the poster boy for an economic system believed to be rigged against the little guy.
4More

Marxist Group Claims Attack on Embassy in Turkey - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...k-on-us-embassy-in-turkey.html marxist attack turkey embassy us crisis
shared by grayton downing on 02 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Marxist group, with a history of political violence in Turkey, claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing
  • terrorist who had twice attacked government facilities in Istanbul but was released from prison under an amnesty program.
  • bomber appears to have ties to a relatively minor Marxist group
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • , which was responsible for political violence in the 1970
12More

North Korea in the Dark - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...north-korea-in-the-dark.html north korea nytimes US crisis policy
shared by julia rhodes on 26 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • North Korea is in the news again for the same old reason — nuclear tests
  • There is also another reason to take action on North Korea: It has possibly the worst human rights record in the world.
  • An estimated 200,000 people are in dire condition in North Korea’s prison camps, or kwan-li-so. Extreme torture, sexual violence, slave labor, starvation and execution are commonplace.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • He called on the United Nations to take up the case “at the pinnacle of the system” and urged the international community to “mobilize the totality of the U.N. to ... support processes which concretize responsibility and an end to impunity.” Until very recently, his calls fell on deaf ears.
  • For the first time, factors favorable to achieving this have come together, providing a window of opportunity. But that window is narrow.
  • Some may argue that an investigation would threaten any lingering hope of dialogue.
  • U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said that one year after Kim Jong-un took over there is “almost no sign of improvement,” and argued that “an in-depth inquiry into one of the worst — but least understood and reported — human rights situations in the world is not only fully justified, but long overdue.”
  • It is no longer a fringe issue.
  • Simply attaching the tag “crimes against humanity” — if that was the conclusion — might put pressure on Pyongyang to temper its behavior.
  • Late last year, 179 North Korean escapees wrote to foreign ministers of many countries, urging them to establish a commission of inquiry. Over 40 human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have backed the idea.
  • I have long advocated critical engagement, rather than isolation, because our objective should be to prise open the world’s most closed nation, not turn the key in the lock.
  • It is time to shine a light on one of the darkest corners of the earth.
14More

An Election Is Not a Suicide Mission - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...from-roe-to-trump.html suicide election 2016 demagogue politics
shared by Javier E on 03 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • the church does not allow nations to take up arms and go to war merely when they have a high moral cause on their side. Justice is necessary, but it is not sufficient:
  • Peaceful means of ending the evil in question need to have been exhausted, there must be serious prospects of military success, and (crucially) “the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.”
  • What this teaching suggests is that we should have a strong bias in favor of peaceful deliberation so long as deliberation remains possible.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • So long as your polity offers mechanisms for eventually changing unjust laws, it’s better to accept the system’s basic legitimacy and work within it for change than to take steps, violent or otherwise, that risk blowing the entire apparatus up.
  • A vote for Trump is not a vote for insurrection or terrorism or secession. But it is a vote for a man who stands well outside the norms of American presidential politics, who has displayed a naked contempt for republican institutions and constitutional constraints, who deliberately injects noxious conspiracy theories into political conversation, who has tiptoed closer to the incitement of political violence than any major politician in my lifetime, whose admiration for authoritarian rulers is longstanding, who has endorsed war crimes and indulged racists and so on
  • It is a vote, in other words, for a far more chaotic and unstable form of political leadership (on the global stage as well as on the domestic) than we have heretofore experienced
  • what is striking is how many conservatives seem to have internalized that reality and justified their support for Trump anyway, on grounds that are similar to ones that the mainstream pro-life movement has rejected for four decades: Namely, that Hillary Clinton would usher in some particular evil so severe and irreversible that it’s better to risk burning things down, crashing the plane of state,
  • It is constitutional conservatives arguing that permitting another progressive president would make the Constitution completely irrecoverable, so better to roll the dice with a Peronist like Trump.
  • It is immigration restrictionists arguing that Clinton’s favored amnesty for illegal immigrants would complete America’s transformation into Venezuela, so better to roll the dice with a right-wing Chávez.
  • It is a long list of conservatives treating an inevitable feature of democratic politics — the election of a politician of the other party to the presidency — as an evil so grave that it’s worth risking all the disorders that Trump obviously promises.
  • the Trump alternative is like a feckless war of choice in the service of some just-seeming end, with a commanding general who likes war crimes. It’s a ticket on a widening gyre, promising political catastrophe and moral corruption both, no matter what ideals seem to justify it.
  • today’s conservatism has far more to gain from the defeat of Donald Trump, and the chance to oppose Clintonian progressivism unencumbered by his authoritarianism, bigotry, misogyny and incompetence, than it does from answering the progressive drift toward Caesarism with a populist Elagabalus.
  • the deepest conservative insight is that justice depends on order as much as order depends on justice
  • when Loki or the Joker or some still-darker Person promises the righting of some grave wrong, the defeat of your hated enemies, if you will only take a chance on chaos and misrule, the wise and courageous response is to tell them to go to hell.
15More

Trump v Republican elite - the split explained - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...election-us-2016-36232280
shared by alexdeltufo on 08 May 16 - No Cached
  • Trump isn't your typical conservative.
  • "I think what a lot of Republicans want to see is that we have a standard bearer that bears our standards." House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday,
  • and the fact that his message has earned him millions of Republican votes suggests a fracture between the grassroots and leadership.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • This flexibility has convinced many social conservatives that Mr Trump cannot be trusted to appoint a Supreme Court justice who would oppose abortion rights.
  • advocated deporting nearly 11 million undocumented workers
  • Almost all Republicans oppose abortion. In recent years, Republican-controlled state legislatures have supported a wave of regulations that have limited access to abortions - new laws that have been met with legal challenges.
  • Although the group is one of the leading abortion providers in the US, the health care organisation also provides cancer screenings, contraception and screening and treatment for sexual transmitted diseases.
  • Both President Ronald Reagan and President George HW Bush extended amnesty to millions of undocumented workers while in office. Mainstream Republican figures such as Florida Senator Marco Rubio initially favoured similar immigration reforms that would have provided a "path to citizenship",
  • any Republicans in the Congress currently support the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pending trade agreement between the US and many Pacific Rim countries.
  • Most Republicans oppose tariffs, saying they would spark a trade war that would damage the economy.
  • Republicans have long supported a muscular foreign policy and have not shied away from supporting the use of military force aboard. While generally opposed to government spending,
  • While Mr Trump has supported strengthening the military, he says he would do so by extracting concessions from allies.
  • A key faction of the Republican Party is made of fiscal conservatives who view the federal deficit as a major long-term problem for the country.
  • have long supported changes to Social Security and Medicare that would turn those programmes over to the private market.
  • Mr Trump has said he would not make cuts or changes to those programmes and instead he would bolster their funding sources by strengthening the US economy and reallocating some foreign aid to the coffers of Social Security and Medicare.
11More

Six weeks to sanity: The anti-Trump surge is finally here - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...ti-trump-surge-is-finally-here gop conservatism demagogue crisis politics
shared by Javier E on 20 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • Why couldn’t the GOP have figured all this out before Trump got to 1,237 delegates?
  • Right-wingers will smell a plot. (The MSM held back until he had the nomination!) But there were a number of factors in the primary — a huge field (dividing the not-Trump vote and shielding him in debates), a press entranced with his media show, the novelty of his “act,” and the collapse of his opponents at critical times (e.g., Sen. Marco Rubio’s pre-New Hampshire primary debate) — that aided Trump.
  • there is something fundamentally amiss on the right that in a mere six weeks the country has figured out Trump, whereas Republicans in nine months plainly could not see the character they were embracing. That should highlight some troubling deficiencies on the right.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • First, the anti-immigration obsession that had transfixed the right-wing inured many supposed gate-keepers (e.g., magazines, pundits) as well as the base to a candidate peddling a dangerous brew of nativism, protectionism and isolationism. If the “respectable” publications rant and rave about “amnesty,” one can imagine why Trump’s idea for a wall might have gotten traction rather than guffaws
  • Second, over the past seven years, the anti-government tirades from talk radio, from Beltway groups such as Heritage Action and even from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) saturated the base, convincing them that everyone with experience “betrayed them” and only outsiders devoid of exposure to governance had the secret sauce for peace and prosperity.
  • Third, the “establishment” — the officialdom of the Republican National Committee — facilitated Trump’s rise, convinced he’d run as an independent
  • One, therefore, is left with an unpleasant reality: A plurality of GOP voters wanted Trump
  • A significant segment of the GOP primary electorate itself lacked common sense, standards of decency, and intolerance of bigotry and cruelty. No group was worse than the evangelical “leaders” who cheered him along the way.
  • A Republican wag joked that the GOP needs not only a new candidate but also a new base. There is something to that. In the 2016 postmortem, it will be worth examining the extent to which the GOP has promoted crackpots, become ghettoized in distorted right-wing media and lost track of what 21st-century America believes and looks like
  • the party as a whole has to expand its vision and its base. It’s time to stop reveling in ignorance and celebrating lost causes.
  • It’s a problem when the rest of the country has to rescue the GOP and the country from Republican voters’ terrible judgment.
11More

BBC News - Khodorkovsky arrives in Switzerland - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-europe-25616769
shared by Maria Delzi on 17 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was freed from a Russian jail last month, has arrived in Switzerland where he has been granted a three-month visa.
  • Khodorkovsky flew to Germany after his release on 20 December.
  • He served 10 years in jail for fraud and tax evasion, but insists that his conviction was politically motivated.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • "You can't remain quiet when you know that political prisoners languish in jail," he said.
  • "I think campaigning for the release of those who have been jailed without justification is the job of every ordinary citizen. As far as I'm concerned, it
  • has nothing to do with politics," he added.
  • Khodorkovsky has not yet decided whether he wants to stay permanently in Switzerland, his spokesman said.
  • The businessman made his fortune from the controversial privatisation of Soviet state assets. In 1995, he acquired oil giant Yukos.
  • In 2005 he received an eight-year jail sentence for tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement. Two years before his release date he was convicted again on further charges of embezzlement and money laundering.
  • He had been due to be released next August, but requested a pardon because his mother is suffering from cancer.
  • The pardon came after Russian MPs backed a wide-ranging amnesty for at least 20,000 prisoners.
19More

BBC News - Obama orders curbs on NSA data use - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-us-canada-25785573
shared by Maria Delzi on 17 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Obama orders curbs on NSA data use
  • President Barack Obama has ordered curbs on the use of bulk data collected by US intelligence agencies, saying civil liberties must be respected.
  • Mr Obama said such data had prevented terror attacks at home and abroad, but that in tackling threats the government risked over-reaching itself. However civil liberties groups have said the changes do not go far enoug
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Edward Snowden, the former contractor at the US National Security Agency (NSA) who leaked the information, is wanted in the US for espionage and is now living in exile in Russia.
  • The leaked documents revealed that the US collects massive amounts of electronic data from communications of private individuals around the world, and that it has spied on foreign leader
  • The latest revelations claim that US agencies have collected and stored almost 200 million text messages every day across the globe.
  • 'Rights are protected'
  • In his much-anticipated speech at the Department of Justice, Mr Obama said he would not apologise for the effectiveness of US intelligence operations, and insisted that nothing he had seen indicated they had sought to break the law.
  • It was necessary for the US to continue collecting large amounts of data, he said, but acknowledged that doing so allowed for "the potential of abuse".
  • "The reforms I'm proposing today should give the American people greater confidence that their rights are being protected, even as our intelligence and law enforcement agencies maintain the tools they need to keep us safe," he said.
  • He has asked the attorney general and the
  • intelligence community to draw up plans for such metadata to be held by a third party, with the NSA required to seek legal permission before it could access them.
  • A panel of independent privacy advocates would also sit on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) which has responsibility for giving permission for mass surveillance programmes.
  • "should know that the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don't threaten our national security".
  • "This applies to foreign leaders as well," he said, promising that from now on the US "will not monitor the communications of heads of state and government of our close friends and allies".
  • But he was also critical of nations he said "feign surprise" over the leaks but "privately acknowledge that America has special responsibilities as the world's only superpower" and have used the information gathered for their own purposes.
  • Mr Obama said he would not "dwell on Mr Snowden's actions or his motivations", but warned that the "sensational way" the NSA details had come to light had potentially jeopardised US operations "for years to come".
  • Mr Obama's reforms were welcomed as progress in some quarters, but others argued they did not go far enough in protecting individuals.
  • "President Obama's surveillance adjustments will be remembered as music on the Titanic unless his administration adopts deeper reforms," said Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA.
13More

Nine Dead as Mayhem Grips Ukrainian Capital - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ukraine.html history politics policy crisis culture economics ukraine
shared by julia rhodes on 18 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Mayhem gripped the center of the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday evening as riot police officers tried to drive two armored personnel carriers through stone-reinforced barriers in Independence Square, the focal point of more than two months of protests against President Viktor F. Yanukovych.
  • In the course of wild day of parries and thrusts by the protesters and the police, the authorities in Kiev reported nine people killed, including two police officers. It was the bloodiest day of violence since President Yanukovych spurned a trade deal with Europe in November and set of protests that began peacefully but have since involved occasional spasms of deadly violence.
  • A phalanx of riot police officers, backed by a water cannon, pushed through protesters’ barricades near the Ukraina Hotel and fired tear gas as they advanced toward the center of the square. People covered in blood staggered to a medical center set up in the protest encampment.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • The police advance followed hours of street battles that destroyed hopes of an early political settlement, stirred in recent days by an amnesty deal. The resumption of violence underscored the volatility of a political crisis that has not only aroused fear of civil war in Ukraine but has also dragged Russia and the West into a geopolitical struggle redolent of the Cold War.
  • News agencies quoted antigovernment activists as saying three protesters had been killed, but there was no immediate confirmation of casualties. Olga Bogomolets, a doctor, told the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper that three activists had died at a medical unit in the Officers’ House on Kriposniy Lane. She said that they had died from gunshot wounds to the head and heart and that tens of other people had suffered injuries.
  • Protesters reported that the police were using live ammunition, but this could not be confirmed. Cartridges scattered on the street suggested that most, if not all, of the firing from police lines involved rubber bullets.
  • “Kiev stand up! Kiev stand up!,” screamed a speaker on a stage in the square that, since late November, has been occupied by protesters.
  • “Extremists from opposition have crossed the line” and bought chaos to the center of Kiev, said the statement. “We warn hot irresponsible heads of the opposition — the government has forces to restore order.”
  • The 6 p.m. deadline passed with no sign of a push into Independence Square by Ukraine’s feared anti-riot force, known as Berkut. With the night sky darkened further by clouds of black smoke from burning rubber tires, police officers hammered their shields for several minutes as if Roman centurions preparing for battle. But they did not move forward.
  • “There should have been a resolution,” he said. “But they did not even put it up for a vote.”
  • The Russian aid signaled confidence from the Kremlin that important votes in Parliament expected this week to amend the Constitution and form a new cabinet will go in Russia’s favor. It also highlighted the absence of any clear promise of financial aid from the European Union or the United States, which have supported the opposition in Ukraine.
  • Mr. Yanukovych negotiated a $15 billion loan with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in December, and Ukraine received a first segment of this soon afterward when Russia purchased Ukrainian bonds worth $3 billion. But Russia suspended further payments last month after violent clashes broke out in Kiev and the pro-Russian prime minister resigned.Germany, which on Monday hosted a visit to Berlin by two of President Yanuvoych’s most ardent opponents, called for all sides to seek a peaceful solution to the explosive political confrontation.
  • “We call on the Foreign States and International Organizations to be objective and unbiased in assessing the internal developments in Ukraine,” the statement said. “We also expect that they will strongly condemn the unlawful activities of the radical forces.”
6More

U.S., Rebuffing U.N., Maintains Stance That Rights Treaty Does Not Apply Abroad - NYTim... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...reaty-doesnt-apply-abroad.html u s stance rights treaty un
shared by julia rhodes on 14 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • he Obama administration declared Thursday that a global Bill of Rights-style treaty imposes no human rights obligations on American military and intelligence forces when they operate abroad, rejecting an interpretation by the United Nations and the top State Department lawyer during President Obama’s first term.
  • The United States first expressed the stance in 1995 after the Clinton administration was criticized for its policy of intercepting Haitian refugees at sea, and the Bush administration later amplified it to defend its treatment of terrorism suspects in overseas prisons.
  • “The United States continues to believe that its interpretation — that the covenant applies only to individuals both within its territory and within its jurisdiction — is the most consistent with the covenant’s language and negotiating history,” said Mary McLeod, the State Department’s acting legal adviser.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The treaty, which the Senate ratified in 1992, bans arbitrary killings, torture, unfair trials and imprisonments without judicial review. It is a subject of debate over whether it imposes legal obligations only in connection with people inside a country’s territory, or also people elsewhere who are subject to its control.
  • But military and intelligence agencies have resisted changing the treaty’s interpretation out of fear that it could complicate their operations abroad, although some also argue that the law of armed conflict trumps the accord in wartime situations.
  • “Whereas the Bush administration scorned human rights, President Obama claimed to usher in a new day in which human rights would be embraced,” said Margaret Huang, a deputy executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A. “Now the cosmetics have changed, but the failure of leadership is the same.”
9More

Civilian Deaths in Drone Strikes Cited in Report - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...e-strikes-cited-in-report.html civilian deaths strikes drones policy crisis
shared by grayton downing on 22 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • In the telling of some American officials, the C.I.A. drone campaign in Pakistan has been a triumph with few downsides
  • and the pace of the strikes, which officials frequently describe as “surgical” and “contained,” has dropped sharply over the past year.
  • Pakistani town that has become a virtual test laboratory for drone warfare,
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • “The drones are like the angels of death,” said Nazeer Gul, a shopkeeper in Miram Shah. “Only they know when and where they will strike.”
  • Their claims of distress are now being backed by a new Amnesty International investigation that found, among other points, that at least 19 civilians in the surrounding area of North Waziristan had been killed in just two of the drone attacks since January 2012
  • And on Friday, the drone debate is scheduled to spill onto the floor of the United Nations, whose officials have recently published reports that attacked America’s lack of transparency over drones.
  • Even when the missiles do not strike, buzzing drones hover day and night, scanning the alleys and markets with roving high-resolution cameras.
  • In theory, the Pakistani security forces should be in charge.
  • Unusually for the overall American drone campaign, the strikes in the area mostly occur in densely populated neighborhoods. The drones have hit a bakery, a disused girls’ school and a money changers’ market, residents say.
1More

Saudi activist to be flogged in public, Amnesty International says - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by mollyharper on 11 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • mollyharper on 11 Jan 15
     
    Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a fine of 1 million Saudi Arabian riyals (approximately $267,000) in May 2014 by a Saudi court accusing him of insulting Islam, said his wife and a source who followed the case closely.
11More

What Today's Republicans Don't Get About Reagan - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ans-dont-get-about-reagan.html gop reagan history government politics
shared by Javier E on 24 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • HE supported the biggest amnesty bill in history for illegal immigrants, advocated gun control, used Keynesian stimulus to jump-start the economy, favored personal diplomacy even with the country’s sworn enemies and instituted tax increases in six of the eight years of his presidency.
  • The core beliefs that got Reagan elected and re-elected were conservative: lower taxes, smaller government and a stronger, more assertive military.
  • in the main, the party has for decades embraced Reagan’s notion of American identity based on immigration, assimilation and economic opportunity. Every Republican presidential nominee since Reagan has been a moderate on immigration, and has wanted to bring Latinos into the Republican fold.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Once in office, Reagan said that anytime he could get 70 percent of what he wanted from a legislature, he’d take it. Today’s congressional Republicans won’t settle even for 99 percent
  • In the early days of the presidency of Bill Clinton, congressional Republicans essentially went on strike, treating any legislative accomplishment as a Republican defeat, but they came to the table for a budget deal in 1997. With President Obama, they have largely refused to accept the basic legitimacy of a Democratic president. The tactical obstinacy of the 1990s has curdled into the belief that any compromise constitutes betrayal
  • But Reagan was also a pragmatist, willing to compromise, able to improvise in pursuit of his goals and, most of all, eager to expand his party’s appeal.
  • The rise of super PACs and the right-wing media has disempowered the party’s gatekeepers, while wage stagnation has widened the opening for populist demagogy.
  • A more surprising reason for the shift? Money. In economic terms, Republican politicians see increasing returns to extremism. The Citizens United decision has raised the potential financial stakes of presidential elections for media companies, political professionals and candidates alike. The presidential campaign of 2016 will most likely cost upward of $5 billion, more than 10 times the one that elected Reagan in 1980.
  • A lot of people get rich in a $5 billion industry, and some are politicians. Mr. Trump is not the only contender to make the calculation that running for president is win-win, burnishing “brand” value even for the losers.
  • The examples of Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee underscore the point that a no-hope presidential run has more upside than downside
  • A career as a right-wing celebrity — a stint on Fox News, speaking fees, book advances — is more profitable than one in the Senate. These incentives have helped to shift the Republican Party from a party of opportunity to a party of opportunists.
6More

Six Children Drown off Turkey | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

america.aljazeera.com/...six-children-drown.html Turkey politics crisis Policy
shared by rachelramirez on 14 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Six children die off Turkey coast trying to reach Europe
  • adding that the migrants on the boat were Afghans
  • The migrants were apparently hoping to make it to the island of Chios from the resort of Cesme
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • 500,000 people have crossed into Greece this year
  • As many as 600 people have drowned this year in the Aegean Sea, including dozens of children
  • Human right organization Amnesty International criticized last week's detentions, calling them "alarming."
18More

Republican debate focuses on terror, national security - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...republican-debate-updates republican debate terror national security US politics
shared by katyshannon on 16 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • The simmering rivalry between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz spilled into the open Tuesday night during the final Republican presidential debate of the year, as the two senators tussled over a string of issues that served to highlight front-runner Donald Trump's discomfort with policy substance.
  • event here was dominated by national security and terrorism in the aftermath of the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California.
  • But Trump, who has fueled intense controversy by proposing a ban on Muslims entering the United States, often faded into the background. He even struck an uncharacteristically conciliatory tone by pledging his commitment to the Republican Party -- putting to rest rumors of an independent run -- and holding his punches from the surging Cruz.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Rubio and Cruz dug deep on policy.
  • Bush shot back: "Donald, you're not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency."
  • There was no one on stage more eager to hit Trump than Jeb Bush. With his campaign floundering as his poll numbers have dropped to the low single-digits, Bush asserted himself more effectively than in previous debates. Right out of the gate, the two men exchanged tense words on Trump's plan Muslim ban proposal, as well as the real estate developer's recent vow to go after family members of ISIS terrorists.The latter, Bush said, was "another example of (Trump's) lack of seriousness."
  • Rubio hit back, saying Cruz supports the legalization of people who are in the country illegally. He also slammed his colleague for supporting a controversial H-1B visa program, which supports immigration of highly skilled foreign workers.
  • Rubio blasted Cruz for voting for the USA Freedom Act, which made it more difficult for the government to access certain kinds of information about people's telephone records.
  • Cruz called Rubio's accusation false, and said the law ultimately "strengthened the tools of national security and law enforcement to go after" terrorists.He also hit Rubio on one of his biggest political vulnerabilities: his work on the "Gang of Eight" comprehensive immigration reform bill. Calling the legislation a "massive amnesty plan," Cruz accused Rubio of working with Democrats to give President Barack Obama a "blanket authority" to accept refugees.
  • The long-simmering feud between the two men has intensified as they've risen in the polls and the senators have sought to seize the second-place spot after Trump. Cruz has attempted to straddle the line between presenting himself as an outsider and making the case that he can be commander-in-chief. Rubio has tried to blunt Cruz's rise by attacking his national security policy as too isolationist -- a potent attack at a time when national security is dominating the campaign.
  • Cruz and Rubio were also split on whether the turmoil in the Middle East would ease if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was removed from power.
  • "If we topple Assad, the result will be ISIS will take over Syria and it will worsen U.S. national security interests," Cruz said.Rubio rejected this notion, saying while the United States must sometimes work with "less than ideal governments," Assad was simply an "anti-American dictator."
  • Heading into Tuesday's debate, the stakes were higher than ever for the White House hopefuls. The Iowa caucuses are just seven weeks away and ISIS-inspired terror attacks have shifted the dynamics of the 2016 campaign.
  • Trump remains the undisputed national GOP presidential front-runner. A Monmouth University poll on Monday placed him at 41%, the first time he's cracked the 40% threshold in a national survey.
  • Trump does, however, face a real threat from Cruz in Iowa. Recent polls showed the senator either neck-and-neck with or ahead of Trump in the state.
  • On Tuesday night, Cruz continued to show little appetite for publicly engaging Trump. Asked to respond to Trump's Muslim ban proposal, the Texas senator said he could certainly "understand why Donald made that proposal."
  • Four lower-polling White House hopefuls kicked off the evening by raising alarm about the threat of radical Islam -- and went after Trump for the Muslim proposal.
  • Santorum and Graham -- who dominated the discussion -- were joined by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former New York Gov. George Pataki. All four are at risk of being next on the chopping block if they're unable to gain real momentum soon.
5More

Obama's Afghanistan call: Sanity prevails (Opinion) - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by sgardner35 on 26 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Earlier this year the administration had announced plans to draw down to a skeleton force of around 1,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of its term. That decision would have tied the hands of the next president as it is much easier to maintain an existing troop presence -- both from a logistical point of view as well as politically -- than it is to ramp one up substantially.
  • two-thirds of Afghans favored a long-term role for U.S. and other international forces, while the Afghan government, led by President Ashraf Ghana and CEO Abdullah Abdullah, have been imploring U.S. officials to maintain a substantial troop presence.
  • Amnesty writes: "Mass murder, gang rapes and house-to-house searches by Taliban death squads are just some of the harrowing civilian testimonies emerging from Kunduz. ...Women human rights defenders from Kunduz spoke of a 'hit list' being used by the Taliban to track down activists and others, and described how fighters had raped and killed numerous civilians."Third, an overwhelming 92% of Afghans prefer the current government to the Taliban, according to a poll taken earlier this year. In other words, not only is the United States on the right side of history in supporting the Afghan government against the Taliban, the Afghan people also overwhelmingly support this.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Fourth, ISIS is establishing something of a foothold in areas of Afghanistan. ISIS has taken over portions of the eastern province of Nangarhar. ISIS executions there involve piling men alive into a mass grave and then using explosives to blow them up. ISIS fighters also torture their victims by thrusting their hands into boiling oil. ISIS' reign of terror even has ordinary Afghans pining for the Taliban!
  • Instead of constantly announcing new U.S. drawdowns from Afghanistan as the Obama administration has done repeatedly over the past few years, which has the unintended consequence of sapping Afghans' confidence, Americans should get used to the fact that the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan should be for the long term and U.S. politicians should say so publicly
5More

US withdraws assistance from Myanmar military amid Rohingya crisis | World news | The G... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-military-amid-rohingya-crisis myanmar military Rohingya Muslims US
shared by knudsenlu on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The US has announced it is withdrawing military assistance from Myanmar units and officers involved in violence against Rohingya Muslims that has triggered a mass exodus and humanitarian crisis
  • We express our gravest concern with recent events in Rakhine state and the violent, traumatic abuses Rohingya and other communities have endured,” said a state department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, announcing the punitive measures.
  • Militant attacks on Myanmar security forces in Rakhine sparked an army crackdown that has already been likened to ethnic cleansing by the UN. More than 600,000 members of the minority Muslim group have fled across the border into Bangladesh since late August.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The government of Burma, including its armed forces, must take immediate action to ensure peace and security; implement commitments to ensure humanitarian access to communities in desperate need; facilitate the safe and voluntary return of those who have fled or been displaced in Rakhine state; and address the root causes of systematic discrimination against the Rohingya,” Nauert said.
  • The measures announced by the state department are the strongest US response so far to the months-long Rohingya crisis but fall short of the most drastic tools at Washington’s disposal, such as reimposing broader economic sanctions suspended under the Obama administration
5More

Roma is a cinematic triumph. Can it teach Trump's America the value of compassion? | Ar... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-america-alfonso-cuaron-oscars immigrants love women Latin guardian compassion
shared by Javier E on 03 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • Roma is based partly on memories of Cuarón’s Mexican barrio of yesteryear. Viewed from Chile, it comes across as an indictment of the hypocrisy and blindness of the elites that today govern this country and so many other countries of the region, including the United States.
  • The film reminds us of all the Cleos who dream of going to the US, fleeing from the sort of violence and exploitation subtly alluded to by Cuarón
  • Once they manage to make it across the US border, millions of avatars of Cleo – as invisible and neglected as in Chile – keep the nation safe and affluent and healthy. They clean and cook and care for the sick and the elderly and, of course, for the children. They do so with love; what other word is there to use?
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The word for love in Spanish is, of course, amor. And it seems significant, and maybe even deliberate, that amor is what you get if you spell Roma backwards: a love sadly lacking on our merciless planet today. Roma and the word amor, which it contains and hides, ask us how it can be possible that Cleo, the character, can cross effortlessly into the States, appearing on so many cinema screens across the country, while her real-life sisters are met with teargas and threats and insults.
  • here is no red carpet for any of the women who care for other people’s children with such devotion.
‹ Previous 21 - 40 of 62 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page