‘Catastrophic’: Sierra Leone sells rainforest for Chinese fish plant

Two legal campaign groups, the Institute for Legal Research and Advocacy for Justice (ILRAJ) and Namati Sierra Leone, have written to the government, under the 2013 Right to Access Information Act, demanding to see the environmental and social-impact assessment studies, and the report showing that the beach was, as claimed, the most suitable place for construction “in terms of bathymetry, social safeguards (minimum resettlement costs) and environmental issues”. They are also seeking a copy of the grant agreement between China and Sierra Leone.

Ethiopia is spiralling out of control

Reports from the war front indicate a massacre of Amhara civilians. Reports from Addis Ababa and other towns tell of the mass round-up and internment of Tigrayans.

Kapwani Kiwanga: Flowers for Africa

Chocolate: Child Labour and Deforestation

In 2001, the lucrative chocolate industry, due to pressure from NGOs, committed itself to putting an end to child labour in cacao plantations before 2006. 18 years later, has that promise been kept? The Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cacao producer, made a real effort to eradicate this scourge on the country. They built schools and trained farmers. Television adverts even reminded populations that child labour is illegal. So why does child exploitation still exist?

In the past half-century, few countries have lost rainforests as fast as the Ivory Coast. More than 80 percent of its forests are gone, most following an illegal invasion by as many as a million landless people into national parks and other supposedly protected forests. The Marahoue National Park alone has 30,000 illegal inhabitants. The invaders are growing cocoa to supply the global chocolate business.

Dos Santos blames asset freeze for Lisbon retreat and failure to pay staff

The Angolan billionaire has closed down her business offices in Portugal and fired dozens of staff after failing to pay wages, rent and bills for months

Senegal’s Offshore Oil Reserves a Pricey Pawn in Covert Deal

A Romanian-Australian businessman with a history of fraud, corruption, and misleading investors appears to have received at least $650 million from a West African oil and gas deal carried out with the help of well-positioned relatives of two consecutive Senegalese presidents.

Majority of people living in democracies don’t believe governments work in their interests

Four of the five nations in which the largest majority of respondents said their governments were not acting in the interest of the public feature free societies (Austria, Portugal, Sweden and Denmark), while just one is labelled “partly free” (Kenya). 

Rather than welcoming refugees for re-settlement in Europe, governments should be investing in the long-term future of countries like Syria and Iraq

The more refugees become settled down far from their homelands, the less likely they will go back to join that vital reconstruction effort. Before the war, Syria had 31,000 doctors. Now more than half are believed to have fled, many treating patients in Europe. Iraq complains of a serious brain drain as its skilled young professionals form the vanguard of those seeking a new life in the West. Rather than welcoming refugees for re-settlement in Europe, governments should be investing in the long-term future of countries like Syria and Iraq by working for peace and security there, and increasing support for refugees camped in neighbouring countries. 

Elderly and disabled civilians were burned alive

Reiterating his call on the government and African Union to establish a hybrid court for South Sudan, he said the soldiers had slit elderly villagers’ throats, hanged women for resisting looting and shot fleeing civilians.

Portugal' State Corruption, Mr Barroso, the EU, etc

Would EU imagine that choosing Mr. Barroso (one of the main responsible for Portuguese huge institutional corruption, blatant inequalities, culture of the promiscuity, resilient brutality, general stupidity and inescapable decadence, whom may be embroiled in the not yellow submarine case)* as EC's president, for more than a decade, and Constâncio, who was the portuguese central bank governor (for more than 10 years...) and didn't see nothing on the portuguese bank system corruption, as ECB's vice-president, comes without any consequence?

* only the Submarine and Pandur cases had 40 million euros "under the table". Him (the fag who - with the other one - represents the worst of the Portuguese State Mafia) holds still Portugal's vice prime-ministery, after all... So, it was a terrific &(almost) complete parliamentary cleaning of the 40 millions "gloves" for the submarine and Pandur's deal. How... very... terrific... country... Glup...


In the framers’ view, corruption in the broader sense of using public office for private ends was essentially the opposite of public virtue, and was therefore a central threat to the life and health of the republic. 

The parties of the centre-left and the centre-right are allowing Europe to drift into the economic equivalent of a nuclear winter.

Islamic State insurgents in Iraq have carried out mass executions, abducted women and girls as sex slaves, and used child soldiers in what may amount to systematic war crimes that demand prosecution


Originating in Romania and eventually spreading to the U.S. and presumably other countries, the Romani had been around for years and years, killing families and abducting the young girls as wives for their sons, and possibly the inverse as well since at least 1909. 


GDP in Italy has declined by 9% since 2000. It’s unimaginable! I don’t think communist Czechoslovakia would have survived such a long-term decline. At the same time, industrial output declined in the same period by 25%! One quarter of the economy simply disappeared.’


Where Mario Draghi now wants to start buying up Greek and Cypriot junk loans, simply because that’s all they have left to sell. That’s where we stand today. We’re back to toilet paper as the only thing that represents any value.


The "liberal system": London property company is charging £255 a week for 'studio apartments' as small as three metres by three metres

"In areas of Syria under [Isis] control, particularly in the north and north-east of the country, Fridays are regularly marked by executions, amputations and lashings in public squares," 

"Despite Moscow's hollow denials, it is now clear that Russian troops and equipment have illegally crossed the border into eastern and south-eastern Ukraine,"

Despite the failures in financial regulation evident during the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis and calls for improvement of relevant regulatory structures, proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets. The draft Financial Services Annex sets rules which would assist the expansion of financial multi-nationals – mainly headquartered in New York, London, Paris and Frankfurt – into other nations by preventing regulatory barriers. 

“If instituted, the TPP’s IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”

"France is a free country which shouldn't be aligning itself with the obsessions of the German right," he said, urging a "just and sane resistance".

From the moment it became clear that the anti-independence campaign had secured a modest win, people in the Yes camp started asking themselves : "Will we get another chance? If so, when?" Well my instinct is to advise the SNP to be cautious on this question, because we know from Quebec that there is indeed a public tolerance for a repeat referendum on independence, but only if the circumstances and timing are right.
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After all, the (bogus) argument that a No vote was the only way to keep Scotland in the EU was a key part of the anti-independence campaign's pitch. The SNP would still have to be careful to ensure that it was not running ahead of what the public is willing to tolerate, but it's conceivable that in those circumstances there might be considerable sympathy for a much earlier repeat referendum to get an independent Scotland back into the EU (and out of a Tory/Ukip hell-hole) as soon as humanly possible. (if the EU still exists...)

Australia bans reporting of multi-nation corruption case involving Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam

A senior member of India’s Socialist Party, Abu Azmi, apparently said he wanted women who were forced to have sex against their will to be put to death at the same time as their attackers.

Why are Tibetans Turning to Self-immolation?

Tibetans who refuse to fly the Chinese flag above their homes risk being beaten or shot in the latest attempt to break their spirits. But now is the best moment in ages to bring hope to Tibet's proud, but desperate people.

No New Year celebrations for Tibetans

Tibetans in a northwest part of China which has been a focus of self-immolation protests against Chinese rule marked a low-key lunar New Year on Monday, with many saying celebrations were inappropriate while the burnings continued.

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Nearly 100 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest against Chinese rule since 2009, with most of them dying.

In the past few months, the government has begun a new tactic to discourage the protests, detaining and jailing people it deems to have incited the burnings.

The latest detentions have taken place in Gansu's neighboring province of Qinghai, where police last week detained 70 "criminal suspects", 12 of whom were formally arrested, meaning they will be charged.

The government has also seized televisions in Tibetan areas to prevent people from watching "anti-China" programs broadcast from abroad.

At the same time, Beijing has stepped up propaganda efforts aimed at the outside world, heaping blame on exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and overseas Tibetan groups for fomenting the self-immolations.


Tsundue and Gedun Tsultrim, were imprisoned on November 21, 2012, as they were on their way to pay their respects and say prayers at the home of Wangchen Norbu, a 25-year old Tibetan man who had died after self-immolating two days earlier near Kangtsa Gaden Choepheling monastery in the Kangtsa area of Qinghai.

China is vowing to silence the voice of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in his homeland Tibet by tightening media controls to ensure his “propaganda” is not accessed by anyone on the internet, television or by any other means, a top official has announced.  [Historical Tibet claimed by exiled Tibetans] - Spain Has Indicted Hu Jintao Over Tibet

Intercontinental's hotel in military-occupied Tibet is serving China's repressive regime and human rights abuses against Tibetans

 Repression, hate incitement, and massive arrests

different elements of proof or disproof, all of which they say are "verifiable and in most cases incontestable." One of the elements they considered was the backdrop of the current climate in China, one marked by corruption, human rights violations and a state policy of persecution against Falun Gong that includes repression, hate incitement, and massive arrests. While not revealing exact figures, the Chinese authorities have not denied the practice of taking organs from executed prisoners

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013)

In China Mandela's mantle was claimed by both the Communist regime, which had backed the anti-apartheid struggle, and opposition activists, who now seek to emulate it. President Xi Jinping, who supported opponents of apartheid throughout the cold war, praised Mandela's victory in the struggle and his contribution to "the cause of human progress".

Human rights activists pointed out that Mandela's life and death were a reminder of the struggles of homegrown advocates for democracy and an open society, such as the imprisoned Nobel peace prize laureate, Liu Xiaobo.

 Exhausted model

The daily Die Welt declared recently that the tax haven as an economic model has been "exhausted." 

Luxembourg, with a financial sector more than five times the size of its €44 billion GDP has come under particular scrutiny. 

With a financial sector twice the size of its GDP, the United Kingdon could also become a point of interest.

On the London market (the most important in the world for foreign currency dealings), over four-fifths of transactions are not directly linked to trade or investment operations.

A dysfunctional financial sector led us to the brink of disaster in 2008, and yet bank reforms aren’t going far enough to tackle the root causes of the economic crisis. Our four big banks remain too big to fail, and continue to engage in the risky and unproductive activities that caused the crash. We need to establish a more stable, sustainable and socially useful banking system.

Rehn has let the mask slip. It’s not about fiscal responsibility; it never was. It was always about using hyperbole about the dangers of debt to dismantle the welfare state. 


Pope Francis says trickle-down economics do not help the poor

The don’t-mind-the-gap perspective has lost substantial ground. We endanger our democracy and destabilize our economy

Self-Immolations (in Bulgaria) Highlight a Desperate Electorate

Portugal' State Corruption

The country hasn’t made a single prosecution out of 15 allegations of companies bribing foreign officials in high-risk countries; it prematurely closed several investigations 

Portuguese say country is increasingly corrupt

Portugal's Population continues to shrink

Atrocities committed by some Portuguese, the regular pain of the most of the portuguese (high prices of the electricity/no money for heating) & the (former) portuguese history...

Portugal is one of the most unequal societies in the European Union.

After the end of the country’s dictatorship in the 1970s, public education found itself overwhelmed by soaring numbers of young people seeking degrees. The unmet demand opened a market for private universities, generally regarded as being of lesser quality. But where academic achievement has often failed to create distinction, hazing, known as praxes in Portuguese, has taken on a new and prominent place at the newer private universities, with some having their identity closely tied to the ritual. The situation thrust itself into the public debate here after the drowning deaths of six students during a suspected hazing ritual.


The report said four countries in southern Europe — Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain — "are shown to have serious deficits in public sector accountability and deep-rooted problems of inefficiency, malpractice and corruption."

Angolan journalist and civil rights activist Rafael Marques has been awarded the 2013 Integrity Award by Transparency International for his efforts to fight corruption in Angola.

"The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent" 

Consequences of World War I that continue to affect us today: the emergence of the United States as the world's policeman, France's unique view of Germany, the ethnic hostilities in the Balkans and the arbitrary drawing of borders in the Middle East, consequences that continue to burden and impede the peaceful coexistence of nations to this day.


The euro can be seen as a de facto foreign exchange intervention to keep the de facto Deutsche mark weak. 

Recognizing sexual violence as an international crime

Rape committed during war is often intended to terrorize the population, break up families, destroy communities, and, in some instances, change the ethnic make-up of the next generation. Sometimes it is also used to deliberately infect women with HIV or render women from the targeted community incapable of bearing children.

In Rwanda, between 100,000 and 250,000 women were raped during the three months of genocide in 1994.

UN agencies estimate that more than 60,000 women were raped during the civil war in Sierra Leone (1991-2002), more than 40,000 in Liberia (1989-2003), up to 60,000 in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995), and at least 200,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 1998.

Even after conflict has ended, the impacts of sexual violence persist, including unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and stigmatization. Widespread sexual violence itself may continue or even increase in the aftermath of conflict, as a consequence of insecurity and impunity. And meeting the needs of survivors — including medical care, HIV treatment, psychological support, economic assistance and legal redress — requires resources that most postconflict countries do not have.

Ingredients for a sectarian civil war engulfing the entire Muslim world

Anti-Shia hate propaganda spread by Sunni religious figures sponsored by, or based in, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, is creating the ingredients for a sectarian civil war engulfing the entire Muslim world. Iraq and Syria have seen the most violence, with the majority of the 766 civilian fatalities in Iraq this month being Shia pilgrims killed by suicide bombers from the al-Qa'ida umbrella group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis). The anti-Shia hostility of this organisation, now operating from Baghdad to Beirut, is so extreme that last month it had to apologise for beheading one of its own wounded fighters in Aleppo – because he was mistakenly believed to have muttered the name of Shia saints as he lay on a stretcher.

Most comprehensive report on climate change ever leaves little doubt that greenhouse gases are causing the world to heat up

The report makes clear that the Earth is warming and the climate is changing, that human activities are primarily responsible, and that without very strong cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases, we face huge risks from global warming of more than 2C by the end of this century 

In 2012, the United States ran a trade deficit of about $540,000,000,000 with the rest of the planet

The art world is a model of a pluralistic society in which all disfiguring barriers and boundaries have been thrown down." - Arthur Danto


Nadir Afonso, (December 4, 1920 – December 11, 2013) was a geometric abstractionist painter. Formally trained in architecture, which he practiced early in his career with Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, Nadir Afonso later studied painting in Paris and became one of the pioneers in Kinetic art, working alongside Victor Vasarely, Fernand Léger, Auguste Herbin, and André Bloc.

As a theorist of his own geometry-based aesthetics, published in several books, Nadir Afonso defends that art is purely objective and ruled by laws that treat art not as an act of imagination but of observation, perception, and form manipulation.


O'Toole wasn't good to his word. In 2013, he appeared in the historical drama "Katherine of Alexandria," and he was cast as Symeon in 2014's "Mary, Mother of Christ." Up to the end, Peter O'Toole could never resist the pleasure of being the event.

STOP SOMALIA'S TRAGEDY

Right now, more than 2000 people are dying every day in Somalia, in a famine that threatens to starve eleven million people to death. Drought has brought this region to its knees, but the food crisis is really fueled by a complete breakdown in governance and international diplomacy, and we can put an end to it.

The famine-hit area is governed by Al-Shabaab, an Islamist regime that is linked to terrorist groups. The isolation and conflict between Al-Shabaab, other local leaders, and the international community has kept out much of the aid and trade that could end the famine. But a few key countries, including the United Arab Emirates, still trade with Al-Shabaab -- they have an opportunity to broker a deal with the regime and break the stalemate that threatens the survival of millions.

The makings of human tragedy in the hell on Earth

An estimated 10 million people in the Horn of Africa are believed to be facing a “humanitarian emergency” as the region grapples with its worst drought in 60 years.

Several seasons of failed rains compounded by spiralling global food prices means the drought will affect more than 12 million people across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Somalia though, is set to be the hardest hit.

The UNHCR warned this week that “one of the world's worst humanitarian crises” is being turned into a “human tragedy of unimaginable proportions”.
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In Somalia and Ethiopia 65% of the population are pastoralists, making their living by raising livestock. The drought has seen scores of animals die of dehydration, cruelly cutting off millions of people from their only source food. If anything, this serves to remind us that the global food system is mired in abject failure. A system that allows 925 million people to go without food daily is flawed by nature.

A system that forces millions of people to leave their homes and walk for days on end to seek sustenance is not working. Emergency aid to East Africa will go a long way to feeding hundreds of thousands in the short-term, but it will not solve the crisis.

People, be they Somali, or North Korean will still go hungry – not because there is not enough food to go around. There is plenty - but there is a spectacular imbalance in the way that food is distributed. We produce far more food than we actually need.
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Al-Shabaab had banned aid agencies in 2009 believing the groups could host spies or promote an un-Islamic way of life.
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According to UNHCR, there are more and more tales of children younger than five dying of hunger and exhaustion during their journey to Dadaab. The children who do make it to the complex are in such feeble conditions when they eventually reach Kenya that they die within 24 hours despite the emergency care and therapeutic feeding they immediately receive. thedailymaverick

Italian activist murdered by extremists

Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, was killed on Thursday by the Tawheed and Jihad group, one of several extremist Islamist groups in the Gaza Strip. About 2,000 people attended a rally to honour him yesterday. His abduction is thought to have been an attempt to force Hamas to release the group's leader, Sheikh Abu Walid-al-Maqdas, a Jordanian Palestinian who was arrested last month. guardian

Mubarak detained

CAIRO – Egypt's prosecutor general announced Wednesday the 15-day detention of former President Hosni Mubarak pending inquiries into accusations of corruption, abuse of authority and the killings of protesters during the uprising that ousted him from power. yahoo/AP

Nota: how worst Gaddafi is? Why Gaddafi, and his sons, is not yet defeated by the "international forces"? Maybe because the oil...

Would not be acceptable

South African President Jacob Zuma says the Libyan government has accepted an African Union peace proposal to end the eight-week-old conflict.

A rebel spokesman said any deal designed to keep Colonel Gaddafi or his sons in place would not be acceptable. bbc

Note: Gaddafi is a murder and a war criminal. How can AU believe him? (well... AU is very used to deal with and trust bandits...). Gaddafi does not want the peace. Him just want - because absolutely need - to win some time.

Ivory Coast presidential palace besieged

With the help of international forces, the armed group fighting to install the country's democratically elected leader Alassane Ouattara pushed their way to the heart of the city to reach Mr Gbagbo's home. independent