liveonearth: (Default)
 

The long emergency is coming to pass.  So many people are dying, will die, that we can become numb to it.  We may already be numb to it.  I find myself not numb yet.  When I read that 900 are dead and 180,000 displaced in Pakistan, I cry.  I have crises here that take my meager resources and time, but this huge disaster is far beyond the suffering that I endure.  We won't be able to save all the people. Will we try to save something for those who survive? Staying sane while the world's marbles roll may be too much to expect.


the news today:
FLOODING IN PAKISTAN DISPLACES 180,000 PEOPLE 8/27/22

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistan-floods-force-tens-thousands-homes-overnight-2022-08-27/

 

Pakistan floods force tens of thousands from homes overnight

By Jibran Ahmad and Mohammad Yunus Yawar

August 27, 2022

9:18 AM PDT

Last Updated a day ago

Asia Pacific

Pakistan's massive floods bring more grief

 

PESHAWAR/KABUL, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people fled their homes in northern Pakistan on Saturday after a fast-rising river destroyed a major bridge, as deadly floods cause devastation across the country.

 

Powerful flash floods in the northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa caused the Kabul River to swell, sweeping away a large bridge overnight, cutting off some districts from road access.

 

Downstream, fears of flooding around the river banks prompted around 180,000 people in the district of Charsadda to flee their homes, according to disaster officials, with some spending the night on highways with their livestock.

 

Historic monsoon rains and flooding in Pakistan have affected more than 30 million people over the last few weeks, the country's climate change minister said, calling the situation a "climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions". 

 

The military has joined the country's national and provincial authorities in responding to the floods and Pakistan's army chief on Saturday visited the southern province of Balochistan, which has been hit heavily by the rains.

 

"The people of Pakistan are our priority and we won't spare any effort to assist them in this difficult time," said army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

 

Pakistani leaders have appealed to the international community for help and plan to launch an international appeal fund. The foreign affairs ministry said Turkey had sent a team to help with rescue efforts.

 

"The magnitude of the calamity is bigger than estimated," said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in a tweet, after visiting flooded areas.

 

In neighbouring Afghanistan, the Taliban administration also appealed for help after flooding in central and eastern provinces. 

 

The death toll from floods this month in Afghanistan had risen to 192, disaster authorities said. Thousands of livestock had been killed and 1.7 million fruit trees destroyed, raising concerns over how families would feed themselves going into the cooler months while the country deals with an economic crisis.

 

"We ask the humanitarian organisations, the international community and other related organisations and foundations to help us," Sharafudden Muslim, the deputy director of Afghanistan's disaster ministry, said at a press conference, adding more than a million families required assistance.

 

Reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar and Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Ros Russell

liveonearth: (Default)
Following the Axis surrender, Korea's fate, like that of Central Europe, was still to be worked out.  Officially, the victorious Allies were committed to a free, united and independent Korea.  Then in the war's last week, Stalin's Red Army penetrated far into the country's northern half.  American diplomats, their inboxes overflowing, shifted their focus from what should be done to what could be achieved most easily.  In Washington, late one night, they met with their Soviet counterparts and, tracing lines on a map from National Geographic magazine, consented to the peninsula's "temporary" division along the 38th parallel.  The people who lived there were not consulted.

In 1948, with the Cold War well under way, the U.S.-supported Republic of Korea (ROK) and the USSR-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) officially declared their existence--the former in Seoul, the latter in Pyongyang.  North Korea's head of government, hand-selected by the Soviets, was Kim Il-sung, a thirty-three-year-old military officer who had spent the bulk of his life in exile and possessed little formal education.  He did, however, have big ideas.  Determined to reunify the Korean Peninsula on his terms, Kim persuaded the Soviets to underwrite an invasion of the South, boasting to Stalin that he would win easily.   He almost did prevail, but the United States surprised the DPRK by intervening, under a UN umbrella, prompting China to counter by also entering the fray.  In 1953, an amistice was signed to end the fighting, but with no victor, no formal peace, no significant change in borders, and a death toll that included more than a million and a half Koreans, 900,000 Chinese, and 54,000 Americans.

The war was a colossal waste of lives and treasure, so it matters that the DPRK has been built on a lie about who started it.  The worldview of any North Korean begins with the conviction that, in 1950, their country was attacked by sadistic murderers from America and the ROK.  If not for Kim Il-sung's brave leadership and the pluck of DPRK fighters, their homeland would have been laid waste and their ancestors enslaved.  Worse still, the story continues, Americans are evil and do not learn from their mistakes.  Given a chance, the savages will return and wreak more havoc.  Out of this sham narrative come the fear, the anger, and the yearning for revenge that Kim Il-sung harnessed to justify that world's most totalitarian regime.

--Madeleine Albright in Fascism: A Warning, pages 189-191, published in 2018.
liveonearth: (Hands w/ Lotus)

President Obama certainly inherited a mess in the Middle East. But his foreign policy has never broken decisively with the fatal conceit of the Bush administration: that America has the final and decisive say on the nature of the regimes in the Middle East. Obama has kept the imperial premise of American politics, without the will to commit the strength needed to actually make them effective.

-Michael Brandon Dougherty 11/3/15

http://theweek.com/articles/586515/obamas-catastrophic-syria-folly

liveonearth: (Default)
Ahmadinejad actually carried out a “personnel revolution” to change the composition of his Cabinet of Ministers. In that sense, we can agree with the interpretation of Middle East Institute President Evgeny Satanovsky, who said that Ahmadinejad had “made preparations for an internal coup by changing the format of power,” which shows that the clergy has lost influence in the country. Many experts believe that the top brass of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and the leadership of the Basij militia, which is headed by Ahmadinejad, could now take power in Iran. Incidentally, that may create an extremely favorable context for the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear problem at the talks scheduled for late January in Istanbul. If they actually succeed in achieving the breakthrough everyone expects in Iran’s relations with the rest of the world, Salehi will have a real chance of gaining a firm foothold on his new position.

This article was originally in Russian and I found it here on his LJ [livejournal.com profile] journal_neo. While the translations are sometimes a little difficult for me to follow, he usually gives a completely different perspective than what you find in the US or British media.
liveonearth: (Default)
According to the World Economic Forum, that is. The US held second until last month, now Sweden and Singapore have passed the US. Switzerland just passed the US to take the #1 spot last year. China's moving up and has reached #27. Germany's also climbing the scale, now in the #5 spot. Japan's #6. Finland is #7 and Denmark is #9 putting Scandinavia as a whole in the top 10. Netherlands is #8 and Canada is #10. At the moment. Things are definitely shifting.

The rating is based on 12 variables: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation.

SOURCE
http://www.weforum.org/en/media/Latest%20News%20Releases/NR_GCR10
liveonearth: (Default)
No nation keeps its word. A nation is a big, blind worm, following what? Fate perhaps. A nation has no honour, it has no word to keep.
--Carl Gustav Jung during an interview with H. R. Knickerbocker in 1939
liveonearth: (Default)
There's a cynic in me that rears higher when I hear a report about "SOS" signs showing up along the roads in Haiti. The closer to the airport the signs are, the more likely they are to be scams. With loaded humanitarians pouring in, everybody will be trying to get in on the do-gooding action. And it is so much easier to do-good if you have someone local who knows the ropes. Why do your homework when someone there says they will take the money and do good with it in your name? Where money goes, greed awaits. The opportunists will make good on this crisis. I hope that people who are NOT putting up desperation shingles on the road from the airport aren't forgotten.
liveonearth: (Default)
This is what General David Petraeus said to Joe Scarborough (on MSNBC 12/2/09) when he asked if Obama had been "dithering" about our course of action:

This process was actually quite good, Joe. It was a very substantive discussion. Everybody's assumptions and views were tested. I think out of this have come sharpened objectives, a very good understanding of the challenges and the difficulties and what must be done in a much more detailed and nuanced fashion.
liveonearth: (part of the solution biochem)
The hoariest and most of-repeated cliche in American politics
may be that America is the greatest country in the world.

Every politician, Democrat and Republican,
seems duty bound to pander to this idea of American exceptionalism,

and woe until him who hints otherwise.
There is nothing wrong with self-satisfaction or national pride.

But the incessant trumpeting of our national superiority to every other country
is more than just off-putting and insulting.

It is infantile, like the vaunting of a schoolyard bully
that his Dad is better than your Dad.

--Neal Gabler in the Boston Globe
liveonearth: (Default)

I just took the time to watch Barack Hussein Obama's Cairo speech. People disparage his "polished words" but I am overjoyed to have a president who is both educated and moral. Obama speaks for me. I agree that it is time for all peoples, all nations, all races, all individuals to cease and desist from the disrespect and violence that have poisoned our interactions. It is time to see all sides.
more )
liveonearth: (Default)
http://www.newser.com/story/61047/young-jews-spew-racist-anti-obama-rants.html

The youth of Jerusalem are shown ranting and raving about Obama. It's ugly. I am a little surprised that the Jews are not more evenhanded and openminded, but they are not. They remind me of the white supremacists in the US.
liveonearth: (Default)
I like Hillary more and more in her new job. In this clip see Ron Paul speaking broady about the change in tone, but the lack so far of visible change of foreign policy action, by the Obama administration. Hillary's response is well considered and she actually compliments Ron Paul at the end. Someone off screen says "You're going to encourage him," and all laugh.
liveonearth: (Default)
"I trust him. I don't need guarantees. I trust him. I trust his word. And I trust his intelligence," Sarkozy said of Obama.

Obama, Sarkozy press conference.  )
liveonearth: (Default)
A few notorious neocons have created a new organization called The Foreign Policy Initiative. They are promoting US involvement in the world. Spreading freedom. The board: Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan. Far as I can tell these guys are advocating for the military industrial complex and their pocket books.
we definitely need to keep an eye on them )

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