Ten years ago today in Baghdad a terror attack blasted apart the UN headquarters in Iraq... At the moment of the explosion Gil Loescher and Arthur Helton were sitting down to interview Sergio Vieira de Mello for their joint openDemocracy column....
In the current climate of political fragmentation and the expired mandates of the executive and legislative branches of the Palestinian Authority, the rights and the duties of the citizens and the government should not continue to be swept aside.
Principles related to self-determination and the right to resist subjugation are principles that most Palestinians know, and most western governments don’t like to talk about as much.
In power, the Muslim Brotherhood’s repressive tactics led to low intensity, long term civil unrest. This enhanced the image of the military as a force for moderation and secularism in Egyptian politics, bypassing, of course, the Maspero massacre where Copts were run over by military vehicles.
Countries wanting to aid the Syrian revolution must focus on local councils like that of Manjib, not the Syrian National Coalition, and act together.
We could choose between opposing this new authority, boycotting it, or participating in an attempt to contain the damage to come. In other words, we had to choose the option that implied the least damage, and we did.
Combined with the warnings of the collapse of state institutions and proliferation of corruption as a result of the absence of the state, the vacuum of sovereign responsibilities is increasing. A crippled economy does not help as more people turn to 'hybrid' state support.
The outcome of the Trayvon Martin case holds critical implications. We are not responsible for George Zimmerman pulling the trigger, because the law treats this as an action subject to legal judgement. Is this the banality of legal?
Israel has charged five Palestinian teenagers for having allegedly thrown stones at a settler’s car. They face 25 years to life imprisonment for attempted murder. Yet again, the system punishes the crime while being blind to the triggering circumstances.
Mutual fear may prevail and the use of force be felt necessary. Exactly this plays into the hands of the parasites inside the apparatus who are busy transforming themselves into a self-governing body within the state (especially the Interior Ministry) that can exploit, if not directly manipulate,
Qatar’s new Emir swiftly congratulated the interim Egyptian president, Adly Mansour, who was appointed by the Egyptian army. This was in stark contrast to the fatwa issued on July 6, 2013 by Al Qaradawi, openly calling on the Egyptian people to defy the army and maintain support for Morsi.
The logic of the authorities is truly Orwellian – the only offence of the ‘criminals’ was thought crime.
