US – Features

PCHR welcomes Resolution by the European Parliament  endorsing the Goldstone Report

(source: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights)

On Wednesday, 10 March 2010, the European Parliament adopted a resolution that backs the findings of the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (the Goldstone Report) and urges its member states to “demand the implementation of the Goldstone Report’s recommendations and accountability for all violations of international law”. The resolution calls all parties to respect international humanitarian law and international human rights law under all circumstances.

In line with the UN General Assembly resolution adopted on 26 February, the European Parliament "urges both sides to conduct investigations within five months that meet international standards of independence, impartiality, transparency, promptness and effectiveness."

Read More »Eu endorses goldstone report

Text of talk on receiving an honorary doctorate at the University of Johannesburg, 25 May, 2010

By Mahmood Mamdani, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda

It warms my heart to see these flowing gowns.  I congratulate you on work accomplished!  For over a millennium, these gowns have been a symbol of high learning from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic.  Should anyone ask you where they came from, tell them that the early universities of Europe – Oxford, Cambridge, le Sorbonne – borrowed them from the Islamic madressa of the Middle East.

If they should seem incredulous, tell them that the gown did not come by itself: because medieval European scholars borrowed from the madressa much of the curriculum, from Greek philosophy to Iranian astronomy to Arab medicine and Indian mathematics, they had little difficulty in accepting this flowing gown, modeled after the dress of the desert nomad, as the symbol of high learning.  Should they still express surprise, ask them to take a second look at the gowns of the ayatollahs in Iran and Iraq and elsewhere and they will see the resemblance.  Education has no boundaries.  Neither does it have an end.  As the Waswahili in East Africa, which is where I come from, say: elimu haina muisho. 

Read More »Beware bigotry some thoughts on free speech the zapiro cartoons

Confidence Games and Ponzi Schemes

By Lynn Henderson

The United States economy continues its plunge into the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, dragging in its wake the entire world’s financial system. What is the cause of this now world-wide economic catastrophe? Without a clear understanding of its root causes we will not be able to find a way out. Rather the crisis itself will be used to inflict even greater damage on its chief victims, working people here and around the world.

Read More »Confidence games and ponzi schemes

Badil Resource Center Organizes Exchange between South Africa Trade Unionists and Palestinian Civic Leaders

Bethlehem – BADIL Resource Center – South African anti-Apartheid leader and union official Ziko Tamela is in the Israeli occupied West Bank this week to gain insight into the Palestinian reality on the ground and to forge stronger links for solidarity work. Tamela is the international secretary for the South African Transport and Communications Workers Union, which gained international attention during Israel’s recent 22-day war on Gaza by refusing to off-load Israeli cargo. In doing so, it consciously sought to replicate the boycott activity of European dockworkers who refused to handle South African goods during the dark days of the apartheid regime.  Badil Resource Center organized a day’s activity for Tamela including a tour of Deheisheh refugee camp led by members of its popular committee; a tour of Aida refugee camp, including the surrounding apartheid wall; an exchange with the  children of Laji’ cultural center, also in Aida refugee camp; and a visit to the Church of the Nativity. Read More »Badil resource center organizes exchange between south Africa trade unionists and palestinian civic