And what you say about his company

Is what you say about society.

Friday’s Headlines: Economy Hammered by Toxic Blend of Ailments: Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush’s Behest: Body of kidnapped archbishop found in Iraq: Islamic Jihad resumes rocket attacks on Israel after brief lull: How to spot a mafioso: a tourist’s guide:  EU presses ahead with substantial cuts in emissions: China admits sending in troops to quell Tibetan monk demos: Victory for Kazemi as Home Secretary halts deportation to Iran: Maria Barragan wants her parents jailed:  Questions about Venezuela as Rice arrives in Brazil: Chad and Sudan make peace

Iraq: teachers told to rewrite history

MoD accused of sending propaganda to schools

By Richard Garner, Education Editor

Friday, 14 March 2008

Britain’s biggest teachers’ union has accused the Ministry of Defence of breaking the law over a lesson plan drawn up to teach pupils about the Iraq war. The National Union of Teachers claims it breaches the 1996 Education Act, which aims to ensure all political issues are treated in a balanced way.

Teachers will threaten to boycott military involvement in schools at the union’s annual conference next weekend, claiming the lesson plan is a “propaganda” exercise and makes no mention of any civilian casualties as a result of the war.

They believe the instructions, designed for use during classroom discussions in general studies or personal, social and health education (PSE) lessons, are arguably an attempt to rewrite the history of the Iraq invasion just as the world prepares to mark its fifth anniversary.

USA

Economy Hammered by Toxic Blend of Ailments

Almost everything seems to be going wrong for the American economy at once. People are buying less, but most things are costing more. Mortgage rates are rising, the dollar is falling and prices of key commodities like oil are leaping from one record high to the next.

On Thursday, the dollar plumbed new lows against the Japanese yen and several other major currencies; the price of an ounce of gold jumped above $1,000 for the first time; and lenders raised home loan rates once again. Government figures showed retail sales fell in February as consumers cut back on cars, furniture and electronics.

Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush’s Behest

EPA Scrambles To Justify Action

The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.

EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA’s scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.

Middle East

Body of kidnapped archbishop found in Iraq

· Pope leads outcry after shallow grave discovered

· 18 killed by car bomb near Baghdad green zone

Iraq’s unending violence claimed one of its most high-profile victims yesterday when a Catholic archbishop abducted last month was found dead.

It was not clear if Paulos Faraj Rahho, 65, of the Chaldean church, Iraq’s largest Christian community, had died as a result of poor health or was killed by his captors. His decomposing body was discovered half-buried in a shallow grave in the northern city of Mosul. The Pope immediately condemned the death as “an act of inhuman violence that offends the dignity of the human being”, the Vatican said.

“I cry for Iraq,” said Shlemon Warduni, the bishop of Baghdad. “I have no other feelings. We were brothers, now we are divided.”

The archbishop was seized from his car on February 29, just after he had celebrated mass, by gunmen who killed his driver and two guards.

Islamic Jihad resumes rocket attacks on Israel after brief lull

The tacit ceasefire between Hamas and Israel ended yesterday when Palestinian militants launched a volley of rockets and Israel responded with an air raid on Gaza.

After seven days of relative calm between Hamas and Israel, rival Palestinian groups indicated they would no longer support Hamas’s proposal for a ceasefire. Islamic Jihad, a group backed by Iran, said it had launched 17 rockets from Gaza as an “initial response” to Israel’s raid in the West Bank the night before, in which four fighters were killed.

The fresh violence came within hours of Hamas’s announcement on Wednesday that it and other groups, such as Islamic Jihad, were seeking a ceasefire with Israel through Egyptian-mediated talks. But Hamas has yet to clarify whether it would withdraw from the US-sanctioned negotiations.

Europe

How to spot a mafioso: a tourist’s guide

A Sicilian tour guide who got fed up with answering the same questions about the mafia has written a pocket-sized book he thinks visitors will be unable to refuse.

The Mafia Explained to Tourists – which has been published in Italian, English, Japanese, German, Spanish and French – tackles questions such as: what a mafioso looks like, whether the mafia will exist forever and “why haven’t we seen a shoot-out in our 10 days here?”

“I included the 10 questions I am always asked, so from now I can just hand out the book,” said Augusto Cavadi, a Palermo-based guide and mafia scholar.

EU presses ahead with substantial cuts in emissions

EU leaders are likely to push ahead with plans for substantial cuts in “greenhouse” emissions in Europe over the next 12 years at the end of their summit in Brussels today.

Despite efforts by some governments to weaken the targets, and complaints from green pressure groups that the EU is aiming too low, leaders are expected to promise legislation by next March to cut the 1990 level of carbon dioxide emissions by one-fifth by 2020.

Asia

China admits sending in troops to quell Tibetan monk demos

By Clifford Coonan in Beijing

Friday, 14 March 2008

Chinese troops and police have been deployed at important monasteries in Tibet to quell the biggest protests by Tibetan Buddhist monks in the Himalayan region for nearly 20 years.

Witnesses have reported trucks full of troops surrounding Drepung monastery in Lhasa, while Sera monastery was ringed by hundreds of police.

These two sites have strong symbolic significance, as they were the training grounds for the monks who led Tibet before the People’s Liberation Army came in 1950 and ousted the Dalai Lama.

Victory for Kazemi as Home Secretary halts deportation to Iran

A gay teenager who faces the death penalty if he is forced to return to Iran has won a temporary reprieve after the Home Secretary halted his planned deportation and agreed to reconsider his case.

The Government’s surprise intervention yesterday follows an international outcry over the plight of Mehdi Kazemi, 19, who lost his asylum claim in Britain even though his former boyfriend had been arrested by the Iranian state police and executed for sodomy.

Mr Kazemi later fled to the Netherlands from Britain, but this week lost his final legal battle to force the Dutch government to allow him to seek refugee status there. He is being held in a Rotterdam immigration detention centre, awaiting transfer to Britain in the next few days.

Latin America

Maria Barragan wants her parents jailed

Mirta Barragán was six months pregnant when Argentina’s military regime imprisoned her and her husband, Leonardo Sampallo, in December 1977 as left-leaning dissidents. They were never seen again, but the regime sent their daughter to be brought up with another family which hid her real identity and her parents’ demise.

Now 30 years old, Maria Eugenia Sampallo Barragán is pressing charges against her adoptive parents, who face up to 25 years in prison for falsifying adoption documents and concealing her past.

Ms Sampallo is one of hundreds of people who were snatched from their parents or born in captivity during the country’s 1976-83 dictatorship, but she is the first to face her adopted parents in court. The verdict is expected on April 4.

Questions about Venezuela as Rice arrives in Brazil

She says U.S. will act accordingly if Chavez is found to have aided Colombian rebels. Bogota says it has evidence he funded FARC.

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declined to say Thursday whether the Bush administration would move to designate Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism after new revelations about the country’s alleged links to Colombian rebels.

“We will watch the situation and the U.S. will act accordingly,” Rice said during a news conference in Brasilia.

She arrived in Brazil on Thursday as the first high-level U.S. emissary to Latin America since the crisis that erupted after Colombia launched a raid March 1 into Ecuador targeting an encampment of the FARC rebel group.

The crisis, which briefly threatened to escalate into a regional war, cooled after Latin American leaders met in the Dominican Republic last week and Colombia apologized for the cross-border raid.

Africa

Chad and Sudan make peace

DAKAR (Reuters) – Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Chadian President Idriss Deby signed a peace agreement on Thursday designed to end cross-border rebel attacks in a region which includes Sudan’s conflict-ravaged Darfur area.

The signing, witnessed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) head Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, also aims to revive a string of past pacts that have failed to end fighting on both sides of the Chad-Sudan border.

“We solemnly pledge to ban the activities of all armed groups and to prevent the use of our respective territories to destabilize one or other of our states,” said the agreement, brokered by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade.

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

March 16-22 Docudharma is doing a week-long Focus on War.  This is a pilot project  – an experiment in collective blogging.  

Featured Post Schedule (9 PM Eastern)

Mar 16

Mar 17 Something The Dog Said

Mar 18 dharmasyd

Mar 19 MouseOfSuburbia

Mar 20 meteoriot

Mar 21 pinche tejano

Mar 22 Militarytracy

Call for Submissions:

Anyone who wants to write an essay that has anything to do with war can participate.  All you have to do is include the “Focus On War” tag in your essay.     Essays with Action are particularly encouraged:   give us some reasons to write LTEs, contact Congress, or to support an anti-war candidate or your favorite charity. Yell Louder!!!

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This is the place to post charities, organizations and other causes that are anti-war or that provide support for troops, veterans, and military families.  Refugee relief agencies and anti-war political candidates are some other ideas.

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In 1917, the legal prostitution district of New Orleans, the infamous “Storyville“, was shut down over the strong objections of the city by the Federal government.  In response, New Orleans Mayor Martin Behrman said “You can make [prostitution] illegal, but you can’t make it unpopular.”

The Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, recently demonstrated that ninety years of nearly universal prohibition of prostitution in this country has done nothing to make Behrman’s prophecy untrue.

The movement for prohibition of sex for pay in the United States began with many of the same people who mounted the campaign for the prohibition of alcohol.  After the civil war, the religious temperance movement moved away from the notion of temperance (meaning the voluntary abstention from harmful things originally espoused by the Greek philosopher Xenophon) and began to agitate for the prohibition of alcohol.  Among the groups founded at this time was the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.  This organization became strongest in Chicago, where Matilda Bradley Carse was President of the chapter.

Out of this movement, at the end of the 1800s, the National Purity Congress emerged.  This movement was dedicated to the abolition of legal prostitution in the United States. A goal which was realized in nearly all American states and territories from 1910 to 1915.  Among the leaders of the National Purity Congress was Mrs. Charlton Edholm, a missionary of the WCTU and sometime journalist, who ran for office in California on the Prohibition Party ticket and lost in 1902.  Three years earlier, Edholm was among the first to “report” about the phenomena of “white slavery”.

There is a slave trade in this country, and it is not black folks at this time, but little white girls – thirteen, fourteen, sixteen, and seventeen years of age – and they are snatched out of our arms, and from our Sabbath schools and from our Communion tables.

Scant though the evidence of this trade in “little white girls” was at the time, the story began to build in the public conciousness.  Chicago’s State Attorney, Clifford Roe, was outspoken for years about white slavery.  His first two widely publicized attempts to make a white slavery case fell apart when the allegations of the victims turned out to be fabrications, but in 1909, he finally found a case, that of one Ms. Sarah Joseph, which could be proven in court.  The Joseph case garnered national publicity, helping elevate Roe to the office of Assistant Attorney General.  Off the publicity and outrage garnered by the Joseph Case, Illinois Republican James R. Mann sponsored the United States White-Slave Traffic Act, now know as the Mann Act (which is one of the laws Gov. Spitzer allegedly violated), which was signed into law by President Taft in 1910.  The Mann Act forbade the transportation of individuals from one state to another for the purpose of prostitution (it also was the law which first authorized and funded the Federal Bureau of Investigation) and was the first step towards the outright prohibition of prostitution which would sweep the United States over the next half decade.

The Mann Act was among many victories for the Temperance movement during this period; during the two decades at the beginning of the 20th Century, laws prohibiting prostitution, the use of opiates, and eventually alcohol prohibition, swept the nation.  As is now widely known, none of these forms of prohibition succeeded in mitigating the proscribed activities.  Mayor Behrman’s prediction has been established as fact many upon many times over.

Yet, unlike alcohol prohibition, prohibition of prostitution has remained in effect in nearly every place in the United States.  And while the fears of sex slavery which spawned the Mann Act still are commonplace, there remains scant evidence of their basis in fact.

Indeed, while we continue to be warned of the danger of sex trafficking, an increase in taxpayer funded attempts to combat it are finding little to combat.  In 1999, the CIA reported that an estimated 50,000 women are trafficked for sex each year in the United States.  We now are learning that after spending $150 million on task forces and grants since 2000, the federal government had identified only 1,362 victims of sex trafficking in the U.S. The Washington Post reported that the original CIA estimate was the work of one analyst, who relied mainly on news clippings about overseas trafficking cases, from which she attempted to estimate U.S. victims.  And worse yet, Congress is proposing to increase the funding to combat trafficking.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) has sponsored H.R. 3887, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act.  This bill will increase the funding for combating trafficking to $872 million over four years.  It also removes language requiring evidence of fraud, force, or coercion to convict a person of trafficking under federal law, making any person convicted eligible for a miminum of 20 years in Federal prison.  Yet Steven Wagner, former head of the anti-trafficking program of the Department for Health and Human Services, has stated that this is unneeded.  “”Many of the organizations that received grants didn’t really have to do anything,” he told The Washington Post last fall. “They were available to help victims. There weren’t any victims.”

It should seem obvious that Lantos’ bill is bad to Democrats.  Government programs spending over $100,000 for each victim helped do not need simply more money; a regime of mandatory minimums which has overstuffed our prisons and made our justice system less just does not need to be fed with another ill-defined crime.  But further, ramping up the punishment will not and has not helped us make prostitution unpopular, and the evidence is now indisputable that such punishment schemes hurt those they are supposedly aimed at helping: women caught up in the sex trade.

A landmark study of prostitution co-authored by acclaimed economist (and co-author of bestseller Freakonomics) Steven Levitt has established that America’s prohibition regime has made it both more profitable and safer for prostitutes to be under the thumb of a pimp.  Sweden’s vaunted supply side attempt to stem prostitution has made prostitution more dangerous for those involved in it.

We have the opportunity to help find a better way.  A moving example from Mumbai shows us just how much can be achieved through ending prohibition.  The simple act of offering banking services to prostitutes there has enabled them to open savings accounts.  This basic ability, which all of us take for granted but which is denied to prostitutes in America due to their inability to legitimately use their earnings, allows them, among other things, the ability to be more choosy with what practices they engage in.  They are more likely to require condoms, which helps prevent the spread of HIV, helping protect both the prostitutes themselves and the public health.  These are real, tangible benefits, come into being by simply allowing prostitutes to have bank accounts.  Something which will of course become even less likely should we ramp up the legal penalties for those in the sex trade.

It is long past time for us to examine the assorted prejudices, lies, and myths which led to our failed century of attempting to make prostitution unpopular through prohibition, and long past time for us to ask ourselves honestly what we can do that will help the most vulnerable among us.