Showing posts with label Norway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norway. Show all posts
Sunday, November 29, 2015
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
A revelation of the plight of Afghan women and a window into the surprising realities of daily life in today's Afghanistan.
March 12, 2012
Suraia Rais had sued Seierstad in an Oslo court, claiming Seierstad had defamed her family and used “negligent” journalistic practices. Both she and her husband had also felt that Seierstad’s revelations of their lives invaded their privacy. The bookseller had allowed Seierstad to live in his home in Kabul while she collected material for her book.
Seierstad lost at the lower court level but won at the appeals court level, where damage claims against both Seierstad and her publisher were reversed. Rais then appealed to Norway’s Supreme Court.
Last week came news that the high court had refused to hear the case, meaning the appeals court decision stands and Seierstad prevailed.
The author of the publishing sensation The Bookseller of Kabul was found guilty of defamation and "negligent journalistic practices" last week after losing a case brought by a woman who claimed the bestseller depicted her in a humiliating, untruthful way that left her feeling "violated".
Legal experts say the ruling by Oslo district court will transform the way in which western journalists and authors write about people from poor countries. Åsne Seierstad was ordered to pay more than £26,000 in punitive damages to Suraia Rais, the second wife of bookseller Shah Muhammad Rais, with whose family the Norwegian writer lived for five months while researching her book.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
U.S. Drone Program
Edited time: October 29, 2013 20:58
The victims of a drone strike alleged to be launched last year by the United States spoke to members of Congress on Tuesday and urged the US government to stop killing civilians with weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles.
Rafiq ur Rehman, a primary school teacher from North Waziristan, Pakistan, spoke through an interpreter on Capitol Hill on Tuesday along with his two children, ages nine and 13.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida) invited Rehman to speak in Washington about the strike last October that killed Momina Bibi, his 67-year-old mother who was recognized around the region as a midwife, not a militant. Regardless, a weaponized drone purported to be under the control of the US Central Intelligence Agency executed Bibi in front of her grandchildren on Oct. 24, 2012. The US has not formally acknowledged the attack, nor taken responsibility.
"Nobody has ever told me why my mother was targeted that day,” Rehman said during the Tuesday morning panel. "All media reported three, four, five militants were killed. But only one person was killed that day. A mom, grandma, a midwife.”
“The string that holds the pearls together. That is what my mother was,” Rahman said. “Since her death, the string has been broken and life has not been the same. We feel alone and we feel lost.”
The victims of a drone strike alleged to be launched last year by the United States spoke to members of Congress on Tuesday and urged the US government to stop killing civilians with weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles.
Rafiq ur Rehman, a primary school teacher from North Waziristan, Pakistan, spoke through an interpreter on Capitol Hill on Tuesday along with his two children, ages nine and 13.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida) invited Rehman to speak in Washington about the strike last October that killed Momina Bibi, his 67-year-old mother who was recognized around the region as a midwife, not a militant. Regardless, a weaponized drone purported to be under the control of the US Central Intelligence Agency executed Bibi in front of her grandchildren on Oct. 24, 2012. The US has not formally acknowledged the attack, nor taken responsibility.
"Nobody has ever told me why my mother was targeted that day,” Rehman said during the Tuesday morning panel. "All media reported three, four, five militants were killed. But only one person was killed that day. A mom, grandma, a midwife.”
“The string that holds the pearls together. That is what my mother was,” Rahman said. “Since her death, the string has been broken and life has not been the same. We feel alone and we feel lost.”
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010
You may not know his name, but my friend Liu Xiaobo is a global icon for freedom. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights.
Today, this hero remains in jail, as China's most famous political prisoner.
Xiaobo is serving an 11-year term for his activism demanding that the Chinese government make his country more democratic and make its courts more independent. His wife, who has never been convicted of any crime, is under house arrest. This is not just.
I was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for my work fighting the racist Apartheid system in South Africa. I am humbled to share the Nobel legacy with someone so brave as Xiaobo.
Today, with more than 130 other Nobel Prize winners, I am calling on the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, to release Liu Xiaobo from prison and his wife, Xia, from house arrest.
This is an historic moment in China. Every 10 years, the Chinese government hands over power to a new generation of leadership. As of a few weeks ago, Xi Jinping has succeeded his predecessor, Hu Jintao, in leading China -- and hopes are that he will open China to reform more than any of his predecessors.
The Chinese government doesn't usually listen to voices from outside the country. (Or voices from within the country, for that matter!) But the world has a singular opportunity to push for change when China's leadership changes over every 10 years. This is our chance!
Humans are wonderful, and we can do amazing things when we act together. I have seen this time and time again with my own eyes.
Brothers and sisters, we are going to move mountains together!
God bless you,
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Cape Town, South Africa
Cape Town, South Africa
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Can European tolerance withstand radical Islam?
Norway's long held out a warm, welcoming hand to immigrants - trying to help them feel at home, and assimilate into society. That policy's been clouded not only by Breivik massacres - but even from within ethnic groups - with radical slogans and even death threats from the growing Islamic community. RT'S Maria Finoshina looks at why it's splitting the nation.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Burma's plight had not been forgotten
Aung San Suu Kyi MP AC (Burmese: 
; MLCTS: aung hcan: cu. krany, /aʊŋˌsæn.suːˈtʃiː/ [2]; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmeseopposition politician and chairperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Burma. In the 1990 general election, the NLD won 59% of the national votes and 81% (392 of 485) of the seats in Parliament.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] She had, however, already been detained under house arrest before the elections. She remained under house arrest in Burma for almost 15 of the 21 years from 20 July 1989 until her most recent release on 13 November 2010,[10] becoming one of the world's most prominent (now former) political prisoners.[11]
; MLCTS: aung hcan: cu. krany, /aʊŋˌsæn.suːˈtʃiː/ [2]; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmeseopposition politician and chairperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Burma. In the 1990 general election, the NLD won 59% of the national votes and 81% (392 of 485) of the seats in Parliament.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] She had, however, already been detained under house arrest before the elections. She remained under house arrest in Burma for almost 15 of the 21 years from 20 July 1989 until her most recent release on 13 November 2010,[10] becoming one of the world's most prominent (now former) political prisoners.[11]
Suu Kyi received the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In 1992 she was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding by the government of India and the International Simón Bolívar Prize from the government of Venezuela. In 2007, the Government of Canada made her an honorary citizen of that country;[12] at the time, she was one of only four people ever to receive the honor.[13] In 2011, she was awarded the Wallenberg Medal.[14]
On 1 April 2012, her opposition party, the National League for Democracy, announced that she was elected to the Pyithu Hluttaw, the lower house of the Burmese parliament, representing the constituency of Kawhmu;[15] her party also won 43 of the 45 vacant seats in the lower house.[16] The election results were confirmed by the official electoral commission the following day.[17]
Suu Kyi is the third child and only daughter of Aung San, considered to be the father of modern-day Burma.
Burmese officials have told opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to call the country by its official name, Myanmar.
The country was renamed Myanmar in 1989 by its then military rulers and the change has been widely adopted since.
But opposition groups have continued to use the old name as a sign of defiance, along with some Western governments and media organisations.
Ms Suu Kyi was freed from arrest in 2010 and elected to parliament this year amid continuing political reforms.
She is set to return from a high-profile trip to Europe, during which she referred to her country as Burma.
She also used the term Burma during a speech to the World Economic Forum in Thailand on 1 June, apparently annoying her country's military-backed civilian government.
Correspondents say the authorities may be trying assert themselves after Ms Suu Kyi, who leads the National League for Democracy (NLD), was feted throughout her European tour.
In a statement published in The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, the electoral commission said: "As it is prescribed in the constitution that 'the state shall be known as The Republic of the Union of Myanmar', no one has the right to call [the country] Burma.
"It is announced that the commission... has again informed the NLD to write/address the name of the state as prescribed in the constitution... and respect the constitution."
NLD party spokesman Nyan Win responded by saying that referring to the country as Burma "does not amount to disrespecting the constitution".
The then ruling military chose to rename Burma two decades ago, arguing that the old name was a hangover from colonialism and only represented the dominant Burman ethnic group.
Etymologists and others suggest that this argument is false, as both Myanmar and Burma come from the same root - referring to the Burman ethnic group - and have been used interchangeably for centuries.
The US and UK governments still use Burma to refer to the country, as do some media organisations, including the BBC.
Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 had made her feel "real again" and reassured her that Burma's plight had not been forgotten.
Speaking in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, she said Western support had contributed to changes in Burma.
Ms Aung San Suu Kyi spent much of the past 24 years under house arrest in Burma. She was freed in late 2010.
She did not travel to collect the prize fearing she would not be allowed back.
Her visit to Oslo is part of a tour of Europe, her first since 1988, which she began in Geneva, at the UN's International Labour Organisation.
On Saturday, Suu Kyi will meet members of the Burmese community who are exiled and now live in Norway.
Open door
Opening the ceremony in Oslo, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, said:
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
In your isolation you have become a moral voice for the whole world”
Thorbjorn Jagland Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee
"Dear Aung San Suu Kyi, we have been waiting for you for a very long time. However we are well aware that your wait has been infinitely trying for you and one entirely of a different nature from ours.
"In your isolation you have become a moral voice for the whole world."
Mr Jagland described her as "a precious gift to the world community".
In her Nobel lecture, Ms Suu Kyi said she heard she had received the prize on the radio and it had felt "unreal".
But at the same time, it had "opened a door in my heart".
"Often during my days of house arrest it felt as though I were no longer a part of the real world," she said.
Winning the Nobel Peace Prize "made me real once again. It had drawn me back into the wider human community".
And she added, the Nobel Peace Prize drew the attention of the world to the struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma.
"We were not going to be forgotten."
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
This person appeared right-wing
OSLO (Reuters) - The man who killed 77 people last summer to protest at Muslim immigration to Europe said on Monday he believed he could tell the ideology of his prospective massacre victims by looking at them, and tried to spare one who appeared "right-wing".
"Certain people look more leftist than others," Anders Behring Breivik said on the sixth day of a trial that has transfixed Norway, explaining how he picked off "Marxists" with his rifle and pistol while passing over a young man he thought looked conservative.
"This person ... appeared right-wing, that was his appearance. That's the reason I didn't fire any shots at him," said Breivik, 33, whose sanity or lack of it is a prime issue to be determined in the trial.
Breivik has given a detailed account of his car bomb attack at government headquarters in Oslo, which killed eight people, and a follow-up gun massacre at a Labour Party island camp where he killed 69, mostly teenagers, all within a few hours on July 22.
Most Norwegians have reacted with contained horror to the content of Breivik's testimony, delivered in a cold, matter-of-fact manner, while there is wide public acceptance of his right as a defendant to give it.
Breivik has had almost free rein to issue warnings against immigration and explain how he scoured the Internet for bomb-making recipes while writing a 1,500-page document declaring himself part of a secretive group that is Europe's answer to Al Qaeda - a group the police have said likely does not exist.
Breivik has denied criminal guilt, insisting that his victims were "traitors" whose multiculturalist views facilitated what he saw as a de facto Muslim invasion of Europe.
SEEMING APOLOGY
But on Monday Breivik issued his first seeming apology, to innocent bystanders hurt or killed when his 950-kilogram fertilizer bomb went off in Oslo. More than 200 were injured.
"To all of those ... I want to say I am deeply sorry for what happened," he said. "But what happened, happened."
He called his acts "a minor barbarity to prevent a larger one", apparently referring to Europe's supposed cultural decline.
The 22-year-old he chose not to kill, a Labour Party youth wing activist named Adrian Pracon, has told Reuters:
"I remember him pointing the gun at me for quite a long time before he took it down, turned and walked away."
Later in the rampage, which lasted more than an hour, Breivik came upon Pracon again as he played dead, and this time shot the son of Polish immigrants through the shoulder.
In another separate apparent bid to show he has a conscience, Breivik pointed out that he spared the life of a 10-year-old boy whom he had had in his rifle sights on the island.
"I could not understand what such a little boy was doing at a political indoctrination camp," said Breivik, whose victims were as young as 14.
The boy's name has not been released by the authorities but his father, Trond Berntsen, was an off-duty police officer serving as the island's security guard. He was Breivik's first victim, according to the indictment.
Ahead of the trial, which is expected to last 10 weeks, one court-appointed team of psychiatrists concluded Breivik was psychotic while a second found him mentally capable.
If Breivik is deemed sane, as he hopes to be, he could face a 21-year prison sentence with indefinite extensions for as long as he is considered dangerous.
(Editing by Stephen Nisbet)
"Certain people look more leftist than others," Anders Behring Breivik said on the sixth day of a trial that has transfixed Norway, explaining how he picked off "Marxists" with his rifle and pistol while passing over a young man he thought looked conservative.
"This person ... appeared right-wing, that was his appearance. That's the reason I didn't fire any shots at him," said Breivik, 33, whose sanity or lack of it is a prime issue to be determined in the trial.
Breivik has given a detailed account of his car bomb attack at government headquarters in Oslo, which killed eight people, and a follow-up gun massacre at a Labour Party island camp where he killed 69, mostly teenagers, all within a few hours on July 22.
Most Norwegians have reacted with contained horror to the content of Breivik's testimony, delivered in a cold, matter-of-fact manner, while there is wide public acceptance of his right as a defendant to give it.
Breivik has had almost free rein to issue warnings against immigration and explain how he scoured the Internet for bomb-making recipes while writing a 1,500-page document declaring himself part of a secretive group that is Europe's answer to Al Qaeda - a group the police have said likely does not exist.
Breivik has denied criminal guilt, insisting that his victims were "traitors" whose multiculturalist views facilitated what he saw as a de facto Muslim invasion of Europe.
SEEMING APOLOGY
But on Monday Breivik issued his first seeming apology, to innocent bystanders hurt or killed when his 950-kilogram fertilizer bomb went off in Oslo. More than 200 were injured.
"To all of those ... I want to say I am deeply sorry for what happened," he said. "But what happened, happened."
He called his acts "a minor barbarity to prevent a larger one", apparently referring to Europe's supposed cultural decline.
The 22-year-old he chose not to kill, a Labour Party youth wing activist named Adrian Pracon, has told Reuters:
"I remember him pointing the gun at me for quite a long time before he took it down, turned and walked away."
Later in the rampage, which lasted more than an hour, Breivik came upon Pracon again as he played dead, and this time shot the son of Polish immigrants through the shoulder.
In another separate apparent bid to show he has a conscience, Breivik pointed out that he spared the life of a 10-year-old boy whom he had had in his rifle sights on the island.
"I could not understand what such a little boy was doing at a political indoctrination camp," said Breivik, whose victims were as young as 14.
The boy's name has not been released by the authorities but his father, Trond Berntsen, was an off-duty police officer serving as the island's security guard. He was Breivik's first victim, according to the indictment.
Ahead of the trial, which is expected to last 10 weeks, one court-appointed team of psychiatrists concluded Breivik was psychotic while a second found him mentally capable.
If Breivik is deemed sane, as he hopes to be, he could face a 21-year prison sentence with indefinite extensions for as long as he is considered dangerous.
(Editing by Stephen Nisbet)
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