The number of forcibly displaced people around the world has reached a 15-year high, according to the UN high commission for refugees (UNHCR), with the vast majority languishing in poor countries ill-equipped to cater to their needs. The UNHCR's 2010 trends report estimated that there were 43.7 million refugees and people displaced within their country by events such as war and natural disasters at the end of last year. More than half of the total are children. The figure does not take into account the new wave of migration set in train by the upheaval of the Arab spring. The figure breaks down into a global total of 15.4 million refugees, 27.5 million internally displaced people and a further 840,000 people waiting to be given refugee status.
The UNHCR's 2010 trends report estimated that there were 43.7 million refugees and people displaced within their country by events such as war and natural disasters at the end of last year. More than half of the total are children. The figure does not take into account the new wave of migration set in train by the upheaval of the Arab spring.
The figure breaks down into a global total of 15.4 million refugees, 27.5 million internally displaced people and a further 840,000 people waiting to be given refugee status.
In a story first reported by Brian Kaylor of EthicsDaily.com, James Robison has been bringing social conservative activists and televangelists from across the country together to strategize on how to prevent President Barack Obama from winning reelection. A who’s who of Religious Right leaders, including Don Wildmon, Tony Perkins, Richard Land, Rod Parsley, Jerry Boykin, Jim Garlow, Daniel Lapin, Kenneth Copeland, Harry Jackson and Sam Rodriguez attended the gathering hosted by Robison. According to Kaylor’s report, Robison called the meetings an “absolute necessity and one of the ways the people of God’s Kingdom can leave His footprints on planet Earth, impacting our own great nation.” Robison, who was Mike Huckabee’s mentor and host of Life Today, recently spoke with Texas Gov. Rick Perry about how the economic crisis was needed to turn America back to God. Wildmon and Garlow are both closely involved in organizing Perry’s The Response prayer rally and Kaylor reports that the “group is connected to Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry's plan for a large prayer rally in August.”
According to Kaylor’s report, Robison called the meetings an “absolute necessity and one of the ways the people of God’s Kingdom can leave His footprints on planet Earth, impacting our own great nation.” Robison, who was Mike Huckabee’s mentor and host of Life Today, recently spoke with Texas Gov. Rick Perry about how the economic crisis was needed to turn America back to God. Wildmon and Garlow are both closely involved in organizing Perry’s The Response prayer rally and Kaylor reports that the “group is connected to Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry's plan for a large prayer rally in August.”
Yes, these "religious" "leaders" blatantly desire an increase of public suffering in order to enact their agenda.
We're not a First World country because we no longer have one of their most important characteristics: a high and steadily-increasing life expectancy. A study released this week shows that in significant areas of the US life expectancy is no longer increasing, and in a shockingly large part of the country the life expectancy for women is actually decreasing.
We are not all in this together. The UK economy is flat, the US is weak and the Greek debt crisis, according to some commentators, is threatening another Lehman Brothers-style meltdown. But a new report shows the world's wealthiest people are getting more prosperous – and more numerous – by the day. The globe's richest have now recouped the losses they suffered after the 2008 banking crisis. They are richer than ever, and there are more of them – nearly 11 million – than before the recession struck. In the world of the well-heeled, the rich are referred to as "high net worth individuals" (HNWIs) and defined as people who have more than $1m (£620,000) of free cash.
The globe's richest have now recouped the losses they suffered after the 2008 banking crisis. They are richer than ever, and there are more of them – nearly 11 million – than before the recession struck.
In the world of the well-heeled, the rich are referred to as "high net worth individuals" (HNWIs) and defined as people who have more than $1m (£620,000) of free cash.
They are the crown jewels of Greece’s socialist state, and they are now likely to go to the highest bidder: the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki; prime Mediterranean real estate; the national lottery; Greek Telecom; the postal bank and the national railway system.
I'm holding out for the Parthenon or Delphi!
And then comes the mandated deeper round of austerity measures, which will slash the wages of police officers, firefighters and other state workers who are protesting in Athens, and raise the taxes of citizens already inflamed by a recession-plagued economy and soaring joblessness.
Keep in mind that if the Republicans get their way, it will happen here, too.
On a personal note, when I was a child, my parents didn't push their liberal political beliefs on me and my siblings. We discussed them but were allowed the openness to form our own opinions. I somehow ended up thinking the death penalty sometimes was appropriate; although I was far too young to vote, Roberts took the time to convince me otherwise. I have been a staunch opponent of capital punishment ever since. I have always been grateful to Roberts for her clarity of mind and personal care.
Although the Supreme Court's 2007 opinion referenced what "respected scientists believe" about climate change and relied on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the latest opinion stated pointedly, "The court, we caution, endorses no particular view of the complicated issues related to carbon-dioxide emissions and climate change." Worse, the court suggested that readers explore "views opposing the EPA's" by consulting "Dawidoff, The Civil Heretic, N. Y. Times Magazine 32 (March 29, 2009)". Climate cognoscenti will recognize this reference as a profile of Freeman Dyson, the theoretical physicist whose controversial views on climate change have been widely promoted by the climate-sceptic community. The court also repeated a prominent sceptical refrain about the ubiquity and supposed banality of greenhouse-gas emissions—"after all, we each emit carbon dioxide merely by breathing"—that serves only to downplay the severity and significance of industrial emissions. That the nation's highest court would repeat this misleading refrain, and seemingly endorse Dyson's views as equal to those of the IPCC and the EPA, simply takes the breath away.
Climate cognoscenti will recognize this reference as a profile of Freeman Dyson, the theoretical physicist whose controversial views on climate change have been widely promoted by the climate-sceptic community. The court also repeated a prominent sceptical refrain about the ubiquity and supposed banality of greenhouse-gas emissions—"after all, we each emit carbon dioxide merely by breathing"—that serves only to downplay the severity and significance of industrial emissions.
That the nation's highest court would repeat this misleading refrain, and seemingly endorse Dyson's views as equal to those of the IPCC and the EPA, simply takes the breath away.