Le Carre Joins Appeal For Kenyan Drought Victims

"John le Carré, whose book The Constant Gardener was made into a Hollywood blockbuster, has joined an appeal for funds to save millions of Kenyans from starvation in the area where the film was shot.

"In the worst drought of the decade, 3.5 million people in northern Kenya are in imminent danger of starving to death, dying of thirst, or being killed in fights for survival," he said. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if, this time round, we devoted as much money and energy to saving 3.5 million of our fellow citizens as we do to making war in other regions of the globe."

Yet again, another distaster confronts the people of an African nation. The figures of the people at risk are mind-bogling! And where is the rest of the world? - and those G8 leaders who spoke so piously at their Conference last year how Africa was in their focus for assistance?

Read the full article in The Independent on the looming crisis in Kenya.

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

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#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas stopped him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed behind his back into their patrol car, where they say he shot himself in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story, says in an interview that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?

Mahler's Prodigal Son

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