Month: March 2011

March 30, 2011 Michael Kaufman

Amnesty International has released one of its human rights lists.  On it are China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, Bangladesh, and Somalia.   All are known for deep and ongoing abuses of human rights. When it comes to human rights, it’s not a list that any right-thinking person (or country) would want to…

March 19, 2011 Michael Kaufman

The catastrophe at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan speaks of many things.   It speaks of corporate greed – its owner has been convicted of falsifying safety data in a singular pursuit of enriching itself even if its workers and perhaps countless others might die.  It speaks of generations of Japanese governments that have pumped…

March 13, 2011 Michael Kaufman

As I was just in Istanbul for a few days of work – during an unusual March week of wet snow and pummeling winds – I wanted to tell you about the type of thing that should fill us all with a bit of hope. Turkey still faces huge challenges when it comes to gender…

March 5, 2011 Michael Kaufman

It’s another day for most women in the world: breakfast is cooked, diapers are changed, fields are tended, computers switched on, patients treated, students taught, and houses cleaned. In the distance, groups of men thump the drums of war. They talk of the cleansing power of explosives stuffed into a car.  They anonymously rain missiles…