Category: World Commmunity

Posted inMedia & Culture

Book Review: “Fifty Million Rising” explains how women are changing the Muslim world

by David A Johnson

Saa­dia Zahidi’s look at the cohort of “The Gen­er­a­tion of Work­ing Women Trans­form­ing the Mus­lim World” does­n’t con­tra­dict itself, but it is large and con­tain­ing mul­ti­tudes. It could­n’t be any­thing less and still true, span­ning as it does thir­ty Mus­lim-major­i­ty coun­tries from North Africa all the way to South­east Asia.

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

PCC rebrands: Cooperative drops “Natural Markets” for “Community Markets”

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

For decades, PCC (the Puget Con­sumers Coop­er­a­tive) has been a fix­ture of Seat­tle and more recent­ly the greater Seat­tle met­ro­pol­i­tan area, pro­vid­ing organ­ic food from local farms, ranch­es, bak­eries, and dairies. When we need food for an event, such as our annu­al Win­ter Hol­i­day Par­ty, NPI turns to PCC. Since 1998, when PCC adopt­ed the moniker […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology, World Commmunity

Obama administration strikes back at Putin regime for interfering in 2016 U.S. elections

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

It’s a start: Pres­i­dent Oba­ma struck back at Rus­sia on Thurs­day for its efforts to influ­ence the 2016 elec­tion, eject­ing 35 sus­pect­ed Russ­ian intel­li­gence oper­a­tives from the Unit­ed States and impos­ing sanc­tions on Russia’s two lead­ing intel­li­gence ser­vices. The admin­is­tra­tion also penal­ized four top offi­cers of one of those ser­vices, the pow­er­ful mil­i­tary intel­li­gence unit […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

VICTORY! Delaware Supreme Court declares state’s death penalty law unconstitutional

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

A sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry for human rights has been won today: The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled the state’s death penal­ty law is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al – and the only chance at fix­ing it is to punt the issue to the already-divid­ed Gen­er­al Assem­bly. The top court released its rul­ing Tues­day that said Delaware’s cur­rent cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statute vio­lates the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion by […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

Brexit vote: “Leave” wins stunning victory, but Scotland and N. Ireland vote to Remain

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

A major­i­ty of vot­ers in the Unit­ed King­dom of Great Britain have decid­ed to break up with the Euro­pean Union, British mass media out­lets are pro­ject­ing, stun­ning finan­cial mar­kets and pun­dits who had pre­dict­ed a vic­to­ry for the Remain cam­paign when all was said and done. At around mid­night East­ern time and 9 PM Pacific, […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

America wakes up to a nightmare: Horrific attack on Orlando nightclub leaves fifty dead

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

This morn­ing, hun­dreds of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans woke up to the news that a man armed with an AR-15 assault rifle who had called 911 to announce that he was about to com­mit a heinous act in the name of the Islam­ic state group had bru­tal­ly slaugh­tered over fifty peo­ple at a gay night­club in […]

Posted inElections, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Bernie opposes Ex-Im. Will it “cost him” in Washington State’s Democratic caucuses? No.

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Last night’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate between Hillary Clin­ton and Bernie Sanders includ­ed a lengthy exchange over an issue of con­cern to Wash­ing­ton State’s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship: the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank, which mem­bers of Wash­ing­ton’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion fought hard to pro­tect and then to reau­tho­rize after Repub­li­cans shame­ful­ly allowed its char­ter to expire. The can­di­dates dis­agree over […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Shameful: U.S. House passes bill to effectively stop Syrian refugees from coming to America

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

The Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives today dis­graced itself by vot­ing over­whelm­ing­ly to approve a Repub­­li­­can-backed bill intend­ed to effec­tive­ly block Amer­i­ca from tak­ing in more Syr­i­an refugees. The vote on the leg­is­la­tion was two hun­dred and eighty-nine to one hun­dred and thir­­ty-sev­en, with forty-sev­en Democ­rats shame­ful­ly join­ing near­ly all the Repub­li­cans in vot­ing aye. H.R. […]

Posted inOur Environment, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

President Barack Obama announces his administration has rejected Keystone XL

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Flanked by Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and Sec­re­tary of State John Ker­ry, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma announced today that his admin­is­tra­tion has — after a lengthy and repeat­ed­ly delayed review process — reject­ed oil giant Tran­sCanada’s appli­ca­tion to build the Key­stone XL pipeline across the U.S.-Canada bor­der. “Now, for years, the Key­stone [XL] Pipeline has occupied […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations completed in Atlanta, says White House

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

Nego­ti­a­tions on the Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship, an unprece­dent­ed trade pact that has been devel­oped in secret by diplo­mats rep­re­sent­ing eleven nations as well as lob­by­ists for large, multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions, have final­ly been com­plet­ed, the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion announced this morn­ing. “This part­ner­ship lev­els the play­ing field for our farm­ers, ranch­ers, and man­u­fac­tur­ers by elim­i­nat­ing more than 18,000 […]

Posted inNational Defense, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Mitch “Filibuster” McConnell furious after Senate Democrats thwart vote on Iran

Andrew Villeneuveby Andrew Villeneuve

The shoe is on the oth­er foot now, and it hurts: Repub­li­can efforts to stop the nuclear deal with Iran end­ed in fail­ure Thurs­day, thwart­ed by unflinch­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic sup­port for Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s land­mark accord and famil­iar GOP infight­ing. With no clear strat­e­gy remain­ing to pre­vent the inter­na­tion­al­ly backed deal, Repub­li­can lead­ers in Con­gress were left […]