Dahr Jamail
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Nov 16 2009 (IPS) – According to a soldiers advocacy group at Fort Hood, the U.S. base where an army psychiatrist has been charged with killing 13 people and wounding 30 in a Nov. 5 rampage, the official suicide figures provided by the Army are definitely too low.
Chuck Luther served 12 years in the military and is a veteran of two deployments to Iraq, where he was a reconnaissance scout in the 1st Cavalry Division. The former sergeant was based at Fort Hood, where he lives today.
I see the ugly, Luther told IPS. I see soldiers beating their wives and trying to kill themselves all the time, and most folks don t want to look at this, including the military.
Luther, who in 2007 became the founder and director of the Soldier s Adv…
Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 9 2010 (IPS) – The Statute of Racial Equality, soon to be signed into law in Brazil, is at the centre of a controversy between those who consider it a historical achievement, like the abolition of slavery in 1888, and those who see it as failing to satisfy the demands of the black movement.
The ceremony at which Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will sign the statute into law, scheduled for Jul. 20, will not be the brilliant occasion hoped for by the government s Special Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality (SEPPIR).
After nearly two decades of debate, the statute approved by Congress on Jun. 16 has not left everyone happy.
It is a watered-down text that does not include some of the major demands …
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 5 2021 (IPS) – Goodbye 2020, but unfortunately, not good riddance, as we all have to live with its legacy. It has been a disastrous year for much of the world for various reasons, Elizabeth II’s annus horribilis. The crisis has exposed previously unacknowledged realities, including frailties and vulnerabilities.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
For many countries, the tragedy is all the greater as some leaders had set national aspirations for 2020, suggested by the number’s association with perfect vision. But their failures are no reason to reject national projects. As Helen Keller, the deaf and blind author activist, noted a century ago, “The only thing …