Nobel peace prize winners say award is a boost for children’s rights worldwide

The winners of the Nobel peace prize, the Pakistani teenage activist Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights advocate, said the award represented a huge boost to the cause of children’s rights around the world.

They also made it clear that they would seek to use the award to bring their two countries closer together and said they would invite their prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan and Narendra Modi of India, to the award ceremony in Oslo in December.

The joint award was welcomed by the two leaders, but the award to 17-year-old Malala also drew some sceptical responses from Pakistani conservatives suspicious of western motives. Since escaping death when she was shot in the head two years ago by a Taliban gunman for attending school in Pakistan’s Swat valley, she has been living and studying in the UK.

Malala heard the news of her win during a chemistry lesson at school in Birmingham, while Satyarthi found out through Twitter before receiving the phone call from the Nobel committee in Oslo. The two later spoke by phone and, according to Malala, agreed to combine their campaigns for child protection and education, and to work to build stronger links between their two countries

“Today’s world is fast moving because of the globalisation of the economy and it is high time that all of us take urgent steps to protect children and move towards a globalisation of compassion,” Satyarthi, the 60-year-old son of a police constable in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, told the Guardian in an interview in his crowded south Delhi office.

The laureate’s son, Bhawan, said: “He’s a very down-to-earth man and so there were no tears or shouting or anything.

“This will be a big encouragement to the movement but the real victory will be when child trafficking is finished. This will send a strong signal to society not to employ child labourers and to the government to implement the existing laws.”

Child labour is illegal in India but laws are rarely enforced. Convictions for offences such as child trafficking are extremely rare.

Speaking to the press in Birmingham, Malala said “I believe the committee didn’t just give this award to me. It is for all the children whose voices are not being heard around the world.

“Through my story I want to tell children to speak for themselves, not to wait for someone else. I stand up with all the children and this award is especially for them. It will give them courage,” she said.

On Friday night in Mingora city in the Swat valley, Malala’s home region, people celebrated the award, distributing sweets in her honour in the central square where the Pakistani Taliban once roamed freely.

“All those who were opposed to Malala should review their opinion about her” said Neelum, a ninth-grade student and friend of Malala, who she described as one of the most talented girls she had ever met. “I imagine being her someday,” Neelum said. “ She is not just an inspiration for the women of Swat but for the world over.”

Ahmad Shah, a teacher in Swat, said Malala had “empowered the girls of Swat with her thoughts that education is important”.

“We’ve only read about Nobel laureates. Now we have one from our own village. It’s unbelievable and yet its true,” Shah added, his voice breaking with emotion. “She’s a flicker of hope in an age of darkness.”

The Nobel committee’s decision was deliberately aimed at striking a delicate balance at a time of tension in Indian-Pakistani relations. Malala is a young Muslim, while Satyarthi is a Hindu elder statesman of the child rights campaign. They will share the prize money of £690,000. But the split award also reflected the dire state of children’s rights in both countries.

Sharif was one of many politicians to offer congratulations to Malala. But there was no escaping the irony that Malala was almost killed for her work advocating education for children, and she is frequently accused by conservatives of selling out to the west.

Liaqat Baloch, a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a rightwing religious-political party, said: “Malala is a Pakistani student and she is getting a lot of support and patronage abroad. On the surface this is not a bad thing and we welcome this, and there is no objection to the award, but the attack on Malala and then her support in the west creates a lot of suspicions.

“There are lots of girls in Pakistan who have been martyred in terrorist attacks, women who have been widowed, but no one gives them an award. So these … activities are suspicious.”

In India, Tushar Gandhi, great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, the revered independence leader who became a proponent of non-violent protest, said that in recent years all Nobel prizes had been in the tradition of his famous forebear.

“Malala personifies non-violent resistance admirably and both she and Kailash Satyarthi also personify the commitment and solidarity that was the legacy of the work of all the illustrious leaders of [the Indian] independence movement,” Gandhi said.

“Until yesterday no politician was bothered or was interested in what he was doing and some were even irritated by him, now they will all sing his paeans. I think my great-grandfather, with his sense of humour, would have laughed … He had long realised the hypocrisy of politicians.”

India’s home minister, Rajnath Singh, congratulated Satyarthi, tweeting: “Shri Kailash Satyarthi is a champion of child rights whose work is now recognised internationally. Congratulations to him once again.”

India’s defence and finance minister, Arun Jaitley, also used Twitter to congratulate Malala for the award “for promoting girl’s right to education in the face of the Taliban diktat”.

There was no word from either country’s leaders on whether they would accept the invitation to attend the award ceremony. Recent days have seen one of the worst outbreaks of violence on the border between India and Pakistan for a decade, with about 20 killed and tens of thousands displaced by artillery barrages. The exchanges of fire appeared to be easing on Friday night.


source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/10/nobel-peace-prize-winners-boost-childrens-rights

I hope that not only receive the Nobel peace prize, but also comes out in actions continues.

From Jordan to Morocco, the pro-Gaza Rubble Bucket challenge goes viral

“I liked the idea of the ice bucket challenge, so I decided to invent the Palestinian version.”

A new trend in support of Gaza is going viral across Arab social media, after a Palestinian journalist filmed himself  dumping a bucket of sand and rubble over his head, in an activity he dubbed the “Remains Bucket” challenge.
The challenge imitates the popular Ice Bucket challenge,in which people photograph themselves pouring a bucket of ice water over their heads, to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Palestinian journalist Ayman Aloul started the trend with a video posted to his YouTube channel on Saturday.

“I liked the idea of the ice bucket challenge, so I decided to invent the Palestinian version,” Aloul says, as he stands amid the rubble of a bombed out building in Gaza.

Aloul says that the Remains Bucket challenge is a way of showing empathy for Gazans affected by Operation Protective Edge, by enabling those who take the challenge to show they understand the children’s suffering.

Explaining why he chose rubble instead of water, Aloul said that water is a scarce resource in Gaza, and would be difficult to freeze.

Pointing to the rubble, he said he decided to use that for the Palestinian version of the challenge, instead of water.

The trend quickly caught on in, and beyond, Gaza.

Among those taking the challenge include Jordanian comedian Mohammed Darwaza, who said it enabled him to feel the pain felt by children in Gaza.

Turkish pro-Palestinian NGO IHH posted a video of a Gazan man and four children undertaking the challenge.

source: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/From-Jordan-to-Morocco-the-pro-Gaza-Rubble-Bucket-challenge-goes-viral-372129

This relay, Don't forget the children in the Gaza Strip, has put into the praying for peace.
I wish that the war come to an end and peace will come as soon as possible.

The sadness of the war between Israel and Palestine

The war between Israel and Palestine is still being continued for 18 days right now. The Palestine land Gaza strip being attacked by Israel, 815 Palestine people died since the war began. About 80% are civilian and most of them are women and children. So about 10,000 Palestine civilian required and demonstrated to stop the war happening in Gaza strip.

By looking this article I was really sad. Because just capturing each other makes wars and wars makes people sacrifice. There is no reason civilian should be sacrificed because of wars isn't it? Why is war still happening to us? I imagined our country Korea by looking this article.

Korea is still splitted in to 2 pieces; South and North Korea and it is still not united. However, if we go to a little past back to 1950.6.25, hundreds of people were sacrificed just like this situation right now. I really hope in my heart sincerely let's not have war no more. If you have a chance to select "War" and "Peace" which one would you select? If we just think one more time and think a little bit deeper I hope war wouldn't happen any more. No more war but peace makes our world full with light.

Striking Gaza could buy Israel peace for a year, maybe more, analysts say

(CNN) -- The dark curtain rises again on the tragedy of Israel and Gaza, and the next act begins much like its forerunners.
Rockets hunt humans. Bombs crush buildings. Blood spills. The dead ride in caskets through streets, and mothers wail their grief to the heavens.
As Israeli reserves gather like a storm over Gaza's horizon, the added bloodshed of an incursion appears imminent, and millions watching around the world ask:
What could they hope to achieve?
There is no dramatic endgame in this, but there are concrete objectives, says Israeli military analyst and columnist Ron Ben-Yishai.
There are official ones and unofficial ones, short-term and long-term, that make sense for Israel, he argues.
Many of them will work, concedes critical Israeli columnist Gideon Levy. But he disagrees about their wisdom.
They won't cure the disease but instead feed it, he argues.
Military objective No. 1
First, the conservative government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to stop the rocket fire by force.
And weaken the Hamas militants and other groups behind it, Ben-Yishai says.
"Erode the political clout and the ability of Hamas to act both as a political and military-terrorist movement."
Those are the official goals given by the Cabinet for the military operation named Protective Edge, he says. And they'll probably be achieved, Ben-Yishai says.
"For the short-run, no doubt," Levy concurs. But he also thinks Hamas will come back stronger militarily and politically.
That's what happened over two years ago in operation Pillar of Defense and over five years ago in Operation Cast Lead, he says.
In the latter, 1,300 Palestinians and more than a dozen Israelis died.
Rockets' roots
Levy sees the rocket fire from Gaza as the boiling over of cumulative tensions.
He points to the peace process initiated by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry between Israel and Palestinians. The one that broke down weeks ago.
The whole time, a piece was missing from the negotiating table, he says. "Gaza was ignored totally."
Then a litany of youth killings ignited passions on both sides.
Three Jewish teens were murdered, and Israeli forces swept the West Bank for suspects, making arrests that had nothing to do with the case, Levy says. Palestinians were killed.
The murder of a Palestinian teen quickly followed; his body was torched. Suspicions arose that it was revenge for the Israelis' deaths.
Add to that the desperation in Gaza. The narrow strip of land is locked in on all sides, and people there live in dire poverty and deprivation. "Gaza is today the biggest cage in the world," Levy says.
The rocket fire is just a part of it all, he says. It's a way of Hamas pounding the table, pointing out Gaza's misery.
Levy's solution to the rocket fire: Pay more attention to Gazans. Don't marginalize them. Open borders, so they can move freely.
Ben-Yishai, on the other hand, believes that the peaceful approach -- that calm will be met with calm -- hasn't worked out.
"This formula is out of the game. It's not in the cards now," he says. The military option has become inevitable.
How Iron Dome blocks rockets from Gaza, protects Israelis
Operation drill-down
Hamas militants have come back stronger after the last military operation in at least one sense, Ben-Yishai says.
They have more long-range rockets. Previously, militants had to import them all from the outside. Now they can also construct them themselves.
They've also buried a network of launch sites below the ground's surface. Hitting them "is quite a job," Ben-Yishai says.
The Israel Defense Forces will have to strike deep into those systems. But the IDF has also adapted. Its bombs have become more accurate.
That also reduces collateral damage in Gaza, he says. Most who die were shooting rockets, he says. "Those who deserve it."
It's all a vicious cycle he's seen before, Levy says. The IDF destroys the militants' capabilities; they come back stronger.
"By the next operation, they will be even better equipped," he says. So will the Israelis.
Ground incursion
Israel has called up 30,000 reserve troops and has talked about pulling in 10,000 more, a signal that there may be a ground incursion into Gaza.
Levy firmly believes it will happen, that the IDF otherwise will not be able to root out militants' rocket systems.
Ben-Yishai is less certain. "I think it is in the cards. They've not made the decision yet," he says of the government.
Netanyahu may use aggressive rhetoric but is cautious about military decisions, he says. And so far, the government is satisfied with the operations as they have been -- only from the air thus far.
The endgame
The government hopes that Protective Edge will give Israel a few years of relative peace, restore normalcy for a time, Ben-Yishai says.
"After every round of hostility ... there is a sort of lull that Israel enjoys very much," he says. People can think about other things and tackle other issues, like the economy.
But it's not nearly worth the cost, Levy says. Droves of Palestinians will be killed, others' lives ruined. But even from a purely selfish standpoint, it's at best an empty victory.
"We will see horrible scenes," he says. "The world will condemn Israel. And what comes out of it? One year of peace."
Ben-Yishai believes there is a permanent gain to be made, that repeated operations in Gaza will wear the enemy down.
He hopes that the lulls between battles will get longer and longer, "until our neighbor realizes that they cannot make us disappear. They cannot erase us from the map."
Levy thinks Gaza militants won't quit until the misery there ends.
He predicts that military intervention will set the stage for the next bloodcurdling act -- and then the next.
New wave of Israeli airstrikes hammers Gaza
Flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian violence: Why now?
Has the Middle East crisis reached a tipping point?

source: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/10/world/meast/mideast-gaza-endgame/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
Can peace ever come to Middle East?
War is the most barbarous thing. Millions of peaple were uprooted by the war!
The victims of all the war were children.  Many thousands of children die from the war every year.
I feel sorry for that poor children. The war should be over! We want peace.
I hope that there will be peace all over the globe.

The uncomfortable role white people play in diversity

Susan Bodnar writes that she wants "live in a society where dignified difference constitutes our common core".

Editor's note: Susan Bodnar is a clinical psychologist who teaches at Columbia University's Teachers College and at the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, two children and all of their pets.
(CNN) -- In my family, I'm always bringing up stories from the past, our family's story, our diversity.
My daughter often rolls her eyes. "We don't need to keep talking about this stuff. We get it."
My son admonishes. "We know!"
In truth, their schools have done of a good job trying to make their population more closely resemble our country and our world. My kids have friends of all races, cultures and social classes.
However, as a female white mom married to a male white dad with two biologically conceived white children, I'm trying to make a different point.
I want them to understand that light skin color is not the norm from which everyone differs. White is not the signifier of normal.
Many white kids take diversity for granted. They have worked hard to overcome stereotypes and bias and to accept other people as different.
The fact that they may be someone else's diversity rarely occurs to them, let alone most white adults.
Three influences have altered my white-centric perspective: my psychology students, the people with whom I work in my clinical practice and the diversity work of both my kids' New York City private schools.
Some of my psychology students wanted to write a children's book where every character had a different identity. Children's books generally feature characters of one race or ethnicity, not multiple identities in interaction with one another. When we finished our first draft, we realized our characters had become very close friends. They each came from a different place but everyone had came from somewhere.
Skin color doesn't define personhood, but since race is a marker of identity in our society, the experience of personhood includes having to deal with the meanings others attribute to racial identity.
Protected by the privacy of a clinical relationship, beautiful black and brown women have shared how ugly they feel. Gentle dark-skinned men convey the humiliation that overcomes them when white people mistake them for dangerous criminals.
Since whiteness has become synonymous with a better life, it is easy for any lighter-skinned person to use skin color as a shield against hurtful stereotypes about social class, gender, sexuality, family history or even mental illness.
When white people deny their own embarrassing identity markers, we perpetuate the hypocrisy that only people of color have these problems.
As a psychologist -- no, as a person -- recognizing status and identity anxiety as a mutual experience lifts the veil that ordinarily separates us from each other.
This year, the parents association at one of my kids' schools named me co-chair of the diversity committee. I felt so self-conscious.
Group leadership called forth a greater reckoning with my identity than simply participating in a committee. It also provided me the chance to experience being a minority member of a group.
Sometimes I sat as the only white person at the table feeling really insecure, worried that I would be seen as a white stereotype instead of as myself.
How did growing up white with financial struggles intersect with racial diversity?
When white people want to "help" people of color, it always reeks of privilege and entitlement as in, "let me help you with your problems." It's a different sentiment than "let's help each other with our problems."
Did people of color trust me? Did they wonder what I was doing on the diversity committee? Was it my job to speak for the concerns of underrepresented minorities? Or did I contribute more by trying to put forth a more multifaceted approach to the question of identity?
How can we sit with each other's differences without feeling compelled to rank one way of being or looking as being better or worse than the other?
Our diversity committee ultimately worked through these questions in our conversations. Although we did not fully answer them, we found that by talking about them, we discovered the theme of our work and developed a friendship.
I now look at diversity as something that is in my interest: I want to live in a society where dignified difference constitutes our common core.
Nuances in how we think, feel, work and love define what it means to be human. Everyone is unusual and unique.
Racism is just another word for hating our realness.
Our commonality as a country derives from the fact that we all have an identity just beneath the surface of our skins.
The variety of stories that inhabit the people who call this country home -- from the brutality of slavery to the flight from genocides to the call to some better god -- enable democracy's creative synergy.
The hands that have built the instruments of modern America have been every color, every nationality and every religion.
I want to be part of a world that loves and embraces humanity as a diverse and interconnected organism. I want to be part of a world that accepts that every difference has a color, and every color has a unique meaning.
How do I do this?
I realized that it starts at home.
Rather than teaching my kids that they are white, I want to impart to them that they are part of a kaleidoscope -- lots of continually shifting colors and shapes.
They don't always want to hear their parents tell another story about grandpa's poverty or the coal-mining relatives. But this history holds our family's painful and joyous truths.
Every family need only peel back the layers of a few generations to find their own story.
Authentic family history exposes everyone's diversity. A society that embraces uniqueness loves the messiness of the human condition. Being loved despite or because of our messy truths creates empathy rather than sympathy.
When we raise children to accept and acknowledge their own story, they learn to listen to someone else's, with respect.


source: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/28/living/white-people-diversity-identity/index.html?iid=article_sidebar