This Is What Diplomacy Looks Like

After years of virtual non-engagement with Latin America, the United States has finally started communicating with leaders who have been viewed as adversaries, such as Cuba's Raul Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Now that these countries are talking again, maybe they'll be able to move beyond some of the issues that have kept the nations at odds with each other - in Cuba's case for over 40 years!

First, U.S. President Barack Obama has loosened travel restriction to Cuba and now will allow Cubans living in America to visit relative on the island. This is the first step in a thawing of US/Cuba relations. From NPR:

Trading their warmest words in a half-century, the United States and Cuba pressed ahead Friday with a dizzying series of gestures as leaders of the Americas gathered for a summit. The momentum was so great that the head of the Organization of American States said he'll ask his group to invite Cuba back after 47 years.

Second, stories keep emerging about how Obama and Chavez reacted to each other at the Summit of the Americas. The two Presidents actually greeted and spoke to one another and with just that simple yet highly symbolic gesture of acknowlegement, Venezuela has agreed to restore its ambassador to the United States.

Here are some photos and video of Obama/Chavez interations at the summit....

Chavez and Obama shake hands...

Chavez gives one of his books to Obama. That book, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. The books is now a best seller on Amazon.com.

Here is video footage of an exchange between the two leaders. It is nice that these Presidents will actually talk to each other.

Changing the Perception of African Leadership

Corrupt and violent African leaders such as Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe) and Omar Bashir (Sudan) are usually the only ones highlighted in the Western press. Focusing on these kinds of leaders can paint a biased and inaccurate picture of African leadership in general. The fact of the matter is that there are several African leaders of which the continent and the world can be proud - maybe they ought to get some press!

Truthdig did an excellent story on Botswana's former President, Festus Gontebanye Mogae. He recently received the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. Here is an excerpt from the story...

Festus Gontebanye Mogae is Botswana’s former president, and he is probably as little known as his country. Botswana, acclaimed as Africa’s brightest star, rose from the ashes of grinding poverty to middle-income status in a generation. Its elections are peaceful, its politicians retire voluntarily, its civil society is vibrant and its natural resources are not a curse but a blessing shared by all.

Mogae recently attracted meager attention when he won the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. The annual prize was established by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and launched in October 2006 as an African initiative “to strengthen governance and affirm the importance of nurturing outstanding leaders on the continent.” The prize aims to encourage leaders like Mogae who dedicate their tenures of office to surmounting the development challenges of their countries, improve the livelihoods and welfare of their people and consolidate the foundation for sustainable development.

The Mo Ibrahim Prize is the world’s largest annually awarded prize. Mogae will receive $5 million over the next 10 years and $200,000 per year thereafter for the rest of his life. Over the coming decade, the foundation may also grant another $200,000 a year to causes of Mogae’s choice.

Talking Uranium on The Daily Show

John Stewart did a very interesting interview with Tom Zoellner, author of Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Changed the World. The books speaks about the discovery of Uranium and the multiple uses scientists have found for it. Although, as it pointed out in the excerpt from the interview below, humans have found for more ways to use it for destruction than for saving lives.

Stewart: Why are we so fast when making things that blow up, and so much slower - because this is also used in cancer treatments.

Zoellner: Yes

Stewart: But to much less effect than in bombs.

Zoellner: Correct

Stewart: What's wrong with us?

Watch the full interview...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Tom Zoellner
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Yes We Can...Get Rid of Nukes

Here is an excerpt from President Obama's speech in Prague.

Now, understand, this matters to people everywhere. One nuclear weapon exploded in one city -- be it New York or Moscow, Islamabad or Mumbai, Tokyo or Tel Aviv, Paris or Prague -- could kill hundreds of thousands of people. And no matter where it happens, there is no end to what the consequences might be -- for our global safety, our security, our society, our economy, to our ultimate survival.

Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be stopped, cannot be checked -- that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction. Such fatalism is a deadly adversary, for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable.

Just as we stood for freedom in the 20th century, we must stand together for the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century. (Applause.) And as nuclear power -- as a nuclear power, as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it.

So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. (Applause.) I'm not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly -- perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, "Yes, we can." (Applause.)

It Takes A School, Not Missiles

Nicholas D. Kristof, op-ed columnist for the New York Times, makes a great case for altering that way America is fighting the war on terrorism.

It Takes A School, Not Missiles

"Mr. Bush has focused on military force and provided more than $10 billion — an extraordinary sum in the foreign-aid world — to the highly unpopular government of President Pervez Musharraf. This approach has failed: the backlash has radicalized Pakistan’s tribal areas so that they now nurture terrorists in ways that they never did before 9/11.

"Mr. Mortenson, a frumpy, genial man from Montana, takes a diametrically opposite approach, and he has spent less than one-ten-thousandth as much as the Bush administration. He builds schools in isolated parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, working closely with Muslim clerics and even praying with them at times."

Also check out the book about Greg Mortenson, Three Cups of Tea.

Lara Logan on the Daily Show

It is refreshing to hear people this passionate about informing people about the real costs and tragedies of war. In this Daily Show interview, Lara Logan talks about the lack of attention the American media gives to the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq.



-peace-

Raytheon's Pain Ray: Coming to a Protest Near You?

http://www.alternet.org/rights/86692/

This is a bit frightening...an invisible ray that boils the skin producing a burning sensation?! The things people invent...

That being said, as awful as it feels to type this, maybe this is a "good" thing depending on how you look at it. Could this "save" lives, in that violent mobs of people may no longer need to be dispersed with bombs and bullets?

The danger is of course in the title of the article...could this machine be used to disperse nonviolent resisters?

-peace-