human rights
jtoney | June 2, 2011
Imagine you have two months to live. What would you do, what would you write to your friends and colleagues? I don't know if I have two months - do you? No one does. Life is an ongoing risk, an opportunity to embrace challenges, to coast, or to be numb.
One of my dear colleagues, Dr. Richard Pierre Claude, a scholar of human rights, wrote an extraordinary letter to his friends and colleagues, exactly two months before he passed away. I have no idea if he knew that he had two months before the end, but his first sentence in this letter is the following:
{written on Martin Luther King…
jtoney | May 18, 2011
Last year, I taught a short course at Gilead Sciences in California and was impressed by not only the high quality of their scientific research but their efforts to increase access of their HIV medications to developing countries. Now Gilead has joined a group of pharmaceutical companies to try something bold and innovative - to share patents to both support basic research and to make their medicines more accessible.
The mission of the Medicines Patent Pool is:
...to improve access to affordable and appropriate HIV medicines in developing countries. We are working to bring down the prices…
jtoney | May 15, 2011
Hilary Clinton famously said in 1992:
I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life.
Ironically, daily domestic necessities such as baking and cooking have taken on a different twist in a recent partnership between Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Academy Award winning actor Julia Roberts.
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves' mission, led by the United Nations Foundation, is:
...is a new public-private partnership to save lives, improve livelihoods,…
jtoney | March 22, 2011
Scholars at Risk calls for letters on behalf of Bahraini mechanical engineering professor, who "was taken forcibly from his home on March 17th and imprisoned without charge."
About Scholars at Risk:
Mission
Around the world today, scholars are attacked because of their words, their ideas and their place in society. Those seeking power and control work to limit access to information and new ideas by targeting scholars, restricting academic freedom and repressing research, publication, teaching and learning. The Scholars at Risk Network (SAR) is an international network of universities and…
jtoney | March 19, 2011
Source.
Casualties in time and space. The seasonal rhythms and shifting battlefields of the war emerge in this view of the 8131 Afghan civilians killed or injured over the past 2 years, recorded in a military database called CIVCAS. (No data were available for the first 5 months of 2010 in the Southwest region.)
CREDIT: GEORGE MICHAEL BROWER
I am at a loss for words with today's news of a missile strike in Libya.
PARIS -- American and European forces began a broad campaign of strikes against the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Saturday, unleashing warplanes and missiles in the…
jtoney | March 14, 2011I've been thinking a lot about how to support victims and their families in Japan since the earthquake and tsunami struck last Friday.
Ben Parr at Mashable gives us some simple, concrete ways we can help in his article, "Japan Earthquake & Tsunami: 7 Simple Ways to Help." Please do what you can.
1. Text to Donate
The American Red Cross has once again launched a texting campaign to raise money for relief efforts in the Pacific region. Last year, the Red Cross was able to raise over $20 million for Haiti relief through simple text donations.
If you would like to donate to the American Red…
jtoney | March 4, 2011
SAF Troop Deployments on the volatile North/South Border.
Of all of the research that scientists do, this is an example of how we can make a difference. In this case, actor and activist George Clooney facilitates data collection on an important human rights issue in Darfur.
From Nicholas D. Kristof, reporter from The New York Times:
My old traveling buddy George Clooney took an unusual approach to his humanitarian work in Sudan: he invested in a monitoring capability with satellite photos. Now the resulting sat photos show villages that appear to have been burned near Abyei, the…
jtoney | March 1, 2011Teaser for "Black Beach" from Fourth World Media, LLC on Vimeo.
Video.
I recently wrote about "oil-eating microbes" and the lack of evidence that they will offer a solution to cleaning up the environmental nightmare that began last April after the BP oil spill.
What will BP's "black beach" burden become?
I believe that new technologies will guide us towards a solution and hope that it will provide enduring lessons that will prevent such an environmental disaster from ever happening again. As is now commonplace in regions in crisis, online social networking can serve as a powerful tool in…
jtoney | February 22, 2011
Source.
Anyone working to benefit human rights knows the challenge of public outreach and community engagement. I have been working with the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition for more than two years and we have made excellent progress in engaging scientists and scientific societies to learn how they can contribute their skills towards human rights with programs such as Scientists on Call.
But the efforts of popular performers such as Linkin Park are truly extraordinary in the scope and breadth of their outreach.
Today, February 22, Linkin Park is hosting a special chat on Facebook…
jtoney | February 16, 2011
© Reza Deghati courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards
Source.
This evening, I had the pleasure and honor to meet photographer Reza Deghati at one of his exhibits {The Human Rights Institute at Kean University}, "One World, One Tribe." His images convey a compelling story of the unity of the human race.
"The message of One World, One Tribe is we all have the same blood all over the world. The blood is the same color," said Reza. "We may have different colors, different languages, but the essence of humanity is the same for everybody."
Reza shared a story about a "lizard on a nail" with…
jtoney | February 10, 2011Breaking news of the potential end to Egypt's President Mubarek's time in office indicates that the "transition" may well become a resolution very soon, perhaps tomorrow, Friday, February 11. Will this date mark a new chapter of Egyptian history?
I sincerely hope that this crisis ends quickly and peacefully. This is, fundamentally, a human rights issue.
BREAKING NEWS: Noon on February 11
Is this the beginning of a wave of change?
CAIRO -- President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt resigned his post and turned over all power to the military, ending his 30 years of autocratic rule and bowing to a…
jtoney | February 9, 2011
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Actor George Clooney is recognized for more than his roles in television and film. He has worked diligently to support human rights issues in regions in crisis such as the Sudan. In The New York Times blog "On the Ground," reporter Nicholas Kristof joins Mr. Clooney to address readers' questions about malaria.
What role do you think celebrities should play in communicating about science and medicine to the public?
While Mr. Clooney cannot offer the perspective of a researcher on malaria, or that of a scientist or physician, he can give a personal view since he contracted the…
jtoney | February 1, 2011As the world watches history in progress in Egypt, here is an example of how technology can facilitate the voices of the people in Egypt. Twitter messages have played important roles in a variety of political and human rights issues around the globe. Let us all hope for a peaceful outcome and that the Egyptians are heard.
Employees of new Google Aquisition SayNow built an application that converts voicemails into tweets. By dialing one of several international phone numbers, Egyptians can tweet via voicemail message or listen to other people's "tweets." The messages are posted with hashtag…
jtoney | January 6, 2011
Guantanamo Bay
(Image Source: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Darren Hester, rpmaxwell, Will Montague)
This week's issue of Science has an insightful article on a very important topic: US sanctioned torture of enemies, using enhanced interrogation techniques. The article is co-authored by my colleague Dr. Allen Keller, from the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture. Dr. Keller and I serve on and participate in the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program. I will be attending their meeting next week in Washington, DC and will be reporting on our activities.
According to the…
sastyk | September 21, 2010Well, we've finally got a mostly-complete ASPO Conference schedule. The problem is exactly the sort of problem you'd really like to have when running one of these - that there are just too many serious thinkers who need a spot. It is really tough to finalize the conference schedule when every day you are receiving calls that say things like "This is Bianca Jagger, Chair of the Human Rights Foundation, calling to say that I'd like to speak at your conference on the connection between Climate, Energy Depletion and Human Rights...here are the texts of my UN speeches if you'd like to see them…
revere | May 13, 2010BP has this great reputation for being an environmentally friendly and responsible company. I know it because their incessant television ads tell me it's true. The ones that flank the national news stories about their horrendous safety record of explosions and worker deaths or their catastrophic oil spills. Those ads. When something happens they start the noise machine and appear to be the innocent party let down by their lessee.
BP ("British Petroleum") is a British Company operating in the US. A US company operating in Britain is called Innospec. You probably never heard of them because…
revere | May 1, 2010Arizona, you are looking ugly. Defenders claim its Draconian measures are a result of the failure of US immigration policy, and I have to agree. Everyone seems to agree on the need for immigration reform, but like the weather, no one wants to do anything about it. The Democrats have a bill, but no one seems to think it will succeed in an election year and may be only window dressing, anyway. The bill puts securing the border first, followed by provisions for fraud-proof identity cards. Bringing up the rear are tough requirements that would allow a path to citizenship for people currently…
revere | April 24, 2010I know things are better when I read really weird stories like this one:
Earlier today, we told you about a Pennsylvania legislator who accused her primary opponent of pretending to be bisexual in order to get votes from the large LGBT community in her Philadelphia district.
At a fundraiser a week ago, state Rep. Babette Josephs (D) told supporters that they couldn't trust her opponent, Gregg Kravitz, not to cheat at the polls. He had lied before, she said.
"I outed him as a straight person," she said, "and now he goes around telling people, quote, 'I swing both ways.'" (Rachel Slajda, TPM)…
revere | April 15, 2010When CBS-TV decided to run an anti-abortion ad during the Superbowl there was a lot of talk about the propriety of airing highly polarizing advocacy advertising in such a highly visible media slot. There has been less talk about the content of the ad beyond the obvious fact it was making an implied argument against abortion. Since I wrote a pro abortion post yesterday I was thinking about the issue and thought I'd revisit the ad from a different point of view, the weird (but common) anti-abortion counterfactual argument.
First a brief summary of the ad. Tim Tebow is a talented college…
revere | April 14, 2010I am pro-abortion. Not in the sense that I think abortions are good. I don't. In the sense that I am pro-surgery for medical conditions that can be surgically treated, or pro-pharmaceuticals for medical conditions that can be treated with drugs. I consider an unwanted fertilization to be a medical condition with significant consequences that can be treated. Now that I have gotten that out of the way I hope I can be free to state some ambivalence later about some other matters related to the anti-abortion movement.
But no ambivalence about a woman's ability to get an abortion. Roe v. Wade was…