Human Rights Violations Essays - AfghanistanPakistan Relations

Human Rights Violations Imran Syed PE 4665 : Human Rights Dr. Sachi Dastidar Assignment 1: Web Sites and Interest Groups Human Rights Violations in Afghanistan Since the departure of the Soviets from Afghanistan basic human rights of the Afghanistanis have not just been trampled on but summarily done away with. After the widespread destruction of the power struggle, the ruling party, the Taliban, have committed atrocities against the people of Afghanistan that few would believe still exist in the world today. Especially targeted are the Shiite minority and the women of Afghanistan. Despite every effort of the Taliban to limit reporters and documentation of the crimes being committed, there is tremendous information being made public worldwide. The violations present a unique situation in the world and command reaction from the world at large. http://www.tabloid.net/1999/01/21/taliban_990121.html : Tabloid news services - Kabul, Afghanistan What has become norm these to Afghanis are straight out of a horror movie for most of the civilized world. The Taliban regime has enacted their own form of justice under the banner of Islam. This news piece from the capital tells of a typical day of sentencing, severed hands and feet of thieves hanging in the busiest part of the town to serve as a warning to others. One of the most unique punishments is for the sodomists. The presumed guilty stands in front of a wall, which is bulldozed on him while a crowd watches. **http://my.rawa.org/rawa.html Rawa, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, was started under the Soviet rule. These women campaigned against the atrocities of the Soviets and brought to public view their heinous crimes. Since their departure this group has enlarged its scope to include resistance to the fundamentalists as well as the mistreatment of the women and girls of Afghanistan. The Taliban have been especially cruel towards women since they believe women should not be allowed to work or go to school. Women and girl who still pursue these goals are frequently stopped by the morality police and beaten or worse. The Rawa org. is doing an incredible job exposing these violation under their harsh circumstances. http://www.rawa.org/herat-p.htm In May of 1999, the Taliban suppressed a coup by the Iran backed Hezb-e-Wahdat(shiite group). After the confrontation, they thought it would be prudent to seek out all of the Hazaras Shiite minority living in Herat. The Taliban went on an armed house-to-house search of the entire town. As the located all of the Shiite minority in the town they were publicly executed, and some were imprisoned. This chapter is just an example of the extreme hatred of the Shiites in Afghanistan by the Taliban. Pakistan has been the only safe haven for the thousands of Shiites fleeing persecution from the Taliban regime. http://hrw.org/hrw/pubweb/webcat-03.htm August 1998, the last big city, Mazur-I Sharif fell to the Taliban. As they entered the city, the Taliban fired on anything that moved, civilians were killed by the thousands. As the retreating opposition fled they also fired rockets without care and human rights watch believe that hundreds of noncombatants were killed. Since the Soviet with drawl from Afghanistan. About half of the countrys pre-war population is internally displaced or dead. Pakistan and the CIA are still the largest suppliers of weapons to both sides of the conflict. Land mines indiscriminately placed are still taking their toll of civilians, mostly children. Afghanistan has been the place of the most horrible violations of civil rights and laws of war since the Soviets left. http://www.athiests.org/flash.line/taliban3.htm Despite the worst abuses of human rights including a special apartheid for women, Afghanistan enjoys special relations with some in the U.N. and U.S. corporations. Companies are striking deals from oil pipe lines to crop subsidies and their interest are being protected by peoples in the U.N. and the U.S. government. Also, Afghanistans biggest cash crop, opium poppies are being used to fund their weapons purchases. Weapons that are used to kill their own countrymen and women. This site questions U.S. involvement with the Government that has no regard for the basic human rights especially one that treats women as second-class citizens. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/dom/9791013/world.tyranny_of_the.html Emma Bonino the European Unions top humanitarian describes to us the horrors that Afghanis face everyday under the Taliban rule. Women have been especially mistreated in the guise of protecting them. No

Writing a Discussion Essay Sample

Writing a Discussion Essay SampleWhat is a discussion essay sample? It is a little thing you can write, which you can either fill out for yourself or for a certain student that you are responsible for teaching.Your assignment will cover the same topic, but it will be slightly different in presentation. The first paragraph will look like it is copied and pasted from a class assignment. The second paragraph will read more like an independent work.You could even develop a style sheet, so that you would know where to put your own ideas and not just copy from someone else's. You are never going to have a lot of time to devote to these assignments, so you need to make sure you do the best you can. I know when I was trying to come up with my own thoughts on a topic I was tackling, I often copied someone else's works, hoping I would get the ideas I needed.You must always think about your final version, but this is not a time to just go with whatever sounds good. If you have a lot of practice writing essays, you might want to invest in one or two books. These would be a great help in figuring out how to create a different kind of essay.There are other authors that can teach you a lot about your own particular style. Some people seem to write very straight forward topics while others create so much information in the way of text and images that you wonder why they did not just give away the answers. This is very important because you want to capture their minds and make them want to go back and read the topic over again.Once you figure out your own thoughts on the topic, you can then try to weave the things you learned into a discussion and resource box. This can be a little confusing because you want to let the student know that you took the time to do some research on the topic, but at the same time you do not want to make him feel that you are shoving something down his throat.Once you find the topics that you feel like you know well, then you can create a review topi cs. Your students will be glad that you took the time to get to know them before they went to class. However, if you do not feel confident enough about your own thoughts on the topic, then you might want to have someone else do it for you.

Absolute rulers essays

Absolute rulers essays Many empires and nations throughout global history have been under the rule of absolute monarchs who follow the policies of absolutism. Absolutism is a political system in which a ruler has complete power. Many ancient nations, such as Spain, Russia and France, followed the policy of absolutism. Absolute rulers usually show strong armies, high taxes, and the belief in divine right. One of histories most prominent absolute rulers was Peter the Great of Russia. Several rulers of empires and nations have followed the policy or absolute rule. Many of the absolutists believed that they had gotten their right to rule straight from God, also know as the Divine Right. Because of this, the monarchs had complete control over the government. He or she could pass any laws they believed would benefit the nation without consulting any person. The monarch not only had complete rule over the government, but he or she also had utter control over the people and their lives in his or her empire. In fact, if people rebelled against the leader it was virtually inevitable that they would be jailed, tortured, or killed. Peter the Great of Russia is one of the most famous absolute monarchs. He is characterized as a very cruel man; however, he successfully reformed Russia. His goal was to westernize and modernize all of Russia, including the government, society and culture. He imported western technology to help him achieve this goal. Peter improved education by setting up academics and simplified the Russian alphabet. Serfdom spread around Russia; the serfs worked the land that the nobles were given, ensuring that the nobles could serve the state. Serfs were also forced to work on government projects, which improved the waterways, canals and roads. Peter brought all Russian institutions into his control, including the Russian Orthodox Church. He also wanted to end the seclusion of higher class women in their separate quarters. Peter wanted men and wom...

GEOGRAPHIES OF SUSTAINABLE FOOD Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

GEOGRAPHIES OF SUSTAINABLE FOOD - Essay Example Sustainable food system refers to a mutual set of sustainable food production processing, distribution, consumption and waste management with an aim of enhancing environmental economics and global social health. It is for this reason that farmers and consumers often partner in developing food sustainability projects in order to achieve a stable family farm base for a nutritious, adequate and affordable diet, create food and agricultural policies to promote food sustainability base (Robinson 113). Challenges confronting global food system The world’s rapid population increase calls for more demand of food amid changing consumption patterns and food scarcity. This is one of the biggest challenges facing the world’s global food system. The current century has experienced stunning statistics on population increase expectations with the population expected to rise by 1.4 billion people. This rise in population calls for close to 50 % increase in demand of food. It is shockin g to note that with this rise in population consumption patterns continue to get complicated. The cost of production has gone up as well leading to production of fewer quantities than before. In this regard, the global food system must be managed sustainably in the next decade in order to increase food production level to cater for the increase. To meet this demand the use of technology has become inevitable. However, the use of technology has received a worldwide uproar on safety matters owing to the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides in production. But, can universal food security be assured without the use of fertilizers and pesticides? Sustainable production of secure food can be achieved by reducing distortions in configuration of the global food market and the environment. Although many countries in developed and developing countries have large junks of unused land resources, they do not grow enough food to feed their populations. Such land resource does not only rema in untapped but also ecologically vulnerable. This is a big challenge to food sustainability. In addition to this, insolvency of the earth’s natural resources through consumption of resources beyond the earth’s production capability has led to complete depletion of the earth’s scarce resources. The other challenge affecting global food system is inequitable distribution of production resources, lack of employment or underemployment. This has rendered a greater percentage of population unable to feed their families and dependants. It has also challenged food production due to the inability to till land for production of food leading to over-reliance of foreign funding and relief food (Wilson 2). If more people were to be funded in the agricultural sector, it would mean more food availability and money to buy food. This is because agriculture is a solution to food and employment challenges. Therefore, countries with a culture of importing food from other countries tend to encourage high rate of unemployment since a culture of importing discourages agricultural activities. This is because importation marginalizes people forcing them to destroy resource base to sustain their livelihood. It is vital for agricultural resource base to be maintained because it contributes to good husbandry and sustainable management while easing rural-urban migration and in combating poverty. Measures of a

Summarize an article from the Wall Street Journal Essay - 1

Summarize an article from the Wall Street Journal - Essay Example Torrens and other Proponents of Equity-based crowd funding deem it as a blessing in times of deepening economic crises. Since businesses themselves are not in a position to increase employment, they can provide a bigger growth potential through investment opportunities. Supporter of the notion believe that such opportunities should only be provided through online outlets as it is extremely cost-effective. It would also make the investment market more open to millions of investors (Torrens & Slavinsky, 2012). This method further enables businesses to secure and reach out to a greater client base, who are naturally motivated to help the business succeed. On the other hand, opponents of this idea believe that legalization would only cause ill-informed clients to lose their money on failing companies. It will pose a higher risk and will subsequently influence the purchasing power of people as individuals lose money due to their bad decisions. There are high chances that it will further lead to a downward spiral of recession. Moreover, there are greater chances of foul play and fraud companies may surface that may further cause the general population to incur heavy losses. It will also significantly impact legitimate businesses, as investors are fooled into investing for fraudulent companies. Therefore, businesses should take the merits of alternate investment methods in to account. (Torrens & Slavinsky, 2012) It is quite ostensible that though, equity based crowd funding may have several pros, but they can only be enjoyed if the businesses give the crowd massive returns on their investments. Businesses can obtain huge number of clients, who had initially supported the company through their investments. However, from the people’s perspective, investing in equity differs from investing in stocks that can be liquefied whenever the client wants. Equity is illiquid and as a result, there is no clear way out of this

I-Kuan Tao Trough the Years Essay Example for Free

I-Kuan Tao Trough the Years Essay I-Kuan Tao is classified as a syncretistic sect that had rooted from Mainland China but because of Government’s transfer of control to Communism after the World War II, it had immigrated to the island of Taiwan together with the ousted Central Government. There it had flourished its numbers of followers through the years that made it the third most popular faith in Taiwan1. According to the Country Profile of Taiwan dating March 2005, of its 12. 7 million religion members, 6. 6 percent were believers of I-Kuan Tao, next to the two most prominent, the Buddhists, 42. 9 percent and the Daoism believers, 35. 6 percent2. Like any other religion, it had tried to propagate their teachings outside its host country. I-Kuan Tao had succeeded to have significant number of co-believers in the countries of United States, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan. I-Kuan Tao, literally translated as â€Å"The Tao that unifies all with the one†, is a syncretistic sect because it believes that with the corroboration of existing beliefs, it could make a unified set of rules that would govern the people and would lead them to salvation on the Day of Judgment. According to the Purpose of Tao by an I-Kuan Tao sect in USA, I-Kuan Tao recognizes the five world religions namely the Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam3. But since I-Kuan Tao is of Chinese origin, many of its beliefs came from the first three. Since Chinese had high reverence to their ancestors, purity of the soul, respect and moderation, I-Kuan Tao had adopted these and they were formed as its fundamental rules. The last two religion recognized by I-Kuan Tao had been added to the modern day I-Kuan Tao because they had considered the similarity of its teachings to the first three. 1. World I-Kuan Tao Headquarters, World I-Kuan Tao Headquarters. retrieved 22 October 2007,http://www. with. org/ 2. Library of Congress – Federal Research Division. Country Profile: Taiwan, March 2005 Retrieved 22 October 2007, http://lcweb2. loc. gov/frd/cs/profiles/Taiwan. pdf 3. MariMari. com, Taiwan Religion, retrieved 22 October 2007, http://www. marimari. com/content/taiwan/general_info/religion/religion. html I-Kuan Tao Definition: The name I-Kuan means â€Å"penetrating with one† or â€Å"one unity† and is derived from a passage of Analects where Confucius said â€Å"an all-pervading Truth†. The name Tao has many meanings including â€Å"way†, â€Å"path† or â€Å"Truth†. History: I-Kuan Tao definitely has a long history1. According to Zhu-zi’s Doctrine of the Mean that the â€Å"Origin of Tao is from heaven and absolute; it actually comes from within and is inseparable. † Literally, no words or language can describe the origin of I-Kuan Tao. The heritage of Tao can be classified into two categories. First, the origin of Tao in the continuity link refers to the period starting from the time of Patriach Fu-xi up to the early Ching Dynasty. Second was the Origin of Tao in the creative link refers to the period during the rule of the Ching Emperor Shun-zhi. The second origin was taught to have permitted the ninth patriarch Huang De-hui in Lu-shan of Jiang-xi to set up Xian Tian Tao or the Way of Former Heaven, now known as I-Kuan Tao2. Since 4,500 years ago, the religion I-Kuan Tao is being taught, especially in overseas Chinese communities, around the world. Basically, it is a new religious movement that originated in the twentieth century China. It is a religion that incorporates much older elements from other religions such as Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism. The name I-Kuan Tao, also called Yi Guan Dao, can be translated as the persuasive truth and it recognizes the validity of other non-Chinese religions like Christianity and Islam. As of now, I-Kuan Tao has over 45,000 followers with over 3,100 temples. _______________ 1. I-Kuan Tao Encyclopedia, I-Kuan Tao, retrieved 22 October 2007, http://www. experiencefestival. com/a/I-Kuan_Tao/id/1960382 2. World I-Kuan Tao Headquarters, The Heritage of Tao by Derek Lin, retrieved 22 October 2007, http://www. with. org/ikuantao. html â€Å"The Tao part of the I-Kuan Tao Heritage is the oldest, going back at least to the time of Huang-Di, the legendary emperor who lived over 4,500 years ago. I-Kuan Tao states that the Tao is the real meaning and the spiritual truth behind all religions, philosophies, and schools of thought. It is also the source of everything, the driving mechanism of evolution, and the life force of the universe. This concept is named Lao Mu, the personified universe†. 1 â€Å"About 2,000 years after its ancient beginning, the sage Lao Tzu came and reviews the Tao beliefs and concepts into the classic Tao Te Ching. Another sage, Chuang Tzu, contributed to the expansion of the Tao beliefs with his stories, metaphors and a different sense of humor. †2 â€Å"At about the same time that Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu were spreading their concepts, there are also other sages who were developing their own perspectives on life and spirituality. One of these sages is Confucius. He became popular as a great teacher and scholar as he revised social customs and ethics. And if you make your way south of China, the Buddha will teach you the path towards enlightenment3. These teaching also have big impact on the Chinese culture. And I-Kuan Tao identifies them and adopted these teachings into its system. † â€Å"Five hundred years after Lao Tzu came another remarkable teacher named Jesus4. His teachings, the Christian teachings, served as the foremost foundation of spirituality in the West. And just like with Confucianism and Buddhism, I-Kuan Tao embraced and incorporated the Christian Teachings. As a result, many Tao practitioners respect and study the Bible, again seeking the truth and wisdom that can bring all different beliefs closer together†.

Naturalization of Ideology Essay example -- Social Change, Power Relat

Introduction CDA adopts an interdisciplinary approach, different methodologies, and varying perspectives for the analysis of data which is predominantly obtained from social topics such as â€Å"racism, identity, social change† (Wodak: 2006). Power relationships between the dominant and the dominated social class are the foci of CDA, and considers language use or discourse as a defining characteristic in understanding varied social patterns that emerge as a result of the discursive practices, naturalization of ideology, and orders of discourse. It blends the historical context with the contemporary contexts to interpret the element of social change. CDA believes in the practice, application, and availability of results to the experts so that select discursive and social practices could be both interpreted and transformed. How does the naturalization of ideology come about? Ideologies are mental systems that organize socially shared attitudes, and these mental systems are social representations that function as â€Å"models which control how people act, speak or write or how they understand the social practices of others† (van Dijk, 1995: 2). Naturalization can be understood as an unconscious process whereby beliefs, values, ideas, perceptions, and modes of thinking of a society and a class are internalized at a certain point in time (Yewah: 1993). Naturalization gives to particular ideological representations the status of common sense, and thereby makes them opaque and no longer visible as ideologies (Fairclough, 1995a: 42). A certain discourse type dominates other discourses to the extent that it is no longer arbitrary and is viewed as natural. However, the ‘balance of forces’ in social struggle determine the extent of naturaliza... ...iwanese press. Discourse and Society, 16(3): 393-418. Lefevere, A. (1992b). Translation/ History /Culture: A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge. Martinez-Roland, C. M. & Malave, G. (2004). Language Ideologies Mediating Literacy and Identity in Bilingual Contexts. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 4(2): 155-180. van Dijk, T. (1993) Discourse and Elite Racism, London: Sage. Wodak, R. (1996) Disorders of Discourse, London: Longman. Wodak, R. (1997) ‘Critical discourse analysis’, in T. van Dijk (ed.) Discourse as Social Interaction, London: Sage. Wodak, R. (2006). Critical linguistics and critical discourse analysis in Verschueren, J. and Ãâ€"stman, J. (eds) Handbook of Pragmatics John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam. Emmanuel Yewah, E. (1993). Ideology and the de/naturalization of meaning in the Cameroonian novel, Afrika Focus, Vol. 9, Nr. 3-4, pp. 179-192.