Peace, Justice and the Ultimate Crime

Back in May, I analyzed the French presidential election, in which I pointed out that Emmanuel Macron’s stunning victory had come despite his not having been affiliated with any traditional French party. This, I posited, would be seen by many observers as a weakness, the assumption being that he might not be able to garner the favor of parties that he didn’t represent in Parliament. But I added that, seen from a different perspective, it might actually turn out to be a strength, because he was bringing no inherited political rivalries with him into office. This, I said, was a place where Macron needed to avoid failure, seeking to be the representative of a broad base of French voters and lawmakers who are fed up with the apparent incapacity of the French left and right to put aside their pointless ideological impasse and seek ways to actually serve the wide-ranging interests of the people. And that this, in turn, could provide an example to other countries, such as the United St...

For some time now, the warning signs have been clear to anyone studying the evolution of free-market economies worldwide. Job creation is not keeping pace with job attrition and demographic expansion. The tendency is toward a world with ever more people and ever fewer jobs. While most politicians and world leaders praise the technological revolution that has served up extraordinary advances to billions the world over, the dwindling sources of legitimate employment belie optimism for the average individual’s future work possibilities. Among possible solutions, one of the most salient is the controversial idea of some sort of basic “allowance” to ensure coverage of people’s personal needs. But this is an idea that is still in its infancy, while its practical application may be more urgently required than is generally presumed. In Western capitalist society there has long been a conservative idea that the capitalist makes money through investment and that the worker makes a living wi...

On July 2 of the current year, UN Women (www.unwomen.org) will mark its seventh anniversary. Although there have been previous UN groups that focused on so-called “women’s issues” dating back 40 years, it is worth noting that it took until a decade into the 21 st century for gender equality and empowerment to rise to the level of a comprehensive worldwide program of action. But...better late than never. Best known as UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women first became operational in January of 2011, following its formation in July of the year before. Previously, there were a number of departments throughout the UN bureaucracy that were charged with catering to women’s survival, development and empowerment needs, but only within the context of unrelated programs. In a 2006 report on the state of women worldwide, the office of the UN Secretary-General resolved that, in effect, less wasn’t more, and that the multiple UN systems alre...

The murder on May 15 th of 50-year-old Javier Valdez Cárdenas, a renowned Mexican investigative journalist whose work focused on the Sinaloa drug cartel, has drawn new attention to drug-related violence in Mexico. Long termed a “drug war” in the international press, in recent years the level of violence linked to Mexico’s illegal narcotics trade has indeed reached the scope of a full-scale war. In fact, it is currently the second-deadliest armed conflict on earth. Murdered journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas Latest statistics bear this fact out: Syria has been the world’s worst conflict practically since that war began six years ago, and last year was no exception, with 50,000 more people dying in the fighting there over the course of 2016. But the Mexican drug war came in second for fatal casualties last year, with 23,000 people being killed in the fighting there. This is a shocking total when compared with more high-profile wars like Afghanistan (in which 16,000 people died l...

Emmanuel Macron, a win for Western democracy Vive la démocratie française! Liberal democrats throughout Europe and around the world breathed a collective sigh of relief this past weekend after French voters overwhelmingly chose against the far-right, anti-European Union project of extreme right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen. But while initial numbers demonstrated her opponent, Emmanuel Macron, to have won a decisive landslide victory, deeper analysis leaves room for grave concern about where the tides of French democracy will go from here and about the trends among French voters that may well reflect those emerging in the rest of Europe and, indeed, the West as well. First of all, it’s important to note not only who voted for Macron and Le Pen, but also who didn’t.  About nine percent of those who voted in Sunday’s presidential election cast either blank or spoiled ballots. For the most part, these were probably not erroneous votes, but purposely adulterated or uncompl...

Armed with the dramatic latest report from the United Nations World Food Program, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien was recently quoted as saying that 108 million people in 48 countries worldwide are currently facing “crisis-level food insecurity.” In layman’s terms, what that means is that this total is in imminent danger of starving to death. Indeed, even as I’m writing this, many of their number may already be dead. And that’s only the beginning of a tragic and continuing story, as witnessed by the fact that just two years ago the number of people in that ultimate crisis situation was 80 million—a shocking enough total even then, which has risen by more than 25 percent over the course of the past 24 months. People in the most immediate danger of starving to death currently number some 20 million, and among these, worldwide relief organization experts estimate that at least 1.4 million children are so severe...