Politics
WASHINGTON — Suicides among US Army soldiers more than doubled in July compared to June, the Pentagon said, the latest evidence of a worrisome trend that has vexed military leaders.
Among active-duty troops, 26 soldiers killed themselves last month, compared to 12 in June, according to an army statement.
The July toll was the highest for any single month since the Army began documenting suicides by month in 2009, officials said.
The army, which has borne the brunt of more than ten years of protracted ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has suffered the highest suicide rates among all the US armed services.
Commanders have struggled to stem the problem, funding a myriad of programs and research to try to understand what is driving so many soldiers to take their lives.
"Suicide is the toughest enemy I have faced in my 37 years in the Army," said General Lloyd Austin, the US Army's vice chief of staff.
Among active-duty troops, 26 soldiers killed themselves last month, compared to 12 in June, according to an army statement.
The July toll was the highest for any single month since the Army began documenting suicides by month in 2009, officials said.
The army, which has borne the brunt of more than ten years of protracted ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has suffered the highest suicide rates among all the US armed services.
Commanders have struggled to stem the problem, funding a myriad of programs and research to try to understand what is driving so many soldiers to take their lives.
"Suicide is the toughest enemy I have faced in my 37 years in the Army," said General Lloyd Austin, the US Army's vice chief of staff.
On this International Day of Peace I am sitting in Kabul, Afghanistan with a handful of youth that want nothing but peaceful coexistence in their lives. This in some respects is like a dream because their entire lives have been surrounded by war, death, corruption, and struggle. Peace has been in short supply. For three years the Afghan Peace Volunteers have worked to develop friendships across ethnic lines in Kabul and various provinces throughout Afghanistan. The work has been difficult, trust is hard to come by in this war torn land, but they are adamant that non-violence is the only way forward. I have sat with similar groups in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, America and Israel. Rarely are their voices heard over the drums of war.
Established in 1981, by the United Nations General Assembly, the International Day of Peace was to coincide with its opening session. The first Peace Day was observed on September 21st, 1982. In 1982 the Soviet Union was increasing its troop presence in Afghanistan and facing fierce fighting throughout the provinces.
Established in 1981, by the United Nations General Assembly, the International Day of Peace was to coincide with its opening session. The first Peace Day was observed on September 21st, 1982. In 1982 the Soviet Union was increasing its troop presence in Afghanistan and facing fierce fighting throughout the provinces.
All this summer, the U.S. Navy has put on a multi-million dollar dog and pony show called “Navy Week” in 15 cities across the country. Six stops on the Great Lakes featured guided missile frigates, coastal patrol boats and the historic brig “Niagara,” the ship Oliver Hazard Perry transferred to during the War of 1812’s Battle of Lake Erie (“Don’t Give Up the Ship”), when the “Lawrence” was blown out from under him.
At each stop, Navy officers and enlisted gave numerous press interviews, visited kids in hospitals, played musical concerts, helped build projects for the disabled and everywhere displayed banners with its motto, “America’s Navy: A Global Force for Good.”
Everywhere it went, the Navy’s p.r. machine reaped a bounty of benefits from the local news media which often turned Navy press releases directly into news copy. Here in Toledo, Veterans For Peace (VFP) issued a written response to Navy claims and sent it to all news outlets, twice, plus several phone calls to the Toledo Blade’s city desk…to absolutely no avail. Editors issued not a single critique to a week-long debauchery of military hardware and tall tales.
At each stop, Navy officers and enlisted gave numerous press interviews, visited kids in hospitals, played musical concerts, helped build projects for the disabled and everywhere displayed banners with its motto, “America’s Navy: A Global Force for Good.”
Everywhere it went, the Navy’s p.r. machine reaped a bounty of benefits from the local news media which often turned Navy press releases directly into news copy. Here in Toledo, Veterans For Peace (VFP) issued a written response to Navy claims and sent it to all news outlets, twice, plus several phone calls to the Toledo Blade’s city desk…to absolutely no avail. Editors issued not a single critique to a week-long debauchery of military hardware and tall tales.
We are all aware of the unmanned military drones used for spying and for killing people in faraway foreign countries. But are drones flying over the United States? When six cows wandered into a neighbor’s field this summer in North Dakota, local law enforcement asked the U.S. military for assistance by lending them a predator drone. Police used the unmanned drone to reconnoiter the trespassing cows and help in the “arrest of a U.S citizen on his own property,” according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Today we talk of geo-politics and the freedom of information. But what is happening today technically (i.e. politically) began on 12 December 2008, though some say September of that year, but it took four years for the shock waves to reach Europe and America.
The issue relates to Julian Assange, Wikileaks, and the Republic of Ecuador. Mind you, it was assumed in the entire American continent, Australia, and Europe that the world was the same as ten years ago. But the world does not work that way anymore.
In Italy, no one was told of the fight growing between Brazil and the United Nations, badly managed by Christine Lagarde who heads the International Monetary Fund, whereby Italy was officially relegated from the eighth largest to the ninth largest economy in the world. It was overtaken by Brazil. So at the next G8, Italy will not be invited, but Brazil will. So we had the decision to abolish the G8 and G10 becoming the new standard.
The issue relates to Julian Assange, Wikileaks, and the Republic of Ecuador. Mind you, it was assumed in the entire American continent, Australia, and Europe that the world was the same as ten years ago. But the world does not work that way anymore.
In Italy, no one was told of the fight growing between Brazil and the United Nations, badly managed by Christine Lagarde who heads the International Monetary Fund, whereby Italy was officially relegated from the eighth largest to the ninth largest economy in the world. It was overtaken by Brazil. So at the next G8, Italy will not be invited, but Brazil will. So we had the decision to abolish the G8 and G10 becoming the new standard.
Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine spoke prior to Obama's speech on Wednesday in Charlottesville, Va. He had praise for anyone signing up to go to war in Afghanistan. "We can still put our positive thumbprint on that nation," he said, to wild cheers. Imagine the competition among the world's nations to get our thumbprint next! Imagine what it costs to get our assprint.
"So, who are you voting for?" an Obama follower asked me prior to the event. I was holding posters with 12 friends and handing out hundreds of flyers that looked like Obama material until you read them. (PDF).
The posters objected to the tripling of weapons sales to foreign dictators last year, Obama's willingness to cut Social Security and Medicare, the kill list, imprisonment without trial, warrantless spying, corporate trade agreements, the continued so-called "Bush" tax cuts, the war on Afghanistan, the drone wars, the increased military budget, the murder of Tariq Aziz and of Abdulrahman al Awlaki, the weak auto efficiency standards in the news that day, the refusal to prosecute torturers, Obama's sabotaging of agreements to counter global warming, etc.
"So, who are you voting for?" an Obama follower asked me prior to the event. I was holding posters with 12 friends and handing out hundreds of flyers that looked like Obama material until you read them. (PDF).
The posters objected to the tripling of weapons sales to foreign dictators last year, Obama's willingness to cut Social Security and Medicare, the kill list, imprisonment without trial, warrantless spying, corporate trade agreements, the continued so-called "Bush" tax cuts, the war on Afghanistan, the drone wars, the increased military budget, the murder of Tariq Aziz and of Abdulrahman al Awlaki, the weak auto efficiency standards in the news that day, the refusal to prosecute torturers, Obama's sabotaging of agreements to counter global warming, etc.
The neoconservatives are back with a vengeance. While popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and other Arab countries had briefly rendered them irrelevant in the region, Western intervention in Libya signaled a new opportunity. Now Syria promises to usher a full return of neoconservatives into the Middle East fray.
“Washington must stop subcontracting Syria policy to the Turks, Saudis and Qataris. They are clearly part of the anti-Assad effort, but the United States cannot tolerate Syria becoming a proxy state for yet another regional power,” wrote Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (Washington Post, July 20).
Pletka, like many of her peers from neoconservative, pro-Israeli ‘think tanks’, should be a familiar name among Arab reporters, who are also well aware of the level of destruction brought to the Middle East as a result of neoconservative wisdom and policies. Rarely though are such infamous names evoked when the ongoing conflict in Syria is reported - as if the main powers responsible for redrawing the geopolitical maps of the region are suddenly insignificant.
“Washington must stop subcontracting Syria policy to the Turks, Saudis and Qataris. They are clearly part of the anti-Assad effort, but the United States cannot tolerate Syria becoming a proxy state for yet another regional power,” wrote Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (Washington Post, July 20).
Pletka, like many of her peers from neoconservative, pro-Israeli ‘think tanks’, should be a familiar name among Arab reporters, who are also well aware of the level of destruction brought to the Middle East as a result of neoconservative wisdom and policies. Rarely though are such infamous names evoked when the ongoing conflict in Syria is reported - as if the main powers responsible for redrawing the geopolitical maps of the region are suddenly insignificant.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's engineers are creating "humanoids" that can save lives or accidentally kill you, or equipping them with attractive faces, voices and behavior so people fall in love with Thai robots.
Thais are also appearing on the technological map by winning fierce local and international contests, and visitors are invited to watch the competition or view Thailand's robots at exhibitions.
"This robot is female in form, the external appearance," Dr. Thavida Maneewarn, Deputy Director of Research at the prestigious Institute of Field Robotics, says in an interview while introducing her pink-and-white robot named NAMO -- an abbreviation for Novel Articulated Mobile Platform.
"Her voice is a woman. When we first designed her, we designed her to be roughly like a six-year-old girl. So we want her to have that ability, that level, like a six-year-old," Thavida says in her institute's robotics lab where she teaches at King Mongkut's University of Technology across the river from Bangkok in Thonburi. (http://fibo.kmutt.ac.th/fiboweb07/eng/index.php)
Thais are also appearing on the technological map by winning fierce local and international contests, and visitors are invited to watch the competition or view Thailand's robots at exhibitions.
"This robot is female in form, the external appearance," Dr. Thavida Maneewarn, Deputy Director of Research at the prestigious Institute of Field Robotics, says in an interview while introducing her pink-and-white robot named NAMO -- an abbreviation for Novel Articulated Mobile Platform.
"Her voice is a woman. When we first designed her, we designed her to be roughly like a six-year-old girl. So we want her to have that ability, that level, like a six-year-old," Thavida says in her institute's robotics lab where she teaches at King Mongkut's University of Technology across the river from Bangkok in Thonburi. (http://fibo.kmutt.ac.th/fiboweb07/eng/index.php)
“We love you!”
“Stay Out!”
Yesterday, Americans sent two very important and very different communications to our friend Dr. Wee Teck Young, a Singaporean physician and activist who lives and works in Kabul, Afghanistan. The “We love you!” was a press release announcing that the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) had awarded him their “International Pfeffer Peace Prize” in recognition of his contributions to peace working with dedicated young Afghans in Kabul. The “Stay out!” was from the American government, refusing him a visa to enter the United States with these young people, in the furtherance of this work. It seems all too likely that the actions and choices which have earned him his well-deserved award are the same factors that persuaded U.S. consular officials to deny him entry to the United States. The question is whether we can be a voice to affirm that his work, and the work of the young Afghans working with him, has value in the United States, where awareness of the costs of war, and of the lives of ordinary Afghans, is desperately needed.
“Stay Out!”
Yesterday, Americans sent two very important and very different communications to our friend Dr. Wee Teck Young, a Singaporean physician and activist who lives and works in Kabul, Afghanistan. The “We love you!” was a press release announcing that the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) had awarded him their “International Pfeffer Peace Prize” in recognition of his contributions to peace working with dedicated young Afghans in Kabul. The “Stay out!” was from the American government, refusing him a visa to enter the United States with these young people, in the furtherance of this work. It seems all too likely that the actions and choices which have earned him his well-deserved award are the same factors that persuaded U.S. consular officials to deny him entry to the United States. The question is whether we can be a voice to affirm that his work, and the work of the young Afghans working with him, has value in the United States, where awareness of the costs of war, and of the lives of ordinary Afghans, is desperately needed.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was unable to convince Thailand to allow U.S. aircraft designed for "probing a vast expanse of the Southeast Asian atmosphere" to launch from a former Vietnam War-era American air base.
NASA cancelled its efforts after emphasizing Thailand must agree by June 26, or else the two-month project would not be able to lift off during August and September.
Squabbling among Thailand's notoriously confrontational politicians prevented Bangkok from agreeing to NASA's launch.
"On June 26, 2012, NASA cancelled the SEAC4RS (Southeast Asia Composition, Cloud, Climate Coupling Regional Study) mission, which was scheduled to begin in August 2012, due to the absence of necessary approvals by regional authorities in the timeframe necessary to support the mission's planned deployment and scientific observation window," NASA said on its website after the deadline passed. (http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/seac4rs.html)
NASA cancelled its efforts after emphasizing Thailand must agree by June 26, or else the two-month project would not be able to lift off during August and September.
Squabbling among Thailand's notoriously confrontational politicians prevented Bangkok from agreeing to NASA's launch.
"On June 26, 2012, NASA cancelled the SEAC4RS (Southeast Asia Composition, Cloud, Climate Coupling Regional Study) mission, which was scheduled to begin in August 2012, due to the absence of necessary approvals by regional authorities in the timeframe necessary to support the mission's planned deployment and scientific observation window," NASA said on its website after the deadline passed. (http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/seac4rs.html)