Activist and scholar to lecture on current Romani issues by Aria Seligmann, UO Office of Strategic Communications MAY 22, 2013 Hungarian Romani activist Angela Kocze, currently a visiting Fulbright Scholar at Wake Forest University, will be at the University of Oregon on Friday, May 24, to present “Romani (Gypsy) Women and Activism: Challenges and Opportunities,” at 4 p.m., in 204 Condon Hall. Kocze is a re ...

The Robin Hood Tax, aka Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) or Tobin Tax was first proposed by John Maynard Keynes among others around 1936. Its purpose was to develop fairer taxation and curb speculation (today particularly relevant to rapid short-term currency speculation). The EU is in the process of implementing it also as a way of raising capital to soften austerity measures that followed the banks bail ou ...

The systemic changes to Hungary’s legal framework introduced by the government since 2010 weaken legal checks on its authority, interfere with media freedom, and undermine human rights protections, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The continuing failure of the Hungarian government to comply with recommendations by European institutions should result in concrete European Union (EU) action, ...

Here are a few facts: 1) In the postwar period, the amount of money that Wall Street dealt with every year represented approximately 15 percent of the US GDP. In 1975 it was 17 percent, at the end of the 80s it was up to 35 percent and ten years later it reached 150 percent of the US GDP. In 2006, before the subprime bubble burst, it exceeded 350 percent. In other words, the money that circulated every year ...

By Frank Arnold(1). Burnt with metal rods and cigarette butts? Maybe so, says the Border Agency, but you paid someone to do this to you. A surgeon with expertise in torture scars argues that 'self-torture by proxy' is a dangerous fiction. The photo with this article is the back of a Tamil man, photographed in London soon after he arrived here and just before he claimed asylum this year. I examined him recen ...

By J C Suresh | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis Russia is in the midst of a comprehensive modernization of its nuclear forces that began more than a decade ago. The upgrade, which involves replacing all Soviet-era ballistic missiles with fewer improved missiles, is now approaching a point at which the number of modern weapons will shortly exceed the number of old ones, In a decade, virtually all of the Soviet-era ...

Supporters from Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) turned out in force to shame arms giant BAE Systems at their Annual General Meeting AGM), accusing it of supporting repressive regimes through arms sales and unethical business practices. Acute questioning combined with high farce during the two hour meeting culminated in the attempted presentation of "Whitewasher of the year award to BAE Chairman, Dick Olv ...

By Marta Molina April 29, 2013 To commit an act of civil disobedience requires one to let go of their fear, understand their enemy and their enemy’s power. It must be rooted in good strategy and be supported by an organized group. But most importantly, the action must help to build alternatives to the power structures it confronts. This type of action is exactly what 38-year-old Enric Durán, a Catalán from ...

Corruption is a problem in developing countries because poverty creates unbearable living conditions and early death. Money, for many, is survival and the moral problem of stealing (corruption being one form) may fade into the background. Corruption in the developed world has a different face. It is not a matter of survival. It is only a matter of greed. And the corruption takes forms which are "legal" and ...

A systems test in a Soviet graphite reactor goes out of control. The ensuing explosion releases enormous quantities of radioactive material, much of which spreads across huge swathes of Europe. Not only the surrounding region in Ukraine is contaminated, wind currents blow radioactive particles further west, across much of Europe where they mix with rain and fall to the ground. At first officials try to cove ...