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| Turkish citizens protesting zionazi erdogan |
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| will wall street journal, nyt or financial times continue to claim we are living in greater prosperity? Colombia Watch- Colombia poverty figures show harsh regional inequality Colombia's official statistics agency showed the depths of regional inequality in the country In povertyfigures released Wednesday.While on average the poverty level across Colombia was 34.1%, the poorest area of the country, Choco department on the west coast, suffered poverty rates nearly double the national average at 64%. Meanwhile, government statistics agency DANE reports, the area with the least poverty, the capital Bogota, had a poverty rate of only 13.1%, less than half the national average.The director of DANE, Jorge Bustamento, described the poverty situation in Choco as "extremely grave," according to local media."This should be a wake-up call to society, to make a grand effort with the whole establishment so that people can at least be able to live. There should be a broad campaign with unions, civil society, government and the media to confront this alarming situation," he said.The departments of Cundinamarca, Santander, Risaralda and Antioquia were the least afflicted by poverty, while Choco, Cauca, Cordoba, Magdalena and La Guajira had the worst poverty. It is likely that this distribution of poverty in part reflects the historical trend of rural areas of Colombia being significantly poorer than urban areas.The indicator of extreme poverty – those living on less than $1.25 per day – shows the same departments at the bottom of the heap. Over a third of people in Choco and Cauca live in extreme poverty while nationwide 10.1%, or 4.7 million people, live in extreme poverty.Inequality, which has historically been high in Colombia, shows much less variation between departments, with the one department that had been much higher, La Guajira, showing a significant fall in inequality in 2011. Bogota did not do so well by this measure, coming in only slightly less unequal than the national average. |
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| IRAQ WAR CRMINAL STRAW AWARDED BY TURKEYS PRESIDENT GUL |
Porter charitably posits that “his [Melman's] analysis has dominated in the conversation between the two coauthors.” But even if you consider that Melman wrote all this conspiratorial nonsense and Javedanfar served as little more than translator of the Farsi-language documents used in the preparation of the book, this still means the Iranian allowed himself to be sucked into a project involving extremist fear-mongering. I’m certain he did so willingly because associating himself with a figure like Melman would lend himself further credibility. Credibility is the currency of opportunists like Javedanfar.The Iranian “analyst” did write the Iran chapter for the PSI Handbook of Global Security and Intelligence, co-edited by Prof. Shlomo Shpiro, who specializes in national security issues at the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar Ilan University. It is known as Israel’s Orthodox institution of higher learning, with a generally right-wing political and academic orientation.His bio says he worked for BBC Persian, was a member of the Club of Rome “tt30″ (Think Tank 30),” where he ran its Beyond Oil economic forecast group, and was an analyst for Jane’s Intelligence Digest. The only evidence of a Beyond Oil entity associated with TT30 is a blog whose last post was in 2005. Jane’s Intelligence Digest no longer exists and hasn’t been printed for a number of years.He falsely infers an affiliation with Columbia University’s School of International Studies by virtue of his membership in the Gulf 2000 Project, a listserv maintained by Gary Sick, who is on the faculty:The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran takes on the highly charged issue of Iran’s nuclear program — a tricky project even under the best of circumstances, given the interests of all the relevant parties to the dispute in promoting their own version of reality. A critical challenge in carrying out such a study is to avoid becoming captive of an official propaganda line, and co-authors Yossi Melman and Meir Javedanfar have failed to surmount that challenge…[It] tilts sharply toward the official Israeli view on virtually every question surrounding the Iranian nuclear program…The thesis of the book is clearly stated in the first four chapters: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a dangerous Islamic extremist whose determination to exterminate Israel and belief in the coming of the Twelfth Imam (the Mahdi) adds up to a desire for war against Israel, with nuclear weapons if possible.
Membership in the listserv confers no special distinction and Javedanfar typically exaggerates his bona fides. I know this because I too was once a member, but left precisely because some poseurs like Javedanfar, with little or no academic qualifications in the field, espoused especially robust pro-Israel views which were never rebutted by other members. There is a separate academic program associated with Gulf 2000 which hosts conferences and papers, but I’ve found no evidence that Javedanfar participated at that level.With such lean academic credentials, Javedanfar has done an excellent job parlaying them into TV and print media gigs for such outlets as BBC, Sky News, the CBC, RAI Italia, ABC Australia, Voice of America, Al Jazeera, Voice of American, the Boston Globe andHa’aretz.A member of Gulf 2000 Project, which is run by the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University in New York City and staffed by internationally renowned experts in Persian Gulf states
But somewhat oddly, his own corporate consulting companies website lists no clients at all. This is, to say the least, unusual for someone claiming to be a distinguished international consultant. Though of course it could indicate an individual conducting his career by the seat of his pants.Javedanfar has a blog, Iran-Israel Observer, which catalogs his anti-regime views. He also publishes prolifically online at a variety of sites most of which have a distinct right-wing orientation. In that sense, he’s a bit like Daniel Pipes, who earned a PhD at a prestigious academic institution, but has eschewed academia for agitprop and pamphleteering. But unlike Pipes, Javedanfar can be taken into respectable company. He wears a suit at the dinner table and espouses views that are acceptable because they are not bellicose or outrageous.At the pro-Israel, neocon-funded Pajamas Media he published scores of articles between 2007-09. He is also a contributor to RealClearWorld, a conservative news aggregator akin to Huffington Post. He blogs at Times of Israel, a newish right-wing English language news site. The financing for the venture comes from a right-wing U.S. Jewish hedge fund manager. The blog editor avoids any responsibility for the accuracy or editorial content of posts published by pointing to the policy that offers little or no editorial oversight of the product at all. This of course is a boon to people like Javedanfar or David Abitbol (Jewlicious), who spews his venom there as well.He has briefed government and intelligence officials from no less than 10 countries about Iranian politics, economy, security affairs and the nuclear program.Mr Javedanfar currently serves as a political advisor to the Spanish Embassy in Israel and also works as the in house Israeli affairs expert for BBC Persian.
