Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice By Bill Browder

A real-life political thriller about an American financier in the Wild East of Russia, the murder of his principled young tax attorney, and his dangerous mission to expose the Kremlin’s corruption.

Bill Browder’s journey started on the South Side of Chicago and moved through Stanford Business School to the dog-eat-dog world of hedge fund investing in the 1990s. It continued in Moscow, where Browder made his fortune heading the largest investment fund in Russia after the Soviet Union’s collapse. But when he exposed the corrupt oligarchs who were robbing the companies in which he was investing, Vladimir Putin turned on him and, in 2005, had him expelled from Russia.

In 2007, a group of law enforcement officers raided Browder’s offices in Moscow and stole $230 million of taxes that his fund’s companies had paid to the Russian government. Browder’s attorney Sergei Magnitsky investigated the incident and uncovered a sprawling criminal enterprise. A month after Sergei testified against the officials involved, he was arrested and thrown into pre-trial detention, where he was tortured for a year. On November 16, 2009, he was led to an isolation chamber, handcuffed to a bedrail, and beaten to death by eight guards in full riot gear.

Browder glimpsed the heart of darkness, and it transformed his life: he embarked on an unrelenting quest for justice in Sergei’s name, exposing the towering cover-up that leads right up to Putin. A financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade, Red Notice is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world.

Bill Browder is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, which was the investment adviser to the largest foreign investment fund in Russia until 2005, when Bill was denied entry to the country and declared a “threat to national security” as a result of his battle against corporate corruption.

Following his expulsion, the Russian authorities raided his offices, seized Hermitage Fund’s investment companies and used them to steal $230 million of taxes that the companies had previously paid. When Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, investigated the crime, he was arrested by the same officers he implicated, tortured for 358 days, and killed in custody at the age of 37 in November 2009.

Since then, Browder has spent the last 5 years fighting for justice for Mr. Magnitsky. The Russian government exonerated and even promoted some of the officials involved so Browder took the case to America, where his campaigning led to the US Congress adopting the ‘Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act’ in 2012, which imposed visa sanctions and asset freezes on those involved in the detention, ill-treatment and death of Sergei Magnitsky (as well as in other human rights abuses). This law was the first time the US sanctioned Russia in 35 years and became the model for all subsequent US sanctions against Russia. Browder is currently working to have similar legislation passed in Magnitsky’s name across the European Union.

BROWSE INSIDE

Going Head to Head with Russia

Published on Jan 29, 2015
Bill Browder, author of ‘Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice’ talks about being an American financier in the Wild East of Russia, the murder of his principled young tax attorney, and his dangerous mission to expose the Kremlin’s corruption.

Bill Browder on Russian corruption and the experience of losing $900 million

Bill Browder, a leading global shareholder-rights activist and an outspoken fighter for improved corporate governance in Russia, asks ‘can the bear be tamed?’ Browder lost $900 million dollars as the Russian economy collapsed. Exposing massive corruption, he fought off the oligarchs and then took on the government.

When women are at the table | Fawzia Koofi

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Abandoned at birth to die in the sun, this Afghan woman has fought to survive, be educated and be elected to parliament. She has been the target of several assassination attempts, but carries on her work to give her daughters and all women a voice in her country. “We live, we fight”.

Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan politician and women’s rights activist has made her leadership journey in a country of harsh topography, internal conflict, intermittent wars and a militant government. She completed high school during the war-ravaged years and entered medical school. Soon after, the Taliban took over in 1995, and barred women from access to all education. Finding the doors of university closed to her, Fawzia focused her energy towards women’s rights and Internally Displaced People’s organizations. In 2005, after the fall of the Taliban, and the first elected parliament in 33 years, Fawzia was elected to Parliament to represent Badakhshan, then elected by her peers as the first woman Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament in the history of Afghanistan.

As a young woman in a heavily traditional country, to come this far, Fawzia has battled male domination, imposition of men’s selective religious interpretation on the rights of women and issues of power between men and women, and the old and new generations. Young people are seen as a threat by traditional power holders who do not want a new generation to organize, or to be in a position to challenge traditional authority. Fawzia has been re-elected to a second term to Parliament, and is now Chairperson of the Women, Human Rights & Civil Society Commission; she is currently the only woman Chairperson in the Lower House of Parliament.Fawzia is the author of Letters To My Daughters, and The Favorite Daughter, an autobiography and best seller in many countries around the world. Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous places anywhere in the world to be a woman, or to be a politician, and Fawzia Koofi is both.

Malaysia Airlines Website Hacked by Group Calling Itself ‘Cyber Caliphate’

By GAURAV RAGHUVANSHI
Jan. 25, 2015

SINGAPORE—Malaysia Airlines, still recovering from the loss of two aircraft last year that left 537 people dead or missing, had its website hacked by a group claiming be aligned with the Islamic State extremist group.

The browser window of the website, http://www.malaysiaairlines.com, said “ISIS WILL PREVAIL” and the airline’s ticket booking and other services were unavailable. Instead, a full-screen picture of a Malaysia Airlines Airbus Group NV . A380 plane and the messages “404—Plane Not Found,” and “Hacked by Cyber Caliphate,” were displayed on the home page.

The company said its web servers are intact and customer bookings and data are secure. It added that its domain name system was compromised. Later Monday, the website had returned to operation.

Earlier this month, hackers claiming to be similarly aligned with the Islamic State extremist group took control of the U.S. Central Command’s primary Twitter and YouTube accounts, posting office phone numbers of top military officers and what they said were confidential military documents.

Write to Gaurav Raghuvanshi at gaurav.raghuvanshi@wsj.com

Airline’s Site Attacked by Group Claiming to Be Aligned With Islamic State
VIEW HERE

What’s Next for the Global Economy: A Look Ahead at 2015

treamed live on Jan 15, 2015
Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), discusses the global economy and the IMF’s role in 2015.

Speaker:
Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

Presider:
Diana Farrell, Chief Executive Officer and President, JPMorgan Chase Institute

Egypt’s President Calls For A ‘Revolution’ In Islam

AP | By SARAH EL DEEB and LEE KEATH

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s president opened the new year with a dramatic call for a “revolution” in Islam to reform interpretations of the faith entrenched for hundreds of years, which he said have made the Muslim world a source of “destruction” and pitted it against the rest of the world.

The speech was Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s boldest effort yet to position himself as a modernizer of Islam. His professed goal is to purge the religion of extremist ideas of intolerance and violence that fuel groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State — and that appear to have motivated Wednesday’s attack in Paris on a French satirical newspaper that killed 12 people.

But those looking for the “Muslim Martin Luther” bringing a radical Reformation of Islam may be overreaching — and making a false comparison to begin with. El-Sissi is clearly seeking to impose change through the state, using government religious institutions like the 1,000-year-old al-Azhar, one of the most eminent centers of Sunni Muslim thought and teaching.

Al-Azhar’s vision for change, however, is piecemeal, and conservative, focusing on messaging and outreach but wary of addressing deeper and more controversial issues.

Al-Azhar officials tout a YouTube channel just launched to reach out to the young, mimicking radicals’ successful social media outreach to disenfranchised youth. They proudly point out that clerics in the videos wear suits, not al-Azhar’s traditional robes and turbans, to be more accessible.

Young people “have a negative image toward this garb,” said Mohie Eddin Affifi, an al-Azhar official. “As soon as they see it they don’t listen.”

In a more ambitious effort, religious school textbooks are under review. Affifi said texts outlining rules for slavery, for instance, have been removed.

It’s a problem across the Muslim world: State religious institutions are burdened by stagnation and heavy control by authorities.

For decades, al-Azhar has lost credibility in the eyes of many Muslim youth who see it as mouthpiece of the state rather than an honest interpreter of religion. More appealing to some young men and women searching for identity in a rapidly changing world are calls for a return to the roots of the faith, including from the extremists of al-Qaida and the Islamic State.

In his Jan. 1 speech at al-Azhar addressing Muslim clerics — held to mark the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday — el-Sissi called on them to promote a reading of Islamic texts in a “truly enlightened” manner to reconsider concepts “that have been made sacred over hundreds of years.”

By such thinking, the Islamic world is “making enemies of the whole world. So 1.6 billion people (in the Muslim world) will kill the entire world of 7 billion? That’s impossible … We need a religious revolution.”

Radicals — and el-Sissi’s Islamist political opponents who have wide religious followings — angrily denounced el-Sissi, saying he was trying to corrupt the religion. Even secularists, who would normally promote a more modern interpretation of Islam, frowned at el-Sissi’s statist approach to such a complicated issue. “A state-approved revolution,” questioned Amina Khairi, a columnist in the generally pro-state newspaper al-Watan.

And even state religious officials pushed back against the use of the word “revolution” or the idea of dramatic change.

Affifi, from al-Azhar, told the AP that el-Sissi didn’t mean changing texts — something even el-Sissi quickly made clear in his speech.”What the president meant is that we need a contemporary reading for religious texts to deal with our contemporary reality,” said Affifi, who is secretary general of the Islamic Research Center. The center is an Al-Azhar body responsible for studying Islamic issues and for providing preachers to explain religious affairs to the police, military, schools, government and private companies. It is also responsible for censorship.

He said al-Azhar has already been working for months on such a campaign, following calls for modernizing the faith that el-Sissi has been making since his May presidential election campaign. Committees have been examining textbooks used in the large network of grade schools and universities that al-Azhar runs across Egypt to remove things that have “no place in modern life.” Texts on slavery and on refusing to greet Christians and Jews, for example, have been removed.

Affifi said positions on issues like slavery, jihad and dealings with non-Muslims were adopted by scholars five centuries ago in a particular historical context. “These were opinions of scholars, these interpretations are not sacred.”

There is also a push to encourage a nationalism that officials see as moderating religious sentiment. El-Sissi this week attended Christmas services for Egypt’s Orthodox Coptic Christians and declared that Egyptians should not view each other as Christians or Muslims but as Egyptians.

The sheik of al-Azhar has launched a campaign in schools and universities promoting the message that “love of nation is part of faith,” said Affifi. Al-Azhar also plans to introduce a new Islamic culture course in all of Egypt’s universities, Affifi said.

For el-Sissi, the impetus for his modernization campaign is not only the violence wreaked by extremist groups around the Mideast and the world. It’s also rooted in his political rivalry with the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sissi, then head of the military, led the overthrow in July 2013 of an elected president from the Brotherhood, and since then Egypt has cracked down hard on Islamists, with hundreds killed in street clashes and thousands jailed.

To counter Islamists’ claims of religiosity, el-Sissi has presented himself throughout his rise as a pious proponent of a moderate, mainstream Islam.

At the same time, his government has shown little tolerance for dissent of any kind. That raises a key problem with the “religion revolution” — state control over religious reform could just stifle it. Al-Azhar has always claimed to be the bastion of “moderate” Islam, but it has moved to silence progressive and liberal re-interpretations just as often as radical ones.

“Any religious modernization will ultimately be against al-Azhar, since it is the conservative fortress in the system,” said Amr Ezzat, religion researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The “authority of religion over modern life and law is what needs to be reviewed. What we need is freedom to have more than one religious discourse to enrich discussion, because as it is pluralism is outlawed.”

State control of al-Azhar makes those most vulnerable to militancy least likely to listen.

If the sheik of al-Azhar speaks out against radicalism — as he often does — “no one who is remotely inclined to a violent interpretation will be impressed by that,” said H.A. Hellyer, a fellow at the Centre for Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “They will say: You are just an ally of the state, instead of a genuinely independent figure.”

Like Ezzat, he says only independent voices can present a counter-narrative to militant thought. But al-Sissi shows no sign of allowing that, Hellyer said.

His idea for the faith “is something rather docile to the needs of the state rather than independent,” Hellyer said.

Undercover Jihadi: Inside the Toronto 18 – Al Qaeda Inspired, Homegrown, Terrorism in the West by Anne Speckhard (Author), Mubin Shaikh (Author), Jessica Stern (Foreword)

Mubin Shaikh is a courageous hero that risked it all to go undercover to infiltrate and ultimately stop the Toronto 1Mubin Shaikh was born and raised in Toronto, Canada amidst twenty-first century, Western values. He attended public school. But at night, his parents insisted he also attend Islamic madrasa.

Mubin joined the Canadian Army Cadets, used drugs, had sex and partied just like the other kids. He fit right in—until he didn’t.

Going through an acute identity crisis at age nineteen, Mubin recommitted himself to Islam. But a chance encounter with the Taliban in Pakistan and then exposure to Canadian extremists took him down the militant jihadi path.

Mubin initially celebrated the 9-11 attacks, although he found the killing of innocent civilians in the name of Islam disturbing. 9-11 prompted him to travel again, to Syria—to become involved in the “great jihad”—the Muslim version of the final apocalypse in “the land of Sham and the Two Rivers.” There he learned the truth of his religion and faced a fork in the road.

Mubin went back in—but this time working undercover with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Ultimately joining the “Toronto 18”, Mubin walked a tightrope between Western culture and Islamic jihad. Risking everything, he gathered inside information about the group’s plans for catastrophic terror attacks—to detonate truck bombs around the city of Toronto, behead the Prime Minister, and storm the Parliament Building in retaliation for Western intervention in Muslim lands. Their cadres included Americans who had similar ideas for Washington, D.C.

Mubin Shaikh is one of the very few people in the world to have actually been undercover in a homegrown terror cell. His is a story of growing up Muslim in an age where militant jihad is glorified, of being caught between two identities and finally emerging victorious.

Because of this courageous experience, Shaikh is considered an expert for topics related to radicalization and violent extremism and has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBC, CNN and multiple outlets to speak on these topics. He remains closely connected to various governments and their national security functions.8, a group that plotted to storm the Canadian Parliament, behead the Prime Minister and explode truck bombs all around Toronto. Unfortunately with the arrests and convictions of many, extremism in Canada did not disappear and has in fact explosively grown in recent years. The original plot to storm Parliament was sadly carried out in October of 2014 just as this book was released. A gunman, likely inspired by ISIS, shot a soldier before entering the Parliament to cause more death and destruction and was thankfully stopped before he did. Clearly we need more heroes like Mubin Shaikh! — Anne Speckhard, Ph.D.

Browse Here

Mubin Shaikh: Undercover Jihadi

Published on Nov 27, 2014
At the age of 19, Mubin Shaikh, born and raised in Canada, travelled to Syria to study militant jihadism. He later renounced his jihadist beliefs and volunteered at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) where he infiltrated the “Toronto 18,” Canada’s largest domestic terrorism case. Mubin sits down with Steve Paikin to discuss his book, “Undercover Jihadi: Inside the Toronto 18 Al Qaeda Inspired, Homegrown Terrorism in the West.”

Confronting Religious Extremism – Reza Aslan

“I understand the impulse people of faith have to excise extremists in their communities. They’re not really Christians or Jews or Muslims. Many extremists appear to violate the fundamental values that many hold dear,” he says. “The problem is that there is no single authority who decides who is a Jew or a Muslim or a Christian, what is the proper behavior. It’s up to the individual. Whoever says he or she is a Muslim, he is. ISIL — with their sexual slavery, beheadings, killing of women and children, killing other Muslims — some might say is a violation of the Qu’ran. But because they choose to define themselves as Muslims, it has to be taken seriously.” “. . . The power of scripture can mean whatever you want it to mean. It’s up to the interpreter.” An open letter to the “fighters and followers” of the Islamic State from more than 120 Muslim scholars denounced them as un-Islamic. The writers used Qur’anic citations against torture, against attributing “evil acts to God,” and against declaring people non-Muslims “until he (or she) openly declares disbelief.” Aslan says he is “not in the business of saying who is [Muslim]. They would not call me Muslim. I don’t pray five times a day. But we have to deal with the fact that they are part of our community. They use things to justify their beliefs [that are] the same things we use to define our religion.” “A Christian blowing up an abortion clinic can find justification in the Bible” says Aslan. “Those blowing up a mosque can find justification. Jews killing Palestinians can find justification. The power of scripture can mean whatever you want it to mean. It’s up to the interpreter.” Reza Aslan: Radical Islam Is Still Islam http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/20…

EXTREMIST: A Response to Geert Wilders & Terrorists by Qasim Rashid (Author)

Terrorists and anti-Islam extremists are both wrong about Islam. Qasim Rashid proves just that in EXTREMIST: A Response to Geert Wilders & Terrorists Everywhere. Rashid debunks extremists head-on, clarifying important issues like Islam’s view on free speech, women’s rights, and Jihad—among many more. He writes for non-Muslims and Muslims alike, asking you to stand for a narrative of moderation, civility, and compassion—and against the extremist narratives of Geert Wilders and all terrorists. Rashid empowers you with a tool extremists don’t have—knowledge of Islam, and invites you to join the fight for tolerance.

Qasim Rashid, Esq. holds a Bachelor s of Science in Marketing from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a juris doctorate from the University of Richmond School of Law. He s previously authored the critically acclaimed book, The Wrong Kind of Muslim: An Untold Story of Persecution & Perseverance (2013).

Qasim’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, CNN, Daily Beast, Huffington Post, NPR, among several other national and international outlets. He has published numerous peer-reviewed academic journals on Islam and human rights. is a frequent writer and lecturer on Islamic and human rights issues. He regularly speaks at various universities and houses of worship nationally and internationally. Qasim likewise frequently interviews on FOX, NBC, CBS, BBC, Al Jazeera, and numerous local and regional radio programs. Today, Qasim is a practicing attorney in Richmond, Virginia, where he resides with his wife and two children. He is an avid runner and still dreams of one day walking on another planet.

LOOK INSIDE HERE

American Muslims say ISIS ‘hijacked’ Islam

Published on Sep 26, 2014
Cherif Abou El Fadl and Qasim Rashid explain why terrorists doesn’t speak for their faith

Saving humanity from WW3 | Qasim Rashid | TEDxSpeedwayPlaza

Published on Nov 13, 2014
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. The world is witness to more conflicts today than at any point in history. As humanity sits on the cusp of what appears an inevitable world war III, the key to protecting our future rests in each individual’s hands.

An attorney by profession, Qasim has written two best-sellers “Extremist” & “Wrong Kind of Muslim”. A frequent presence on American TV screens & social media.

Study Suggests Conspiracy Theorists Are More Positive & Reasonable Compared To Conventional Thinkers

A case study examining online commenting trends was performed by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent that revealed so called “conspiracy theorists” are actually more reasonable & sensible than those who are considered conventionalists.

Not that long ago, practically anyone who thought outside of the box, questioned the official stories, or did any type of investigation into certain subjects was labeled a “conspiracy theorist.” In fact, many of these people, including the majority of the writers here at Collective Evolution, are still considered conspiracy theorists by many even though the goal is simply to examine or verify the truth of something.

It is interesting how many of the people who are labeled as conspiracy theorists spend a lot of time with research and critical thinking. Sure there are always going to be more extreme people who lend a “bad name” to those who are legitimately assessing evidence, but it doesn’t mean the entire idea of conspiracy is invalid.

Many will check the facts, and look into the evidence on both sides of the coin. Generally the people who believe the mainstream idea of what is true, or is accepted as truth do not bother to look at the other side of the coin. They believe what they are told without question, and anyone who disagrees is, well, crazy, or a conspiracy theorist. Or in other words, paranoid.

The fascinating part is, it’s become some common place amongst society for people to not want to be labeled as a conspiracy theorist that anytime political leaders or the media wish to make something unquestionable, they will literally use the words “conspiracy theorists” in their speeches or reports when referring to anyone who wishes to question the story.

The Study

A study was published in July of 2013 by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent in the United Kingdom, it was entitled “’What About Building 7?’ A Social Psychological Study Of Online Discussion Of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories.” The study compared “conspiracist,” (pro-conspiracy theory) and “conventionalist,” (anti-conspiracy theory) comments on various news websites.

The researchers were surprised that they found more “conspiracist” type comments than conventional ones. According to the researchers, “Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist.”

Among those who take the time to comment on news articles, those who discount official government accounts (the event’s on 9/11, or the assassination John F. Kennedy for example) aka “Conspiracy Theories,” outnumber those who believe in the official reports, two-to-one. Therefore, this means that the “pro-conspiracy” commenters are those who are now expressing what would now be considered conventional wisdom, while the “anti-conspiracy” commenters actually represent a small minority that is often shunned and discredited.

How The Times Have Changed

‘The research showed that people who favored the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile when trying to persuade their rivals,” said the study.

It seems as though what were once considered mainstream viewpoints are no longer considered as such by the majority, the anti-conspiracy commenters often showed anger and disgust in their posts. Perhaps they are becoming frustrated that their ideals are no longer accepted as truth. Perhaps, underneath the angry façade, this scares them.

Limitations of The Study

To be balanced it’s important to recognize the limitations of this study. It’s a sample obtained from one website and although it shows a trend there is definitely more to the story. Regardless it is an interesting observation and one that likely carries truth. It certainly suggests that we should be more understanding of each others points of view and talk about things in a civilized manner.

Further Comments

“As someone who has been around “conspiracy culture” for over 6 years now and running a website (Collective Evolution), it becomes increasingly clear as time passes that there are multiple groups that exist within conventional thinkers and more open-minded thinkers. Conspiracy theorists has become more of a derogatory term used these days to pretty much suggest that someone is unintelligent or unstable in thought. There are extremists on all sides. Those who are intense and angry and those who are more calm and collected. But from an anecdotal perspective, I would definitely say those who fear thinking outside the mainstream are a lot angrier and aggressive in their approach. We get to see it everyday here. For them, it’s not even about evidence it’s simply the idea that what they believe can be wrong. It seems a common denominator is a general lack of wanting to believe their authoritative figures might be lying to them or not having their best interest at heart. All in all, truth is becoming more prominent today and by default “conspiracy theorists” will naturally become the majority as they simply are open to and see the truth. This doesn’t mean all claims they make are correct, many are far-reaching, but many are bang on the mark.” Joe Martino – Co-Founder of Collective Evolution

Much Love

Source: http://www.collective-evolution.com/

Memoirs of Tan Sri Ani Arope by Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf (Editor), Rogayah A. Razak (Editor)

The memoir is a collection of Tan Sri Ani Arope’s writings on his rich and illustrious life. One reads about Ani Arope – his early roots, childhood, schooling days as well as his early adult life. He recounts the moments he met his wife. He writes about the start of his careers as a young agronomist, as an agricultural officer, a Fulbright sponsored graduate student in the US, and his succesful leadership at MARDI, RRIM and TNB. He talks about his ultimate challenge at TNB.

After retirement, Tan Sri Ani Arope takes up flying and talks about how flying is an excellent sport to take away the stresses of life. Tan Sri Ani Arope proved his mantle of strength at the face of adversaries when he writes about his challengers (or rather, accesptance) of his illness as well as dealing with the loss of a close friend and his astute responses to current issues despite his illness.
This memoir is a historical yet personal narrative to a life well-lived and provide remarkably clear insights into what shapes Ani Arope as a person and a leader.

Ani Arope: Even my Jew pal could say ‘Alhamdulillah’

Published on Dec 16, 2013
In a day and age when Christians in Malaysia are barred from using the word ‘Allah’, former Tenaga Nasional Bhd chairperson Ani Arope reminisced of the old days when even Jews could say ‘Allahamduillah’.

BEKAS PENGERUSI EKSEKUTIF TNB TAN SRI ANI AROPE MENINGGAL [20 Dis 2014]

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande (Author)

In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession’s ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person’s last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.

Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end.

Atul Gawande is the author of three bestselling books: Complications, a finalist for the National Book Award; Better, selected by Amazon.com as one of the ten best books of 2007; and The Checklist Manifesto. He is also a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1998, and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He has won two National Magazine Awards, a MacArthur Fellowship, and been named one of the world’s hundred most influential thinkers by Foreign Policy and TIME. In his work as a public health researcher, he is Director of Ariadne Labs a joint center for health system innovation. And he is also co-founder and chairman of Lifebox, a global not-for-profit implementing systems and technologies to reduce surgical deaths globally. He and his wife have three children and live in Newton, Massachusetts.

TAKE A LOOK INSIDE

Surgeon and Author Atul Gawande on his new book “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End”

The Alma and Joseph Gildenhorn Book Series will feature Atul Gawande, staff writer at New Yorker magazine and professor at Harvard School of Public Health, discussing his book “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End” (Metropolitan Books). Moderated by Rob Stein, correspondent and science editor, NPR Science Desk.

Watch This Video & You’ll Never Eat McDonald’s French Fries Again

Michael Pollan is an author, activist, journalist and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He mainly focuses on the industrial food chain with regards to his research. He emphasizes how cooking is one of the simplest and most important steps people can take to improve their family’s health, build communities, help fix our broken food system and perhaps most importantly, break our growing dependence on corporations. Michael Pollan is a food activist and you can find out more about him and his work by clicking here.

In the video below he illustrates how McDonald’s insists on using Russet Burbank Potatoes, a potato in America that is unusually long and difficult to grow. They further insist that their potatoes have no blemishes at all, which is hard because these potatoes commonly suffer from what is referred to as Net Necrosis, which causes unwanted spots and lines on the potatoes. If they have this, McDonald’s won’t buy them and the only way to eliminate this is through the use of a pesticide called methamidophos (Monitor) “that is so toxic that the farmers who grow these potatoes in Idaho won’t venture outside and into their fields for five days after they spray.”

When McDonald’s is ready to harvest their potatoes, they have to put them in giant atmospheric controlled sheds the size of football stadiums because they are not edible for six weeks. “They have to off gas all the chemicals in them.”

I’ll let you watch the video for more information, you should have a hard time eating McDonald’s after this, but that’s not a bad thing.

How Cooking Can Change Your Life – Michael Pollan

Renowned activist and author Michael Pollan argues that cooking is one of the simplest and most important steps people can take to improve their family’s health, build communities, fix our broken food system, and break our growing dependence on corporations. The event was chaired by Tim Lang, professor of Food Policy at City University London.

To find out more about this talk, visit the event page on the RSA website: http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-an…
……………………………………………………….

Cancer rates continue to rise,and study after study continues to surface every year showing how pesticides, GMOs and a number of other things we choose to surround ourselves with on a daily basis are indeed harmful to human health. It’s time for us to wake up and fully acknowledge it, it’s time to make better choices in our lives, it’s time to put two and two together and make connections.

Fast foods chains are no different from drugs. They are extremely addicting and extremely harmful. They should not exist and this video just adds to the long, continually growing list of why.

About the author
Arjun Walia

I joined the CE team in 2010 and have been doing this ever since. There are many things happening on the planet that don’t resonate with me, and I wanted to do what I could to play a role in creating change. It’s been great making changes in my own life and creating awareness and I look forward to more projects that move beyond awareness and into action and implementation. So stay tuned :) arjun@collective-evolution.com

Cosby His Life and Times By Mark Whitaker

The first major biography of an American icon, comedian Bill Cosby. Based on extensive research and in-depth interviews with Cosby and more than sixty of his closest friends and associates, it is a frank, fun and fascinating account of his life and historic legacy.

Far from the gentle worlds of his routines or TV shows, Cosby grew up in a Philadelphia housing project, the son of an alcoholic, largely absent father and a loving but overworked mother. With novelistic detail, award winning journalist Mark Whitaker tells the story of how, after dropping out of high school, Cosby turned his life around by joining the Navy, talking his way into college, and seizing his first breaks as a stand-up comedian.

Published on the 30th anniversary of The Cosby Show, the book reveals the behind-the-scenes story of that groundbreaking sitcom as well as Cosby’s bestselling albums, breakout role on I Spy, and pioneering place in children’s TV. But it also deals with professional setbacks and personal dramas, from an affair that sparked public scandal to the murder of his only son, and the private influence of his wife of fifty years, Camille Cosby.

Whitaker explores the roots of Cosby’s controversial stands on race, as well as “the Cosby effect” that helped pave the way for a black president. For any fan of Bill Cosby’s work, and any student of American television, comedy, or social history, Cosby: His Life and Times is an essential read.

Mark Whitaker is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, My Long Trip Home. The former managing editor of CNN Worldwide, he was previously the Washington bureau chief for NBC News and a reporter and editor at Newsweek, where he rose to become the first African-American leader of a national newsweekly.

Bill Cosby Scandal

Numerous women have come forward claiming they were sexually assaulted by legendary comedian, Bill Cosby.

His NBC sitcom was cancelled and “The Cosby Show” was pulled from TV Land. Has his reputation been ruined?

My Trials and Tribulations | Anwar Ibrahim | TEDxGeorgetown

Published on Nov 19, 2014

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Malaysian Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim talks about his commitment to the ideals of empowerment, justice, and equity. His trials have included arrest and imprisonment for his unrelenting campaign against corruption and but he soldiers on as the strongest-ever challenge to the ruling coalition in Malaysia. In this talk, he explains his determination to continue the “Reformasi” campaign and the struggle for freedom and democracy despite a looming five-year prison sentence.

Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim, once a rising political star expected to succeed Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, is now the leader of the Malaysian Opposition. The creator of the “Reformasi” campaign of reforming the Malaysian political structure, he is an ardent supporter of democracy and is an authoritative voice in bridging the gap between East and West. He is viewed as one of the forefathers of the Asian Renaissance and a leading proponent of greater cooperation among civilizations.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

‘Jihad John’: Rap song lyrics provide chilling clues into his rage

WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE

VIEW HERE

VIEW HERE

How can the Yazidis preserve their spiritual heritage?

Published on Nov 16, 2014

Citing the example of the Parsi community, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar urges people from around the world to help the Yazidis preserve their culture and religion. He urges people to not convert the Yazidis to other faiths.

In a special session entitled “Peace in Middle East”, people from around the world sought the guidance of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founder, Art of Living & International Association for Human Values (IAHV).

Sri Sri has made a commitment to spread the message of peace and non-violence in Iraq. Since September 2003 when Art of Living and IAHV began trauma relief initiatives, around 10,000 people from Iraq have found relief and a new lease of life.

America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder by Bret Stephens (Author)

“A world in which the leading liberal-democratic nation does not assume its role as world policeman will become a world in which dictatorships contend, or unite, to fill the breach. Americans seeking a return to an isolationist garden of Eden—alone and undisturbed in the world, knowing neither good nor evil—will soon find themselves living within shooting range of global pandemonium.”— From the Introduction

In a brilliant book that will elevate foreign policy in the national conversation, Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Bret Stephens makes a powerful case for American intervention abroad.

In December 2011 the last American soldier left Iraq. “We’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq,” boasted President Obama. He was proved devastatingly wrong less than three years later as jihadists seized the Iraqi city of Mosul. The event cast another dark shadow over the future of global order—a shadow, which, Bret Stephens argues, we ignore at our peril.

America in Retreat identifies a profound crisis on the global horizon. As Americans seek to withdraw from the world to tend to domestic problems, America’s adversaries spy opportunity. Vladimir Putin’s ambitions to restore the glory of the czarist empire go effectively unchecked, as do China’s attempts to expand its maritime claims in the South China Sea, as do Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear capabilities. Civil war in Syria displaces millions throughout the Middle East while turbocharging the forces of radical Islam. Long-time allies such as Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, doubting the credibility of American security guarantees, are tempted to freelance their foreign policy, irrespective of U.S. interests.

Deploying his characteristic stylistic flair and intellectual prowess, Stephens argues for American re-engagement abroad. He explains how military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan was the right course of action, foolishly executed. He traces the intellectual continuity between anti-interventionist statesmen such as Henry Wallace and Robert Taft in the late 1940s and Barack Obama and Rand Paul today. And he makes an unapologetic case for Pax Americana, “a world in which English is the default language of business, diplomacy, tourism, and technology; in which markets are global, capital is mobile, and trade is increasingly free; in which values of openness and tolerance are, when not the norm, often the aspiration.”

In a terrifying chapter imagining the world of 2019, Stephens shows what could lie in store if Americans continue on their current course. Yet we are not doomed to this future. Stephens makes a passionate rejoinder to those who argue that America is in decline, a process that is often beyond the reach of political cures. Instead, we are in retreat—the result of faulty, but reversible, policy choices. By embracing its historic responsibility as the world’s policeman, America can safeguard not only greater peace in the world but also greater prosperity at home.

At once lively and sobering, America in Retreat offers trenchant analysis of the gravest threat to global order, from a rising star of political commentary.

BRET STEPHENS, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is the foreign affairs columnist and deputy editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal. He was previously the editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post. He was raised in Mexico City, educated at the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics, and lives with his family in New York City.

Bret Stephens – The Coming Global Disorder

Since 1945, American power has been the principal guarantor of world order. Nearly 70 years on, what is America’s place in today’s global order, and do we stand at the dawn of a new and more chaotic age? How do the arrangements and understandings through which war is generally avoided, commerce generally protected, and the cause of civilization generally advanced, cease to function? Do natural and political events that seem unconnected actually relate, and together, portend a coming global disorder?

Watch as Bret Stephens, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, deputy editorial page editor at the Wall Street Journal and author of its “Global View” column, analyzes the key threats to the global order today in conversation with Tikvah Executive Director Eric Cohen.

World Order by Henry Kissinger (Author)

Henry Kissinger offers in World Order a deep meditation on the roots of international harmony and global disorder. Drawing on his experience as one of the foremost statesmen of the modern era—advising presidents, traveling the world, observing and shaping the central foreign policy events of recent decades—Kissinger now reveals his analysis of the ultimate challenge for the twenty-first century: how to build a shared international order in a world of divergent historical perspectives, violent conflict, proliferating technology, and ideological extremism.

There has never been a true “world order,” Kissinger observes. For most of history, civilizations defined their own concepts of order. Each considered itself the center of the world and envisioned its distinct principles as universally relevant. China conceived of a global cultural hierarchy with the Emperor at its pinnacle. In Europe, Rome imagined itself surrounded by barbarians; when Rome fragmented, European peoples refined a concept of an equilibrium of sovereign states and sought to export it across the world. Islam, in its early centuries, considered itself the world’s sole legitimate political unit, destined to expand indefinitely until the world was brought into harmony by religious principles. The United States was born of a conviction about the universal applicability of democracy—a conviction that has guided its policies ever since.

Now international affairs take place on a global basis, and these historical concepts of world order are meeting. Every region participates in questions of high policy in every other, often instantaneously. Yet there is no consensus among the major actors about the rules and limits guiding this process, or its ultimate destination. The result is mounting tension.

Grounded in Kissinger’s deep study of history and his experience as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, World Order guides readers through crucial episodes in recent world history. Kissinger offers a unique glimpse into the inner deliberations of the Nixon administration’s negotiations with Hanoi over the end of the Vietnam War, as well as Ronald Reagan’s tense debates with Soviet Premier Gorbachev in Reykjavík. He offers compelling insights into the future of U.S.–China relations and the evolution of the European Union, and examines lessons of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Taking readers from his analysis of nuclear negotiations with Iran through the West’s response to the Arab Spring and tensions with Russia over Ukraine, World Order anchors Kissinger’s historical analysis in the decisive events of our time.

Provocative and articulate, blending historical insight with geopolitical prognostication, World Order is a unique work that could come only from a lifelong policymaker and diplomat.

BROWSE HERE

Kissinger talks more about Obama and the New World Order

Kissinger talks more about Obama and the New World Order. Kissinger literally drooling at the prospect of a New World Order

Money Logging: On the Trail of the Asian Timber Mafia by Lukas Straumann (Author)

Money Logging investigates what Gordon Brown has called probably the biggest environmental crime of our times the massive destruction of the Borneo rainforest by Malaysian loggers. Historian and campaigner Lukas Straumann goes in search not only of the lost forests and the people who used to call them home, but also the network of criminals who have earned billions through illegal timber sales and corruption.

Straumann singles out Abdul Taib Mahmud, current governor of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, as the kingpin of this Asian timber mafia. Taib s family with the complicity of global financial institutions have profited to the tune of 15 billion US dollars. Money Logging is a story of a people who have lost their ancient paradise to a wasteland of oil palm plantations, pollution, and corruption and how they hope to take it back. Translated from German. Lukas Straumann is the executive director of the Bruno Manser Fund in Basel, Switzerland.

“Money Logging” author Lukas Straumann displays his new book in front of Abdul Taib’s mansion in the Malaysian state of Sarawak (Photo courtesy Bruno Manser Fund)

Al Jazeera interview with Lukas Straumann

‘RM4bil a small fraction of Taib family fortune’

Just a small fraction of companies linked to the family of Sarawak governor Abdul Taib Mahmud gives them a fortune amounting to almost RM4 billion, says Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) executive director Lukas Straumann.

Why India and Pakistan Hate Each Other

Three wars later, there’s no end in sight to the cross-border violence between India and Pakistan. Why exactly are these countries fighting each other and is there any hope for peace?

Learn More:
India-Pakistan Relations: A 50-Year History

http://asiasociety.org/asia/india-pak…

“Despite the seeming suddenness of India’s and Pakistan’s decisions to test nuclear devices and in so doing seek to join the other five world nuclear nations, the headlines following the explosions “heard round the world,” had a fifty-year history.”

1. Why Is the USA Still Fighting in Iraq? 2. The war in Syria explained in five minutes | Guardian Animations 3. What Is Boko Haram And Why Are They Kidnapping Nigerian Girls?

The war in Syria explained in five minutes | Guardian Animations

What is going on in Syria and why? This animation explains the events that have led to the ongoing civil war in the Middle Eastern country, which is reported to have claimed over 100,000 lives. It’s a complicated issue, but this explainer should serve as a good starting point for understanding it all

What Is Boko Haram And Why Are They Kidnapping Nigerian Girls?

Boko Haram has again kidnapped women and children in Nigeria. We know they’re a terrorist group, but aside from grouping them under the universal term “terrorist,” do we actually know who the Boko Haram are? The answer is a little more complicated than you may think.

How to Reduce Stress with the Emotional Management Method ~ Kasia Wezowski (Author), Patryk Wezowski (Author)

Do you happen to experience stress, annoyance or a lack of energy?
Perhaps you’ve accumulated so many emotions that you’ve stopped being able to deal with them. In fact, our natural state is the state of a small child who takes life enthusiastically and resolves all emotional issues in 5 minutes to get back to play quickly and have more fun. As adults, we become more and more looped in different emotions, and thus we can’t use our creative potential in our work and everyday life. If you look at successful people, you will discover that they are great masters of their own emotions and still maintain the enthusiasm of a small child.

This book is for those who work under stress and often under huge responsibility for their decisions. Also for those who would like to gain more clarity about what they want, and at the same time without falling into extreme emotions. It’s also a book for those who would like to understand their emotions better and use this knowledge to build successful personal and professional relationships.

About the authors:

Kasia Wezowski – Business Strategist, Author, Body Language Expert:

Kasia is an optimist, and always finds a creative solution for everything. She believes that successful people usually do what others do only sometimes. She has three Masters’ degrees: psychology, sociology and law. She loves to put theoretical knowledge into practice, running her own companies, training and advising on company strategy for 10 years.

Kasia has done over 3000 hours of coaching. She loves to inspire people. She has written three books and authored over 30 techniques and methods in coping with stress, conflict resolution, creative solutions, effective communication and sales strategies.

Patryk Wezowski – Entrepreneur, Speaker, Body Language Expert:

Patryk is a visionary thinker with original ideas and the drive to see them through. He has a multi-disciplinary approach and a vast knowledge of non-verbal communication, psychology, sales, and internet marketing. He can make any start-up company profitable within six months.

Patryk has an amazing ability to read and accurately interpret body language signals. He is also a great speaker. This is the reason why the media ask him to analyse behaviour of politicians and famous people. Patryk also likes to inspire people and is often invited to present to large audiences.

Kasia Wezowski and Patryk Wezowski, are serial entrepreneurs. They are Europe’s leading Body Language Experts, and founders of the Center for Body Language with 25 trainers in 15 countries.

BROWSE HERE

Emotional Management Method – How to Reduce Stress using EMM

Emotional Management Method is based on the newest research in the psychology of emotions, neurobiology, and brain research combined with Buddhist psychology and ancient healing systems.
Body Language courses and Facial Expressions training allow you to identify emotions that are not helpful. EMM helps you to transform these emotions and stress effectively from the inside-out.

Emotional Management Method will help you to:
– Reduce your level of stress and increase your energy level to find new inspiration and motivation at work
– Get more clarity about your decisions and goals to become more self-confident and achieve what you want
– Boost your creativity and effectiveness at work to gain more profit and success

Learn more about How To Reduce Stress using the Emotional Management Method on:

http://EmotionalManagementMethod.com

Patryk Wezowski: Subtle Expressions Indicate Emotions

Patryk Wezowski joins Freeman and Barnet for an interesting conversation about micro-expressions. This is about detecting emotions through subtle facial expressions and the indications of this awareness.

For more information about Patryk’s work, please visit: http://www.centerforbodylanguage.com/

All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life ~ Andrew M. Cuomo (Author)

In this full and frank memoir—a personal story of duty, family, justice, politics and resilience—New York Governor Andrew Cuomo reflects on his rise, fall, and rise in politics, and recounts his defining personal and political moments and tough but necessary lessons he has learned along the way.

With 16-page of color photos.

ANDREW CUOMO, the 56th governor of New York, is the son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo and brother of news anchor Chris Cuomo. He formerly served as New York’s attorney general and U.S. Secretary of HUD. He has three daughters.

Take a Look Inside.

NY Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo 10/1/14

Reeva: A Mother’s Story by June Steenkamp (Author)

In the early hours of Valentine’s Day 2013, Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, shooting her multiple times while she cowered behind the locked door of their bathroom. His trial has attracted more international media attention and public scrutiny than any since that of OJ Simpson.

What went on behind the scenes though? And what was the real Reeva like, away from the photo shoots and the attention of the media? A beautiful 29 year old from Port Elizabeth, Reeva graduated as a lawyer and campaigned for human rights causes before deciding to try the world of modelling in South Africa’s most vibrant city. Her relationship with international hero Oscar Pistorius seemed like a fairy tale of triumph over adversity – double amputee turned champion athlete meets small town girl with beauty and brains wanting to make her mark on the world. No one could have predicted the tragic and horrifying conclusion to that fairy tale.

Reeva’s mother, June Steenkamp, has kept a dignified silence throughout the long months since she received the phone call every mother dreads. In this painfully honest and unflinching account of Reeva’s life, she talks about what really went on in her mind as she sat in the packed Pretoria court room day after day and how she is coping in the aftermath of the verdict. Reeva is the only true insider’s account of this tragic story.

June and Barry Steenkamp express disbelief at Oscar Pistorius verdict

Published on Sep 14, 2014

The parents of Reeva Steenkamp say they are “disappointed and sad” after South African athlete Oscar Pistorius was acquitted of murdering their daughter. June and Barry Steenkamp told NBC News of their “disbelief” that the court had believed Pistorius’s version of events. Judge Thokozile Masipa found him guilty of the lesser charge of culpable homicide, saying the state had failed to prove he intended to kill. “There are so many things he {Oscar Pistorious} could have done to prevent this catastrophe from happening… I can’t believe that they believe that Reeva’s death was an accident.”

Oscar Pistorius ex girlfriend speaks out

Published on Oct 21, 2014

Samantha Taylor, Oscar Pistorius’ ex-girlfriend, talks about her testimony in the trial, her support for the Steenkamp family and her opinion on the sentencing…..http://owl.li/D5mDr

Latest Update:

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A spokesman for South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority says prosecutors will appeal the verdict and sentencing of Oscar Pistorius, who was handed a 5-year prison term after being convicted of culpable homicide.

Prosecution spokesman Nathi Mncube said Monday that the next step is to file papers in court.

Pistorius started serving his prison sentence on Oct. 21 after he was acquitted of murder by a judge and found guilty of a lesser charge of culpable homicide, or manslaughter, for shooting girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp through a toilet door in his home.

Under the current terms, the Olympic runner is eligible for release after 10 months and would then complete his sentence under house arrest.

Lee Kuan Yew’s Insights with Graham Allison and Robert Blackwill

Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, is known around the world as an innovative leader and respected scholar of global strategy. Lee has been a mentor to every Chinese leader from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping, and a counselor to every U.S. president from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama.

In their new book, Graham Allison and Robert Blackwill distill the essence of Lee Kuan Yew’s visionary thinking about critical issues including the futures of China and the United States, U.S.-China relations, India, and globalization. At a National Committee on U.S.-China Relations program on May 6, 2013, the authors discussed their new book, Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World, with National Committee President, Stephen Orlins.

THE SECRET SKY A Novel of Forbidden Love in Afghanistan by Atia Abawi

An eye-opening, heart-rending tale of love, honor and betrayal from veteran foreign news correspodent Atia Abawi

Fatima is a Hazara girl, raised to be obedient and dutiful. Samiullah is a Pashtun boy raised to defend the traditions of his tribe. They were not meant to fall in love. But they do. And the story that follows shows both the beauty and the violence in current-day Afghanistan as Fatima and Samiullah fight their families, their cultures and the Taliban to stay together. Based on the people Atia Abawi met and the events she covered during her nearly five years in Afghanistan, this stunning novel is a must-read for anyone who has lived during America’s War in Afghanistan.

Perfect for fans of Patricia McCormick, Linda Sue Park, and Khaled Hosseini, this story will stay with readers for a long time to come.

Atia Abawi is a foreign news correspondent who was stationed for almost five years in Kabul, Afghanistan. She was born to Afghan parents in West Germany and was raised in the United States. She currently lives in Jerusalem with her husband, Conor Powell. You can follow her on Twitter @AtiaAbawi.

BROWSE HERE

Author Atia Abawi describes her book, The Secret Sky

Atia Abawi, NBC correspondent and author of The Secret Sky, gives a synopsis of her novel about forbidden love in Afghanistan.

Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World by Kirsten Gillibrand (Author), Hillary Rodham Clinton (Foreword)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Foreword by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Fourteen years before Kirsten Gillibrand succeeded Hillary Rodham Clinton as senator from New York, she heard her future mentor say these life-changing words: “Decisions are being made every day in Washington, and if you are not part of those decisions, you might not like what they decide, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.” A young corporate lawyer at the time, Gillibrand felt as if she’d been struck by lightning. She instantly knew that her voice—all women’s voices—were essential to shaping the future of this country, and that she had a greater purpose in life: to speak up and effect change. Now, in this extraordinary memoir, the senator, wife, and mother of two recounts her personal journey in public service and galvanizes women to reach beyond their busy lives and make a meaningful difference in the world around them.

Off the Sidelines is a playbook for women who want to step up, whether in Congress or the boardroom or the local PTA. If women were fully represented in politics, Gillibrand says, national priorities would shift to issues that directly impact them: affordable daycare, paid family medical leave, and equal pay. Pulling back the curtain on Beltway politics, she speaks candidly about her legislative successes (securing federally funded medical care for 9/11 first responders, repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell) and her crushing disappointments (failing by five votes to pass a bill protecting survivors of sexual assault in the military).

Gillibrand also shares stories of growing up the daughter and granddaughter of two trailblazing feminists in a politically active family in Albany, New York, and retraces her nonlinear path to public office. She lays bare the highs and lows of being a young (pregnant!) woman in Congress, the joys and sacrifices every working mother shares, and the support system she turns to in her darkest moments: her husband, their two little boys, and lots of girlfriends.

In Off the Sidelines, Gillibrand is the tough-love older sister and cheerleader every woman needs. She explains why “ambition” is not a dirty word, failure is a gift, listening is the most effective tool, and the debate over women “having it all” is absurd at best and demeaning at worst. In her sharp, honest, and refreshingly relatable voice, she dares us all to tap into our inner strength, find personal fulfillment, and speak up for what we believe in.

A magna cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College in 1988, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand went on to receive her law degree from the UCLA School of Law in 1991 and served as a law clerk on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. After working as an attorney in New York City for nearly a decade, Gillibrand served as special counsel to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo during the Clinton administration, then as an attorney before serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing New York’s 20th Congressional District, which spans ten counties in upstate New York. Gillibrand was first sworn in as United States senator from New York in January 2009, filling Hillary Rodham Clinton’s seat. In November 2012 she was elected to her first six-year Senate term with 72 percent of the vote, a New York State record, winning sixty of New York’s sixty-two counties. She lives in Troy, New York, with her husband, Jonathan, and their sons, Theo and Henry.

CLICK HERE to read instantly.

Kirsten Gillibrand: Off The Sidelines

Off The Sidelines: Join Us

Since Off The Sidelines launched in 2011, we’ve accomplished so much together. But we still have a lot of work left to do to empower more women, to urge more women to make their voices heard, and to elect more women to office.

PAY ANY PRICE : Greed, Power, and Endless War By James Risen

War corrupts. Endless war corrupts absolutely.

Ever since 9/11 America has fought an endless war on terror, seeking enemies everywhere and never promising peace. In Pay Any Price, James Risen reveals an extraordinary litany of the hidden costs of that war: from squandered and stolen dollars, to outrageous abuses of power, to wars on normalcy, decency, and truth. In the name of fighting terrorism, our government has done things every bit as shameful as its historic wartime abuses — and until this book, it has worked very hard to cover them up.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. FDR authorized the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans. Presidents Bush and Obama now must face their own reckoning. Power corrupts, but it is endless war that corrupts absolutely.

James Risen is an investigative journalist with the New York Times, and author of the New York Times bestseller State of War, among other books. In 2006 he won a Pulitzer Prize for his stories about warrantless wiretapping by the NSA. In 2007 he was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

ClICK HERE to read instantly.

James Risen: Money squandered in war on terror
The New York Times’ James Risen joins Morning Joe to discuss his new book “Pay Any Price,” which looks at how billions were stolen or lost during counter terror operations. Risen was also the first to write about the NSA’s secret wiretapping program, and he has been subpoenaed. VIEW HERE an interview with MSNBC.

Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama (Author)

The second volume of the bestselling landmark work on the history of the modern state

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, David Gress called Francis Fukuyama’s Origins of Political Order“magisterial in its learning and admirably immodest in its ambition.” In The New York Times Book Review, Michael Lind described the book as “a major achievement by one of the leading public intellectuals of our time.” And in The Washington Post, Gerard DeGrott exclaimed “this is a book that will be remembered. Bring on volume two.”
Volume two is finally here, completing the most important work of political thought in at least a generation. Taking up the essential question of how societies develop strong, impersonal, and accountable political institutions, Fukuyama follows the story from the French Revolution to the so-called Arab Spring and the deep dysfunctions of contemporary American politics. He examines the effects of corruption on governance, and why some societies have been successful at rooting it out. He explores the different legacies of colonialism in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and offers a clear-eyed account of why some regions have thrived and developed more quickly than others. And he boldly reckons with the future of democracy in the face of a rising global middle class and entrenched political paralysis in the West.
A sweeping, masterful account of the struggle to create a well-functioning modern state, Political Order and Political Decay is destined to be a classic.

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He has previously taught at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and at the George Mason University School of Public Policy. Fukuyama was a researcher at the RAND Corporation and served as the deputy director for the State Department’s policy planning staff. He is the author of The Origins of Political Order, The End of History and the Last Man, Trust, and America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy. He lives with his wife in California.

BROWSE HERE

Conversations With History – Francis Fukuyama

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Francis Fukuyama for a discussion of his new book, The Origins of Political Order. Fukuyama traces his intellectual odyssey, discusses the origins of “The End of History” thesis, and describes the influence of Samuel Huntington. The conversation moves on to focus on the problem of political order. Fukayama identifies his purpose in writing the new book, the importance of history and comparative studies to the development of his arguments, the relevance of insights from the biological sciences, and the role of ideas in institution building. He compares the evolution of the state in China and India and then assesses the relevance of the Chinese model of state power in an era of globalization. He then offers an analysis of the neo-conservative agenda. He concludes with advice for students as they prepare for the future.

http://conversations.berkeley.edu

The Wrong Kind of Muslim: An Untold Story of Persecution & Perseverance by Qasim Rashid (Author)

The Wrong Kind of Muslim is a call to unite those of all faiths and of no faith in the struggle for universal freedom of conscience. Since 9/11, terrorists in Pakistan have killed over 40,000—and counting. Often risking his life, Qasim Rashid journeys into the heart of that terrorism to unearth the untold story of those silenced by Taliban suicide bombings, secret police torture, and state sponsored religious persecution. Rashid exposes the horrifying truth about growing radicalism in Pakistan and its impact on Western security. But most importantly, Rashid uncovers the inspiring untold story of millions fighting back—and winning.

Qasim Rashid, Esq. is an internationally recognized voice on human rights and religious freedom. CNN calls him, “…an effective source on a wide range of religious issues” and The Huffington Post adds, “Qasim offers insightful commentary on issues Muslims in America face.” Rashid’s work has appeared in the USA Today, The Atlantic, CNN, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Richmond Times Dispatch, multiple peer-reviewed law journals, among several other national and international outlets. He interviews regularly on Huff Post Live, NBC, CBS, NPR, BBC World, New York Times, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Pittsburg Post-Gazette, among numerous media outlets. He also frequently lectures at houses of worship and universities nationally and internationally including Princeton, Berkeley, Barry, Howard Law, and Richmond Law. Rashid received his Bachelors Degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and his Juris Doctorate from the University of Richmond School of Law. He is a National Spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA, Chairman of the Muslim Writers Guild of America, a Board Member for the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, a pro bono attorney for the Virginia Poverty Law Center, and practices law in Richmond, VA.

Browse here

Qasim Rashid – The Wrong Kind of Muslim

Nobel Peace Prize 2014: Pakistani Malala Yousafzai, Indian Kailash Satyarthi Honored For Fighting For Children’s Rights

The Huffington Post | By Jade Walker

Winners of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize: Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai | Getty/AP

The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to Pakistani Malala Yousafzai and Indian Kailash Satyarthi for “their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”

“Children must go to school and not be financially exploited,” The Norwegian Nobel Committee stated in a press release. “In the poor countries of the world, 60% of the present population is under 25 years of age. It is a prerequisite for peaceful global development that the rights of children and young people be respected.”

Yousafzai, 17, was shot in the head by Taliban militants in 2012 for having the temerity to seek an education. The Islamist militant group also took issue with her for publishing a blog in 2009 that promoted the right to education.

“I think of it often and imagine the scene clearly. Even if they come to kill me, I will tell them what they are doing is wrong, that education is our basic right,” Yousafzai said on her website.

After receiving treatment for her injuries in a British hospital, Yousafzai dedicated herself to the cause of education for all. She said being shot had only strengthened her resolve.

“They can only shoot a body, they cannot shoot my dreams,” Yousafzai said. “They shot me because they wanted to tell me that, ‘we want to kill you and to stop you campaigning’, but they did the biggest mistake: they injured me, and they told me through that attack, that even death is supporting me, even death does not want to kill me.”

Yousafzai penned the bestselling book, “I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up For Education And Was Shot By The Taliban,” and launched The Malala Fund, a nonprofit organization focused on helping girls go to school and promoting their right of education. For her efforts, she has received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European Union’s annual human rights award. Previous winners include Nobel Peace Prize laureates Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela.

To date, only 15 women have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Yousafzai is the youngest Nobel laureate ever.

The Daily Show: Extended Interview: Malala Yousafzai

Published on Oct 10, 2013
In this exclusive, unedited interview, “I Am Malala” author Malala Yousafzai remembers the Taliban’s rise to power in her Pakistani hometown and discusses her efforts to campaign for equal access to education for girls. Malala Yousafzai also offers suggestions for people looking to help out overseas and stresses the importance of education.

Satyarthi, 60, is a children’s rights activist who has dedicated his life to helping the millions of youths in India and around the world that have been forced into slavery.

A former electrical engineer, Satyarthi has participated in countless peaceful demonstrations and protests against the exploitation of children. He has mounted raids on factories where children were forced to work, and helped free and rehabilitate thousands. Satyarthi also established Rugmark (now known as Goodweave), a group that aims to “stop child labor in the carpet industry and to replicate its market-based approach in other sectors,” and currently heads the Global March Against Child Labor, a conglomeration of 2,000 social-minded organizations and trade unions in 140 countries.

Satyarthi’s contributions have received many honors, including the Aachener International Peace Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, the Wallenberg Medal and the Defenders of Democracy Award.

“This is an honor for all my fellow Indians, as well as an honor for all those children in the world whose voices were never heard before properly,” Satyarthi told India’s NDTV network.

Kailash Satyarthi’s video for side event at UN Forum for Business and Human Rights, June 2013 Geneva

“The Nobel Committee regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism,” the Committee stated in a press release. “Many other individuals and institutions in the international community have also contributed. It has been calculated that there are 168 million child laborers around the world today. In 2000, the figure was 78 million higher. The world has come closer to the goal of eliminating child labor.”

The two will split the Nobel award of $1.1 million.

The committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize annually to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” It is one of five Nobel Prizes established by Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, in his will in 1895.

Between 1901 and 2013, 94 Nobel Peace Prizes were awarded to 126 laureates.

Protests in Hong Kong: Three Things to Know

Published on Oct 7, 2014
The Chinese government’s decision to appoint Hong Kong’s next chief executive from a list of vetted candidates has caused protests throughout the former British territory. Young students and professionals have banded together to demand more autonomy and express other grievances related to urban life. As the protests enter a second week, Barbara Demick, CFR’s Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow, offers three things to know:

0:39 – Not Tiananmen: The demonstrators—most in their teens and twenties—may conjure images of Tiananmen Square, but unlike 1989 the protests are not calling for democracy in mainland China, says Demick. “They are looking for a degree of self-rule for Hong Kong, which is, after all, a special administrative region,” she explains.

1:20 – Broken Promises: In the eyes of the protestors, “China has reneged on pledges it made in 1997 when Hong Kong reverted from British to Chinese rule,” says Demick. As part of the transition, Hong Kong was guaranteed autonomy, freedom of speech, and free assembly—in a law commonly known as “one country, two systems.” Beijing also promised “universal suffrage” by 2017, which many protestors believe should include the free election of Hong Kong’s chief executive.

1:54 – Basic Complaints: Beyond their rhetoric of democracy and freedom, Hong Kong protestors have “some real bread-and-butter grievances,” says Demick. These include urban overcrowding, exorbitant real estate prices, and an extremely competitive job market.

http://www.cfr.org/hong-kong/protests…

The Rise of the Drone

Published on Oct 10, 2014
The U.S. is testing heavily armed autonomous drones for combat… and they’re working. These computer controlled weapon carriers operate solely on their own and have already been used to attack targets abroad. Is this the future of war? Will soldiers soon be replaced by machines?

Mobilize : All about cell-phone radiation

In 2011 the World Health Organization stated, “The electromagnetic fields produced by mobile phones are classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as possibly carcinogenic to humans.” The cell phone industry has vigorously disputed these findings.

Mobilize is an investigative documentary that explores the potential long-term health effects from cell phone radiation, including brain cancer and infertility.

“Mobilize” Trailer

Published on Jun 5, 2014

In 2011 the World Health Organization stated, “The electromagnetic fields produced by mobile phones are classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as possibly carcinogenic to humans.” The cell phone industry has vigorously disputed these findings…

MOBILIZE is an explosive investigative documentary that explores the potential long-term health effects from cell phone radiation, including brain cancer and infertility. This thought-provoking film examines the most recent scientific research and the harsh challenges politicians face trying to pass precautionary legislation. Featuring interviews with expert researchers, mobile phone industry representatives, and prominent politicians, MOBILIZE illuminates how industry’s economic and political influence can corrupt public health.

Xi Jinping: The Governance of China

Xi Jinping: The Governance of China was recently launched by the Foreign Language Press.

The book, which was compiled jointly by the State Council Information Office, the Party Literature Research Office of CPC Central Committee and China International Publishing Group, is available in multiple languages, including Chinese, English, French, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Japanese.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, headed by Xi Jinping, is leading the Chinese nation to march forward on the path of reform and opening-up and modernization.

In the practice of governing the country, Xi Jinping has put forward a series of major theories, and offered many new thoughts, ideas and judgments, which are his answers to major theoretical and practical issues on the development of the Party and country in the contemporary era. These theories have showcased the CPC central leadership’s ideas and strategies in governing the country.

Xi Jinping: The Governance of China has 18 categories, containing 79 speeches, informal talks, addresses, answers to questions from the press, approvals and congratulatory letters from Xi Jinping between November 15, 2012 and June 13, 2014.

The book offers notes to help international readers understand China’s social institutions, history and culture. There are also 45 photos of Xi taken in different eras, to give readers a better sense of his work and life.

The launch of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China will help readers worldwide to understand the ideas and strategies of the CPC Central Committee under the leadership of Xi Jinping in governing China, as well as China’s ideas, pattern of development, policies and diplomacy. It also offers a response to the concerns of the international community.

(China.org.cn September 28, 2014)

The rise of China’s Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping’s father was a revolutionary hero and he grew up as a Party Princeling, one of the privileged children of the founders of the Communist state.

But during the Cultural Revolution the young Xi went into exile.

His rehabilitation and rise through the ranks began in the coastal provinces that became the engines of China’s economic transformation.

WORTHY FIGHTS ~ Leon Panetta

The inspiring and revelatory autobiography of the defense secretary and CIA director who led the intelligence war that killed Bin Laden, among many important roles in a legendary career

It could be said that Leon Panetta has had two of the most consequential careers of any American public servant in the past fifty years. His first career, beginning as an army intelligence officer and including a distinguished run as one of Congress’s most powerful and respected members, lasted thirty-five years and culminated in his transformational role as Clinton’s budget czar and White House chief of staff. He then “retired” to establish the Panetta Institute with his wife of fifty years, Sylvia; to serve on the Iraq Study Group; and to protect his beloved California coastline. But in 2009, he accepted what many said was a thankless task: returning to public office as the director of the CIA, taking it from a state of turmoil after the Bush-era torture debates and moving it back to the vital center of America’s war against Al Qaeda, including the campaign that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden. And then, in the wake of bin Laden’s death, Panetta became the U.S. secretary of defense, inheriting two troubled wars in a time of austerity and painful choices.

Like his career, Worthy Fights is a reflection of Panetta’s values. It is imbued with the frank, grounded, and often quite funny spirit of a man who never lost touch with where he came from: his family’s walnut farm in beautiful Carmel Valley, California. It is also a testament to a lost kind of political leadership, which favors progress and duty to country over partisanship. Panetta is a Democrat who pushed for balanced budgets while also expanding care for the elderly and sick; a devout Catholic who opposes the death penalty but had to weigh every drone strike from 2009 through 2011. Throughout his career, Panetta’s polestar has been his belief that a public servant’s real choice is between leadership or crisis. Troubles always come about through no fault of one’s own, but most can be prevented with courage and foresight.

As always, Panetta calls them as he sees them in Worthy Fights. Suffused with its author’s decency and stubborn common sense, the book is an epic American success story, a great political memoir, and a revelatory view onto many of the great figures and events of our time.

Leon Panetta served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2009–2011, and as secretary of defense from 2011–2013. An Italian American Democrat, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977–1993, the director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1993–1994, and President Clinton’s chief of staff from 1994–1997. He is the founder of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, and has served as professor of public policy at his alma mater, Santa Clara University.

Jim Newton is editor at large of the Los Angeles Times, where he has worked for twenty-five years as a reporter, editor, bureau chief, and columnist. He is the author of two critically acclaimed biographies, Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made and Eisenhower: The White House Years.

Leon Panetta wanted to arm Syrian moderate rebels VIEW HERE

Why is the Secret Service Failing Obama?

Published on Oct 6, 2014

The U.S. Secret Service is currently under fire for multiple security breaches and downright scandals. The head of the agency has even resigned, and many say it’s due to all the scrutiny. Threats to President Obama are particularly high these days, so why is the Secret Service failing so hard at their job?

Sam Harris vs Reza Aslan Full Unedited Video

Edited Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlQPu…

Improved video starting at 40:45.

When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order by Martin Jacques (Author)

Greatly revised and expanded, with a new afterword, this update to Martin Jacques’s global bestseller is an essential guide to understanding a world increasingly shaped by Chinese power

Soon, China will rule the world. But in doing so, it will not become more Western.

Since the first publication of When China Rules the World, the landscape of world power has shifted dramatically. In the three years since the first edition was published, When China Rules the World has proved to be a remarkably prescient book, transforming the nature of the debate on China.

Now, in this greatly expanded and fully updated edition, boasting nearly 300 pages of new material, and backed up by the latest statistical data, Martin Jacques renews his assault on conventional thinking about China’s ascendancy, showing how its impact will be as much political and cultural as economic, changing the world as we know it.

First published in 2009 to widespread critical acclaim – and controversy – When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order has sold a quarter of a million copies, been translated into eleven languages, nominated for two major literary awards, and is the subject of an immensely popular TED talk.

Martin Jacques is one of Britain’s foremost public intellectuals. A Visiting Senior Research Fellow at IDEAS, the London School of Economics’ centre for diplomacy and grand strategy, a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and a Fellow of the Transatlantic Academy, Washington DC, Martin Jacques is widely respected as a leading global expert on what could prove to be the most important geopolitical event of the past 200 years: the rise of China.

Born in Coventry in 1945, Martin Jacques earned a first class honours degree in Economics at Manchester University, followed by a masters degree, and then a PhD from Cambridge University. He subsequently held a lectureship in the Department of Economic and Social History at Bristol University.

In 1977, he became editor of Marxism Today, a post he held for fourteen years until the journal’s closure in 1991, transforming what was an obscure and dull publication into a the most influential political magazine in Britain. In the early 1990, Jacques co-founded the think-tank Demos, and worked as deputy editor of The Independent. He has been a columnist for the Times, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Observer, and the New Statesman, as well as writing for many newspapers and magazines worldwide, including Financial Times, Economist, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Daily Beast, New Republic, Volkskrant, Corriere della Sera, L’Unita, Il Mondo, Süddeutsche Zeitung, South China Morning Post, and Folha Des Paulo.

He has made many television programs for the BBC, including writing and presenting Italy on Trial (1993), The Incredible Shrinking Politicians (1993), a two-part series on The End of the Western World (1996) and Proud to be Chinese (1998).

In recent years Martin Jacques has worked as a Visiting Professor at Renmin University, Beijing, a Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Singapore,a Visiting Research Fellow at the Asia Research Centre at the London School of Economics, and a Visiting Professor at both Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, and at the International Centre for Chinese Studies at Aichi University in Nagoya.

Browse Here

Martin Jacques interviewed on the Chinese Dream — Dialogue (CCTV News)

Martin Jacques: When China Rules The World

In When China Rules the World, author of the global best-seller “When China Rules The World”, Martin Jacques tells us about the rise of China and argues that it will be profoundly different to live in a world dominated by China.

Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China

Uploaded on Jan 24, 2011
http://www.ted.com Speaking at a TED Salon in London, economist Martin Jacques asks: How do we in the West make sense of China and its phenomenal rise? The author of “When China Rules the World,” he examines why the West often puzzles over the growing power of the Chinese economy, and offers three building blocks for understanding what China is and will become.

Lee Kuan Yew on the meaning of life

Find out Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s take on the meaning of life in this clip. He was asked about this during a dialogue session held at Shell’s 120th anniversary celebrations.

MM Lee with his jovial question

Aging population with 1.0 fertility rate is due to elitism by developed countries where 1 person eats a huge amount of luxury, the black africans …

Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why it Matters by James Zogby (Author)

Despite increased contact between the West and the Arab world, even top American political leaders have only limited awareness of the realities and complexities of their Arab counterparts. Arab Voices asks the questions, collects the answers, and shares the results that will help us see Arabs clearly, bringing into stark relief the myths, assumptions, and biases that hold us back from understanding this important variety of cultures. With a new afterword chronicling the importance of the recent uprisings across the Arab world, Zogby shows why it’s more important than ever to base policy and perception on reality, rather than stereotypes and theories.

James Zogby is founder and president of the Washington, D.C.-based Arab American Institute and a senior advisor to the polling firm Zogby International. He writes a weekly column that appears in twenty Arab newspapers and hosts a weekly call-in discussion program on Abu Dhabi television. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Democratic National Committee, and co-chair of the DNC’s Resolutions Committee, he and his wife Eileen live in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents
Preface

• Chapter 1: The Day That Didn’t Change Everything

• Chapter 2: Listening in the Levant

• Chapter 3: Knowledge Wars

• Chapter 4: Lord Balfours, Then and Now

• Part II: Beyond Super Myths: Who Are the Arabs and What Do They Want?

• Chapter 5: Super-Myth One: This World Is Flat

• Chapter 6: Super-Myth Two: A Fictional Unity

• Chapter 7: Super Myth Three: The Angry Arab

• Chapter 8: Super-Myth Four: The Lens of Islam

• Chapter 9: Super Myth Five: Immutability, or the Frozen Camel

• Part III: Why It Matters: Blunders, Failures, and Fallout

• Chapter 10: Iraq: History Cuts Like A Knife

• Chapter 11: Lebanon: Hearing Half the Story

• Chapter 12: Saudi Arabia: Their Reform, Not Ours

• Chapter 13: Palestine: A Wound in the Heart

• Chapter 14: Arab Americans: Bridging the Divide

• Part IV: Getting It Right

• Chapter 15: What Government Can Do

• Chapter 16: What We Can Do

Browse Here

Dr. James Zogby- Arab Voices: What They Are Saying, Why It Matters

At the Euphrates Summit 2011 at Principia College, Founder and President of the Arab-American Institute Dr. James Zogby discusses the importance of understanding what Arabs are saying and thinking in a post-911 era, using polling data from Zogby International.

Arab Voices

Uploaded on Mar 4, 2011
The New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force invites you to join a very timely conversation with Dr. James Zogby, building on themes explored in his new book, Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why it Matters.

The book brings into stark relief the myths, assumptions, and biases that hold us back from understanding the people of the Arab and Muslim worlds. It debuts a brand new, comprehensive poll, bringing numbers to life that allow us to base policy and perception on the real world, rather than on a conjured reality. Coming at an especially momentous time of change in the region, the discussion with Dr. Zogby will also speak to the recent overthrow of American-supported regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, the continuing unrest and clamoring for change in countries including Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen, and how U.S. public diplomacy must react to the ever-shifting realities of a changing regional equilibrium.

Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader’s Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis by John J. Berger Ph.D (Author)

In an easily accessible work of enormous scope and depth, John J. Berger vividly evokes the looming hazards of a warmer world. Based on the latest climate science, Climate Peril reveals that the impacts of climate change on our health, economy, and environment are far worse—and more imminent—than many realize. The book identifies the obstacles to climate protection and shows why steep and unprecedented—yet affordable—cuts in greenhouse gases are needed now to avert a global climate catastrophe.

Climate Peril portrays the radically altered world we will create in 2100 A.D. if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced and documents the rapid and unnatural climate change already taking place. The book explores all major consequences of climate change, especially its astonishing impacts on the economy, human health, other species, and the oceans. Among other awesome risks, Climate Peril describes the billions of ton of carbon lurking in ocean sea beds and thawing permafrost and the global danger of crossing an invisible threshold beyond which catastrophic climate changes become inevitable.

While its conclusions are alarming, Climate Peril is above all a realistic and authoritative book that you can use to better understand how climate change may affect you and your family.

Climate Peril is the second of a three book series. Volume 1, Climate Myths, focused on the political campaign waged against climate science. Volume 3, Climate Solutions (forthcoming), shows how to create a climate-safe world by radically transforming global energy, transportation, and land use practices.

John J. Berger is an American climate specialist and consultant who has written and edited eleven books on energy and environmental issues. Dr. Berger has consulted to the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, Fortune 500 corporations, nonprofit groups, and governmental organizations, including the U.S. Congress. He was co-founder and director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Inc. of Washington, D.C. and helped launch the environmental restoration movement in 1985 with his book Restoring the Earth: How Americans Are Working to Renew Our Damaged Environment. He also founded and directed the nonprofit Restoring the Earth, Inc., which worked to advance the cause of environmental restoration via public education and environmental policy development. Dr. Berger is a long-time supporter of alternative energy solutions to global environmental problems. For many years he has repeatedly called attention to the nation’s excessive dependence on foreign oil and the attendant economic and environmental costs, and risks. He has outlined strategies for a clean, renewable energy economy in books such as Charging Ahead: The Business of Renewable Energy and What It Means for America, Beating the Heat: How and Why We Must Combat Global Warming, and Climate Change Policy (Schneider et al., eds.). His office is located in Berkeley, California where he writes on climate, energy, and natural resources and provides scientific and technical writing as well as editorial consulting services to businesses and individuals.

Click here to look inside.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio: Climate change is not hysteria
view here

Becoming Enlightened ~ By His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Edited By: Jeffrey Hopkins

In Becoming Enlightened, His Holiness the Dalai Lama draws from traditional Buddhist meditative practices to present step-by-step contemplative exercises designed to expand the reader’s capacity for spiritual growth, along with clear milestones to mark progress. By following the spiritual practices outlined in Becoming Enlightened, readers can learn how to replace negative feelings with positive attitudes and embark on the path to achieving an exalted state within ourselves and within the larger world.
Complete with personal anecdotes and intimate accounts of the Dalai Lama’s experiences as a life-long student, meditator, political leader, Nobel Laureate, bestselling author, and revered international figure, Becoming Enlightened gives readers all the wisdom, support, guidance, and inspiration they need to become successful in their spiritual lives. This remarkable and empowering guide can be read and enjoyed by spiritual seekers of all faiths, as readers are captivated by His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s loving and direct teaching style.

Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He frequently describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk. Born in northeastern Tibet in 1935, he was as a toddler recognized as the incarnation of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and brought to Tibet’s capital, Lhasa. In 1950, Mao Zedong’s Communist forces made their first incursions into eastern Tibet, shortly after which the young Dalai Lama assumed the political leadership of his country. He passed his scholastic examinations with honors at the Great Prayer Festival in Lhasa in 1959, the same year Chinese forces occupied the city, forcing His Holiness to escape to India. There he set up the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, working to secure the welfare of the more than 100,000 Tibetan exiles and prevent the destruction of Tibetan culture. In his capacity as a spiritual and political leader, he has traveled to more than sixty-two countries on six continents and met with presidents, popes, and leading scientists to foster dialogue and create a better world. In recognition of his tireless work for the nonviolent liberation of Tibet, the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. In 2012, he relinquished political authority in his exile government and turned it over to democratically elected representatives.

His Holiness frequently states that his life is guided by three major commitments: the promotion of basic human values or secular ethics in the interest of human happiness, the fostering of interreligious harmony, and securing the welfare of the Tibetan people, focusing on the survival of their identity, culture, and religion. As a superior scholar trained in the classical texts of the Nalanda tradition of Indian Buddhism, he is able to distill the central tenets of Buddhist philosophy in clear and inspiring language, his gift for pedagogy imbued with his infectious joy. Connecting scientists with Buddhist scholars, he helps unite contemplative and modern modes of investigation, bringing ancient tools and insights to bear on the acute problems facing the contemporary world. His efforts to foster dialogue among leaders of the world’s faiths envision a future where people of different beliefs can share the planet in harmony. Wisdom Publications is proud to be the premier publisher of the Dalai Lama’s more serious and in-depth works.

Jeffrey Hopkins, Ph.D., served for a decade as the interpreter for the Dalai Lama. A Buddhist scholar and the author of more than thirty-five books and translations, he is emeritus professor of Tibetan and Buddhist studies at the University of Virginia, where he founded the largest academic program of Tibetan Buddhist studies in the West.

Click here to browse inside.

The Path to Enlightenment

The first day of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s three day teaching covering Atisha’s “Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment” and Je Tsongkhapa’s “Lines of Experience” given in New Delhi, India, on March 22-24, 2013. (www.dalailama.com)

Gandhi Before India by Ramachandra Guha (Author)

Here is the first volume of a magisterial biography of Mohandas Gandhi that gives us the most illuminating portrait we have had of the life, the work and the historical context of one of the most abidingly influential—and controversial—men in modern history.

Ramachandra Guha—hailed by Time as “Indian democracy’s preeminent chronicler”—takes us from Gandhi’s birth in 1869 through his upbringing in Gujarat, his two years as a student in London and his two decades as a lawyer and community organizer in South Africa. Guha has uncovered myriad previously untapped documents, including private papers of Gandhi’s contemporaries and co-workers; contemporary newspapers and court documents; the writings of Gandhi’s children; and secret files kept by British Empire functionaries. Using this wealth of material in an exuberant, brilliantly nuanced and detailed narrative, Guha describes the social, political and personal worlds inside of which Gandhi began the journey that would earn him the honorific Mahatma: “Great Soul.” And, more clearly than ever before, he elucidates how Gandhi’s work in South Africa—far from being a mere prelude to his accomplishments in India—was profoundly influential in his evolution as a family man, political thinker, social reformer and, ultimately, beloved leader.

In 1893, when Gandhi set sail for South Africa, he was a twenty-three-year-old lawyer who had failed to establish himself in India. In this remarkable biography, the author makes clear the fundamental ways in which Gandhi’s ideas were shaped before his return to India in 1915. It was during his years in England and South Africa, Guha shows us, that Gandhi came to understand the nature of imperialism and racism; and in South Africa that he forged the philosophy and techniques that would undermine and eventually overthrow the British Raj.

Gandhi Before India gives us equally vivid portraits of the man and the world he lived in: a world of sharp contrasts among the coastal culture of his birthplace, High Victorian London, and colonial South Africa. It explores in abundant detail Gandhi’s experiments with dissident cults such as the Tolstoyans; his friendships with radical Jews, heterodox Christians and devout Muslims; his enmities and rivalries; and his often overlooked failures as a husband and father. It tells the dramatic, profoundly moving story of how Gandhi inspired the devotion of thousands of followers in South Africa as he mobilized a cross-class and inter-religious coalition, pledged to non-violence in their battle against a brutally racist regime.

Researched with unequaled depth and breadth, and written with extraordinary grace and clarity, Gandhi Before India is, on every level, fully commensurate with its subject. It will radically alter our understanding and appreciation of twentieth-century India’s greatest man.

Ramachandra Guha is an author and columnist based in Bangalore. Born in Dehradun in 1958, he studied at St.Stephen’s College, the Delhi School of Economics, and the Indian Institute of Management at Kolkata, where he wrote a doctoral thesis on the history and prehistory of the Chipko movement. Now a full-time writer, he has previously taught at the universities of Yale and Stanford, held the Arné Naess Chair at the University of Oslo, and been the Sundaraja Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Science. In 2011-2 he will occupy the prestigious Phillipe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics.

Click here to browse inside.

Ramachandra Guha: Gandhi Before India

Published on Apr 30, 2014
Harvard Book Store welcomed award-winning author Ramachandra Guha and President of the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, Pratap Bhanu Mehta for a discussion of Guha’s new book Gandhi Before India.

Here is a revelatory work of biography that takes us from Mohandas Gandhi’s birth in 1869 through his upbringing in Gujarat, his two years as a student in London, and his two decades as a lawyer and community organizer in South Africa. Ramachandra Guha has uncovered a myriad of previously untapped documents, including private papers of Gandhi’s contemporaries and co-workers, contemporary newspapers and court documents, the writings of Gandhi’s children, secret files kept by British Empire functionaries. Using this wealth of material in a brilliantly nuanced narrative, Guha describes the social, political, and personal worlds in which Gandhi began his journey to become the modern era’s most important and influential political actor. And Guha makes clear that Gandhi’s work in South Africa-far from being a mere prelude to his accomplishments in India-was profoundly influential on his evolution as a political thinker, social reformer, and beloved leader.

7 Things That May Surprise You About Muhammad ~ Lesley Hazleton

Everyone knows his name. He was, and still is, one of the most influential figures of all time, yet most of us have little real sense of the man himself. A favorite question of those asking about my new book, “The First Muslim,” is thus what surprised me most in my research. Or rather, what might surprise them. Here’s a shortlist:

1. He was born an orphan.

His father died without knowing he had a son, and Muhammad was farmed out to Beduin foster parents for the first five years of his life, returning to his mother in Mecca for only a year until she also died. The 6-year-old was left on the margins — an outsider within his own society. He was put to work as a camel boy on the trade caravans to Damascus, and though he eventually made his way up to become a business agent, could never take his place in the world for granted.

2. He married up — and for love.

The widowed Khadija was 40, he was 25, and since she was his employer, it was she who proposed to him. Some scholars have assumed that the “wealthy widow” syndrome was at work here, but early accounts indicate a marriage of mutual love and respect — a monogamous one that lasted 24 years until her death. He’d mourn her until his own death 13 years later.

His nine late-life marriages were mainly means of diplomatic alliance and of securing his base, as was customary for any leader of the time. It’s striking that though he’d had five children with Khadija (four daughters, and a son who died in infancy), he’d have none with any of the later wives.

3. His first reaction to becoming a prophet? Doubt and despair.

He was terrified by the first Quranic revelation, which happened on a mountain just outside Mecca in the year 610, when he was 40. In his own reported words, the pain was so intense that he thought he was dying. Convinced that he was either delusional or possessed, since it seemed impossible that someone like him could be a prophet, his first impulse when he found himself still alive was to try to finish the job himself and leap off the mountain to his death.

4. He led an early form of Occupy Wall Street.

His message constituted a radical protest against the corruption and arrogance of the Meccan elite. As both a pilgrimage and trading hub, the city had combined piety and profit to become a kind of seventh-century bull market. Muhammad’s ongoing revelations demanded social and economic justice, and this provoked intense opposition from the city’s rulers (as did his outrage at the preference for sons over daughters and the ensuing practice of female infanticide). The intent was reform, but those in power saw it as a subversive call for revolution.

5. He was a pacifist — at first.

For 12 years, he took a proto-Gandhian stance of passive resistance to organized harassment of him and his small group of followers in Mecca — “these nobodies” as his opponents called them. The Quranic revelations constantly urged him to “reply to foolish mockery with words of peace,” to “pay no attention,” and to “turn your face away” — words one sometimes wishes more of his followers heeded today. When the assaults became physical as well as verbal, he refused to fight back or to allow his followers to do so. In the year 622, the attacks culminated in a concerted attempt on his life, forcing him into exile in Medina, 200 miles to the north.

His eventual decision to take up arms in exile was highly ambivalent – the result of political pressure as he assumed political as well as spiritual leadership. In fact the first of the three battles he’d lead against Mecca began as much by miscalculation as by intent. Yet even after his home city accepted his leadership in a negotiated surrender and welcomed him back — the outsider transformed within eight years into the ultimate insider — he’d never return to live there, but would stay in Medina.

6. He knew how to say he was wrong.

He acknowledged his own fallibility, most notably in the now infamous case of “the Satanic verses,” when he tried to mend the rift between himself and his opponents by acknowledging their totem gods as intercessors with the one supreme god. When he realized that he’d been tempted into betraying his principles and that there could be “no partners with God,” he had the courage and integrity to publicly declare his mistake.

7. His tragic failure came at the end.

He died without designating a successor. In the absence of a son, many thought it crucial that he make his wishes unequivocally clear, but though his final illness lasted 10 days (the duration and symptoms seem to indicate bacterial meningitis), he never did so. Ironically, the prophet of unity — one god, one people — thus paved the way for the divisiveness between Sunni and Shiite that persists today.

After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam by Lesley Hazleton (Author)

In this gripping narrative history, Lesley Hazleton tells the tragic story at the heart of the ongoing rivalry between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, a rift that dominates the news now more than ever.

Even as Muhammad lay dying, the battle over who would take control of the new Islamic nation had begun, beginning a succession crisis marked by power grabs, assassination, political intrigue, and passionate faith. Soon Islam was embroiled in civil war, pitting its founder’s controversial wife Aisha against his son-in-law Ali, and shattering Muhammad’s ideal of unity.

Combining meticulous research with compelling storytelling, After the Prophet explores the volatile intersection of religion and politics, psychology and culture, and history and current events. It is an indispensable guide to the depth and power of the Shia–Sunni split.

British-born Lesley Hazleton is a psychologist and veteran journalist whose work has focused on the way religion and politics, past and present, are inextricably intertwined in the Middle East. The author of several books on Middle East politics, religion, and history, she has also written for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The Nation, The New Republic, and many other publications. She now lives in Seattle, WA.

Her most recent books before After the Prophet were the award-winning Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother and Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible’s Harlot Queen

Browse here

Click here for the complete interview

Lesley Hazleton: “Prophet Muhammad [s]: Where did Humanity Go Wrong?”

World renowned speaker Lesley Hazleton speaking at the Young Muslim Association’s annual Birth of the Holy Prophet [s] Celebration. She covers a range of topics focusing around Islam and Muslims in this age, including history and beliefs, media perceptions, to radicalization, and even insight into human nature. A must see!