One of the frustrating things when working in child maternal health in poor countries is trying to integrate medical aims into the cultural background of the people, without destroying it.
This NYTimes story, about trying to get the Mullahs in Afghanistan to approve of their people using birth control, is a good example of how to […]

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I was startled to find this important editorial in the NYTimes:

A Final Verdict on the Presidential Salute

After a couple of paragraphs explaining the writer’s expertise in saluting, and another couple of paragraphs on the history of presidential salutes, we come to the conclusion:
(President Obama’s) salute, it struck me, was impeccable in every way.
Huh?
It’s true that […]

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It is as if the entire Washington press corps has forgotten everything any of them knew in 2001 and early 2002 and have no perspective on what is going on in Afghanistan now.
In late September of 2002 newspapers were flooded with glorious tales about the Northern Alliance – and the NA deserved every bit of […]

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The founder of Human Rights Watch, Robert Bernstein, has watched as his organization has lost its focus and come unmoored (to mix metaphors), and has written a piece in the NY Times about what he sees as the principal reason.
AS the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding […]

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President Obama was brought up in Asia, yet he seems clueless about Afghanistan, and of the geopolitical problems in this area.
The press is even worse, preferring the simplistic out of date explanations of the “Afghanistan is Viet Nam” meme, or the “Stop the war” meme, or stressing civilian casualties “reported” by Taliban linked sources without […]

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Marketed as “the first collection of modern Afghan music ever to be released internationally” by director Havana Marking, this collection of music from the new critically acclaimed documentary Afghan Star is an impressive international dance album at worst and a groundbreaking collection of music at best. The documentary, released this past summer, follows a number […]

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From Eliot Cohen:
Unless you are a connoisseur of small pictures of bearded, brooding fanatical clerics there is not much reason to collect Iranian currency. But I kept one bill on my desk at the State Department because of its watermark—an atom superimposed on the part of that country that harbors the Natanz nuclear site. Only […]

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So President Obama is scrapping the Bush “Missile Defense program” that was planned to protect Europe from Iran.
Yes, I know. There is some question if the missile defense was any good against the actual threat, and all it seemed to do is irritate Russia. And it’s not like the program would merely be scrapped: there […]

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A lot of nonsense being written in the news about Conservative writer George Will deciding to throw in the towel in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is a mess. Big deal. It’s been a mess for a couple thousand years, and trying to “win” a war there and put in a crumpets and tea democracy is a bit delusional.
But […]

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Here’s a story lead from Politico: Washingtonians get ‘wee-weed up’?No one can figure out what President Obama was talking about when, during remarks at a national health care forum, he said:
“There’s something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up. I don’t know what it is. But that’s what […]

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An article on the left-leaning website Truthout announced yesterday that a “new direction in the war on terror” may result from a case that occurred in the last year of the Bush Administration. Bryant Neal Vinas, an American-born suspected terrorist who was captured in Pakistan, was given “all the rights of  American criminal suspects.” The results? […]

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Today’s Manila Bulletin has it’s usual supplement from the New York Times, and the headline blares:
A Nuclear Free Vision.
In the Depths of the cold war, in 1983, a senior at Colombia University wrote…about the vision of a “nuclear free world”.
It seems that President Obama was promoting nuclear disarmament in the 1980’s.
That in itself is strange […]

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White House Photos, Lawrence Jackson. The President discusses Iran during his opening remarks at the Press Conference at the White House, June 23, 2009.

FreeMediaOnline.org,  Free Media Online Blog,  GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, June 26, 2009, San Francisco – Ronald Reagan’s strong response to the imposition of martial law  against the independent Solidarity trade union in Poland in 1981 was distinctly different […]

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“It’s up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be . . . having said that, I am deeply troubled by the violence that I’ve been seeing on television.”
President Barack Obama
In the wake of the Iranian election, hundreds of thousands of supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi are taking their very lives in […]

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There is a lot of headlines being written on Iraq.
But there are a few facts “below the fold” that you might want to keep in mind if you are watching CNN correspondents who seem clueless to what is going on. (Here in the Philippines, we only have CNN and the BBC for our news).
Last night […]

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The New York Times reports on demonstrations and clashes in the streets of Tehran at the apparently stolen election. Political opponents, including opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi, have been arrested, and the Iranian government has attempted to cut off all communication with the outside world.
There were reports of demonstrations in other major Iranian cities as […]

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Here in the Philippines, there are always demonstrations, usually by the leftists, but if things get bad enough, the opposition always reminds the government about the “People Power” revolution that overthrew Marcos.
At that time, thugs associated with Marcos assassinated exiled politician Ninoy Acquino who had just returned to Manila to run against Marcos in the […]

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 FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog Commentary by Ted Lipien, June 04, 2009, San Francisco – President Obama’s recent announcement of a new Global Engagement Directorate that will combine ”diplomacy, communications, international development and assistance” was short on specifics how this new structure might change the focus of U.S. public diplomacy and broadcasting initiatives. That’s hardly surprising, considering that the White House has to deal with […]

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I am happy that President Obama is trying to mend fences with Arabs and Iranians in the Middle East by giving a speech in Cairo.
And many Americans agree, although many think he is being naive, or is sending a message to the radicals in the area that he is willing to “throw Israel under […]

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President Barack Obama today announced his choice of Jesus Christ, of Nazareth, as his first selection for the Supreme Court. Citing Christ’s judicial wisdom, impeccable knowledge of the law, and “empathy,” Obama proudly presented his nominee in the East Room of the White House.
Rush Limbaugh wasted no time in seizing his microphone to condemn Obama’s […]

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My grandkids are into Facebook, and most people in the US know how the anti war opposition used Facebook and other internet social sites to help catapult Senator Obama to win the US elections last year.
But using Facebook groups for political purposes is not limited to the US.
Here in the Philippines, we have a big […]

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The reports now coming out of foreign press sources are eerily similar to John McCain’s accounts of his P.O.W. treatment at the Hanoi Hilton. The Telegraph, a British media outlet, last week released photos  of Guantanamo abuses that President Obama had just announced would be kept confidential. And the government of Spain revealed that despite the president’s […]

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King Abdulla says that we don’t need a two state solution to the problem of Israel, we need a 57 state solution.
57 states?
The king is referring to 57 “states” that have Muslim majorities.
All of this sounds fine, but I have a few questions.
Why should a country like Indonesia give a damn about Palestinians? They have […]

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Some Anthropology associations have been worried about the US Army recruiting trained anthropologists to help in the war on terror.
Part of this is because they remembered how anthropologist helped the US during the war in Southeast Asia, and they viewed the war around Viet Nam wrong (huh…fellahs, ever hear of the boat people? the Cambodian […]

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There has been a small story that has gotten a lot of criticism in the news lately, about a nine year old girl in Saudi Arabia whose father “married” her to his friend.
The news stories are unclear if he did this to get money, or if he just wanted to make sure the girl had […]

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Ever since the Obama administration released memos describing the types of enhanced interrogation techniques used by the C.I.A. to extract information from top-level al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other terrorists, there has been a running debate on a myriad of questions, including:
† Whether the memos should have been released;
† Whether all or just some of […]

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* OBAMA’S FIRST INTERNATIONAL CRISIS LOOMING?
* TALIBAN’S INFILTRATION OF PAKISTANI INTELLIGENCE & MILITARY BAD OMEN
* WILL A TALIBAN TAKEOVER Of PAKISTAN FULFILL JOE BIDEN’S ELECTION PREDICTION?

“Pakistan is the world’s only Muslim country which has a nuclear bomb, an Islamic nuclear bomb.”
On October 20, 2008, Joe Biden, as Barack Obama’s running mate, may have given a […]

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The Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said today that Tehran will ‘welcome favorably’ a start of  dialogue from the USA if it will happen “in mutual respect and justice”.  But he added that the Islamic Republic is still waiting for a “real change” by the new U.S. administration of Barack Obama.
“The new US administration has […]

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President Obama, in Turkey, speaking on the subject of the Armenian genocide stated, “Well, my views are on the record and I have not changed views.” Obama was mindful not to use the “G” word.
Seems the tracks are laid out, not doubtful of collaborated, calculated interests, once again throwing integrity, U.S. moral standing, and human-rights […]

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that the $5 billion in aid poured into Afghanistan by the U.S. Agency for International Development since 2006 has been wasted, and that it is  “heartbreaking.”
But it’s not just our treasure that has been wasted in Afghanistan, but also the blood of our sons and daughters who fought and […]

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