Bad Short Term Memory

Today I read a story about a young man who has lived almost all his life in a refugee camp. He came there at the age of two, and is still living there at the age of 22.

This refugee camp is found in Kenya, close to the Somalian border. It's the largest of it's kind in the whole world, with about 440 000 refugees, (about 80 percent of those are women and children). Every day more and more people arrive, but the camp has reached it's capacity.

The man who has been living in this camp for 20 years has no homeland. He dreams about moving to either Sweden or the USA. If I was to give my advice, I would recommend the US. Why?, you ask, because at the moment Sweden is struggling with internal problems regarding immigration. I like to call this problem The Swedish Democrats. If I never made this statement before I will make it now. The fact that they got in to the Swedish Government during the last elections makes me ashamed of Sweden. A lot of people point out that this is an ongoing trend in all of Europe, racist parties getting a lot of votes. Okay, so what? It is still unexceptionable. This 'trend' brings one thing to my mind. The time before and after WW II. The world agreed; Never Again'!

Horrifying images from Concentration Camps made us promise ourselves that this cannot happen again. Together we now had a collective memory of perhaps the most darkest and cruelest act by humans. Human beings are certainly not perfect, neither are their memory.

Pictures from my Internship at the UN - New York City

UN

UN party.

High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS

Interns and Crew

Open- Ended Working Group meeting

"This is a man's world But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl"

Hello!

I was just surfing around the web today and thought I wanted to check up on Afghanistan, and the progress of the rights of women. In 2001 Bush and his administration mentioned human rights and the liberation of women as an excuse to invade the country. So let's see how that's been going.

According to a article by RAWA, released March this year, violence against Afghan women hit records. Abuses like forced marriage, and traditions are still all a huge challenge for country. Even if women choose to report abuses it rarely goes anywhere, and what's even worse is that women run the risk of being punished if they report rape.

Please see some of the stories here:

http://www.rawa.org/self_immolation/violence2.htm

Why has not anything improved since the invasion? Reports show us it is even getting worse than it was before 2001. These numbers are alarming and they indicate that women's rights are not prioritized on the agenda. How can this have happened? Stop by again next week and I will tell you why and how this is!

I hate to say I told you so.

It's now proven that the US has abandoned their most basic democratic believes.

http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/

Running more than one blog

Hello!

As I previously said I did get an internship at Global Action on Aging. I will still run this blog, but you can also read the work I do for them here:

http://globalaging.blogspot.com/

Stay safe on this April fools day!

Sanna

Good News Everyone!

Hi!

I have some pretty marvelous news to share with you. Two weeks ago I went on an interview for an internship at the GAA - Global Action on Aging, and this week I found out I got the spot. I will be writing for them and be update their their blog.

To describe it short the GAA works towards strengthening older people's rights, towards a UN convention.

Check out the organization here:

http://www.globalaging.org/

Bye.

Closing Time

Hello

What ever happened to the promise by Obama, about closing Guantanamo? Guess what, I looked it up and it is still open. The word on the street is that Obama still really want it closed but Congress doesn't.

As one of his first acts as president Obama signed an executing order to close the military prison for terrorist suspects within a year. More than two years has passed. There are about 172 detainees remaining at the camp.

Art by Banksy

A little information about Guantanamo for those who has been living under a rock the last couple of years. The prison was opened and established by the Bush Administration in 2002. It's a place where they would take boys and men that could be terrorists during the Afghanistan and Iraq war. (They have stopped bringing detainees there). A place like Guantanamo is illegal, but because it is run by the USA it has become this issue who's stuck in a vacuum. It has not helped much that the rest of the world have been demanding that this camp has to close, there is not much the rest of us can do, an economic sanction towards the US would not do much. Another big problem is that the prisoners have not been given the combatant status, which normally would grantee some human rights, (according to the laws of war). This has left them with no rights what so ever. There has been many reports of human rights abuses happening at Guantanamo such as ongoing torture, sexual degradation, forced drugging and religious persecution being committed by US forces.

The sad part of all of this is that when Guantanamo finally is closed, there will be a new prison, and I am pretty sure there are more prisons like this, Guantanamo just happens to be the one we know of.

Also read my old post about Guantanamo:

http://fragmentationnation.blogspot.com/2009/04/camp-x-ray.html