Sunday Roundup - March 16, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at Pope Francis, Ukraine, six ways America lags the rest of the developed world, Syria, Venzuelan food shortages, and the new Jimi Hendrix stamp. 


Quote of the Day

"I wonder...how...foreign policies...would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never...wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children."

- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the Untied States

Pope Francis' First Anniversary
"A group of young people from around the world have launched a campaign called Grazie Francesco – Thank You Francis – to send the Pope messages marking the first year of his pontificate March 13...Thousands of messages from around the world in eight different languages can be read on the campaign's website, which was created by the Argentinian group Lindo Lio...Lindo Lio said its name comes from the Holy Father's call to young people at World Youth Day Rio 2013 to “stir things up in your dioceses. I want to the Church to go out onto the streets!” [Catholic News Agency, March 11]


Ukraine
The Guardian reported Friday that "11th-hour talks in London between the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, broke up without resolving the standoff."  Russia has refused to postpone the Crimean referendum Sunday.  Should the referendum to rejoin Russia pass (and it looks like it will), Western nations will impose sanctions on Russia starting Monday.  Kerry challenged Lavrov over "sudden Russian troop movements along the Ukrainian border over the past few days....Lavrov, at a press conference at the talks, insisted the referendum would go ahead as planned. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, 'will respect the will of the Crimean people', Lavrov said. Lavrov expressed concern over violence in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine overnight on Thursday. Casualties mounted from clashes between pro- and anti-Russian protesters there" with one reported death and 26 to 28 injured.

"Six Ways America Is Like A Third World Country"
Rolling Stone magazine's March 5 post by Shawn McElwee notes that although "the U.S. is one of the richest societies in history, it still lags behind other developed nations in many important indicators of human development."  McElwee discusses  "six of the most egregious examples that show how far we still have to go" to catch up with the rest of the developed world:
Criminal justice - "The only country that incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than we do is North Korea. The U.S. is also the only developed country that executes prisoners...[and] 42 percent of those on death row are black, compared to less than 15 percent of the overall population."
Gun violence -"The U.S. leads the developed world in firearm-related murders, and the difference isn't a slight gap – more like a chasm. According to United Nations data, the U.S. has 20 times more murders than the developed world average."
Healthcare - "A study last year found that in many American counties, especially in the deep South, life expectancy is lower than in Algeria, Nicaragua or Bangladesh. The U.S. is the only developed country that does not guarantee health care to its citizens"
Education - "America has one of the highest achievement gaps between high income and low income students, as measured by the OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development]....Students in the average OECD country can expect about 70 percent of their college tuition to be publicly funded..."; in the United States, it's about 40 percent,
Income inequality - "By almost every measure, the U.S. tops out OECD countries in terms of income inequality, largely because America has the stingiest welfare state of any developed country....[In] many parts of the United States...children born in the poorest quintile have a less than 3 percent chance of reaching the top quintile"
Infrastructure - "The United States infrastructure is slowly crumbling apart and is in desperate need for repair. One study estimates that our infrastructure system needs a $3.6 trillion investment over the next six years."

Syria

Location Map of Syria is from www.mapsnworld.com

With no end in sight to the violence and no prospects on the horizon for negotiations, the bad news just keeps coming for the Syrian people. Al Jazeera reported on March 10 on a new report by the charity Save the Children.  "Syria's civil conflict has left the country's health system so severely crippled that some patients are 'opting to be knocked out with metal bars for lack of anaesthesia,' a new report by the Save the Children charity says.  The report, A Devastating Toll, looks at the impact of three years of war on the health of the country's children.  'We received a little girl with critical injuries; we could do nothing but wait for her to die because we didn't have the equipment or the medicines. Till now I can't remove her face from my mind,' said one health worker...The charity said more than 10,000 young lives had been lost as a direct result of the violence....'The extent of the decline in Syria’s health system is demonstrated in many horrific ways, including children having limbs amputated because the clinics they present to don't have necessary equipment to treat them,'the report said."

As I see it, the only way out of this devastating civil war is for an arms embargo on all sides in the conflict and an immediate and unconditional cease fire.  Once the fighting is stopped, humanitarian aid can flow freely to the people of Syria.  Then a power-sharing agreement between the government and the rebel forces should be secured.  As one of Syria's allies, Iran must be given a role in bringing the Assad government to the negotiating table. 

In Brief Links
Link to the Grazie Francesco website

Are hoarding and bootlegging causing Venezuela's food shortages?

Jimi Hendrix is now on a US postage stamp