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PAP stands for politics, art and philosophy. Art and philosophy are discussed to the extent that they are political. Politics, in turn, is limited to issues of human rights and democracy, which is wide enough to encompass most if not all important politic
Recent Posts Tagged With 'poverty'
Human Rights Facts (54): The Indian Caste System
(source) In India, a caste is a hereditary group in a traditionally and rigidly stratified society. People belong to a caste because they are born into one, because their parents belong to one. Mobili...
Human Rights Facts (53): Good Governance
(source) Bad governance is a cause of underdevelopment, poverty, war and human rights violations. Major donors and international financial institutions are increasingly basing their aid and loans on t...
Human Rights Cartoon (97): Corruption
(source) Forms of corruption Corruption can take on many forms: From limited competition when awarding government contracts to the setting up of wasteful mega-projects designed specifically for the c...
Human Rights Cartoon (96): Modern Slavery
(copyright Monte Wolverton) Slavery was officially abolished worldwide at the 1927 Slavery Convention. Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “No one shall be held in sla...
Human Rights Facts (50): Poverty and Economic Growth
(source) Economic growth is the increase in value of the goods and services produced by an economy or a country. It is the percent rate of increase from one year to the next in gross domestic product ...
Human Rights Cartoon (94): Types of Equality
(copyright by Bill Mauldin) Here’s a short overview of different types of equality (I’ll come back to this in future posts): 1. Equality before the law This concept is linked to the con...
Human Rights Facts (45): Health
This post focuses on health and health care. I already wrote posts on the specific subjects of infant mortality, maternal mortality and life expectancy and will not come back to these in the current ...
Human Rights Cartoon (93): Crimes Against Humanity
This is from the infamous Nazi newspaper of Julius Streicher, Der Sturmer, from 1934. The cartoon praises the Nazi Ministry of Culture for removing Jewish teachers from German classrooms. Streicher w...
Human Rights Facts (42): Discrimination
I’ve written before on discrimination, especially gender discrimination (also here) and discrimination based on sexual orientation. This post tackles the subject more generally. Discrimination, ...
Human Rights Cartoon (92): Public Opposition to Migration
(copyright http://www.claybennett.com/) The public in most developed countries (or rich countries) is often opposed to immigration: (source: http://pewresearch.org/) There are two main reasons for th...
Human Rights Facts (40): Asylum
This post on asylum is a follow-up on a previous post on refugees, which was in itself a follow-up on a post about the broader topic of migration. Asylum is a form of protection that allows individual...
Human Rights Quote (67): Economic freedom
“Open markets offer the only realistic hope of pulling billions of people in developing countries out of abject poverty, while sustaining prosperity in the industrialized world.” Kofi Anna...
Human Rights Quote (66): Poverty
“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.” Woody Allen...
Human Rights Quote (65): Interdependence of human rights
“Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.” Lyndon B. Johnson “Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in m...
Human Rights Facts (38): Millennium Development Goals
I’ve mentioned the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) before. This post gives some more data. The United Nations agreed the 8 MDGs in 2000, to be reached in 2015. Now, half-way to that deadline...
Human Rights Quote (57): Poverty and Shame
“The poor man’s conscience is clear; yet, he is ashamed . . . He feels himself out of the sight of others, groping in the dark. Mankind takes no notice of him. He rambles and wanders unhee...
Human Rights Facts (29): International private charity
Economic rights, such as the right to be free from poverty, should not be viewed as primarily the business of states, otherwise we will lose the benefits of solidarity which results from spontaneous m...
Human Rights Poem (36): Statue of Liberty
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden...
Human Rights Facts (27): Migration
1. Numbers of migrants and trends The Center for Global Development (CGD) (http://www.cgdev.org) estimates that around 200 million people - one in 33 - do not live in the country where they were born....
Human Rights Quote (51): Contempt
Qu’ils mangent de la brioche (Let them eat cake)! Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France, when told that the poor had no bread....
Marx and Human Rights
According to Marx, human rights are the “rights of the egoistic man, separated from his fellow men and from the community”. They are the rights of man as an isolated, inward looking, self-...
Human Rights Facts (17): Conditional Development Aid
In the previous post, I cited some numbers on development aid. Many donors have started to attach conditions to the aid they give (much like the conditions that are often attached to loans, see this p...
Human Rights Facts (16): Development Aid
International development aid is a necessary tool for the protection of the human rights of people in developing countries. Especially their so-called economic rights such as the right to food and she...
Human Rights Cartoon (82)
A few cartoons about overpopulation. I’ll try to show in this post how this is related to human rights. (copyright http://www.claybennett.com/) (copyright http://www.offthemark.com/) (copyrig...
Human Rights Facts (7)
On any given night in the U.S., anywhere from 700,000 to 2 million people are homeless, according to estimates of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. That’s approx. 0.7 % of the...
Poverty, continued
4. Poverty, solutions In this post - the continuation of this one - I’ll list some of the actions governments and the international community can take to reduce poverty. (I won’t analyz...
Poverty
1. Types of poverty Poverty has many dimensions, monetary and non-monetary, absolute and relative, material and psychological. One can distinguish between three types of poverty: Poverty “type A...
Human Rights Quote (41)
When I was running about this town a very poor fellow, I was a great arguer for the advantages of poverty; but I was, at the same time, very sorry to be poor. Sir, all the arguments which are brought ...
Human Rights Facts (5)
In 2001, 1,1 billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day. The proportion of the developing world’s population living in extreme economic pove...
Human Rights Cartoon (66)
The choice is not one between hunger and oppression or between starving liberals and well-fed slaves. On the contrary, hunger and oppression often go together. The real choice is one between hunger an...