It’s the news with Kandy Korrespondent!

Yesterday saw a climactic end to the democratic presidential race. Superdelegates rushed to throw their support behind Obama which in addition to his victory in Montana placed him solidly past the requisite delegate count with 2,152. He claimed the nomination in his victory speech to supporters in Minnesota.

Although Clinton failed to concede the nomination, a growing number of moves by her campaign seem to indicate that she is preparing to withdraw from the contest. Most notably, on Tuesday she reportedly told supporters that she would be open to being Obama’s running mate.

In Other News:

Senator Kennedy is recovering well following brain surgery on Monday to remove a malignant brain tumor. He is expected to begin chemotherapy and radiation treatment in the near future. His cancer diagnosis has rekindled talk of the so-called “Kennedy Curse”. Read More »

In several previous posts I discussed the intense controversy surrounding the upcoming Beijing Olympics. In recent weeks the traditional international journey of the Olympic Torch has served as a flash point for clashes between supporters and protesters.

Ironically, this torch relay was supposed to be the largest in Olympic history—a showcase of international cooperation and sport. Instead, it has become a testament to international outrage over China’s human rights abuses, especially over Tibet.

March 31: A huge carefully scripted ceremony at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square sent the torch off across the globe

April 3: In Istanbul, Turkey, the Uighur expat community staged demonstrations against Chinese persecution of their “brother” expats in Xinjiang. In February 2007, for example, an Uigur activist named Ismail Semed, was executed on the shaky grounds of attempting to “split the motherland” and possessing explosives.

April 6: Massive clashes occurred between Free Tibet protesters and police during the London relay. Thirty-seven protesters were arrested including a man who tried to snatch the torch away from one of the runners. Another tried to put out the torch with a fire extinguisher. Read More »

The much-touted Beijing Olympics more and more seem like an awful nightmare amidst the continuing Human rights fallout. This is the first of three articles examining China’s Human Rights Record.

Visit Beijing—What do you see?
Skyscrapers
Fashion (America’s Next Top Model filmed their last season there)
Entrepreneurs
Money, Money, MONEY!!!

Stand in the middle of the city and you could be in New York, Tokyo, Berlin, or Sydney.

This is not your parent’s China…or is it?

Your parent’s China was ruled by the infamous Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Communist People’s Party. As you probably remember from your Cold War history, Mao’s China, like Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia, flagrantly violated human rights.

Chairman Mao’s death in 1976 ushered in a slow yet steady drive towards economic reform that many hoped would correspond to political reform as well.

Events on June 4, 1989 shattered such hopes. Read More »

So picture this:

You, being the sort of unconvential individualist that you are, discover that you’re the wrong gender. And in the process of changing your gender, you find yourself reconsidering your outlook on life, mostly in the form of your religion. So you change your gender and you change your religion and you get married and start a life. It might take a while for your parents to come to terms with it, but eventually they’ll accept you for you. Right?

Not so for Issa Fazli, a Muslim woman turned Christian man.

Issa, whose name means “Jesus” in Arabic, found happiness with a woman in New York, but each set of their influential Muslim Pakistani parents had a major problem with it. So you’d think the couple would have been suspicious when their parents offered to throw them a party back in Pakistan.

But they weren’t. And then their lives started to suck. Read More »

The first few minutes of Oxfam International (a “confederation of 13 organizations working together with over 3,000 partners in more than 100 countries to find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice“)’s new exhibit seem normal enough: multimedia presentations detailing refugee experiences, timelines of various conflicts, and lots of photos. Suddenly, however, things drastically change—the model house you are standing in seems to be under attack!

While some group members hide, you and a few others escape into what appears to be a jungle of sorts. Still in disbelief at this turn of events, you stumble on into what looks like a desert… full of land mines. You successfully avoid the explosions and make it to a border crossing. The guards hassle your group ruthlessly, you get pulled aside for questioning, but, finally, after what seems like an eternity, they allow you into the country.

Just beyond the border is a refugee camp where you are told you will be able to stay temporarily. At the entrance you register and formally ask the government for asylum… unreality hits—you are a refugee, no home, no nationality, and most likely not even a complete family.

Freaky right? To be honest I’m not sure I would be able to deal with it. But according to the project’s director Stephanie Cousins, that is the desired effect; Read More »