Dilip Simeon's blog

Russia's war on Ukraine has seen it launch scores of rockets and drop countless bombs on cities, forcing pregnant woman to seek shelter and give birth in hospital basements. While unsuited for such purposes, such places are much safer than delivery rooms that could be hit by Russian fire. Many Ukrainian hospitals have been damaged or destroyed since Russia launched its assault on the country. One Russian attack on March 2 laid waste to Zhytomyr maternity ward. Not long after that, hospitals in Mariupol and Vasylivka were also attacked and destroyed. Three locals were killed in that last attack. "Neither medical personnel nor patients were harmed; in fact, a baby was born during the attack," according to Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Lyashko. He added that "life goes on, the screams of newborn Ukrainians will defeat the heavy aerial bombings of the terrorists."… https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-women-giving-birth-in-basements-and-bunkers/a-61070760 Why we need a ...

Anyone who thinks that the anti-hijab campaign is about discipline and dress code needs to have his or her head examined. And anyone who thinks it's about the emancipation of Muslim women needs to have a frontal lobotomy without any further loss of time. For it's clear as crystal that this is just the latest provocation in the right wing tool-kit for the de-identification of the Muslim community- to deprive them of their visible symbols, rituals and practices that define their identity. The attack on the hijab, remember, has been preceded by the various jihads ( love, covid, spitting), and contrived agitations against public Namaz, abattoirs and beef, non-vegetarian food stalls, alleged conversions, birth rates, immigration of "termites" and of course the eternal mandir-masjid binary. As usual, our Prime Minister has not spoken on the subject. Is it because he realises the pathetic ironies implicit in this latest demonstration of double-speak? That to deprive young ...

The photographer Jim Huylebroek travelled across the country with the international children’s agency Save the Children, from the drought-ravaged plains of the north to the freezing streets of Kabul, capturing the stories of children whose lives have been devastated by the humanitarian crisis, for the series titled: children on the edge of life. The images tell the stories of their fight for survival. Families making impossible decisions about which child they can afford to feed, and which will go hungry; mothers giving birth alone on dirt floors because they cannot afford to travel to hospital; children forced to work on the streets to put food on the table. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/feb/22/children-on-the-edge-of-life-in-afghanistan

NB: This is a beautifully written account of a terrible human tragedy. Thank you Roy. You did your best for peace and friendship. And you are keeping alive the memory of Aseel, your dead Palestinian friend. You do what is right because it is right. We can only hope that one day the Phoenix of love will overcome the tidal waves of hatred and suspicion. Thank you.  DS At a summer camp for kids from conflict zones, I met my brave, funny friend Aseel. He was Palestinian. I was Israeli. When he was killed by police, my hope for our future died with him     In 11 May 2021, I was sitting with a small group in a cafe in southern Tel Aviv, studying Arabic. Our teacher, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, had been telling us that he and his pregnant Jewish wife kept getting turned down by landlords who would not rent their property to a “mixed” couple. We were almost at the end of the three-hour class when air raid sirens sounded. A few days earlier, missiles had been launc...

The trial of Ghislaine Maxwell which began this week in Manhattan will not hold to account the powerful and wealthy men who are also complicit in the sexual assaults of girls as young as twelve Maxwell allegedly procured for billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, hedge-fund billionaire Glenn Dubin, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former Secretary of the Treasury and former president of Harvard Larry Summers, Stephen Pinker, Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, billionaire Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner, the J.P Morgan banker Jes Staley, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barack, real estate mogul Mort Zuckerman, former Maine senator George Mitchell, Harvey Weinstein and many others who were at least present and most likely participated in Epstein’s perpetual Bacchanalia, are not in court. The law firms and high-priced attorneys, federal and state prosecutors, private investigators, personal assistants, publicists, servants, drivers and numerous othe...

Central to our work at the Center for Philosophy for Children at the University of Washington is the conviction that we ought to challenge beliefs about children’s limited capacities, and to expand our understanding of the nature of philosophy and who is capable of engaging in it. As one seven-year-old put it: ‘In philosophy, we’re growing our minds.’ Most of our philosophy sessions with children are in public elementary schools; the aim is to discover what topics the children want to think about, and to foster discussions and reflection about these subjects. I don’t think of what I do as  teaching  philosophy, though. The point is not to educate children about the history of philosophy, nor to instruct them in the arguments made by professional philosophers. Children’s questioning can constitute the most primary of philosophical activities: reflecting on the meaning of ordinary experiences and concepts in order to develop an understanding of the world, others and themselv...

Until a couple of centuries ago, more than a quarter of children died before their first birthday, around half before their fifth. In “Extra Life,” Steven Johnson, a writer of popular books on science and technology, tells the stories behind what he calls, in an understatement, “one of the greatest achievements in the history of our species.”  Steven Johnson:  A Short History of Living Longer Reviewed by Steven Pinker Starting in the second half of the 19th century, the average life span began to climb rapidly, giving humans not just extra life, but  an  extra life. In rich countries, life expectancy at birth hit 40 by 1880, 50 by 1900, 60 by 1930, 70 by 1960, and 80 by 2010. The rest of the world is catching up. Global life expectancy in 2019 was 72.6 years, higher than that of any country, rich or poor, in 1950. People in the shortest-lived countries today will, on average, outlive those of your grandparents’ generation. “Life expectancy” is a statistical ab...

NB: The entire American establishment is responsible for this genocidal mania. It's all very well to recognise the Armenian genocide of 1915, Mr. President - you don't even notice the murder of children in Palestine. And you talk of 'both sides' when there's only one side Mr Biden, the Palestinians do not have a state, an army nor any rights whatsoever. What little land they have left is subject to constant encroachment. This happens every five to seven years, a periodic bloodletting to remind us who's boss. In the latest round of hostilities,  Gaza  health officials put the Palestinian death toll at 212 , including 61 children and 36 women.Ten people have been killed in Israel, including two children. There was outrage from some Democrats over  a Washington Post report  that the administration had approved the sale to Israel of $735m-worth of precision-guided bombs.  There are decent Israelis who see and speak out about what their country is doing, but not ...

Human Rights Watch  – Scenes from Sayed ul-Shuhada High School in Kabul, Afghanistan, where as many as  85 people  including many schoolgirls were killed in an attack this weekend, should break anyone’s heart. They certainly broke mine. In 2017 a filmmaker and I spent a week at the school, filming a  video  to accompany a  report  on barriers to girls’ education. The school had difficulties providing girls an education. Girls studied outdoors, in tattered tents or the open air, and the school was desperately overcrowded. Girls lacked essential facilities such as toilets and a library, and faced hardships outside school, too. Their neighborhood is very impoverished, populated predominantly by members of Afghanistan’s Hazara minority. It has increasingly been targeted for attack, including on a  local maternity hospital  in May 2020. Families were often unable to afford transportation and many girls walked 45 minutes or more to get there. Man...

The woman took Johari and lifted her frock while her mother held her down on a mattress on the floor; minutes later her clitoral hood had been cut, in accordance with the ancient tradition of khafz, or female genital cutting (FGC). "I was in a lot of pain and I remember crying inconsolably," says Johari, a journalist and an anti-FGC activist who is now 34 years old. Though her pain eventually subsided, the trauma of the incident stayed with her long after. "There are psychological scars and it is a very painful memory," she says. "I remember the fear I felt." For years, Johari did not question the pain because of how normalized the practice is within the Bohra community, but in 2015 she co-founded  Sahiyo , a nongovernmental organization that seeks to end FGC across Asia through public awareness campaigns, as well as community engagement and dialogue. The World Health Organization, which classifies these and other practices as female genital mutilation...

Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank have razed a Palestinian village, leaving 73 people – including 41 children – homeless, in the largest forced displacement incident for years, according to the  United Nations . Excavators escorted by military vehicles  were filmed  approaching Khirbet Humsa and proceeding to flatten or smash up tents, shacks, animal shelters, toilets and solar panels. “These are some of the most vulnerable communities in the West Bank,” said Yvonne Helle, the UN humanitarian coordinator   for the occupied Palestinian territory. Three-quarters of the community lost their shelters during Tuesday’s operation, she said, making it the largest forced displacement incident in more than four years. However, by the number of destroyed structures, 76, the raid was the largest demolition in the past decade, she added. On Wednesday, families from the village  were seen rifling through their wrecked belongings  in the wind, with some of the fi...

NB: If there is even a shred of conscience left in our judiciary and bureaucracy someone will take steps for the immediate release of this honest citizen, whose only crime was to do his duty as a doctor. Perhaps it is also a crime to criticise the government of the Sangh Parivar; especially if one happens to have a Muslim name? This government has reduced itself to a vindictive mafia. The concept of rule of law has been thrown to the winds, and the Indian state is rapidly being reduced to a faction. Will the Supreme Court intervene? DS Dr Kafeel Khan’s unending ordeal is a vivid illustration of how the BJP has bent India’s institutions to incarcerate anyone who dares to point out the government’s failings. In the three years since  Kafeel Khan  became famous as the doctor who ran from pillar to post hunting for oxygen cylinders when the district hospital in Gorakhpur ran out of liquid oxygen on 10 August, 2017, the  Bharatiya Janata Party  government in...

This is the portrait of a deceitful man. We have waited over two and a half years but now we can read the unflinching verdict reached by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Cardinal  George Pell . With its last findings made public, it’s clear that no senior figure in any church who gave evidence to the commission has emerged as damaged as Pell. Tolling through those hitherto secret pages is the underlying verdict of the commission: that Pell might have, but did not, take action to protect the children of the Catholic community he served as a priest in Ballarat and bishop in  Melbourne . Pell’s excuses for doing so little are dissected forensically and rejected one by one. The commissioners condemn key claims in the cardinal’s evidence as implausible, inconceivable, untenable and unacceptable. More posts on  George Pell The clamour around the royal commission has long died down. It’s two and a half years since it produ...

Amid the UK’s dire shortage of personal protective equipment ( PPE ) for health workers,  two children in Vietnamese capital  Hanoi  have apparently funded a gift of 20,000 facemasks which have been sent to Britain. Truong Thi Linh Nhan and Truong Cao Khoi used their “lucky money” saved over several years to donate the masks to help the UK tackle the  Covid-19  pandemic. The masks were sent successfully by the British embassy in Hanoi  last week on commercial flight which also repatriated 100 British nationals. The embassy tweeted a letter from Gareth Ward, British ambassador to  Vietnam , alongside a picture of Nhan and Khoi near Tower Bridge in London. He wrote: “I am glad that you, who are at very young ages, care about the world and have contributed to the fight against the virus. Lucky money is a Vietnamese tradition in which children are given money in a red envelope to mark the lunar new year. It is a symbol of health, peace and happ...

Cardinal  George Pell , the former financial controller of the Vatican and the most senior Catholic in the world to have been found guilty of historical child sexual abuse, will be freed from prison and have his convictions overturned following a two-year legal battle. The bench of the high court in Brisbane on Tuesday granted leave for Pell to appeal, ordering his immediate release and quashing the conviction. Pell's accuser issues rallying cry to sexual abuse survivors in wake of verdict More posts on George Pell The high court found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to Pell’s guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and that verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place.  In other words, it was not enough that the jurors found the witness believable, compelling and honest.  The other evidence should have called his ac...

The children of Sobral have overcome disadvantage to top 5,000 districts. Now their success is being replicated across the country As you approach the city of Sobral in north-east  Brazil , the road worsens. Huge pot holes slow traffic to a crawl. The heat is suffocating, even worse when there is no cloud cover. Sobral is poor. Jobs are scarce, salaries meagre, gangs the only option for many. For children, it’s a tough start to life.  Ana Farias, headteacher of an early-years school in a low-income neighbourhood controlled by a gang, knows this only too well. Some of her students wouldn’t eat if it were not for free school meals.  Farias and her colleagues often hear stories of home life; some children have to accompany their mothers who sell sex at night. “It’s a challenge but it motivates me to be here every day. We want to make a difference in their lives,” she says.  This is one of the last places anyone would expect would be a paragon of educational exc...

Striking students have joined Valentine’s Day rallies across the world as the protest movement attempts to ratchet up pressure on governments and companies before crunch UN climate talks in Glasgow later this year. In London, the young demonstrators held banners proclaiming “Roses are red, violets are blue, our Earth is burning and soon we will too” and “Climate change is worse than homework” as they marched through Parliament Square on Friday to mark the  first anniversary of nationwide climate strikes in the UK . Students  in Durham, Glasgow, Brighton and dozens of other cities also braved often wet and cold condition to march through the streets chanting, “What do we want? Climate justice. When do we want it? Now.” Greta Thunberg,  who initiated the movement as a solitary striker  in Stockholm in August 2018, said climate strikes were planned in 2,000 cities across the world on Friday, and that bigger actions were planned for the coming months.... read mo...