In the past few years, the emergence of social media and the easy ability for users to communicate has drastically changed the news media landscape. Social online communities has allowed many users to united over various issues and form strong widespread interest groups. Whether through user generated news stories, opinion blogs, message boards, interest based websites, there is a large shift towards transparency and participation. In the minds of internet users, user reviews and opinions has become the source to get authentic, objective news.
A great example of the impact of social media is the recent Obama campaign. His campaign utilized a full social media strategy posting 1,800 videos on YouTube that generated 110 million views. They created a Facebook group with 3 million fans and a Myspace page with nearly 850,000 friends.
One area that has also been impacted by social media is our legal system. Social media has become a new tool for litigators to use within trial practice for research and to influence public opinion. Litigators and prosecutors have started to utilize personal information on social media sites to their advantage. This has often happened in DUI cases where photos of young people intoxicated were used against them. They have attempted to manipulate social media to influence the opinion of the public and of jurors.
The violations of human rights have always been the fate of a majority of Pakistanis. What is new in recent times is that such violations are being exposed at a larger scale by the print and electronic media. Today, a little development to protect and promote the rights of Pakistanis is undoubtedly indebted to the vibrant media of Pakistan. But this is certainly not enough, as hundreds of thousands of people are still deprived of their fundamental rights in this country, a country conceptualized and established as an Islamic Welfare State.
Today Pakistan is neither an Islamic nor a welfare state. As a matter of fact it is not really fair separating former from latter since if she was merely targeted to be Islamic; she would have been a welfare state naturally. I came out of the library of the London School of Economics with these thoughts after reading several books and research articles on Islam and Human Rights.
Pakistan was among the first row of countries that adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 according to which ‘the rights to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one’s family, including food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control’ [Article 25, UDHR]
Each and every right mentioned above is being violated every day in Pakistan. The dozens of international and local NGOs, a separate Human Rights Ministry and so many other institutions working for people’s rights, seem to have failed when misery and hardships of the down trodden lot remain the same. We still see hundreds of little kids working in hazardous conditions rather than going to schools. We still have our government hospitals over filled with no adequate facilities of free medical care. A large number of people are without shelter and our educated youth, after going through intense unemployment trauma, find no choice except to waste their lives doing odd jobs abroad.
In its 2009 report, Amnesty International has identified various areas of humanitarian crisis in Pakistan which indicates that there has been no remarkable change from dictatorial period to the establishment of so called democratic government in the country. These human rights violations predominantly include arbitrary arrest and detentions; torture and other ill-treatment; enforced disappearances; violence against women and girls; abuses by armed groups; children’s rights; religious minorities’ rights; death penalty and many others.
If the Government of Pakistan has a little concern over these issues, they must think of: Whether the Ministry of Human Rights made a slightest contribution so far towards protecting and promoting the rights of the people of Pakistan? What efforts have been made to assist the national and international humanitarian institutions working in rural and urban setting of Pakistan, to develop a collaborative network focusing the humanitarian crisis in the country at grass root level? Whether the Government has taken any initiative to promote human rights education in Pakistan?
I know I can never find any satisfactory answers of the first two questions but focusing on the third one can somehow resolve the rights violations issues in Pakistan to a large extent.
Ignorance is a constant threat to human rights that breeds discrimination, intolerance and radicalization in societies. According to the federal executive Government of Australia: ‘Education protects human rights much more effectively than any punitive or legal regime’ Several countries in the world started formal qualifications in human rights years ago. An aggressive movement started around the world that made the governments promote human rights education and research centres. Even in India, Punjab University, Chundigurh started a post graduate qualification and several other diploma level study programmes in 2006/07. The University also extended human rights education to its affiliate colleges at the bachelors’ degree level.
Surprisingly, in Pakistan, where the need for specific human rights education is of utmost importance , there seems to be no initiative being taken at government or private levels to start formal education in the human rights area.Advantages of specific human rights qualification could be several but the biggest advantages include an awareness of rights; their securing and promoting mechanisms; role of the wider human rights movement in protecting human rights and involvement of various human rights actors including the media, government and non-government organizations and different national and international institutions working for the rights of people around the globe.
These human rights violations are inevitable until the time our society as a whole decides to fight against it and educating our youth about human rights, in national and international context, could be a milestone towards becoming a true Islamic Welfare Society.
The Law of Attraction simply says that you attract into your life whatever you think about. Your dominant thoughts will find a way to manifest. But the Law of Attraction gives rise to some tough questions that don’t seem to have good answers. I would say, however, that these problems aren’t caused by the Law of Attraction itself but rather by the Law of Attraction as applied to objective reality.
Here are some of those problematic questions (all are generalizations of ones I received via email):
What happens when people put out conflicting intentions, like two people intending to get the same promotion when only one position is available?
Do children, babies, and/or animals put out intentions?
If a child is abused, does that mean the child intended it in some way?
If I intend for my relationship to improve, but my spouse doesn’t seem to care, what will happen?
These questions seem to weaken the plausibility of the Law of Attraction. Sometimes people answer them by going pretty far out. For example, it’s been said by LoAers that a young child experiences abuse because s/he intended it or earned it during a past life. Well, sure… we can explain just about anything if we bring past lives into the equation, but IMO that’s a cop-out. On the other hand, objective reality without the Law of Attraction doesn’t provide satisfactory answers either — supposedly some kids are just born unlucky. That’s a cop-out too.
I’ve never been satisfied by others’ answers to these questions, and they’re pretty important questions if the Law of Attraction is to be believed. Some books hint at the solution but never really nail it. That nail, however, can be found in the concept of subjective reality.
When Caryl Chessman died in California's gas chamber 50 years ago – probably the state's most notorious execution – 18 inmates were left on death row. Today, there are 702. The last execution at San Quentin State Prison was that of Clarence Ray Allen on Jan. 17, 2006, the 13th in California since 1978.
Since that day, at least 205 convicts have been executed in other states, 24 death row inmates at San Quentin have died from natural causes or suicide, and 83 people have been sentenced to death in California courts.
But no one has been executed in California since Allen. That's largely because of two court challenges over the state's lethal injection methods and its attempt to short-circuit the procedure for revising those methods.
Now corrections officials hope they are on the verge of winning approval of their rewritten lethal injection rules, which will give the rules the force of law. That approval, due by Friday, will reignite a pending legal battle over whether California can rejoin 34 other states that have the death penalty, and whether it should.
Supporters and opponents say the likelihood of executions resuming anytime soon in California is slight. "I've just kind of lost faith in the system, that it's ever going to work," said Barbara Christian, a 72-year-old Wilton woman whose daughter, Terri Lynn Winchell, was savagely raped and murdered 29 years ago when she was 17. "I'd like to see justice for my daughter."
I think Ms. Christian's pessimism is justified, and I will be surprised if California gets back into the business of execution anytime soon. As this Bee article does on to spotlight, the new California protocol will surely be challenged vigorously in both state and federal courts, and there is little reason to for death penalty abolitionists to fear, or for death penalty proponents to hope, that the judges on the Ninth Circuit in particular will be in any big rush to make sure lethal injection litigation gets resolved quickly.
The extraordinary slow pace in which California has tried to improve its lethal injection protocol stands in remarkable contrast to Ohio's ability late last year to completely revise its execution protocol and resume executions within a matter of months. The Ohio lethal injection story highlights that where this is a true will, there is often a real way to improve the administration of capital punishment. But I do not think this will really exists in California, even though the state clearly enjoys putting more people on death row than any other state in country.
In this world today the media television, newspapers and radio is the modern-day pulpit where the average person goes for their daily sermon. Some children in America watch up to six hours of television a day! This is where our children are learning about moral values, the future.
And what are they being taught?
A recent survey of the top 100 Hollywood producers those people who determine what is played on the televisions and in the movie houses of America and much of the world revealed these attitudes: 93% of these top executives say they seldom or never attend religious services. 75% describe themselves as left-of-center politically. 80% do not regard homosexual relations as wrong. More than half said they do not regard adultery as wrong.
Most importantly, two-thirds of these executives said they feel it is their job to promote these ideas their vision of the world through the media.
But there is one man, one couple, in the world which has taken on the power of the anti-values media. That is Reverend and Mrs. Moon.
The Washington Times promotes the values of family, virtue, world peace and reconciliation. It is a lone voice in a wilderness of violence, sex and immorality. The Washington Times has become the sole source of media power in the world's most powerful city defending those values which will lead the world out of darkness, panic and fear. And as a wife and mother I am deeply motivated to help fight this noble battle.
We are as a trumpet of truth in these days of confusion. Having worked at the heart of the media, I have learned that we must not be intimidated into cowardice by those who despise truth and deplore values. As women we must be bold in our commitment to defending traditional values and those things we hold sacred and dear in every aspect of life.
When I speak to women's groups there is one question I am asked most often. "How can I play a role?" they ask. Many women will tell me that they do not have confidence they can contribute. They tell me they have no Ph.D. no great career no experience in the work place.
I have a very simple answer. It is clear to me that what the world needs most urgently is not another business executive not another Ph.D. not another lawyer. These things may be important, but they alone will not bring us a world of peace in the next century.
What the world needs very simply are individuals with commitment and genuineness of heart. The world is starving for this heart! And as women of commitment we must have confidence that we can and will make a difference.
When I interview heads of state I often find them very weary. They see the troubles in the world and feel the suffering of those around them on their own hands. They are desperate for encouragement and help from those committed to the ideal of peace.
My grandmother is from the tiny village in France where the Catholic saint, Jeanne d'Arc, was born. I was raised as a young girl with the stories of this brave young farm girl. She was able to do what no man could do: move a weak and defeated king to take on his responsibility and finally fight the enemy. She saved her nation!
But there was one thing that always struck me about this story. Saint Joan had no formal education. She had no credentials. She had no friends in powerful places. She only had a simple faith in what was right and a simple faith in the power of God.
