Mar 24 2014
Daily News Flash with Robert Jensen on Egypt Death Sentences, UN Women’s Rights Declaration, and Texas Oil Spill
Uprising’s guest expert Robert Jensen, a Professor of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, analyzes today’s news headlines:
Five hundred and twenty eight Egyptians have been sentenced to death in a serious set-back for the Egyptian revolution. More than a thousand supporters of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood organization have been imprisoned since the ouster of President Mohammad Morsi by Egypt’s army last year. Of those, about half have now been sentenced to death, convicted of various crimes including the murder of a police officer. A Brotherhood spokesperson told the BBC in London, “This is the new dictatorship that [army chief and defense minister, Field Marshal] Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is trying to establish.” Hundreds more Brotherhood supporters are expected to be tried tomorrow. Click here for a BBC article about the story.
An Egyptian minister and women’s rights activist Mervat Tallawy, spoke out in favor of a declaration approved on Saturday by the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The declaration reaffirmed women’s sexual and reproductive rights, addressed the disproportionate effect of poverty on women, and went as far as calling for sex education for all adolescents. Tallawy said, “We will never give in to the prevailing web of conservatism against women in all regions of the world.” Click here for an Al Jazeera article about the story.
More than 160,000 gallons of toxic marine shipping oil have spilled off the coast of Texas after an oil carrying barge collided with a ship. The substance that spilled into the water is apparently “a special bunker fuel oil.” The spill, which the US Coast guard considers “extremely serious,” comes on the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill that dumped 11 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Alaska. Click here for a Think Progress report about the Texas spill, and here for a Guardian story about the Exxon Valdez spill anniversary.
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