Mark Twain once wrote, 'It is not worth while to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible'(1). We do find this axiomatic logic to hold true in the case of North and South Korean relations.
As tensions continue to mount in this troubled region, the international community watches this conflict with great uneasiness. So what has changed in the 57 odd years since the Korean War ended?
Over the past one hundred years, Korea became a nation in search of an identity. The 1910 Japanese-Korea Annexation Treaty established Korea as a Japanese colony, and a ban instituted on Korean culture rendered such acts as usage of Korean language, reading of Korean literature as illegal. When the Second World War loomed heavily over the Pacific region, the Japanese implemented conscriptions wherein participation in the war industry and soldiering became mandated.
By the end of the Second World War, the United States officially established a partition of Korea along the 38th parallel creating North and South Korea in the absence of any Korean delegates. Therefore, the destiny of the beleaguered peninsular nation fell into the hands of men 10,000 miles away.
In an effort to circumvent the legislative process, Acting Commissioner Sean M. Byrne of the Division of Criminal Justice Services sent letters to all District Attorney Offices throughout New York State imploring them to add DNA collection to all misdemeanor plea bargains.
Acting Commissioner Byrne, appointed by Governor Paterson, first suggested requiring DNA as a plea bargain condition at the annual summer meeting of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York in July of this year. He followed this August with a letter to all 62 district attorneys in the state.
'It is obvious that there is broad support in the Legislature for expanding the DNA Databank – as there should be since doing so will save lives and exonerate innocent people,' Acting Commissioner Byrne said. 'It is equally obvious the Legislature’s inability to come to terms on a specific bill is jeopardizing the public safety.'
'We charge the United States government with the crime of genocide against the negro people' were the words cried out by the silent voices of those who had suffered those who had died and those left to speak on the behalf of the former and latter.
Even more distressing than the message was the non-response of that international assembly for whom this message was intended. Those silent voices still exist and, to this day, reverberate across the span of decades, unanswered.
Nearly 60-years ago, an unprecedented event took place at the fifth session of the United Nation’s General Assembly. William L. Patterson presented a petition to the aforementioned international body in hopes of bringing to light crimes against humanity as propagated by the United States Government. It was also the first time in its history that the United States of America faced a formal and albeit international accusation of genocide.
On Tuesday, January 12, 2010; at approximately 4:53 PM EST, a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the Haiti region killing 212,069 people and injuring another 300,517. Just over 1.2 million people, or almost 14% of the population, are residing in sheltered areas. So how does one approach this apocalyptic event, offering humanitarian aid and support to this devastated nation? How does one implement a structure in the face of a devastating natural disaster and the ensuing chaos?
In 2005, the Emergency Relief Coordinator of World Health Organization (WHO) launched an independent humanitarian response review to assess humanitarian response capacities of several key international organizations.
The response review’s recommendation was the use of a “cluster” methodology or approach. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee, or IASC, designated global cluster leads in eleven areas of humanitarian activity assigning purview to several international organizations.
Out of every ten deaths worldwide, six are due to non-communicable conditions; three to communicable, reproductive or nutritional conditions; and one due to injuries. Many developing countries have mortality patterns that reflect high levels of infectious diseases and the risk of death during pregnancy and childbirth, in addition to the cancers, cardiovascular diseases and chronic respiratory diseases that account for most deaths in the developed world (World Health Statistics, 2009).
The World Health Organization, also known as W.H.O., is the authority for health issues within the United Nations system. The W.H.O. is responsible for providing leadership on global health issues, shaping health research, setting standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring/assessing health trends.
In the year 2000, the World Health Organization created the Millennium Development Goals, or MDG. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals are eight goals that all 191 UN member states have agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015.
It is with Occamistic logic and vision lex parsimoniae that we, as a nation, understand people, places and things. With Aurelian simplicity, we determine cause of a given event sans extraneous factors.
When up to one year ago, leading Economist declared a Recession. The fourth estate’s equivocal lexica suggested everything was either rebounding or dismal depending, of course, on which side of the political fence one sits.
Due to a certain milestone going unreached, a suggestion regarding an economic recessional period seemed overly pessimistic. Those seated across the aisle suggested that, already reaching the real indicator, we were in a recessional state.