'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

He played a small but meaningful role in this unique gathering of princes, presidents, and kings-in-waiting, sitting down face-to-face with Emir Faisal ibn Husayn, who would briefly be king of Syria and then of Iraq. Faisal's translator and adviser was none other than T.E. Lawrence, fresh from the exploits in insurgency that earned him the nickname Lawrence of Arabia. Working with Lawrence, Frankfurter negotiated an exchange of letters expressing mutual support for the national hopes of Jews and Arabs alike -- a kind of hopeful entente that prefigured later cooperation between the Zionists and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

-- A story of the bit part that Felix Frankfurter (above left) played in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference (prior posts) that led to the Versailles Treaty and many other post-World War I agreements. Recounted at p. 30 of in Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices (2010), by Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman. Frankfurter was among those those "greats," according to Feldman. The others (4 out of 9 FDR appointees) were Robert H. Jackson, Hugo Black, and William O. Douglas. In Feldman's telling, the 4 were instrumental in the entrenchment of theories of constitutional interpretation that persist to this day: respectively, judicial restraint, pragmatism, originalism, and legal realism. (credit for circa 1927 photo of Frankfurter, then a Harvard Law professor)

North African women's power?

'How many women are there?'

The question, heard on my commuter train yesterday, spoke volumes.
The question referred to this week's anti-government protests in Egypt. But it applied to all the ferment throughout North Africa and the Middle East this young but remarkable new year.
Mass demonstrations in Egypt, which yesterday prompted 30-plus-year-President Hosni Mubarak to attempt an LBJ.
Mass demonstrations as well, as IntLawGrrl Karima Bennoune has posted, in Algeria and Tunisia. Still more in Yemen and Sudan. Plans are on for Syria this weekend.
Then too there was yesterday's trying-to-get-in-front-of-events dismissal of the Cabinet of Jordan, another site of demonstrations, by its king.
The gender dynamics in countries like these are fraught. For that reason, a marker of the true democratic potential of these events is inherent in the commuter's question quoted above. Rephrased, it is:

Are women taking part, and if so, to what extent?

As to the 1st part of the question, it seems the answer is "yes."
Although most photos shows seas of men, within can be found islands of women. Women, young and old, with and without head coverings. (In addition to photos accompanying this post, see, e.g., here and here.) Other women reporting on the scene, via all the channels of social networking about which Hope Lewis posted earlier this week. (Some are local women. Some -- like Sonia Verma, tweeting for Toronto's Globe and Mail (far right), and Harriet Sherwood, tweeting for London's Guardian (near right) -- are not.)
As to the 2d part of the question?

How extensive is women's participation, now and for the long term?

The answer awaits further events. In the meantime, IntLawGrrls welcome readers' realtime comments and reports.

(Clockwise from top left: Suhaib Salem/Reuters photo of women at demonstration in Egypt appeared in a photo array yesterday at The New York Times' site; credit for Reuters/Muhammad Hamed photo of Jan. 28 demonstration in Amman, Jordan; credit for Jan. 30 BBC image of Sudan protest; credit for Jan. 15 cover photo from the Paris daily Libération, depicting a protest in Tunisia; credit for Hani Mohammed/AP photo of students chanting at Jan. 29 Yemen protest)

On October 20

On this day in ...

... 2005 (5 years ago), a commission appointed by the U.N. released a report which attributed the February car-bomb death of Lebanon's former Prime Minister to "a carefully planned terrorist act organized by Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services," the The New York Times reported. German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who led the commission that produced what came to be called the Mehlis Report on the death of Rafik Hariri, told the Post: "'The assassination of 14 February 2005 was carried out by a group with an extensive organization and considerable resources and capabilities.'" In 2007, as we've posted, the U.N. Security Council would establish a Special Tribunal for Lebanon at The Hague, Netherlands. to examine the case. To date the tribunal (logo at left; prior posts) has issued no formal charges against anyone. (Last week it appointed its appeals judges; from a look at the tribunal's website, it appears that all its judges are men.) Just a few days ago, a U.S. State Department representative visited Beirut to insist that the tribunal "be allowed to work independently," according to a United Press International report. It quoted him as follows:

'We believe that the tribunal should be allowed to complete its work on its
own timeline and without outside interference until those responsible for the assassinations … are brought to justice.'

(Prior October 20 posts are here, here, and here.)

On December 21

On this day in ...
... 1973, in Switzerland, diplomats from Egypt, Israel, and Jordan launched face-to-face negotiations. (A place was set for Syria, though it did not attend.) Noting that the peace talks had begun just 6 years after Arab leaders meeting in Khartoum, Sudan, had renounced all negotiation with Israel, The New York Times wrote:

Not for a quarter of a century--the entire history of modern Israel's existence--have the belligerents of the Middle East entered upon a solemn and direct encounter such as is now about to open in Geneva.

The meeting did not end in any agreement. (credit for photo of December 24, 1973, session) But it is viewed here as a forerunner to later, bilateral pacts.

(Prior December 21 posts are here and here.)

There's No Place Like Home . . .

It's been some time since refugee organizations have reported on the situation of the Iraqi displaced. Last week, however, Refugees International released a study on female Iraqi refugees and their reluctance to return home given the absence of protections for women's rights and basic security needs.
The Iraqi refugee situation is still one of serious outflow: In Damascus, UNHCR registers around 2000 new Iraqi refugees each month. Moreover, of over 200,000 registered Iraqi refugees in Syria, only 900 signed up for voluntary return this year. Women are particularly reluctant to return; not one of the female refugees interviewed by the study's authors last month expressed an intent to return to Iraq. The reasons vary -- women whose husbands were killed in their homes fear return, especially given the dearth of avenues for economic survival; others, who were professionals before leaving, fear that increasingly conservative attitudes will prohibit them from resuming their prior occupations and social roles. Women who had suffered sexual abuse before leaving also feared return, while many others worried about the safety of their children.
Yet displaced Iraqi women are particularly vulnerable as well. In Syria and northern Iraq, the grave financial hardship faced by displaced families has led to an increase in forced early marriages, “temporary marriages” (muta), prostitution, and trafficking of women and girls. The frustrations of unemployed male Iraqi refugees have led to heightened levels of domestic violence, and female Iraqi refugees with uncertain legal status face serious obstacles in seeking police protection from sexual assault and other forms of sexual violence.
The report's authors recommend several steps to protect displaced Iraqi women: increased cash assistance to prevent poverty and resultant exploitation; reform of Iraqi laws on violence against women; provision of mental health services with special outreach strategies for displaced Iraqi women; education for displaced Iraqi children; and information on resettlement opportunities. It may be a challenge to implement these costly measures in the current economic climate, but the well-being of displaced women should be specifically analyzed and prioritized in efforts to assist and return Iraqi refugees.

On July 3

On this day in ...
... 1927, during a local plebiscite, Uruguay became the 1st South American country to permit women to vote. (photo credit) As described and depicted in this essay, suffrage was extended so that Uruguayan women could vote in a referendum on how to organize government in the area known as Cerro Chato. Women would not be permitted to vote in national elections in Uruguay until 1938.
... 1940, Nayla Moawad (below right) was born into a "prominent" family in Bsharri, Lebanon. (photo credit) Following education in Lebanon and at Cambridge University in England, she worked as a journalist, then married René Moawad, who would serve as President of Lebanon for 17 days before being assassinated on November 22, 1989. Thereafter Nayla Moawad herself ran for office. She's served as a member of Lebanon's National Assembly since 1991, and as Minister for Social Affairs since 2005. As stated in this sidebar to her 2008 Spiegel Online interview, "She is known for her outspoken criticism of Hezbollah and Syrian hegemony over Lebanon."

(Prior July 3 posts are here and here.)

On Art! Beyond Babylon...to federal court

(In this installment of IntLawGrrls "On Art!" series on artifacts of transnational culture, guest blogger Judith Weingarten, an archaeologist, returns to the blog with an account of legal issues swirling about a new show at a leading U.S. art museum)

The latest archaeological blockbuster at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.

The exhibit, which opened a week ago today, runs through March 15, 2009, and is the subject of this New York Times review, is the direct sequel to the Met's 2003 Art of the First Cities, which covered the third millennium B.C. But unlike the 2003 show, which took place as American troops invaded the heartland of ancient Mesopotamia, there is a gaping hole in the new show: 55 pieces from Syria — stone sculptures; frescoes; goldwork, including this stupendous bowl from the ancient city of Ugarit (below left) – were not sent as promised to New York.
In a wall card near the beginning of the show, the Met thanks the Syrian government for its willingness to lend such important objects, and expresses "deep regret that recent legislation in the United States has made it too difficult and risky for the planned loans to proceed." That legislation, an amendment made in January to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, permits private individuals claiming to be victims of state-sponsored terrorism to file liens against property belonging to that state whenever the property is in the United States. Property loaned to museums may fall within the ambit of this amendment.
This is the almost inevitable sequel to the legal battle over the Persepolis tablets.

What are the Persepolis Fortification Tablets?
In size and durability, the Achaemenid Persian Empire had no equal before the creation of the Roman Empire and, like the Roman Empire, it created an area of political, economic, and cultural connections of an unprecedented scale. The Great King Darius I (522–486 B.C.) built
an imperial residence complex at Persepolis – today, Iran. This empire came to a brutal end when Alexander the Great conquered, looted, and burned the city in 330/329 B.C. Even in ruins, the massive platform, lofty columns, sculptured walls, and staircases were imposing, and for many centuries they attracted visitors.
But it was not until 1931 that The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago began to excavate what lay beneath these standing ruins. One entirely surprising discovery was a large group of 15,000 to 30,000 or more cuneiform clay tablets. Together, these tablets constituted proof that behind the splendid palaces and sculptured façades that were the setting for the court of the Great Kings stood an administrative apparatus that controlled movements of food, animals, and labor in the region around the palaces, relying on an information system that was as complex and sophisticated as any in the ancient world.
Until their discovery, the main written sources for the Persian Empire were those written by foreigners — notably the Hebrew Bible and Greek sources such as Herodotus and historians of Alexander’s campaigns. These accounts, quite naturally, gave a partial and biased picture of the
Persian Empire.
The Persepolis tablets thus have a very deep modern significance as irreplaceable items of cultural heritage for the people of Iran. Persepolis and the Persian Empire are central symbols of their cultural identity.
It was therefore an extraordinary act of trust and international scholarly cooperation for when the Iranian government to allow the tablets to be brought to the Oriental Institute in 1936 on a long-term loan for purposes of conservation, translation and analysis. The massive quantity and fragile physical condition, coupled with the challenges of reading the texts. have made their analysis and publication a difficult, long-term project. Already it has extended for seventy years, and it is still far from completion. (Details on the tablet archive project are here.)

Return of the Texts
From the time of the tablets’ first arrival in Chicago, researchers at the Oriental Institute were keenly aware of the texts’ importance as the cultural heritage of the Iranian people, and of their scholarly responsibility not only to translate the tablets but also to ensure their return as loan objects back to Iran once analysis and recording were complete. The most recent return of loaned tablets, in 2004, received extensive in the international media. It therefore came as a complete shock when, several months later, the Oriental Institute was served with legal
documents demanding that it surrender the Persepolis tablets to satisfy the legal claims for damages in a lawsuit by victims of a Hamas bombing attack in Israel. (Details on the litigaton may be found here and here and here.)

The Oriental Institute found itself caught in the middle of a complex legal drama that began in Jerusalem in 1997 and is now playing out in a federal courthouse in Chicago. In 1997, a group of American tourists fell victim to a bombing attack in Jerusalem. The Palestinian organization Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing. The surviving victims and the families of those who died argued that the Islamic Republic of Iran had funded Hamas and should therefore be held accountable to pay compensation. When the case was heard in federal court in Rhode Island, representatives of the state of Iran did not appear to contest the case. As a result, a default judgment was entered against Iran for over $400 million in damages. Because the tablets are on loan from Iran to the Oriental Institute, the plaintiffs are attempting to appropriate and sell them to satisfy the claim for damages. The Oriental Institute and the University of Chicago maintain that the law does not allow for the seizure of cultural heritage as compensation.

Whose tablets are these anyway?
The tablets are not commercial assets like oil wells, tankers, or houses. Instead, these types of culturally unique and important materials fall within a special protected category and are not subject to seizure. This trove of tablets has never been a commercial item to be bought or sold. The tablets have never been a source of profit either to Iran or to the Oriental Institute. They are non-commercial items of cultural heritage, every bit as unique and important as the original document of the Constitution of the United States. (Imagine if a future Iraqi government were to put a lien on that document.) The stakes are enormous. If the lawsuit prevails, this would do irrevocable harm to scholarly cooperation and cultural exchanges throughout the world.
That is already starting to happen. The Syrian government had offered to lend the Met invaluable parts of their cultural heritage: many of these objects that had never left the country before. Of American institutions, only the Met has the resources to pull off such a project, which depends as much on personal contacts as on cash.
That little card on the wall doesn’t say it all.
The Met submitted applications for immunity from seizure for all the borrowed foreign works — including pieces from Armenia, Georgia, Greece, Lebanon and Turkey, as well as Syria — but finally decided that the FSIA amendment jeopardized the Syrian loans. Though not on display, the 55 Syrian objects are in the catalog. There you can see how important a role they played in the internationalist narrative conceived by Joan Aruz (right), the curator in charge of the Met’s department of ancient Near Eastern art.

... and counting ... the surge

(Occasional sobering thoughts.) Initially uttered a year ago by proponents of the Iraq war, these last months "The Surge Is Working" refrain has seemed the received wisdom about Iraq. Not even Democrats -- who, as we posted, had pushed back during primary debates -- bothered any more to argue otherwise.
Thus the news out of Mosul, that 2 U.S. troops are dead and 6 wounded, at the hands of an Iraqi soldier who was supposed to be part of their coalition, is a bit jarring.
More jarring still, news that there were at least 21 other casualties yesterday, and that a dozen of them occurred in a "single attack," when "a booby-trapped car exploded, followed by another bomb blast at a bus station in a working class district of Baghdad."
Most jarring, perhaps, is consideration of what must be meant by the "it's working" refrain even on days without so many casualties. If available numbers are correct, in this period when the refrain went largely unquestioned, somewhere between 180 and 200 Iraqi civilians were killed every week: Iraq Body Count's current estimate, that between 88,947 and 97,086 Iraqi women, children, and men have died in the conflict in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, represents an increase of between 1,304 and 1,422 deaths in the last 7 weeks in the country whose emigrants are seeking asylum in numbers greater than any other group.
Nor was yesterday's incident in Mosul the only 1 during this period that involved troops. According to the U.S. Defense Department, 4,195 American servicemembers have been killed in Iraq. Total coalition fatalities: 4,509 persons. That's 23 servicemember deaths in the last 7 weeks, all of them Americans.
Put aside whether "the surge" will work as troops draw down. Even as things now stand, to say "the surge is working" seems to say that the current numbers are acceptable.
As for the conflict in Afghanistan, "it's working" is seldom heard.
There military casualties in Afghanistan stand at 626 Americans and 381 other coalition servicemembers. That's an increase of 21 and 5, respectively, in the last 7 weeks, and a total servicemember casualty count 1,007.
As for civilians and nonmilitary personnel, numbers are harder to come by. Today's news tells of a suicide bombing that killed 18 civilians and 1 soldier. Earlier headlines give no moree comfort:
► Afghan woman police director gunned down
► Taliban gunmen kill Western aid worker on Afghan street
► Afghanistan says 17 civilians killed in fighting
► Afghan Civilian Deaths Acknowledged By Pentagon, Officials Say 30 Killed In Strike
And Pakistan, the new front on which we've posted, remains an issue. A U.S. aid worker was killed there yesterday, a French aid worker kidnapped last week. Moreover, The New York Times reported on Sunday:

The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

On October 8

On this day in ...
... 2008 (today), is marked the annual International Day for Disaster Reduction. The U.N. General Assembly set aside the 2d Wednesday of October to raise awareness of ways that humans can reduce the suffering that results from natural disasters. Efforts are coordinated by the U.N.'s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, working in conjunction with the World Bank and the World Health Organization. This year the day "falls on the third anniversary of the massive 2005 South Asian Earthquake that devastated a whole region of Pakistan."
... 2002, at 3 a.m. at the Manhattan detention center where U.S. officials had held him since his September 26 arrest at JFK airport on his way from Zurich back home to Ottawa, Maher Arar, a 30-something tech worker, was chained and placed on a private jet that hopscotches 3 continents before landing in Amman, Jordan. Soon Arar, a Canadian citizen, would find himself in the birthplace from which he and his from which he and his family had emigrated when he was 17 -- Syria. There, for nearly a year he endured brutal interrogation, notwithstanding multiple visits to him by the Canadian consul. Syrian officials released Arar in October 2003. As IntLawGrrls posted here and here, Canada eventually paid $10.3 million and apologized to Arar for its role in his extraordinary rendition. (credit for photo of Arar and family in Canada) In the United States, meanwhile, the Manhattan-based federal appeals court, which had rejected Arar's lawsuit, agreed to rehear the matter. According to the Boston Globe,

the move ... was unusual not only because the full circuit assembles for a case only once or twice a year, but because Maher Arar's attorneys had yet to even ask for a full hearing.

On this day

On March 14, ...
... 1991, 6 men arrested in 1974 following pub bombings that killed 21 persons were freed after 16 years in prison when a British court quashed their convictions based on evidence of misconduct by police and prosecutors. Representing the exonerated men, who'd become known as the Birmingham Six, was Gareth Peirce (above), a British barrister known for her representation of persons accused of terrorist acts. Among the recent clients of Peirce, whom the BBC's described as "an unreconstructed, old-fashioned, radical lawyer": some of the men whom the United States has detained at Guantánamo. (photo credit)
... 2005, political turmoil touched off by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri exactly 1 month earlier -- Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" -- continued. The Associated Press reported that

symbols of Syrian power began coming down ... as Syrian military intelligence agents emptied their offices in Beirut and Tripoli and workers took down an imposing portrait of Syria's president in the capital's seaside boulevard. Lebanese citizens quickly hoisted their national flag -- red and white with a green cedar tree in the middle -- near the sites.

As we've posted, a Special Tribunal for Lebanon, charged with adjudicating crimes related to the Hariri killing, has been authorized but is not yet in operation.

Newest tribunal on the international block

Among the anniversaries just marked was that of the February 14, 2005, assassination of Rafiq Hariri, former Prime Minister of Lebanon (flag at right). Hariri died in Beirut, along with more than a dozen others, when a bomb exploded near his motorcade. Suspicions that some other state -- Syria, for example -- might be behind the incident made the incident a political hot potato. After much wrangling, last May the U.N. Security Council , by Resolution 1757 (2007), established the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. It joined a host of other ad hoc tribunals charged with adjudicating crimes in places like Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia. (A Burundi tribunal also appears to be forthcoming.)
Thus it was fitting that members of ASIL-West, the regional pilot project of the American Society of International Law, met in San Francisco last week to hear about the new Lebanon Tribunal from the State Department's Assistant Legal Adviser for African and Near Eastern Affairs, Linda Jacobson. That session prompts this review of the progress of that Tribunal in these months since the Security Council's action last spring.
The jurisdiction of the Tribunal has the potential to encompass a number of incidents. Article 1 of its Statute refers not only to "the attack of 14 February 2005, but also to "other attacks that occurred in Lebanon between 1 October 2004 and 12 December 2005, or any later date decided by the Parties and with the consent of the Security Council, are connected" to the 1st attack. "Connection" is defined broadly, to include linkage by "criminal intent (motive), the purpose behind the attacks, the nature of the victims targeted, the pattern of the attacks (modus operandi) and the perpetrators."
Unlike in other hybrid tribunals, in Article 2 the applicable law is not international but rather, exclusively, national law:

► provisions of the Lebanese Criminal Code relating to the prosecution and punishment of acts of terrorism, crimes and offences against life and personal integrity, illicit associations and failure to report crimes and offences, including the rules regarding the maerial elements of a crime, criminal participation and conspiracy; and ...
► ... Lebanese law ... on 'Increasing the penalties for sedition, civil war and interfaith struggle.

Like many hybrid tribunals, this one will be situated at The Hague. And as in other hybrids, in this Tribunal positions will be divided between Lebanese and "internationals," both appointed by the U.N. Secretary-General from selection lists provided by states. To date a Chief Prosecutor's been named -- Daniel Bellemare of Canada, a founder and vice president of the International Association of Prosecutors. Bellemare's also serving as Commissioner of the U.N. International Independent Investigation Commission that's setting up the Tribunal. Judges too have been appointed, according to a a recent Los Angeles Times editorial.
But that same editorial reports that Syria (flag at right) is trying to thwart full implementation of the Tribunal. Last Thursday's anniversary thus was marked not by the gaveling to order of a new Tribunal, but rather by promises, from U.S. officials like President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as well as the U.N. Secretary-General's office, to keep on pushing toward that end.

The Forced Migration Count

Kelly O'Donnell and Kathleen Newland, both of the Migration Policy Institute, have just released a new report on the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. The facts and figures are grim:
► Between September and December 2007, over 45,000 Iraqis returned from Syria to Iraq. Almost 70 percent returned not because of improved security, but because they could not afford to live in Syria, as they faced stricter visa policies and difficulty finding work.
► As reported here, Syria introduced visa restrictions for Iraqis in October 2007. Prior to these restrictions, an estimated 2,000 Iraqis entered Syria each day. Jordan closed its borders in 2005, and Saudi Arabia is building a 560-mile border fence with Iraq to keep out undocumented immigrants. In Lebanon, Iraqis have no legal status; the government detains them indefinitely until they agree to return to Iraq.
► Of an estimated 2.2 million externally displaced, only 5,000 Iraqis had been resettled in third countries by December 2007. Although the United States allocated space for 7,000 Iraqi refugees and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) referred over 10,000 Iraqis to the U.S., only 1,608 Iraqis were resettled to the United States during fiscal year 2007.
► Iraqi asylum claims in the 36 industrialized countries that report data to UNHCR more than doubled in the first six months of 2007 compared to the first six months of 2006.
► UNHCR estimates that 60,000 Iraqis per month, or just over 80 people each hour, are being displaced within Iraq.
► Due to restrictions on internal movement within Iraq, many of the 2.3 million internally displaced are forced to return to neighborhoods plagued by the sectarian violence they were trying to flee. Former employees of the US government are particularly at risk. (photo credits here and here)
In the words of Newland (right) and O'Donnell, "the international response to the humanitarian crisis resulting from the war in Iraq is, thus far, wholly inadequate . . . [U]rgent action, beginning today, is needed to build toward an enduring, comprehensive solution . ..."
'Nuff said.

Iraqi Refugees Return: Don't Believe the Hype

Claims by the Iraqi government this week that the return of 46,000 refugees last month was due to the improved security situation in Baghdad left me skeptical, to say the least. First, this optimistic claim is at odds with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' most recent statistics: 60,000 Iraqis flee their homes every month; 4 million Iraqis displaced (2.2 million within Iraq) as of September 2007. These numbers all represent sharp increases since April, when 40-50,000 Iraqis fled each month and 3 million Iraqis were displaced (1 million within Iraq). If the security situation is improved, as Iraqi officials claim, why are we seeing this increase? The answer is that Iraqis are returning "not because they are confident of Iraq's future, but because they ran out of money." Others are coming back because host countries like Syria are making it more difficult for them to stay, and recently began requiring Iraqis to obtain visas to enter -- visas that have been granted thus far to academics and merchants only. Many refugees currently in Syria hold only 3-month visas, and will be forced to return to Iraq when those visas expire. In the words of Zainab, a 25-year old Iraqi refugee in Syria whose husband was killed in a car bombing in Baghdad this year, "We have to go back, although we don't want to. We have no choice." The U.S. State Department announced yesterday it will begin processing Iraqi refugees in Syria for resettlement in the United States. Having taken in only 1700 Iraqi refugees so far (compared to Syria's 1.4 million), State's promise to take in up to 1000 Iraqis each month is too little, too late for those forced to return to the violence in Iraq. (Photo courtesy of .ash)

On September 28, ...

... 2005, Constance Baker Motley, Senior Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, died at age 84 of congestive heart failure. Daughter of emigrants from the West Indies, in 1944 she became the 1st African-American woman accepted at Columbia Law School, from which she was graduated in 1946. Soon after she began to work for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. During her 16 years of practice there she "was the only woman on the legal team in the historic legal challenge to school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education," and, as depicted at left, also served as "lead counsel for James Meredith in his successful battle to gain admission to University of Mississippi." Motley won 9 of the 10 cases she argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Eventually she entered city and state politics in New York. In 1966, she became the 1st African-American woman federal district judge; 20 years later, the 1st woman Chief Judge in New York's Southern District.

... 1961, the United Arab Republic came to an end when the military staged a coup in Damascus. The UAR had been formed on Feb. 1, 1958, as a union of Syria and Egypt; the latter country kept the name for another 10 years, then became the Arab Republic of Egypt on Sept. 2, 1971.

On June 5, ...

... 1851, abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe (left) began publishing serial installments of Uncle Tom's Cabin: or Life Among the Lowly in a Washington weekly. Her account of slavery in the South was an instant bestseller when issued in book form the following year. President Abraham Lincoln is said to have declared on meeting Stowe in 1862, "So this is the little lady who made this big war? "
... 1967 (40 years ago today), marked the beginning of what is now known as the Six-Day War, when Israel engaged in pre-emptive strikes against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
... 1947 (60 years ago today), U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave a speech at Harvard University (below) in which he outlined the Marshall Plan for reconstruction of a Europe still foundering in the aftermath of World War II. Unless the United States helped struggling economies the "demoralizing effect on the world at large" would make possible "disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people," risking detrimental "consequences to the economy of the United States," warned Marshall, 1953 Nobel Peace Prizewinner. "Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist." His tacit reference to the Soviet Union revealed a Cold War subtext: "Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find full cooperation," but all "which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit therefrom politically or otherwise will encounter the opposition of the United States."
... 2007 (today), is World Environment Day, a U.N.-sponsored opportunity to learn more about "Melting Ice -- A Hot Topic?"