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Australian Aviator Flew Far and Wide |
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One of Australia's most famous aviators, Nancy-Bird Walton, has died aged 93.
 Born in the New South Wales north coast town of Kew in 1915,
Walton became the first female pilot to get her commercial pilot's
licence at the age of 19.
She wanted to fly from the age of four and she was taught to take the controls when she was just 17 by Charles Kingsford Smith.
She went on to pioneer an air ambulance service for outback New
South Wales and was commandant of the Women's Air Training Corps during
World War II.
Walton also founded the Australian Women Pilots' Association and went on to be president for about 40 years.
On her 90th birthday, Qantas announced it would name an aircraft for Walton. In her remarks at the A380 naming ceremony she said: "Qantas
announced that they would name this magnificent aircraft after me on my
90th birthday nearly three years ago. And i made it my business to stay
alive until today's ceremony. And I've made it! I've made it."
ABC News
See also:
The Australian Business with The Wall Street Journal
Video of Qantas A380 Naming Ceremony in October 2008
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Helen Suzman Never Gave Up |
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 Appearances deceived where Helen Suzman was concerned.
The petite and
elegant figure, clad in two-pieces or nicely pressed slacks, her hair
Thatcher-perfect, was clearly a denizen of the northern suburbs of
Johannesburg, where discreet black domestics clipped the acacias and
golf was played at weekends.
Houghton, rich and Jewish, was indeed her
constituency, and privilege was her life. But there the comfortable
impression ended. Among the solid and overwhelmingly male Afrikaners in
Parliament, “baying like hounds at a meet”, she was noisy, rude,
contemptuous, “thoroughly nasty when I get going”.
“A vicious little
cat”, said P.W. Botha, South Africa’s prime minister, who often felt
her claws in him.
“The honourable member does not like me,” he observed
once in Parliament. “Like you? I can’t stand you,” came the spitting
reply. Verwoerd, an earlier prime minister, a man she admitted she was
“scared stiff” of, fared no better. “I have written you off,” he told
her. “The whole world has written you off,” she retorted.
Jan 8th 2009
The Economist
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We Are All Victims of the Occupation |
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This story was written by Dr. Nurit Peled Elhanan, Israeli peace activist, lecturer at Hebrew University, and mother of one daughter, 13-year-old Smadari Elhanan, who was killed 11 years ago by a Palestinian suicide bomber; it was originally published online in January 2007 by Counter Punch.
Bassam Aramin spent nine years in an
Israeli prison. He belonged to Yasser Arafat's Al Fatah in the
Hebron area and attempted to throw a grenade at an Israeli army
Jeep in occupied Hebron.
Last Wednesday morning, an Israeli soldier
in a jeep in his village of Anata, on the West Bank, shot his
nine year old daughter, Abir, in the head. The soldier will not
spend an hour in jail. In Israel, soldiers are not imprisoned
for killing Arabs. Never. It does not matter whether the Arabs
are young or old, real or potential terrorists, peaceful demonstrators
or stone throwers.
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Women Create Peace in Liberia |
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This article is condensed from Rabble Rousers (by Kevin Conley), which appeared in the December issue of O magazine. A link to the original article appears at the end of this slighty edited and abbreviated one.
Leymah Gbowee was born in central Liberia, and grew up in Monrovia, the country's capital. Her father was, in her words, "typical indigenous dirt-poor"; her mother came from the Americo-Liberian elite.
Over the years, her family saw the worst of the sectarian violence associated with the Liberian civil war, which lasted from 1989 to 2003 with only brief interruptions.
One day in 1990 Gbowee and her mother were at one of the city's Lutheran churches, where 2,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) were being sheltered.
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If It Ain't Broke...Fix It Anyway |
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This story, written by James Christie under the headline "Heil Ready to Race Again," first appeared in The Globe and Mail, one of Canada's national newspapers, on December 12, 2008.
There's a standing gag in the comic's repertoire about the perils of taking something apart and not being able to put it back together again.
Dismantling happens in sport, too, with mixed effect..
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Commander Malalai Kakar |
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Three years ago, Kim Sengupta interviewed five women who wanted to build a new Afghanistan. As of October 3, 2008, three were dead and a fourth had fled. The first four paragraphs below are from Sengupta's article Women who took on the Taliban – and lost, recently published in The Independent.
In the case of Malalai Kakar, the most prominent policewoman in Afghanistan, an additional “crime” which sealed her fate was that she was a determined and effective campaigner for women’s rights.
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No Arms & Amazing |
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These videos tell the stories of four women, all of whom found a way to live "normal" lives despite facing a physical challenge that most of us would consider overwhelmingly debilitating - all of them have no arms.
The women are Stacey McInroe Conner, Jessica Parks, Barbara Guerrar, and Jen Jimmi.
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