From The U.S. To Russia, 2013 Was The Year LGBT Rights Went Global

Radio Free Europe, Daisy Sindelar, 31 December 2013

A doll with Vladimir Putin's face next to a gay rights flag as protesters
demonstrate outside Downing Street in central London, in August, 2013.

Yelena Goltsman describes June 30, 2013, as one of the best days of her life -- and also one of the worst.

On the one hand, it was the day that she and other Russian-speaking members of New York's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community debuted the first-ever Russian float in the city's annual Gay Pride parade.

The parade came just days after landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings bolstering the right of same-sex couples to marry. Goltsman, who had immigrated from Soviet Ukraine years before coming out in New York, said she was "elated" to be recognized as equal with fellow American citizens.

But on the other hand, for the parade's Russian-speakers, there was a darker side as well. Russian President Vladimir Putin had chosen the same day to sign a law prohibiting gay propaganda, a sweeping setback in a country that had decriminalized homosexuality 20 years earlier.

At such moments, "it's very difficult to live in both worlds," Goltsman says. "The parade and the signing of this document happened on the same day. You can't describe it any other way than bittersweet."

From Shadows To Center Stage

As the United States in 2013 marked a historic breakthrough in LGBT rights, Russia witnessed some notorious lows. Putin's regressive new law accompanied a horrific wave of violence, with gay men assaulted and killed, same-sex parents threatened with losing their children, and LGBT activists brutally beaten in plain view of police.

Putin, who has sought to muzzle all forms of dissent since returning to the presidency last year, might have expected such domestic incidents to pass unnoticed. But two things stood in his way: the growing globalization of the LGBT movement, and Russia's high-stakes role as the host of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

If two years ago, the plight of Russian gays ranked low on the Western rights agenda, in 2013 it was front and center -- inspiring diplomatic pressure, vodka-dumping campaigns, celebrity support from the likes of Madonna and Lady Gaga, and even a special mention in the U.S. satirical "Mad" magazine's list of the year's 20 "dumbest" things.

Gay rights activist Yelena Goltsman

For its part, Goltsman's organization, RUSA LGBT, has demonstrated on Wall Street during a visit by a Russian business delegation, and recently picketed New York's Metropolitan Opera during an opening-night gala attended by Valery Gergiev, the artistic director of St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater and a close friend of Putin's.

Such demonstrations proved effective attention-getters in the United States. But Goltsman said RUSA, which works closely with LGBT groups in the former Soviet Union, had to reconsider their approach when it came to a major global event like Sochi.

"We had advocated from the very beginning for a boycott of the Sochi Olympics," she says. "But our counterparts in Russia, for the most part, are against boycotting Sochi. They would like to use this opportunity and highlight to the world what is going on with the rights of LGBT people in Russia. So we kind of scaled back the intensity of our campaign."

'Standing Alone'

Rather than an outright boycott, many LGBT activists have now instead set their sights on criticizing corporate sponsors backing the billion-dollar Sochi games, whose start date is less than six weeks away.

The IOC has acknowledged that several of the sponsors -- including major international corporations like McDonald's, Procter & Gamble, and Coca-Cola -- have expressed concern about potential unrest at the Games and how it may affect their bottom line. But for the most part, few of the sponsors have expressed willingness to press Russia and the IOC for a stronger commitment to LGBT rights.

Other organizations are looking for ways to promote an agenda of nondiscrimination without violating Olympic rules prohibiting political statements.

Youths kick a gay rights activist during a protest in central Moscow in
June, 2013.

Two groups, All Out and Athlete Ally, in early December launched a campaign, called Principle 6 that would allow competing athletes and spectators to wear T-shirts and other clothing citing the IOC's own mission statement, which declares any form of discrimination to be "incompatible" with the Olympic movement.

Andre Banks is co-founder of All Out, a political mobilization group which has 1.9 million members worldwide.  He says the intense focus on Sochi, combined with the wave of marriage-equality rulings in countries like the United States and France, have permanently transformed the fight for LGBT rights into a global human rights cause where change is likely to come sooner rather than later.

READ NEXT: In Russian Pop Culture, It's 50 Shades Of Gay

"People are picking up on the momentum from places like the United States that have had some important policy victories," says Banks. "And they're using that to build positive global momentum for the kinds of changes that would make it possible to get rid of laws that still make it a crime to be gay in 76 countries."

Some government leaders have initiated their own form of pressure, by announcing they will not attend the Sochi Olympics. Francois Hollande and Joachim Gauck, the presidents of France and Germany, are skipping the Winter Games, as are Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama, who is sending in his stead a delegation that includes a number of prominent gay athletes.

"We want to see Putin standing alone," Goltsman says.

Changing Neighborhood

In the post-Soviet arena, there is cautious optimism that the movement will continue to gain strength even once the Olympics are over.

Moldova this year held its first sanctioned pride parades, and became the first former republic to team up with the "It Gets Better" video campaign targeting LGBT youth. Amnesty International has launched a letter-writing campaign in support of a Belarusian gay activist, Ihar Tsikhanyuk, who was beaten by police.

And there is slow progress in Russia as well. The "It Gets Better" campaign has launched a special program sending translated messages of support to Russia ahead of the Sochi Games. And several American filmmakers -- including director Gus Van Sant and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black -- attended the recent Side by Side LGBT film festival in St. Petersburg, despite five bomb threats and hostile attacks by Russian nationalists.

Sasha Semyonova is the communications director for the Petersburg-based group Vykhod, or Coming Out. She says the wave of global attention has been a boon to the Russian LGBT movement.

But what heartens her most, she says as she looks forward to the year ahead, is that more and more straight, nonpolitical Russians are beginning to understand that LGBT rights are just part of a wider struggle for basic human rights in Vladimir Putin's Russia.

"Most people used to be passive, and never expressed the desire to defend their rights -- many, to the contrary, said that that the actions of activists was harmful to them," says Semyonova. "But now, thanks to the worsening situation and attacks, more and more members of society are acknowledging that it's important to fight for their rights."

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Syria's Assad sends message to pope

Yahoo – AFP, 28 December 2013

Pope Francis salutes the crowd as he arrives for his general audience in
St Peter square at the Vatican on November 6, 2013 (AFP Photo/Vincenzo Pinto)

Vatican City (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sent a message to Pope Francis Saturday, that state media said expressed his determination to defend Syrians of all religions against hardline Islamists among the rebels.

The message was passed on through a Syrian government delegation that held talks at the Vatican with the pontiff's Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and foreign affairs official Dominique Mamberti.

"The delegation brought a message from President Assad for the Holy Father and explained the position of the Syrian government," a statement said.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency said Assad expressed his government's "determination to exercise its right to defend all its citizens, whatever their religion, against the crimes committed by the takfiri (Sunni Muslim extremist) bands who attack them in their homes, in their places of worship and in their neighbourhoods."

Pope Francis delivers his "Urbi et Orbi"
 (to the City and to the World) message
 from the central balcony of St. Peter's
Basillica at the Vatican. Dec 25 2013

Assad's regime prides itself on its secularism. While the rebels fighting for its overthrow are mainly Sunni, the government draws much of its support from Assad's own Alawite minority, as well as from Christians and other minorities.

Assad said the conflict could be resolved only by a "national dialogue between Syrians without foreign interference, because the Syrian people is the sole master of its own destiny and it alone should its leadership."

He condemned the "military, logistic and material support being provided to the terrorists by neighbouring countries," an allusion to the aid being provided to the rebels through Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.

The pope, who was elected in March, used his first "Urbi et Orbi" speech on Christmas Day to plead for humanitarian aid access in Syria and an end to the violence.

"Too many lives have been shattered in recent times by the conflict in Syria, fuelling hatred and vengeance," the 77-year-old pope said on Wednesday.

"Let us continue to ask the Lord to spare the beloved Syrian people further suffering, and to enable the parties in conflict to put an end to all violence and guarantee access to humanitarian aid."

The conflict is estimated to have killed more than 126,000 people and displaced millions since it first started out as peaceful anti-regime protests in 2011.

Earlier this month, the pontiff called for prayers for 12 nuns seized from their convent in Syria.

In September he organised a global day of prayer for peace in Syria, speaking out against the prospect of Western military intervention.

Holland's Got Talent 2013 (Finale) - Amira

Amira receives the trophy from Holland's Got Talent.
(NOS / ANP Kippa)

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"Common Questions from Non-Lightworkers" - Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) 

"... Question Three: Is there life on other planets?

... I will tell you, as long as you stay in 3D, you'll still be getting in little metal cans and air suits and going to planets. As soon as you begin the quantum age, however, you will simply wish yourself there, because you will be entangled with everything and can go with intent. If you don't believe this now, you will later, for what I give you is true. It may be lifetimes and lifetimes from now, but the group that is before me is the group that is going to come back over and over. The difference is that you're done coming back in an old energy. This is a new energy..

When you come back, dear one, everything you know will be in your DNA and be on top [available]. You're not going to have to go through what you did before. As soon as you decide to look around and open the door [metaphor for free choice to awaken], everything you've learned this time around will be right there.

This is the attribute of what you would call "a child of new consciousness," which you have labeled with a color - indigo. The child remembers who they are. They are conceptual, and you believe they have to be taught from scratch! Hardly! They remember! Do you understand what is taking place? We told you this last time, but we want to review something with you: The animal on the prairie drops its calf and within hours, the calf is up, running with the herd. Did you know that the calf instantly knows who its enemies are, what water to drink that doesn't smell right, and what berries to eat that are not poison? Where did that come from? How did that infant animal know these things? The answer is that this information was biologically inherited. You call it instinct. But when you have a Human baby - nothing! It doesn't know anything but that it's hungry. It requires 20 years of teaching! Aren't you tired of that? Did you ever think about why the animals have so much knowledge to begin with and you have so little? Does that seem correct for the top of the evolutionary ladder? It's time for that to change.

You're starting to see it, even with the indigos. They come in knowing. That's why they're so impatient. You're trying to teach them things they already know instinctively. Just like the calf on the prairie, they come in knowing. Some of them try to teach you. That doesn't always go well. That was question three...."

"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)

"..... DNA - A Quantum Force 

Now we get to the core truth, don't we? So I will tell you. The ninety percent of DNA which is quantum, is filled with information, both esoteric and timeless. It is a quantum blueprint for everything you are and have been since you arrived on the planet the first time. DNA contains instruction sets for your life; everything from your full Akashic Record - every single lifetime you have had - to the benevolent creator's fingerprint within the seeds of creation itself. Every single talent you ever had is there, even if you don't have any of those today... the record is there. Every predisposition of weakness and strength are there. Biologically, every single instruction to every single stem cell is there. . ..."

"..... DNA is a Dynamic Molecule, not a static one.

Humanity is stuck in the 3D portion of their biological thinking. In your 3-D life, you simply accept the chemistry you're given. You act as though the three percent gene producing part is all there is. You believe it is a chemical protocol that is unchangeable and simply "you." You don't see it for the way it's designed. It's dynamic and always has been. It's not set, but will continue to simply repeat what it does unless there is another quantum influence on it.

Therefore you live with the 3 percent as though it were all there is, and since it just "came with your body" and seems to control everything, you never talk to it. Many of you come in with pre-dispositions based upon the karma which is put upon you from your past lives. You don't come in clean [without karmic energy]. Instead, you arrive with pre-dispositions, fears and phobias. Some are positive. Perhaps you come in as a prodigy continuing your last life... the 8-year-old who can paint like a master and do brushstrokes that take 30 years to develop. What does that tell you about what must be in the DNA?

Perhaps you come in as the composer, the pianist, the prodigy, the violinist, just waiting until your hands can go on the fingerboard or can reach up and fret the notes. Perhaps you come in knowing how to play the piano, just waiting for your hands to get big enough to do what you used to do... without any lessons. How do you explain that, dear ones? The answer is that all this is contained in the dynamic quantum instruction sets of your DNA... the part you never talk to it. .."

Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear Kryon, would you please tell me if Indigo Children and Star Children are the same? Can someone born in the 1960’s be an Indigo?

Answer: Dear Human, don’t get bogged within your linearity in these things. You wish to compartmentalize everything, and thereby feel more comfortable in your understanding. Know this: All children being born on the planet have strong potential to be of the Indigo consciousness. Within that group there are many parts and attributes. What you have called a “Star Child” is a type of Indigo. The same goes for the “Crystal Children.”

Years ago we identified a new breed of Human that was slowly being introduced to earth. Now they are so plentiful that many are beginning to notice and categorize them. Our admonition is NOT to, but we know that sometimes make you feel better to do so. Another name for these “Star Children” are the Interdimensional or even the Interplanetary, if you wish.

As far as the potential of those born before or during the 1960’s: The answer is yes, but with a qualification. The “pure” Indigo Children have really only been arriving slowly for the past 25 or 30 years, but there are many who have what we call an “Indigo overlay.” This is Human who fits the generalizations, but without some of the absolutes that are buried in what you call the DNA that really qualify this new Human experience.

— Kryon

"THE THREE WINDS" – Feb 23-24, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Humanity, Home - other side of the veil, Wind of Birth - Birth, Wind of Existence - Life, Wind of Transition - Death) - (Text version)

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Fury with MPs is main reason for not voting – poll

Poll reveals anger, not boredom, lies behind drop in political engagement

The Guardian, Tom Clark and Rowena Mason, Thursday 26 December 2013

The Houses of Parliament at dusk. Rage against politicians is the dominant
sentiment across just about every sub-stratum of the electorate. Photograph:
Andrew Winning/Reuters

Nearly half of Britons say they are angry with politics and politicians, according to a Guardian/ICM poll analysing the disconnect between British people and their democracy.

The research, which explores the reasons behind the precipitous drop in voter turnout – particularly among under-30s – finds that it is anger with the political class and broken promises made by high-profile figures that most rile voters, rather than boredom with Westminster.

Asked for the single word best describing "how or what you instinctively feel" about politics and politicians in general, 47% of respondents answered "angry", against 25% who said they were chiefly "bored".

Negative sentiments vastly outnumber positive, with only 16% reporting feeling "respectful" towards people doing a difficult job, while a vanishingly small proportion of 2% claim to feel "inspired".

Responding to fears about disengagement by young people from politics, the Tory MP Chloe Smith, a former minister at 31, told the Guardian there was a danger of a political disconnect between young and old, with "generations far apart and not talking to each other". One of her ministerial briefs included improving voter engagement.

"I think there is an existential problem coming for traditional forms of British democracy, which it is in everyone's interests, all of us as democrats, to respond to," she said. "We have to demonstrate what politics is for, why a young person's individual action in voting matters."

When Harold Wilson won the 1964 election, more than three quarters of people cast their vote and turnout was roughly equal across the generations. But according to data from Ipsos Mori, at the last election 76% of over-65s were still voting, while only 46% aged 18-24 were going to the ballot box.

Rage is the dominant sentiment across just about every sub-stratum of the electorate, but is especially marked among men, northerners, voters over 45 and the lower DE occupational grade.

Labour voters, too, are disproportionately cross. But supporters of Ukip, the party that put itself on the map in 2013 with big gains in local elections, reflect the mood of the times most intensely: more than two-thirds, 68%, say the thought of politics and politicians makes them more angry than anything else.

Deborah Mattinson, a former pollster to Gordon Brown and now an expert at BritainThinks, believes politicians have not begun to grasp the scale of the problem. "Voter disengagement is getting worse and worse," she says. "Nobody is really taking it seriously enough."

Recent high-profile celebrity interventions on the subject have served to underline the growing disconnection. The former England footballer Michael Owen told the Guardian for the paper's series on voter apathy that he had never voted.

Russell Brand expressed the disaffection of many in October when he told Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight that he had never voted because he "can't be arsed", adding later: "The only reason to vote is if the vote represents power or change. I don't think it does."

After the interview, which received more than 10m hits on YouTube, Paxman said he understood Brand's decision, dubbing Westminster politics a "green-bench pantomime … a remote and self-important echo-chamber".

Reflecting such sentiments, the polling shows that ennui is more marked among the young, rivalling fury as the dominant feeling about politics among voters aged 18-24, who are evenly split 34%-34% between boredom and anger.

Boredom is marked in one other group, too – those voters of all ages who admit to being unlikely to vote. But even among those who rate their chance of turning out as four or lower on a 10-point scale, the angry marginally outnumber the bored, by 41% to 40%. When asked what puts people off voting, the cause of that anger is the perception that politicians do not keep their promises. Nearly two voters in every three, 64%, nominated the failure of governments to honour their pledges as something that would put them off casting a ballot – higher than any other factor.

In the week that the former Labour minister Denis MacShane was jailed for fraud, the continuing damage done to parliament's reputation by the expenses scandal of 2009 is also plain – 46% of respondents identify the sense that "MPs are just on the take" as a thought that would discourage them from turning up at the polling station.

Only around a third of potential voters, 34% of the total, say they are put off by careerist candidates who "don't say what they believe". Just 26% regard the parties as "so similar that [voting] makes little difference", and only 25% see the failure of the parties to "represent my mix of views" as a particular problem.

Meanwhile, the mechanics of democracy – the focus of thinktank proposals for automatic postal ballots or weekend voting – emerge as a virtual irrelevance.

Only 2% of the electorate regard the inconvenience of registering and then casting a vote as a reason not to do so, suggesting that proposed measures such as weekend or electronic voting are unlikely to make a big difference to election turnout.

Other findings though suggest that Britons remain convinced that politics matters. An overwhelming 86% told ICM that the "decisions politicians make" are either "very important" or "fairly important" to their own lives, as against just one in ten who said that such choices were "not that" or "not at all" important in day-to-day life. And there is remarkably little difference between voters and non-voters here: even among those unlikely to turn-out some 80% do believe that political choices will affect them.

Furthermore, Britons continue to talk politics regularly. A clear majority of the electorate as a whole, 62% of respondents, claim to discuss "politics or the sort of issues affected by politics" with friends and family at least once every fortnight, and a substantial minority of 29% claims to do so at least "every few days". Across the population, the pollster estimates an average of 72 political discussions a year. ICM finds somewhat less frequent political discussion among the youth and among likely non-voters, but even among these disaffected groups such conversations will crop up in more weeks than not.

ICM Research interviewed an online sample of 2023 adults aged 18+ online on 20-22 December 2013. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

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"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…5 - Integrity That May Surprise…

The Unthinkable… Politics, A Review

Humans will begin to search for integrity and fairness and it's going to happen in the places you never expect. I said this last week, so this is a review. There'll come a time when you will demand this of your politics - fairness and integrity. So when the candidates start calling each other names, you will turn your back on them and they won't get any votes. They're going to get the point real fast, don't you think? How about that?

Let me give you another potential. This country that I sit in right now [USA] will set the mold for that particular attribute. I have no clock. Watch for the youngsters to set this in motion, and they will, for they are the voters of tomorrow and they do not want the energy of today. To some of them, it's so abominable they won't even register to vote in this energy. You're going to see this soon. That was number five.. ..."

Internet privacy as important as human rights, says UN's Navi Pillay

Navi Pillay compares uproar over mass surveillance to response that helped defeat apartheid during Today programme

theguardian.com, Haroon Siddique, Thursday 26 December 2013

Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Navi Pillay, during a press conference in Geneva
earlier this month. Photograph: Martial Trezzini/AP

The UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has compared the uproar in the international community caused by revelations of mass surveillance with the collective response that helped bring down the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Pillay, the first non-white person to serve as a high court judge in South Africa, made the comments in an interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee on a special edition of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, which the World Wide Web inventor was guest editing.

Pillay has been asked by the UN to prepare a report on protection of the right to privacy, in the wake of classified documents being leaked by the former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden about UK and US spying and the collection of personal data.

The former international criminal court judge said that her encounters with serious human rights abuses, which included serving on the Rwanda tribunal, did not make her take internet privacy less seriously.

"I don't grade human rights," she said. "I feel I have to look after and promote the rights of all persons. I'm not put off by the lifetime experience of violations I have seen."

She said apartheid ended in South Africa principally because the international community co-operated to denounce it, adding: "So, I see how combined and collective action by everybody can end serious violations of human rights and really that experience inspires me to go on and address the issue of internet [privacy] which right now is extremely troubling because the revelations of surveillance have implications for human rights … People are really afraid that all their personal details are being used in violation of traditional national protections." She described it as a grave issue.

The UN general assembly unanimously voted last week to adopt a resolution, introducedby Germany and Brazil, stating that "the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, including the right to privacy". Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel , were among those spied on, according to the documents leaked by Snowden. The resolution called on the 193 UN member states "to review their procedures, practices and legislation regarding the surveillance of communications, their interception and collection of personal data, with a view to upholding the right to privacy of all their obligations under international human rights law". It also directed Pillay to publish a report on the protection and promotion of privacy "in the context of domestic and extraterritorial surveillance ... including on a mass scale". She told Berners-Lee that it was "very important that governments now want to discuss the matters of mass surveillance and right to privacy in a serious way".

Berners-Lee has warned that online surveillance undermines confidence in the internet and last week published an open letter, with more than 100 free speech groups and leading activists, to protest against the routine interception of data by governments around the world.

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Snowden Declares 'Mission Accomplished'

Snowden Declares 'Mission Accomplished'

Radio Free Europe, December 24, 2013

Edward Snowden in Moscow in October

Former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) consultant Edward Snowden says his "mission's already accomplished" because he has forced a reassessment of U.S. spying policies.

In an exclusive interview posted online by "The Washington Post" on December 23, Snowden said that he leaked NSA secrets so that the American people would "have a say in how they are governed."

Snowden spoke to the daily in Moscow, where he was granted temporary asylum in August. Snowden said that he has been living as an "ascetic" in Moscow.

He said he lives off of noodles and chips and spends most of his time on the Internet. "I have no relationship with the Russian government," Snowden said. "I have not entered into any agreements with them."

Barack Obama will read the report over the holidays before

deciding which recommendations he will choose to accept. 

Photograph: Zhang Jun/Xinhua/Corbis

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In 2013, Iran Got A New President And Maybe A New Direction

Radio Free Europe, Charles Recknagel, December 23, 2013

Iranian President Hassan Rohani takes questions from journalists at a news
conference in New York in September.

For years, it seemed Iran was going deeper into isolation in its standoff with world powers over its controversial nuclear program.

In 2013, that suddenly changed.

In June, Iran elected a new president who campaigned on promises to take a more moderate approach, including in foreign policy.

And in November, his new government cut a six-month deal with world powers to halt some nuclear activities in exchange for some sanctions relief, a first step toward seeking a comprehensive solution to the nuclear crisis.

But if the two events suggest President Hassan Rohani -- a cleric and establishment insider -- is taking Iran in a new direction after decades of confrontation with the West, the question still remains how far things can go.

Michael Adler, a regional scholar at the Washington-based Wilson Center, says that for now, at least, Rohani's team is off to a strong start.

"There definitely is a new mood, there is a new style, and we already see with the deal that they struck in Geneva that that is something the Iranians can work with," Adler said. "Of course, the big question is how much they are willing to rein in their nuclear program in a comprehensive settlement and we will see that, but there definitely is a new eagerness to negotiate, to work at reaching a solution."

Viewpoint: Deciphering The Direction Of Iran's Foreign Policy

But Adler notes that while Rohani -- a former Iranian nuclear negotiator -- has clearly made the nuclear talks his administration's priority, he still lacks the authority to reach a deal without the backing of Iran's supreme leader.

And that means Rohani's momentum depends entirely upon Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has given him a green light to bargain but is holding his own final judgment  of the effort in abeyance.

"The supreme leader has pretty much said 'go ahead' and this is what he said in 2003 when they did the suspension (of uranium enrichment)," Adler said.

"He has pretty much said 'go ahead, try to make a deal, try to work out something with the United States and its allies, but I am telling you that in the end they will just try to cheat us and it won't be a good deal and you will see.' But within that framework, they are free to go ahead and get a deal and the supreme leader reserves for himself the right to say, 'Hey, this isn't a good deal, they actually are trying to cheat us again, we are going to do something else.'"

In 2003, then nuclear negotiator Rohani reached a deal with the three key EU powers in which Iran suspended uranium enrichment in exchange for promises of technical aid for its nuclear-energy program. However, the deal broke down in 2005 amid insistence from Britain, France, and Germany that Tehran also commit to abandoning uranium enrichment, a step the supreme leader refused to take.

Now, nearly a decade later, it remains to be seen whether Iran and the six world powers -- the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, and Germany -- will be able to find a lasting compromise. And the fact that any deal still depends on Khamenei's final approval makes the effort ahead only more uncertain.

Weight Of Sanctions

Still, there are reasons to believe the effort set in motion by Iran's new president has staying power.

Alex Vatanka, an Iran expert at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, says the negotiations offer Khamenei a solution to what has become his most pressing concern. That is, how to assure the regime is not threatened by popular frustration over the growing weight of U.S. and EU sanctions.

"What we have here is Ayatollah Khamenei realizing that Iran could not stay on this path for too much longer. When you lose $5 to $6 billion a month in oil revenue, which represents half of your oil-export income, there is so much less money that goes around in this country of 77 million people," Vatanka  said.

Sanctions have stung ordinary Iranians.

"Remember, Ayatollah Khamenei will never forget that this regime is in place because of something that happened in 1979, which was not just a political revolution against the monarchy, it was also an economic revolution. A lot of those people who stood up against the shah were disenfranchised economically."

So long as Rohani, along with his U.S.-educated Foreign Minster Mohammad Javad Zarif, represent a way out of Iran's economic predicament, they will continue to have Khamanei's mandate to try.

But it is a mandate that cannot be taken for granted because it remains under constant challenge by regime hard-liners, who prefer the highly confrontational approach Iran took toward the West under former President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, much of that time also with the supreme leader's backing.

Rohani's 'Yes We Can' Moment

All that makes for a delicate balance in Tehran as Rohani proceeds. The new president campaigned for more moderation both in Iran's foreign and domestic policies but so far has had to limit his new initiatives almost exclusively to foreign affairs -- a measure of how carefully he still must tread.

Since taking office in August, Rohani has yet to deliver on his promises for more social freedoms for ordinary Iranians. Some political prisoners have been released. But the key leaders of the Green Movement that rocked Iran with pro-democracy protests in 2009 and 2010 are still confined and political opposition to the regime remains forbidden.

As Vatanka said: "I don't think it is a coincidence that Rohani's first 100 days or so have been heavy on foreign-policy change but very little change in terms of domestic politics. In practical, tangible policies at home, we haven't seen Rohani make any major leaps and I think he hasn't because he doesn't want to see what happened to [former President] Mohammed Khatami between 1997 and 2005 happen to him. So, they are taking a step-by-step approach. Take the first, most imminent issue, which is foreign policy, break the isolation, and then at some point down the path, try to start reforming within."

Reformist former President Khatami saw his efforts to create more freedom of the press and expression rolled back by hard-liners who feared they could compromise the Islamic republic's theocratic system. The theocracy is based upon the presumed infallibility of its supreme leader, whose interpretation of religious law prevails over the country's parliamentary democracy.

Related Article:

Rohani's 'Yes We Can' Moment

Castro tells US to drop the demands on political front

Google – AFP, 22 December 2013

Cuban President Raul Castro laughs on September 27, 2013 during a meeting

at Revolution Palace in Havana (Pool/AFP/File, Alejandro Ernesto)

Havana — President Raul Castro warned Saturday his country could remain estranged from the United States for decades if Washington does not drop political demands.

"If we really want to make progress in bilateral relations, we have to learn to respect each other's differences and get used to living peacefully with them. Otherwise, no. We are ready for another 55 years like this," Castro said at the legislature's closing session.

Castro, 82, recently made world headlines for simply sharing a handshake with US President Barack Obama at the funeral of South Africa's iconic anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela.

The United States and Cuba do not have full bilateral relations.

Washington has imposed sanctions on Havana -- the only Communist state in the Americas -- since 1962.

To fully normalize relations with Cuba, US law technically requires a change in Cuba's regime.

"We do not ask the United States to change its political and social system, nor do we agree to negotiate over ours," Castro said bluntly.

Cuba is always ready to talk as long as its independence and self-determination are not undermined, Castro said.

The United States runs an Air Force base in Cuba's Guantanamo province against Havana's will, but which it refuses to leave. It is home to the controversial US war-on-terror prison camp.

US President Barack Obama (R) shakes hands with Cuban leader Raul Castro (2ndL)

 after delivering his speech during the memorial service for late South African President

 Nelson Mandela at Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg on December 10, 2013

(AFP/File, Odd Andersen)

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"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa, Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text Version)

“…  I want you to watch some countries. I don't have a clock [this statement is Kryon telling us that there is no time frame on his side of the veil, only potentials]. I'll just tell you, it's imminent [in Spirit's timing, this could mean as soon as a decade]. I want you to watch some countries carefully for changes. You're going to be seeing changes that are obvious, and some that are not obvious [covert or assumptive]. But the obvious ones you will see sooner than not - Cuba, Korea [North], Iran, of course, and Venezuela. I want you to watch what happens when they start to realize that they don't have any more allies on Earth! Even their brothers who used to support them in their hatred of some are saying, "Well, perhaps not anymore. It doesn't seem to be supporting us anymore. "Watch the synchronicities that are occurring. The leaders who have either died or are going to in the next year or so will take with them the old ways. Watch what happens to those who take their place, and remember these meetings where I described these potentials to you. …”

US diplomat row overlooks Indian maids' plight

Google – AFP, Rachel O'Brien (AFP), 21 December 2013

Members of The All India Students Federation shout slogans and wave placards

 during a protest in front of the US consulate in Hyderabad on December 19, 

2013 (AFP/File)

Mumbai — Americans were shocked at the alleged $3.31-per-hour wage paid to an Indian diplomat's housekeeper in a case that has sparked global outrage. But to Rupa Thakur, who does the same job in Mumbai, it sounded like a small fortune.

The mother-of-three works 13 hours a day, six days a week for a family in the suburbs of India's financial capital, taking home 8,000 rupees ($130) a month -- or about 38 US cents an hour.

"Life is tough," said Thakur, 39, who moved to the city from Nepal as an uneducated girl to find work.

"After daily expenses and paying my children's school and college fees, I can save only around 2,000 rupees. With everything getting costlier every day, it is difficult for people like us."

India erupted in fury last week over America's strip-search and arrest of an Indian diplomat accused of underpaying her housekeeper. But the story of the maid herself has received far less attention back home.

Domestic service is a prominent feature of life in urban India, with a maid seen as a stamp of middle-class membership. Many of those who can afford it also have drivers, cooks and nannies.

Too many hours, too little cash

Such workers often start as young women or girls, like Thakur, who travel from rural areas to try to make a living and support their families, but who often end up working too many hours for too little cash, activists say.

While New York rigidly enforces laws to ensure even the lowliest employees get no less than $7.25 an hour, such legislation is almost entirely absent for Indian domestic workers.

"They need some kind of standardised wage practice in force," said Mumbai social worker Avisha Kulkarni, who campaigns on the issue.

There are also frequent reports of domestic servants being abused by their wealthy employers.

In November, a New Delhi court ordered an Indian lawmaker and his wife to be held in police custody for allegedly torturing to death a maid at their home.

The case came soon after a teenage maid was rescued from another upscale Delhi home by police and social rights campaigners, who said she had been slashed with knives and mauled by dogs.

The Global Slavery Index, released in October, found an estimated 13.95 million people in India are victims of forced labour -- making up almost half of the world's slave population. Domestic service is a key area of concern.

"The central government has completely ignored the conditions of domestic workers," said Anannya Bhattacharjee, executive council member of the New Trade Union Initiative, who is based in northern Haryana state.

"It's part of Indian feudal tradition. There's always talk of domestic workers being part of the family but they want to be treated as workers," she said.

But there are also signs of change within the industry.

While demand remains high, Kulkarni said fewer women were willing to serve as live-in maids for one household, preferring to work at a number of homes and charge per task, such as cleaning utensils or washing clothes.

"The standard and cost of living has gone up," Kulkarni said, adding that many maids had high aspirations for their children and wanted them well-educated.

"They treat us so rudely"

This was the case for Pushpa Khude, another housekeeper in Mumbai, who financed her two children's college education and whose son is now a bank manager.

Khude, 45, cleans and cooks in several households and takes home 24,000 rupees ($385) a month -- a relatively high sum for her job in India -- after starting work at the age of six watering plants for a Bollywood actor.

Nowadays she only works for expatriates, with no desire to take on Indian employers.

"I'm Indian, but I'm disappointed because other Indians aren't giving us (maids) respect or any responsibility," she said.

"They treat us so rudely and they don't trust us or give us holiday."

US attorney Preet Bharara, the prosecutor who spearheaded Khobragade's arrest proceedings, wondered why there was little concern in India for the maid and her family.

"One wonders why there is so much outrage about the alleged treatment of the Indian national accused of perpetrating these acts, but precious little outrage about the alleged treatment of the Indian victim and her spouse?" he said in comments earlier this week.

Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, points out that millions of mostly women and girls perform "crucial jobs" around the world as domestic helpers, often enabling employers to pursue careers.

But she said that in India and elsewhere, they remain "among the most exploited", despite a new international treaty adopted in 2011 to improve their rights.

"India should sign the Domestic Workers Convention, encourage domestic workers to organise, and ensure that their complaints of abuse, including sexual abuse, are promptly addressed," Ganguly said.

"Quite often domestic workers fear reprisals and don't come forward with their complaints. Proper witness protection systems should be provided."

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A domestic helper from Mindoro island gathers hanging clothes in Manila on

September 6, 2012 (AFP/File, Jay Direct