EarthAction

Save the Hikers

From the petition:

On July 31, 2009, Shane, Sarah and Josh were hiking near the Ahmed Awa waterfall in Iraqi Kurdistan when news reports say they mistakenly crossed the unmarked border into Iran. Since then, they have been detained in Iran and have had only one phone call with their families.


Shane, Sarah and Josh were in Iraqi Kurdistan on a hiking vacation and had no intention of entering Iran. They all have great respect for different cultures and societies and for the law. If they did enter Iran, it can only have been by accident.

They have now been imprisoned for over 300 days.

Learn more, and take action: Sign the petition to free the hikers!

Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy

EarthAction friend Peter Brown recently co-authored Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy, with Geoffrey Carver.  As reviewer Jack Santa Barbara wrote, the book suggests that we need attend only to those relationships that preserve the integrity, resilience and beauty of the commonwealth of life.  Barbara's review, originally published online by Resurgence Magazine, follows below.  

Right Relationship is a book for the ‘worrying-about-collapse’ weary. It is a book for those of us who realise that the world we live in is in great peril and that something fundamental has to change to ensure that the human story continues and flourishes.

While there are many features of the book that make it hopeful, two in particular stand out. The book lays out a broad framework for change, including a moral base, that encompasses all arenas from the local to the global, and it arises from a Quaker tradition which has had remarkable successes in the past – the abolition of slavery being only one noteworthy example.

Human Rights Violations in Russia

Please read this important message about hate-crimes against non-Slavic peoples that are currently being committed in Russia, and what you can do to help.

From Andrey Boskhomdzhiev, April 22, 2010:  

"Is the world paying any attention to the hate-crimes in Russia against non-Slavic peoples, even those who are Russian citizens?  I have not seen any news in the American press about the recent murders of Kalymk people (Citizens of Russia from the Kalmyk republic in the south).  Yesterday, April 21^st, Kalmyk young people bravely began acts of civil disobedience to tell the world what is happening and I want to help them.   I am a Russian Kalmyk, Andrey Boskhomdzhiev, a graduate student in Massachusetts, and follow the news from home as well as from official Russian websites.  The most recent murder of a Kalmyk young man, Dolgan Nikeev, has been acknowledged by the government on its website in Russian, but is not included in the same website’s English language page.