Christian Wisskirchen has worked on Haiti since 1991. In 1992 he was among the founders of Haiti Support Group, which has become the leading pressure and solidarity group on Haiti in the UK. He is now chairman. He wrote a dissertation on the Haitian boat people (refugees) in 1994 and worked as a UN Human Rights Officer in Haiti in 1995. He is also head of International Relations of the Bar Council of England and Wales. During the US occupation from 1915-1945 Haitian uprisings were brutally suppressed, he says. For example, a Haitian worker in a forced labour gang set up by the US forces was murdered in cold blood when he was considered lazy by one of the guards. During that period the US restructured the Haitian army to become an oppressive tool for its foreign policy objectives in Haiti for decades to follow, and that was only ended by the dismissal of the army by President Aristide in 1995 (who was overthrown also by officers trained by the US army, at the notorious Fort Benson ‘School of the Americas’).
Continue reading…
John Timoney moved to New York from Dublin in 1961. In the New York City Police Department he rose through the ranks to become the youngest four-star chief in the history of that department. Under Commissioner Bill Bratton, Timoney and the command staff implemented CompStat, leading to historic declines in crime. In 1998, Mayor Ed Rendell of Philadelphia hired Timoney as police commissioner and crime declined in every major category, especially homicide. A similar decrease marked Timoney’s tenure as police chief of Miami, from 2003 to January 2010. He is the recipient of over 67 Department medals, including the prestigious Medal of Valor, and he holds two masters degrees. He is also considered among the US’s highest authorities on terrorism.
Continue reading…
Aleks Krotoski is a broadcaster, journalist, and academic specialising in technology and interactivity. She talks to FiveBooks about the subtle ways in which web-based communication has altered human relations.
Continue reading…
Professor Alison Wolf is an authority on education and the labour market. She has criticised post-war politicians for believing that increased spending on state education will automatically lead to economic growth. Education, she writes, is good for the individual but is not a panacea for society’s ills.
Continue reading…
"Jon Calame is a consultant and founding partner with Minerva Partners, a non-profit group based in New York. His book, Divided Cities, co-authored with Esther Charlesworth, explores the origins and consequences of urban partition along ethnic lines.
Continue reading…