All of the writers on EVOLVE are expressing their own opinions concerning the issues they write about. Readers are advised that by clicking through to "read more" they are accepting the content as the opinion of the author.

The situation in Syria has become very serious but are the world either watching or even caring? Why is it we can invade Iraq, invade Afghanistan, assassinate people inside the territory of sovereign nations at will, bomb in support of Libyan freedom fighters but just watch with one eye as Assad's regime brutally murders its own people? Such is the world of political leadership at the end of 2011.

  The Pope, head of the Catholic Church (one of the richest  
 institutions on the planet), resplendant in magnificent robes
 stiched with gold and a golden cross is wheeled into position to
 give his Christmass message. The message this year is the
 condemnation of the commercialisation of Christmas. The

Sometime after the Christmas dinner is consumed, tiredness has set in and the noise of the family starts to peak, many people will be starting to wonder what the coming year holds for them. The television advertising will commence for the next great consumer feast day, The New Year Sales, and everyone will be getting off the couch and back onto the treadmill to start paying off the credit card bills that gave the kids their presents. Obviously, if the re-payments start to bite you can always apply to Megabank Multinational for a little Christian charity and some easing of repayment terms. After all they were more than happy to use Christmas to sell you credit limit upgrades so they must be full of spiritual values........ By the time the Western World wakes up from the nightmare pantomine of Christmas and starts to look at the bill it will already be too late. 2012 promises more unemployment, rising prices, home repossessions and increasing taxation no matter what any politician on the stump will say. You may all think that this is a bleak Christmas message coming from Scrooge himself but my point here is that if you are in this situation then you are part of the lucky end of human life today.

In an article by Lucy Britt and Reebecca Geary of the Cardiff University Law School, the issues around Dale Farm are tackled with a persistent focus. As leading interns on the HumanRightsTV Internship programme at Cardiff University, Lucy and Rebecca have taken to the difficulties of an assessment task such as Dale Farm presents and produced an interesting viewpoint.

The Labour Party Conference this week saw the leader surrender all possibility of any electoral success. Some unimpenatrable mutterings about  "a new bargain" revealed that whilst the political landscape is alight with more targets than in a Libyan desert, Milliband managed to come up with the most inept of political postures. A more erudite wag than your correspondent here would probably pre-empt the tabloids by re-naming him Millibland but such a cheap shot is not worthy of these pages. He will get away with it because all the coalition government can do is mount a collective sound bite to cover up their own impotency. New Bargain is such a tragic play on the New Deal Roosevelt constructed it beggars belief that anyone in opposition has so much as a grain of sand inbetween their ears.  You can hear the spinning doctors in the bedsit cabinet saying it as they see it:

"Oh yes David, well the last time there was a cataclysmic economic disaster the catch phrase was 'New Deal' so if we could just find a way to re-brand that we could be onto a winner..... after you with the Ferrero Roche!"

The death penalty is thankfully an anachronism for the majority of the world's governments, the path of enlightend leadership is not seen to encompass murdering your own citizens in the name of law. If the law says "Thou shalt not murder with premeditation!" then surely it must be the law in all situations or else it is meaningless. Whatever the argument coming from pro death penalty supporters we must recognise the indesputable truth; they represent a minority of people on this planet. This minority only possess's a power to kill for two reasons, firstly and crucially because the United States of America retains the death penalty in a majority of states and secondly because the global mainstream media and their lickspittle reporters remain disgracefully gutless in dealing with this issue.

The Save the Childrens Fund have released a video using the song Time for Action by Secret Affair. This clever use of music to make the point about the plight of children around the world has been shown to the British Prime Minister David Cameron in No 10 Downing Street. A more appropriate musical message it is hard to imagine because all around the world children are suffering and unless action is taken now that suffering will just continue.

Just heard that the Supreme Court have decided not to block the execution of Troy Davis. Been watching, with people all around the world, events unfold on http://www.democracynow.org  and watching the amazing coverage provided by Amy Goodman and her crew. One could not help but wonder what would have happened if the mainstream media had covered this story in the same way Democracy Now have done. The shame of the judicial system in America has been balanced by the credit done to journalism by this team. Troy Davis must be the last.

                                                 A message from Troy Anthony Davis

                                                           from September 2008

                                                                    To All:

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

Well it is simple really, I have resisted speaking out about the utter rubbish I have been hearing regarding the UK economy but finally they have just worn me down. If they, the politicians, the economists and the media pundits, don't know what they are talking about then what hope do any of us have? The BBC web site is now showing that the Bank of England is considering another round of Quantative Easing. This term, along with the use of "Double Dip Recession", is an expression of malicious incompetence in my opinion. People who use such linguistic deceptions really need to have their intellects publicly challenged and themselves exposed as the charlatons they are. To do that we need a very simple plain language understanding of just where the UK economy is right now.