JORGE RODRIGUES SIMAO

Human Rights Watch demands US criminal probe of CIA torture

TORTURE

UN action on human rights

 Early on, the UN established a Commission on Human Rights initially composed of nine core individual members. These individuals proposed that Commission members should act as independent experts rather than present the views of their governments. The governments themselves rejected this proposal. The UN member states decided that the Commission should comprise governmental representatives from 18 elected UN member states. This membership of government representatives was expanded to 32 in 1967, and later to 53 members. In 2006, the Commission was abolished and replaced with a 47-member Human Rights Council.

As a rational human being you should always be alert to creative shortcuts to success. Undoubtedly the most serious mistake people make is failing to define success in the most personal way. In this regard the most creative shortcut to success is to reevaluate what success means to you. Ultimately, you will make yourself successful or unsuccessful just by the way you define success.

For some odd reason a large majority of people think that their problems are a lot more serious than they really are. You may be one of them. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that practically everyone else out there has a much easier life than you. But as Socrates pointed out, "If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart." Think that you and your problems are so important?

Several years ago a woman wrote to Ann Landers asking for advice on how to respond to her mother-in-law, who continually borrowed things and didn't return them. The concerned woman was afraid to say anything because she wanted to stay on good terms with her mother-in-law - who was otherwise in her words "a wonderful person." Ann Landers appropriately gave this advice: "This is going to be a lifelong problem unless you replace the spaghetti in your spine with a backbone."