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  The Nakba - the "disaster" or "catastrophe" was the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948 and the permanent displacement of Palestinian Arabs. The term is used to describe both the events of 1948 and the ongoing occupation of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as their displacement in refugee camps throughout the region and beyond. The Nakba was the result of the partition of Mandatory Palestine after World War Two ended as the United Nations and world powers realigned the borders of the Middle East.  The following story is by Neveen Abuelola, my 'step -niece' through marriage. I am reblogging this from when she first wrote it, around 2012 I am Neveen. I am Palestinian. This is my sto­­ry. This is the Palestinian Story. I'd like to take you back to 64 years ago, to the fertile rolling hills of Palestine. To the land of orange, lemon and olive trees, to around mid May1948. My Grandmother, heavily pregnant qu...

Yesterday 8th March, 2023 was   International Women's Day   with the campaign theme of #EmbraceEquity. I did have this post written yesterday morning but didn't get around to posting it as my day was three quarters taken up with doing IWD type things - well sort of, as you will see if you read to the end. The word 'equity'  is the quality of being fair and reasonable in a way that gives equal treatment to everyone. It's commonly used in legal and financial terms such as in the sum of a person's assets, once debts have been taken from it.  If someone who has borrowed money to buy a house and has 'negative equity',  the amount of money they owe is greater than the present value of their home.  I have to say that I have checked my understanding of 'equity' and 'equality' and the differences between them, with a dictionary and can confirm that " Equality is providing the same level of opportunity to all segments of society such as races ...

Here we are, already on the 3rd day of the new year of 2023 and I have been berating myself over the weekend for not having a thought or two worth expressing here about anything at all.  Anyone looking back over the 14 or so years of this blog will see that this is by no means a new 'thing' for me, and a simple search of " New Year" "Christmas" or even "Time" finds me castigating myself for not writing a post, the timing of a post or for the feelings and thoughts that I should or shouldn't have had about the season.  (I have posted handy links for some of these posts to save the reader searching themselves, which is a thankless task :) )  So where does Mr Micawber come into this ? He is a character in Charles Dickens' book "David Copperfield" and is renowned for many sayings which we use in everyday situations, such as "Something will turn up". Here, I need to explain that his quotations come about due to his inability t...