RIGHTS: Africa’s Success Stories in Gender Empowerment
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Thalif Deen* – IPS/TerraViva
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 (IPS) – Whenever gender empowerment is a vibrant topic of discussion internationally, some of the countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America are invariably singled out for their success stories in politics, education, health care or civil liberties even as Africa [...]
KENYA: New Bill to Improve State Witness Protection, If Passed
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Mary Kiio
NAIROBI, Mar 10 (IPS) – Kenyans affected by the violence that erupted after the country’s disputed presidential elections in 2007 may soon be able to speak out without fear. A new bill will offer better protection to state witnesses.
The Witness Protection (Amendment) Bill 2010, if passed [...]
POLITICS: Sri Lanka Locks Horns with UN over Experts’ Panel
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Amantha Perera
COLOMBO, Mar 10 (IPS) – The war of words between the Sri Lankan government and the United Nations has begun all over again, this time over the creation of an experts’ panel on the island’s human rights record.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon wants to appoint this panel, [...]
PERU: Suspension of Mining Operation Merely a Placebo
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Milagros Salazar
LIMA, Mar 9 (IPS) – Although the Peruvian government reported that it had suspended the exploration activities of the Afrodita mining company in the country’s northern Amazon jungle region to avoid further protests by local indigenous people, officials took no actual steps to bring the firm’s work [...]
FINANCE: Self-Policing of Extractive Industries a ”Dismal” Failure
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Charles Fromm
WASHINGTON, Mar 9 (IPS) – An international initiative that seeks to reform how governments profit from their natural resources should not reduce its existing standards of membership solely because candidate countries have been reluctant or incapable of meeting them, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday.
Twenty out of the [...]
RIGHTS-CUBA: Hunger Striker Refuses to Go into Exile
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Mar 8 (IPS) – The state news media in Cuba reported Monday on the case of dissident Guillermo Fariñas, who has been on a hunger strike for 13 days and refuses to go into exile in Spain.
An article titled ”Cuba will not accept pressure or [...]
THAILAND: Migrant Worker Law Hits Hurdle as 500,000 ‘Disappear’
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Mar 8, 2010 (IPS) – Thailand’s labour ministry is on the hunt for half a million migrant workers from neighbouring Burma who have gone underground rather than join a new foreign workers’ programme, one that some critics have described as a "confusing" initiative.
Labour ministry [...]
No Health Care For One Billion Migrants
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IDN
By Baltasar Garrido
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
MADRID (IDN) – Experts and decision-makers have followed with deep concern the Global Consultation on Migrant Health in Madrid. No wonder. Reports show that a high percentage of the one billion migrants worldwide lack access to health care, while their poverty [...]
RIGHTS: U.S. Criticised over Soaring Housing Costs
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Armin Rosen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 5 (IPS) – On Friday, the richest and most powerful country on earth was the subject of a damning report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The United States rarely finds itself brought before HRC, and issues of U.S. domestic policy [...]
A difficult week for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Global Geopolitics Net Sites
Heather McRobie, 5 March 2010
Link to the original article on openDemocracy.net
The ICTY’s struggle to prosecute war criminals causes a further decline in credibility in times when progress is vital for Croatia and the relation between Serbia and Bosnia.
It seems strange to think now that, until recently, the ICTY was intended to [...]
RIGHTS-CHINA: For Dissident’s Wife, A Time of Waiting
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
By Gordon Ross
BEIJING, Mar 5, 2010 (IPS) – Long before Liu Xiaobo, China’s most prominent political dissident and co- author of the Charter 08 call for political reform, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for "incitement to subvert state power," his wife, Liu Xia, had accepted his [...]
RIGHTS: Whistleblower Challenges Guantanamo ”Suicides”
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
William Fisher
NEW YORK, Jan 22 (IPS) – Is the administration of President Barack Obama concealing evidence suggesting that three suicides at Guantanamo Bay were not suicides at all?
That is a question human rights groups, legal experts and national security specialists are pondering on the heels of an [...]
RIGHTS-INDIA: Shelter for the Homeless amid Big Chill
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Jan 22, 2010 (IPS) – Happiness for Alok and Saddam is the bare canvas tent set up in the middle of a grassy traffic island close to Delhi Gate, the entrance to the old quarter of India’s capital.
"For warmth we have each other," [...]
RIGHTS: Defenders Under Sustained Attack Worldwide
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jan 20, 2010 (IPS) – Abusive governments around the world escalated their attacks against local human rights defenders and other independent monitors during 2009, according to the 2010 edition of Human Rights Watch’s annual ‘World Report’ released here Wednesday.
Their attacks have also become increasingly [...]
BANGLADESH: No End in Sight for Extrajudicial Killings
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
Farid Ahmed
DHAKA, Jan 21 (IPS) – Despite appeals by human rights organisation to the Bangladesh government to end extrajudicial killings in the country, no steps have been taken to bring the perpetrators to justice.
”The present government in its election manifesto promised to end extra-judicial killings, and the [...]
PERU: Victims of Military Rapists Wait for Justice 25 Years On
Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IPS
LIMA
Ángel Páez, Jan 20 (IPS) – ”I want justice. That will be a kind of peace,” says Micaela, a 40-year-old woman from the Andean region of Peru who is a survivor of the sexual violence prevalent during the 1980-2000 civil war. Twenty-five years ago, soldiers assaulted her at [...]
