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9th International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 12:16:38 PM
On the 9th International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC) and the Geneva Human Rights Office, call for the adoption of more human-rights based legislation to end F
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Oil companies lobby for less transparency as Global Witness exposes the need for more
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 11:47:12 AM
More transparency is needed in the oil, gas and mining industries to prevent the international scramble for Africa's natural resources from fuelling still deeper corruption and instability, according to a new report from Global Witness published today.
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Oxfam: International humanitarian system will not cope with increased case load without going local
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 10:44:15 AM
The international humanitarian response system will fail to cope with the expected rise in the number of people exposed to crises unless there are more resources closer to where disasters happen and there is more investment in preventing and reducing the risk of disasters, warned international agency Oxfam today.
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Women's Media Center makes sexualized violence in conflict visible with new project: Women Under Siege
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 10:27:53 AM
Sexualized violence is being used to devastate women and tear apart communities around the world, conflict by conflict, from Libya to the Democratic Republic of Congo. With the launch of our new project, Women Under Siege, the Women's Media Center is sending the message to the press, and the world, that we can make the unspeakable visible and comprehensible, and in doing so, start to bring about an end to a violent epidemic that women suffer globally.
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Spain: UN experts express concern over implications of Judge Garzón case
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 10:07:50 AM
A group of UN experts on independence of judges and enforced disappearances today expressed concern about the effect of the trial on the independence of Judge Baltasar Garzón in Spain, and on the process to investigate and deal with more than a hundred thousand cases of enforced disappearances which reportedly occurred during the Spanish civil war and the Franco regime.
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Industry figures confirm GM food is a commercial flop in Europe
Published Feb 8, 2012 - 6:13:51 AM
Annual industry figures to be released on Tuesday are expected to confirm the commercial failure of genetically modified (GM) food in Europe, said Greenpeace. Only around 0.06% of the EU's farmland was used in 2011 to grow GM food, according to data in the report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a group funded by the biotech industry to promote GM crops.
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Monsanto's GM crop debate reopens Agent Orange wounds
Full story: Thanhniennews
Serthar under lockdown following self-immolation of three Tibetan herders
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 12:29:04 PM
The Serthar area of eastern Tibet remains under tight lockdown after three Tibetan herders, including a 60-year old man, set themselves on fire on Friday (February 3). This brings the total number of self-immolations by Tibetans in Tibet since February 2009 to 20.
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Nearly 2,000 African communities end female genital mutilation - UN
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 8:45:41 AM
A new United Nations report shows that almost 2,000 communities across Africa abandoned female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) last year, prompting calls for a renewed global push to end this harmful practice once and for all.
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Nigeria: Child Lead Poisoning Crisis
Published Feb 7, 2012 - 8:39:28 AM
Thousands of children in northern Nigeria need immediate medical treatment and dozens of villages remain contaminated two years into the worst lead poisoning epidemic in modern history, Human Rights Watch said today while releasing a video on the issue. Four hundred children have died, according to official estimates, yet environmental cleanup efforts have not even begun in numerous affected villages.
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Israel: End Restrictions on Palestinian Residency
Published Feb 6, 2012 - 8:24:12 AM
Israeli policies on Palestinian residency have arbitrarily denied thousands of Palestinians the ability to live in, and travel to and from, the West Bank and Gaza, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Israel should immediately stop denying or cancelling the residency of Palestinians and close family members with deep ties to the West Bank and Gaza, and end blanket bans on processing their applications for residency.
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UN: Russia, China Vetoes Betray Syrian People
Published Feb 6, 2012 - 7:10:44 AM
Vetoes by Russia and China of the UN Security Council resolution on Syria are a betrayal of the Syrian people, Human Rights Watch said today. A resolution urging the Syrian government to end all human rights violations and cooperate with the UN commission of inquiry and the Arab League observer mission was approved by 13 council members, including India, South Africa, and Pakistan, before being vetoed.
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Sahel: Donors learning funding lessons -- slowly
Published Feb 6, 2012 - 7:09:12 AM
This year donors are stepping up more quickly to meet Sahel's humanitarian needs compared to 2010, when they were slow to respond. However, they are still at fault for taking a quick-fix approach rather than addressing long-term disaster prevention and resilience needs, say aid groups.
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UN court ruling on Nazi war crime victims 'a setback for rights'
Published Feb 6, 2012 - 5:25:20 AM
A decision by the United Nations' top legal body that Italy was wrong to allow action through its courts to seek compensation from Germany for Nazi-era war crimes is a setback for human rights, Amnesty International said today.
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Somalia famine ends, but situation still dire
Published Feb 3, 2012 - 8:00:28 AM
The United Nations declared an end to famine conditions in Somalia today, but warned that with recurrent droughts in the Horn of Africa hunger remains a threat unless long-term measures are taken to restore food security.
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Experts pledge to eradicate "neglected" diseases
Published Feb 3, 2012 - 7:59:10 AM
Ten little-known but debilitating diseases will be high on the agenda of the world's pharmaceutical chiefs, health ministers and donor governments after they pledged their support for a World Health Organization (WHO) initiative to wipe out guinea worm, river blindness, trachoma, leprosy, bilharzia and intestinal worms, among other "neglected" diseases.
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Nigeria: Never so divided, never so united
Published Feb 3, 2012 - 7:57:37 AM
A month after an angry public launched protests across Nigeria over skyrocketing fuel prices due to the removal of a government subsidy, a measure of calm has returned and people seem to have settled into accepting a compromise.
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Scientists censure McGill University over ties to asbestos industry
Full story: Montreal Gazette
Filmmaker sounds alarm over ocean of plastic
Full story: France 24
Threatened by climate change, glaciers now under attack from ice thieves - UN
Published Feb 2, 2012 - 10:40:06 AM
Criminal gangs are becoming a threat to the world's glaciers, which are already receding as a result of climate change, the United Nations said today, citing a case in Chile where police are investigating the theft of some 5,000 kilograms of millennia-old ice from the Jorge Montt glacier.
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IACHR Urges the Haitian Authorities to Investigate, Try and Punish the Grave Violations to Human Rights
Published Feb 2, 2012 - 7:05:21 AM
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expresses concern over the declaration of statute of limitations on the crimes against humanity perpetrated during the Jean-Claude Duvalier regime in Haiti, which denies the rights to truth, justice and reparations to the victims. The Inter-American Commission calls on the Haitian authorities to comply with its international obligation to investigate, try and punish such crimes.
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Harrowing images and last message from Tibet of first lama to self-immolate
Published Feb 2, 2012 - 7:03:54 AM
Photographs of the body of Lama Sobha, a respected and popular Tibetan lama who set himself on fire and died on January 8 have emerged from Tibet. The harrowing images show the burned body of Lama Sobha lying beside a shrine in his monastery in Golog (Chinese: Guoluo) in Qinghai, the Tibetan area of Amdo.
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In Ecuador, new reforms restrict election coverage for the press
Published Feb 1, 2012 - 8:53:34 AM
Reforms to Ecuador's electoral law that will take effect on February 4 could hamper the ability of the country's journalists to cover political campaigns and elections, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
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Evidence of overt Chinese discrimination against Tibetans in the job market
Published Feb 1, 2012 - 8:52:12 AM
New translations of job advertisements in Tibet, both online and as notices posted in public spaces, confirm overt discrimination against Tibetans. The ads also reveal that Tibetans are not even being offered menial, unskilled work in some sectors, or if they are, they are in some instances being offered a wage significantly lower than their Han counterparts.
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Global Sustainability Panel Says a "Future Worth Choosing" must be based on true costs to people and the environment
Published Jan 31, 2012 - 11:05:52 AM
Now more than ever, leaders need to focus on what matters most - the long-term resilience of people and the planet - the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability urged in its report presented today to UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon in Addis Ababa.
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Mediterranean the deadliest sea for refugees and migrants, says UN agency
Published Jan 31, 2012 - 10:15:32 AM
The Mediterranean Sea has become the deadliest stretch of water in the world for migrants and refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported today.
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Up close one year later: startling new photos of uncontacted Indians released
Published Jan 31, 2012 - 7:06:16 AM
Survival International has released close-up pictures of uncontacted Indians, exactly a year after aerial photos from Brazil astonished the world.Survival International has released close-up pictures of uncontacted Indians, exactly a year after aerial photos from Brazil astonished the world.
The new photographs taken in south-east Peru show an uncontacted family from the Mashco-Piro tribe.
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Analysis: The Middle East's "invisible refugees"
Published Jan 31, 2012 - 6:49:06 AM
Among the migrants who found themselves caught up in Libya during last year's war was a group of people whom one University of Oxford researcher calls "invisible": refugees who travel to third countries for work or better education.
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The Arctic is already suffering the effects of a dangerous climate change
Published Jan 31, 2012 - 6:13:32 AM
These researchers assert that the Arctic is already suffering some of the effects that, according to The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), correspond with a "dangerous climate change". Currently, the rate of climatic warming exceeds the rate of natural adaptation in arctic ecosystems. Furthermore, the Eskimo population is witnessing how their security, health and traditional cultural activities jeopardize.
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Canadian TV crew hoping to cover mining dispute fears being denied entry
Published Jan 31, 2012 - 6:06:57 AM
Three journalists with Canada's state-owned CBC TV, who set off from Toronto today to cover a dispute between indigenous groups and Canadian and other international mining companies in Panama, fear that they may not be allowed into the country because a CBC fixer who was supposed to prepare their visit was denied entry 10 days ago.
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