23/02/2012
By Tony Otoa*, Think Africa Press - Tullow Oil plc announced that it has completed the farm-down of two thirds of its Ugandan licences to China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) Limited and French oil major Total for $2.9 billion earlier today. The news that British firm Tullow has finally brought in partners to develop its oil fields in Uganda paves the way for commercial oil production to begin in the country.
A Tullow oil camp in Uganda | ThinkAfricaPress.com
Tullow’s sale of much of its stake in Ugandan oil fields follows the recent signing of Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) and the Kingfisher production licence with the government of Uganda. read more »
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21/02/2012
By Abeer S. Abusaud
Amman – For a whole year now, there have been many conflicting reports and official statements about the numbers, status and aid provided to Syrian refugees in Jordan, mostly watering down their real situation.
**Image Credit: http://khaberni.com
But their presence in Jordan is becoming a fact that can hardly be ignored; especially as increasing numbers are fleeing their country everyday due to the continuing rise in violence.
According to local sources in Mafraq on the Jordanian-Syrian borders, (quoted in A’Dustour newspaper last week) Syrian refugees are facing increasingly difficult and complex challenges related to severe shortage in daily needs, as well as health, education and housing needs in the absence of effective aid from the international community.
The sources pointed out that cases of chronic disease and disabilities and mental illness, were recorded among these refugee families. read more »
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21/02/2012
By Bill Van Auken, WSWS* - A little-noted amendment to a $63 billion Federal Aviation Authority appropriations bill has ominous implications for democratic rights in the United States.
**Photo credit:SSGT REYNALDO RAMON, USAF. Source | Wikimedia Commons
President Barack Obama signed the bill, the “FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012”, into law on February 14. It clears the way for a vast expansion of the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, over US territory.
The legislation, passed earlier this month, underscores the link between the explosive growth of US militarism abroad and the steady advance of police state repression at home.
Drones have become infamous the world over as instruments of US military aggression and assassination in the “global war on terror”. read more »
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19/02/2012
While rights groups stress that the brutal crackdown on protesters in Syria and other Middle East and North Africa countries underlines the absence of a global regulation on the trade of conventional arms, a number of states –including U.S., China, and Russia– are rejecting the Inclusion of strong human rights safeguards in an international Arms Trade Treaty.
*Image: mekfouldji abdelkrim. Source | Wikimedia Commons
“Leaders currently seeking a veto over an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) must stop playing chess with millions of innocent lives,” Amnesty International (AI) in a report.
The call came in the wake of a week-long meeting at the United Nations, hammering out details for the final ATT negotiation in July.
A UN preparatory committee concluded a final round of talks on Friday 17 Feb. to define the rules of procedure for the ATT). It issued a report that includes a “non-paper” that will be the basis of this summer’s talks. read more »
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18/02/2012
By Johan Galtung* – TRANSCEND – The state system at its worst: trading insults and threats, sanctions, readiness to use extreme violence, forward deployment of US troops in Israel as hostages to guarantee US involvement, disregard for common people and the effects of warfare in the Middle East and the world.
**Obama, 2006. Author: Ari Levinson (Autumnfire) | Wikimedia Commons
The options are harder sanctions, or war. The far better option, sitting down, with mediators, talking and searching for solutions, is absent.
Polarization, escalation, the material of which wars are made fill the media. What a shame.
Indeed, there are multiple underlying conflicts. Take the nuclear issue: two haves against one have-not. But the USA lived with Soviet and Chinese nuclear bombs for a long time before they learnt to talk. Israel has lived with Pakistani nuclear options, referred to as “Islamic”, even with the bomb. Of course, the real, longer term goal could be that Pakistani bomb.
But then, with no proof of an Iranian nuclear arms capability, why Iran? read more »
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18/02/2012
By Ramesh Jaura – IDN-InDepth News*, Berlin/Tokyo – In a variation of the legendary slogan “make love, not war”, an eminent Buddhist philosopher is calling for a nuclear-free world in which genuine human security, sustainable development and unwavering respect for the dignity of life do not only comprise an ideal but constitute an entrenched reality.
**Image: BANG (Ban All-Nukes Generation) | Credit: enact.org.nz
In a 23-page peace proposal titled ‘Human Security and Sustainability: Sharing Reverence for the Dignity of Life,’ Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda pleads for a nuclear abolition summit in 2015 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of the two cities so that the growing momentum toward elimination of nuclear weapons becomes irreversible. read more »
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17/02/2012
With 60 percent of the world’s population, Asia has one of the largest concentrations globally of aging persons, creating a host of potential challenges, experts warn*. Over 65 percent of Asia’s elderly population will be women.
Credit:UN
“Asian countries, besides Japan perhaps, need to plan now. These countries have grown older before they have grown rich,” said Somnath Chatterji with the World Health Organization (WHO) office in New Delhi.
“One in four people in Asia will be 60 or older by the year 2050, rising from one in 10 in 2010, according to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.”
“China and India clearly will be the countries with the largest population of older adults in absolute terms. However, China is aging more rapidly than India because of its one child policy,” Chatterji added.
The over-60 population will rise from 165 million to 439 million in China and from 93 million to 323 million in India from 2010 to 2050, according to government projections reported to the UN.
India’s overall population is expected to exceed China’s in the same period. read more »
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17/02/2012
The UN General Assembly strongly condemned the continued “widespread and systematic” human rights violations by the Syrian authorities and demanded that the Government immediately cease all violence and protect its people.
**Image: Syria-Frames-Of-Freedom. Source | Wikimedia Commons
The 193-member body adopted on 16 Feb. a resolution backing Arab League efforts to resolve the crisis in Syria, where UN officials estimate that “security forces have killed well over 5,400 people since the popular uprising began last March,” the UN reports.
“Thousands of people are also believed to be missing, some 70,000 people are internally displaced and 25,000 have fled the country to avoid the violence.” read more »
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17/02/2012
An estimated 10 million people or more are struggling to get enough to eat across the Sahel region, including 5.4 million in Niger alone, representing over one third of its total population. More than a million children under the age of five risk severe acute malnutrition in the region, up from 300,000 last year.
*Image: Mothers waiting to have their children assessed and weighed at the Bargadja therapeutic feeding centre in Niger's Maradai Region. Photo: WFP/Phil Behan
The UN has been sounding the alarm since last September that the situation in the Sahel region was likely to become “a major humanitarian situation” this year unless something was done to reverse the trend.
“We are extremely concerned that millions of people will be affected by a combination of drought, poverty and high grain prices, which, coupled with environmental degradation and chronic underdevelopment, is expected to result in a new food and nutrition crisis,” Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Catherine Bragg stated in New York, the UN reports. read more »
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15/02/2012
By Bill Van Auken – WSWS* - The US-backed monarchy in the island Gulf state of Bahrain unleashed intense repression on Monday [Feb.13] and Tuesday [Feb.14] to break up demonstrations by thousands of workers and youth marking the first anniversary of the brutally crushed pro-democracy protests that began on February 14, 2011.
**Image: Bahrain in pictures | Wikimedia Commons
The Bahraini protesters have demanded an end to the dictatorial rule of the al-Khalifa a regime, a Sunni monarchy, as well as jobs and equal rights for the country’s Shia majority, 70 percent of the population, which is subject to systematic discrimination.
Bahrain’s capital of Manama and its surrounding suburbs were placed under a tightened de facto state of siege with armored anti-riot cars lining the streets, thousands of police and troops deployed and barbed wire strung around the iconic Pearl Roundabout, the equivalent of Cairo’s Tahrir Square. read more »
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