17/10/2011
Human Wrongs Watch
An international campaign to demand that leaders of the nuclear weapon states and their allies “reject nuclear deterrence and negotiate without delay a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of all nuclear weapons” has been launched by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Nuclear deterrence is a doctrine that is used as a justification by nuclear weapon states and their allies for the continued possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons.
“Nuclear deterrence is the threat of a nuclear strike in response to a hostile action. However, the nature of the hostile action is often not clearly defined, making possible the use of nuclear weapons in a wide range of circumstances,” says this non-profit, non-partisan international education and advocacy organization.
“Nuclear deterrence threatens the murder of many millions of innocent people, along with severe economic, climate, environmental, agricultural and health consequences beyond the area of attack”.
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13/10/2011
Human Wrongs Watch
The United Nations human rights office called on Israel to stop attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, citing a spike in violence in recent weeks resulting in serious physical injury, property loss and damage
Palestinian children playing in Khallet Zakariya beside the Israeli settlement of Alon Shvut – Credit:UN
“More needs to be done to effectively prevent attacks by settlers against Palestinian civilians and, when they do occur, they should be properly investigated by the Israeli authorities,” the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) spokesperson Rupert Colville told a news conference in Geneva on 11 Oct.,
Colville urged “the Israeli government to fulfil its obligation under international human rights and humanitarian law.”
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11/10/2011
Human Wrongs Watch
By Neena Bhandari – IDN-InDepthNews*
SYDNEY – It was 7am on a fateful day in 1953, 10-year-old Yami Lester and a group of Aboriginal children were playing with a toy truck, when they heard a loud bang intercepted with several small bangs as the ground beneath their small feet shook.
Image: ICAN
“We saw a shiny black cloud coming from the south, moving above and through the trees, which spread across 70 miles. We shut our eyes as they began to burn. In the days that followed, about 50 Yankunytjatjara people in Walatina began to complain of skin rashes, sore eyes, vomiting, diarrhoea and coughing…”
“… There was no treatment on the cattle station. The closest health clinic was hundreds of miles away and we had no transport,” says Yami Lester, who was living160 km from Emu Junction in South Australia, the site of the first nuclear test on mainland Australia.”
Lester managed to open his eyes after three weeks, but couldn’t see anything with his right eye. The left eye, he reckons had about 70 per cent sight. By February 1957, he was totally blind and now he is confined to a wheelchair following a stroke last year.
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11/10/2011
Human Wrongs Watch
The cultivation in Afghanistan of opium poppies – the crop used to make heroin and other drugs – has increased by seven per cent this year because of continued insecurity and higher prices, a United Nations-backed survey reveals.
Heroin seized and destroyed in Afghanistan. Credit: UN
Cultivation reached 131,000 hectares, compared to 123,000 hectares in the previous two years, and the amount of opium produced rose from 3,600 tons last year to 5,800 tons according to the 2011 Afghan Opium Survey released on Oct. 11 by the Ministry of Counter Narcotics and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Opium production forms a significant part of the Afghan economy – production alone makes up nine per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, it says. This does not include manufacturing and trafficking profits, which fuel corruption and funding of insurgent groups.
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11/10/2011
Human Wrongs Watch
Ten year after the launch of the still ongoing U.S.-led military “Operation Enduring Freedom”, a new United Nations report has now confirmed “compelling evidence” of the “systematic” torture and mistreatment of detainees in Afghan detention facilities, including of children.
Afghan National Police. Credit: UN
The report, which was released by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on Oct. 10, is the result of extensive interviews from October 2010 to August 2011 of 379 pre-trial detainees and convicted prisoners at 47 facilities of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and Afghan National Police (ANP) in 22 provinces.
The mission found “compelling” evidence that 125 detainees, or 46 per cent, of the 273 detainees interviewed who had been in NDS detention experienced interrogation techniques at the hands of NDS officials that constituted torture, and that torture is practiced “systematically” in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan,” states the report.
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10/10/2011
Human Wrongs Watch
Paris– Youth are hit disproportionately hard by the recession. In the first quarter of 2011, the unemployment rate for young people (aged 15 to 24) was 17.4% in the OECD rich, industrialised countries, compared with 7% for adults (aged 25 and over).
Unemployed men marching during the Great Depression | Wikimedia Commons
“Youth who are neither in employment nor in education or training are a group at high risk of marginalisation and exclusion from the labour market,” according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which groups 34 top industrialised countries and some emerging economies.
“Before the crisis, long-term unemployment affected 4 out of 10 unemployed people in France and Germany but it was less of a problem in Spain and the UK, and affected only one in ten unemployed in the US,” OECD secretary-general, Angel Gurría, warned.
By mid 2011, unemployment in the OECD area was still stubbornly above 44 million, over 13 million higher than its pre-crisis level. Some OECD member countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain have reached double-digit unemployment rates in July 2011 and the U.S. unemployment rate more than doubled to over 9%.
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10/10/2011
Human Wrongs Watch
By Judith Orr – Socialist Worker*
Every night 40 raids take place. These attacks are led by the world’s richest nation deploying some of the most sophisticated weaponry ever invented. They are targetting one of the poorest nations on the globe. Yet after ten long years the wealth and weaponry is losing. This is Afghanistan in 2011.
Image: Joe Burger | Wikimedia Commons
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks in the US, president George W Bush argued that the Taliban in Afghanistan were sheltering the culprits—Al Qaida.
The call to war in Afghanistan won the support of Nato, with Tony Blair in the lead as the US’s most enthusiastic ally.
The war began on 8 October 2001. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have died—we’ll never know exactly how many because the occupiers refuse to count. Some 200,000 people are internally displaced and three million have become refugees.
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09/10/2011
Human Wrongs Watch
By Baher Kamal*
Apparently, hypocrisy has not limits—politicians everywhere, specially in rich-industrialised countries, look serious when they talk about their alleged, firm intentions to reduce fossil fuels devastating pollution, produce ‘clean’ energy and save humankind from the impact of climate change. Meanwhile, they spent about half a trillion dollars last year supporting the production and consumption of a major polluting source–fossil fuels.
Anacortes Refinery, U.S. - Image: Walter Siegmund (talk) | Wikimedia Commons
“The recovery from the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes remains fragile”, said Angel Gurría, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Oct. 4 in Paris during the launch event of its Inventory of Estimated Budgetary Support and Tax Expenditures for Fossil Fuels.
Meanwhile, the room for policy manoeuvres is increasingly limited, especially in more advanced economies. In the context of fiscal consolidation efforts, effective public spending becomes critical, he said.
Nevertheless, “Governments and taxpayers spent about half a trillion US dollars last year supporting the production and consumption of fossil fuels. Removing inefficient subsidies would raise national revenues and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions,” according to OECD and IEA (International Energy Agency) analyses.
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08/10/2011
Human Wrongs Watch
By Martin Khor* – South Centre
It is now clear that the world is slipping – or has already slipped – into a new economic downturn, and that this will have serious consequences for the developing countries. Indeed, some prominent economists have warned that this time the crisis will be more serious and more prolonged than the 2008-9 Great Recession.
Image: Jsquish | Wikimedia Commons
Firstly, a double-dip recession is now likely because of the sovereign debt crisis in the European region and the weakening of the US economy.
Secondly, the tools that helped the world quickly recover from the 2008-9 recession (fiscal stimulus and easy monetary policy) are no longer so easily available in the developed countries (or in some countries they are not available at all).
Thirdly, the kind of coordination of policy actions among developed countries (and several developing countries as well) that fought the last recession no longer seems to exist, at least in the immediate future.
A new global recession, or at best a downturn with slow growth, could thus be more prolonged that the short 2008-9 recession. The developing countries could thus face serious economic problems. In order not to be caught as helpless victims to the new crisis, they need to take three types of action:
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07/10/2011
Human Wrongs Watch
By Nichole Zlatunich* – Think Africa Press
Currently, about one in seven (15%) of the world’s people live in Africa. By 2050, it will be closer to 1 in 4 (24%). Most of this growth will occur in sub-Saharan Africa, due to a current annual increase in population of 2.6%. Population growth is high because the average woman in sub-Saharan Africa has more than five children.
UN-backed Millennium Villages project in Africa | Credit: UN
With reductions in overall mortality rates through improvements in sanitation, immunisation, and improved access to modern health care, death rates have dropped. Yet birth rates have remained high, resulting in high population growth, with a large proportion of children dependent upon working-age adults.
In 39 African countries, 40% or more of the population is under 15 years of age.
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