15/10/2012
By Mairead Corrigan Maguire*, Nobel Peace Laureate, TRANSCEND – Alfred Nobel was a visionary who believed in a demilitarized peaceful world. In his Will he left his Nobel Peace Prize to those who would work for ‘fraternity among nations’, ‘abolition or reduction of standing armies’, and ‘holding and promotion of peace congresses’.
In Nobel’s Will the award for Peace was to go to Champions of Peace, those working to replace militarism with an international order based on law, and the abolition of national military forces. Nobel’s vision and dream was to replace the power of militarism and war with the power of law.
I believe the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union does not meet the criteria of Alfred Nobel’s vision and spirit of a demilitarized peaceful world.
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15/10/2012
New York, 15 October 2012 – Highlighting the role in women in producing much of the world’s food and caring for the environment, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his message marking the International Day of Rural Women, today said that eliminating discrimination that prevents rural women from realizing their full potential is crucial to ending global hunger and poverty.
Women lag far behind men in access to land, credit and decent jobs. Photo: UN Women
“By denying women rights and opportunities, we deny their children and societies a better future,” he said, noting that the daily reality for too many rural women is one in which they do not own the land they farm and are denied the financial services that could lift them out of poverty.
Established by the General Assembly in December 2007, the Day – observed on 15 October – recognizes the role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty, the UN reports.
In his message, the UN chief said rural women often live without the guarantee of basic nutrition, health services and amenities such as clean water and sanitation, while unpaid care work imposes a heavy burden and prevents their access to decent wage employment.
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15/10/2012
By AI* – The United Kingdom government’s plans for a substantial extension of the use of secret evidence in the justice system have been heavily criticized in a new Amnesty International (AI) report published on 15 October 2012.
Amnesty International has heavily criticized the UK government’s plans for a substantial extension of the use of secret evidence in the justice system. © Steve Calcott | Source: AI
The proposals would allow the government to rely on secret evidence in civil cases, including cases of alleged government responsibility for human rights violations such as torture and enforced disappearance.
The measures, contained in the Justice and Security Bill due to be debated in the House of Lords in the coming weeks, would allow the government to use so-called “closed material procedures” to prevent individuals and their lawyers from seeing documents even when they show the involvement of UK officials in wrongdoing, no matter how grave.
If such disclosures are deemed to harm “national security”, then the material can be withheld, potentially indefinitely, even if there is an overwhelming public interest in disclosure.
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15/10/2012
By RT*, 14 October, 2012 – US and UK weapons ammunition were linked to heart defects, brain dysfunctions and malformed limbs, according to a recent study. The report revealed a shocking rise in birth defects in Iraqi children conceived after the US invasion.
**Photo: Jim Gordon | Wikimedia Commons
Titled ‘Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects in Iraqi Cities,’ the study was published by the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. It revealed a connection between military activity in the country and increased numbers of birth defects and miscarriages.
The report, which can be found here, also contains graphic images of Iraqi children born with birth defects. (The images were not published on RT due to their disturbing content.) It documents 56 families in Fallujah, which was invaded by US troops in 2004, and examines births in Basrah in southern Iraq, which was attacked by British forces in 2003.
The study concluded that US and UK ammunition is responsible for high rates of miscarriages, toxic levels of lead and mercury contamination and spiraling numbers of birth defects, which ranged from congenital heart defects to brain dysfunctions and malformed limbs.
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15/10/2012
By IEA* – Iraq’s energy sector holds the key to the country’s future prosperity and can make a major contribution to the stability and security of global energy markets, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in a special report of the World Energy Outlook – the first time that the IEA has conducted a comprehensive review of the energy sector of a major Middle East producer.
Source: IEA
The IEA’s Iraq Energy Outlook, which was released on 9 October 2012, finds that Iraq makes by far the largest contribution to global oil supply growth over the coming decades, with current production of 3 million barrels per day (mb/d) more than doubling by 2020 and going on to reach more than 8 mb/d by 2035.
Iraq becomes a key supplier to fast-growing Asian markets, mainly China, and the world’s second largest oil exporter by the 2030s, overtaking Russia.
“This landmark study confirms the increasing importance of Iraq to the global energy system, highlighting the key role it is expected to play in meeting growing energy needs and the responsibilities it will assume as a strategic source of world oil supply. Put simply, this report shows that we all have an interest in Iraq realising its potential and revitalising its economy,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven.
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15/10/2012
By Niall Green, WSWS*, 15 October 2012 – In a speech before defense industry executives, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta used the outbreak of a computer virus at two energy companies in the Middle East to warn that the United States and its allies faced a threat equivalent to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks or the Japanese bombardment of Pearl Harbor in 1941.
**Image: The Opte Project | Wikimedia Commons
Panetta was the guest of honor Thursday [11 Oct.] at a New York City dinner organized by the trade group Business Executives for National Security, a lobbying front for military contractors. His comments followed an alleged cyber attack against the Saudi Arabian state oil company, Aramco, as well as Qatari natural gas company, Rasgas.
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15/10/2012
A top UN envoy said he was alarmed at recent reports that Israeli settlers have repeatedly attacked Palestinian farmers in the West Bank, destroying hundreds of olive trees at the height of the harvest season.
*”Gas the Arabs”; graffiti on the door of a home in Hebron | Photo: Magne Hagesæter
“These acts are reprehensible and I call on the Government of Israel to bring those responsible to justice,” said on 14 October 2012 the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry.
“Israel must live up to its commitments under international law to protect Palestinians and their property in the occupied territory so that the olive harvest – a crucial component of Palestinian livelihoods and the Palestinian economy – can proceed unhindered and in peace,” he said.
In a briefing to the Security Council last month, Mr. Serry had warned that the lack of progress between Israelis and Palestinians on the political track and the continuing conflict and occupation was putting at risk the viability of the two-State solution, the UN reports.
He added that the Palestinian Authority (PA) in particular, was experiencing the consequences of this risk in the form of a severe financial and economic crisis, and stressed that international donors and the Israeli Government should do more to alleviate the PA’s burden and ensure its fiscal viability in the short and medium term.
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