15/12/2012
Only few hours before Egyptians go to polls today, 15 December 2012, to vote on the controversial draft Constitution imposed by President Mohamed Morsi, a group of United Nations human rights experts called on the Egyptian Government to ensure equality, non-discrimination and protection and promotion of women’s rights in the final text.
President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt. UN Photo/Marco Castro
“Key opportunities have so far been missed,” stressed independent expert Kamala Chandrakirana, who heads the UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice.
“We are concerned that almost no women were represented in the Constituent Assembly charged with drafting the new constitution and that women’s perspectives were grossly under-represented in the final draft,” said Chandrakirana said, in a news release from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“Political transitions offer a unique opportunity to address inequalities of the past, advance women’s human rights and ensure that equality between women and men is one of the foundations on which the new legal system is built,” Chandrakirana stated.
However, she noted, “despite offering unprecedented opportunities for progress, political transitions can result in regression and bring new forms of discrimination.”
read more »
Posted in Middle East, The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
15/12/2012
Find news, videos, graphs on the Global Wage Report 2012/2013 | ILO
Wages (*) in China more than tripled between 2000 and 2010, leading to speculation about whether the era of cheap Chinese labour is over, says ILO in a
release*,
noting that the figures relate mainly to state-owned enterprises, known as urban units, but separate surveys show that wages in small and medium private enterprises are also rising sharply, although pay levels are lower than in the public sector.
“Wages in urban units increased on average at double digit annual rates over the full decade,” said Sangheon Lee, one of the co-authors of the ILO Global Wage Report 2012/2013.
“The wage rises are across the board, from people working in restaurants to office workers. The highest wages are in the financial sectors and in state owned sectors, where employees receive very high wages.”
The rapid wage growth signals a shift in government policy towards creating a more balanced, sustainable economy that is less reliant on exports, ILO adds.
read more »
Posted in Asia, Market Lords, The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
15/12/2012
By Gunnar Westberg, IPPNW* — Terrorists who wanted to kill 100,000 people and destroy a city could build a simple nuclear bomb, without much difficulty, by obtaining some Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU).
As little as 20 kg of HEU would provide the fuel for a possible bomb to even a fairly unsophisticated terrorist group. I probably could do it myself with the help of a few engineers and someone who understands how to use explosives.
Image: ICAN
The simplest way to get access to HEU is to steal the stuff from a research reactor or a reactor that makes isotopes for medical use.
Many of these reactors are guarded by a couple of guys with semiautomatic rifles, who could be overpowered or bribed. Obtaining fuel in this way would more likely lead to a usable weapon than stealing a bomb, which could not be made to work without codes and, usually, a critical gadget for ignition.
In these research and commercial reactors, HEU generally exists in handy packages of 10 or 20 kg. It is easy to carry, and the radiation, though harmful, is not lethal.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
5 Comments »
15/12/2012
Concrete action to reverse or mitigate environmental damage done to the world’s oceans must be initiated immediately before it is too late, a United Nations ocean expert has warned.
UNDP-GEF report says as little as $5 billion in public funds could catalyse action and financial flows to reverse ocean degradation. Photo: UNDP/A. Chetvergov
Speaking at the launch of a new UN Development Programme (UNDP) report held in Washington, D.C, Andrew Hudson, the head of UNDP’s Water & Ocean Governance Programme and UN-Oceans Coordinator, noted that continuing ocean degradation threatened the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, primarily in the world’s least developed countries.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
14/12/2012
By Claudia Ciobanu*
Warsaw — 36-year old Iranian Leila Naeimi spent two months in Lesznowola, a migrants’ detention center 15 kilometers south of Polish capital Warsaw. She is still waiting for a decision on her asylum application, but she is too angry at Polish authorities to keep quiet.
Putting asylum-seekers behind bars is common in many European countries, including Central Europe. Detainees are often not informed of the reasons and duration of their confinement, and do not get proper legal assistance. Detention centre in Biała Podlaska, Poland. | Credit: UNHCR
“Everywhere you saw only walls, everywhere the guards were with us, and they treated us like animals,” Naeimi recounts, adding that while at Lesznowola she was the victim of verbal sexual harassment and of an overall abusive attitude on the part of the staff.
She says that food in the camp was of poor quality, basic hygiene products were missing, and medical care was suboptimal.
“They think they can do with the lives of people whatever they want, as if I were just a ball they can play around with,” Naeimi bursts out.
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
1 Comment »
14/12/2012
As the estimated number of tourists travelling this year hits a record one billion today, the United Nations agency focused on world tourism unveiled a tip-laden campaign aimed at letting travellers know how they can best benefit the people and places they visit.
Credit: WTO
The One Billion Tourists: One Billion Opportunities campaign of the UN World Tourism Organization (WTO) shows tourists that respecting local culture, preserving heritage or buying local goods when travelling can make a big difference.
“Today, we welcome the symbolic arrival of the one-billionth tourist,” said WTO’s Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai, according to a news release from the agency. “Your actions count. That is our message to the one billion tourists.”
People worldwide helped prioritize the campaign’s travel tips by voting for the ones they believed would best boost local populations.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
14/12/2012
As an Argentinian ship remained impounded in Africa in a debt-repayment dispute involving a creditor Argentina calls a ‘vulture fund,’ a United Nations independent expert called for checks to be placed on the power of debt holders that buy obligations at a deep discount, then demand repayment in full.
**Gyps fulvus eating the carcass of a red deer in Spain | Author: Mario Modesto Mata | Wikimedia Commons
Also using the term ‘vulture fund,’ the UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, Cephas Lumina, asked world governments to prevent such entities from being able to “paralyze debt relief for heavily indebted countries,” according to a news release from the Geneva-based UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
read more »
Posted in Market Lords, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
Leave a Comment »
13/12/2012
Some 27 per cent of all victims of human trafficking officially detected around the world between 2007 and 2010 are children, up seven per cent from the period 2003 to 2006, according to a new report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
**A boy from an East Cipinang trash dump slum shows his find, Jakarta Indonesia | Jonathan McIntosh (thehero) | Wikimedia Commons
“Human trafficking requires a forceful response founded on the assistance and protection for victims, rigorous enforcement by the criminal justice system, a sound migration policy and firm regulation of the labour markets,” said UNODC’s Executive Director, Yury Fedotov, in a news release on the findings of the agency’s 2012 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
2 Comments »
11/12/2012
Nairobi-The Sudanese government’s indiscriminate aerial bombardment and shelling in Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states has killed and injured scores of civilians since the conflict began more than a year ago, Human Rights Watch said in a new report*. Government forces have raided villages, burned and looted civilian property, arbitrarily detained people, and assaulted and raped women and girls.
**Girls carrying water at the Doro refugee camp in Maban, Upper Nile state in South Sudan. © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch
The 39-page report, “Under Siege,” is based on five research missions to the hard-to-access rebel-held areas in the two states and to refugee camps in South Sudan.
read more »
Posted in Africa |
Leave a Comment »
11/12/2012
“China has already overtaken Japan as the world’s second biggest economy, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty in the process; India is actively working to reshape its future with new entrepreneurial creativity and social policy innovation, and Brazil has become an engine of growth for all South America, while reducing inequalities at home through antipoverty programs that are emulated worldwide,” according to a new report*.
The next Human Development Report – “The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World” – will be published in early 2013.
It will examine the profound shift in global dynamics that is being driven by the fast-rising powers of the developing world – and the important implications of this phenomenon for human development.
The report, prepared by the UN Development Program UNDP), adds that Turkey, Thailand, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia and many other dynamic developing nations have also become leading actors on the world stage, offering important policy lessons and valuable partnerships for the South as a whole, including today’s least developed countries.
read more »
Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
Leave a Comment »
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 