02/12/2012
By RT*, 2 December 2012 — A newly-released internal investigation by the US Air Force has shown a in its foreign operations. Meanwhile, Washington is pushing ahead with plans to allow drones into US civil airspace.
**Image from libyasos.blogspot.ru | Russia Today
The report shows Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) crashing consistently and unpredictably due to a wide array of failures from technical malfunction, to complications in dealing with air traffic controllers, to downright incompetence.
The documents, obtained by the Washington Post, number several thousand pages, and show that at least seven drones have crashed near airports in the past two years.
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02/12/2012
Almost 21 million women, men and children around the world are still victims of slavery and forced labour. They are trapped in jobs into which they were coerced or deceived and which they cannot leave. More than half of them are women and children. Children alone account for more than a quarter of today´s slaves*.
Victims of forced labour by region | ILO
The victims are the most vulnerable – women and girls forced into prostitution, migrants trapped in debt bondage, and sweatshop or farm workers kept there by clearly illegal tactics and paid little or nothing, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).
The Asia-Pacific region accounts for the largest number of forced labourers in the world – 11.7 million (56 per cent) of the global total, followed by Africa at 3.7 million (18 per cent) and Latin America with 1.8 million victims (9 per cent), according to the ILO’s new global estimate.
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Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
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02/12/2012
Aware of the suspicions some countries have about its intentions in the Arctic, China is adopting a deliberately low-key public stance that avoids talk about minerals, oil and gas and focuses on climate change and shipping routes, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)*.
**Location of the Arctic | By Heraldry| Wikimedia Commons.
Nevertheless, China is determined not to be sidelined in decisions that it believes will directly affect its economic interests, says SIPRI. China wants to be part of the Arctic order and, as a rising power, emphasizes the global implications of the Arctic’s melting ice.
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02/12/2012
Few hours before president Mohamed Morsi of Egypt announced on December 1st his decision to organize on 15 December a referendum on the highly controversial and strongly contested text of a new Constitution which was drafted under his sponsorship, the top United Nations human rights official called on him ‘to reconsider a Constitutional Declaration he issued last week, saying parts of the measure conflict with international human rights law.”
President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt. UN Photo/Marco Castro
Expressing her concerns in a letter to Morsi, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said that the Declaration put Egypt at risk of reneging on binding principles laid down in two overarching international human rights treaties – the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.*
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01/12/2012
New York, 30 November 2012 – The final draft of a constitution approved on November 29, 2012, by Egypt’s 100-member constituent assembly protects some rights but undermines others, says Human Rights Watch.
**Mohamed Mursi. Photo credit: Marzouk113 | Wikimedia Commons.
“The constitution, approved in the midst of a political standoff between the president and the judiciary, provides for basic protections against arbitrary detention and torture and for some economic rights but fails to end military trials of civilians or to protect freedom of expression and religion”.
The constitution drafting process has been extremely contentious, and a number of assembly members resigned in protest over what they said was the failure of the dominant Islamist factions to compromise on key issues, including the place of religion in affairs of state, Human Rights Watch adds.
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01/12/2012
By Silvia Swinden*, Pressenza, London — The interesting thing about a piece of good news that defies apparently established prejudice, discrimination and even a state of undeclared war is that it can “shock” us out of our acceptance that “things are the way they are”, people hate, fear, exclude and attempt to destroy others in all kinds of conflicts.
Wikimedia Commons: Sesame synchrotron
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This we call “normality” and it seems to validate a creeping belief that human nature is rather nasty.
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We must be grateful, very grateful, that from time to time good news, the human spirit, shows itself and brings the light at the end of the tunnel, in other words, there is no fixed human nature, we are intentional beings, and if others can leap over fear-inducing and stereotyping propaganda, so can we.
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01/12/2012
The United Nations called on international community to step up its humanitarian support for Afghanistan, while humanitarian agencies have begun distributing winter aid to thousands of Afghan families. Winter temperatures can fall in Afghanistan to around -26°C.
Vulnerable Afghan families line up to receive winter supplies in Dahsabz, a suburb of Kabul. Photo: UNHCR/S.Murray-Jones
“The figures speak for themselves … More than nine million people in Afghanistan – one third of the population – are food insecure; an average of 165 children under the age of five die every day; and an Afghan woman dies every two hours due to pregnancy-related causes,” said on 29 November the Director of Operations of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), John Ging, following a three-day visit to Afghanistan.
In addition, some 450,000 people have been displaced by conflict and natural disasters, and more than 75 per cent of Afghans have been forced from their homes by conflict at least once in their lives, the UN humanitarian official noted.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 