16/02/2013
By Janet Larsen*, Earth Policy Institute, 13 February 2013 – In recent years weather events have whiplashed between the extremes of heat and cold, flooding and drought. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases—largely from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas—have loaded up in the atmosphere, heating the planet and pushing humanity onto a climatic seesaw of weather irregularities.
**Thunderstorm near Garajau, Madeira, Portugal | Credit: Don Amaro from Madeira Islands, Portugal | Wikimedia Commons
High-temperature records in many places are already being broken with startling frequency, and hotter temperatures are in store.
Without a dramatic reduction in fossil fuel use, we will veer even further away from the “normal” temperatures and weather patterns that civilization is adapted to.
The world has warmed by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) since the Industrial Revolution, with most of the rise in temperature coming since the 1970s. Such rapid warming is unprecedented over at least 20,000 years.
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16/02/2013
By India Stoughton, Waging Nonviolence* – In late 2011 four Arab women, inspired by the success of the Arab Spring demonstrations but horrified by the backlash against the women who had protested side-by-side with men in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria, decided to start their own Facebook group. They called it “The Uprising of Women in the Arab World.”
(Facebook/The uprising of women in the Arab world) | Source:
Waging Nonviolence.
Founded by activists Daila Haidar and Yalda Younes from Lebanon, Sally Zohney from Egypt and Farah Barqawi from Palestine, the group calls on men and women from all ethnic, social and religious backgrounds to unite in the face of discrimination “to say no to violence against women, no to their allegiance to men, no to repression and abuse, no to their treatment as second class citizens” and to demand the full application of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for Arab women as well as men.
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14/02/2013
Global solutions are needed to ensure that tax systems do not unduly favour multinational enterprises, leaving citizens and small businesses with bigger tax bills, according to a new report.
Source: OECD
An OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) study commissioned by the G-20 – Addressing Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) – finds that some multinationals use strategies that allow them to pay as little as 5% in corporate taxes when smaller businesses are paying up to 30%.
OECD research also shows that some small jurisdictions act as conduits, receiving disproportionately large amounts of Foreign Direct Investment compared to large industrialised countries and investing disproportionately large amounts in major developed and emerging economies, according to a OECD news release.
“These strategies, though technically legal, erode the tax base of many countries and threaten the stability of the international tax system,” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría.
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14/02/2013
By RT*, 14 February, 2013 – The Middle East is headed towards a water shortage crisis, as NASA satellites show that reserves the size of the Dead Sea have been depleted in just seven years, largely due to well-drilling.
Credit: NASA | Public Domain | Wikimedia Commons
Newly-obtained results show that 144 cubic kilometres of freshwater – a volume nearly equivalent to that of the Dead Sea or Lake Tahoe – had been removed from the ground in the area that encompasses Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria between 2003 and 2009.
“That’s enough water to meet the needs of tens of millions to more than a hundred million people in the region each year, depending on regional water use standards and availability,” said Jay Famiglietti, the UC Irvine professor who led the team who made the findings, which are due to be published on Friday in Water Resources Reasearch magazine.
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14/02/2013
Geneva, ILO*, February 2013 – “Agriculture will be critical to future economic growth in Egypt,” says the International Labour Organization (ILO), “but only if the laws on farmers’ cooperatives are reformed.”
Source: ILO
While the political reverberations of the 2011 revolution continue to resound throughout Egypt, many of the country’s farmers are hoping positive change will reach the agricultural sector.
Farmers like Mohamed Farghaly and Ahmed El Komy, from the Upper Egypt village of Rafaa Al Tahtawy are hoping for a change in the law – with help from the International Labour Organization (ILO) – so that their businesses can become more profitable.
That could, in turn, boost Egypt’s economy, since agriculture is the largest contributor to its GDP, even though less than 4 per cent of the land is arable. El Komy, another small-scale farmer, heads the cooperative, which serves around 300 members.
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14/02/2013
By Ramesh Jaura, IDN-InDepthNews*, Berlin – An eminent Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda is calling for an “expanded nuclear summit” in 2015 to solidify momentum toward a world free from nuclear weapons and become the launching point for a larger effort for global disarmament aiming toward the year 2030.
SGI President Daisaku Ikeda | Credit: SGI
With this in view, he hopes that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and forward-looking governments will establish an action group to initiate before year’s end the process of drafting a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) outlawing nuclear weapons, which are not only inhumane but also swallow some $105 billion year after year.
“A key factor . . . will be the stance taken by those countries which have relied on the extended deterrence of nuclear-weapon states, the so-called nuclear umbrella,” writes Ikeda, who heads Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a Tokyo-based lay Buddhist organization spanning the globe.
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14/02/2013
Two senior United Nations officials voiced their concern about Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody, particularly following reports of the fast deteriorating health conditions of several who have been on hunger strike.
Palestinian women walk near Israel’s barrier near Ramallah in the West Bank. Photo: IRIN/Shabtai Gold
Tarek Qa’adan and Jafar Azzidine have been on hunger strike for 78 days to protest against their administrative detention by Israel, while Samer Al-Issawi has been on partial hunger strike for over 200 days, according to a news release issued on 13 February by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“I am concerned about the health conditions of these three Palestinian detainees on hunger strike,” stated* High Commissioner Navi Pillay.
She reiterated her concerns with regard to the use of administrative detention by Israel. “Persons detained must be charged and face trial with judicial guarantees in accordance with international standards, or be promptly released,” she said.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, James Rawley, reiterated the same message on 13 February when he met with the Palestinian Minister of Prisoner and Detainee Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, in Ramallah.
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13/02/2013
Cairo, February 13, 2013 (Shahira Amin for RIA Novosti*) – On Monday [11 February 2013], two years after former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted, thousands of people in Cairo and across Egypt went out onto the street in protest, calling for an end to Islamist President [Mohamed] Morsi’s rule.
**Image: Credit: Gigi Ibrahim from Cairo, Egypt | The Egyptian Liberal | Wikimedia Commons
Scores of protesters set out from various meeting points in the capital, marching towards Tahrir Square and Al Ittihadeya Presidential Palace, where there have been violent clashes between opposition activists and security forces in recent weeks.
Monday’s protests threaten to further destabilize the country, wracked by weeks of unrest sparked by the passing of a constitution rejected by liberal opposition political parties.
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13/02/2013
13 February is World Radio Day — a day to celebrate radio as a medium; to improve international cooperation between broadcasters; and to encourage major networks and community radio alike to promote access to information and freedom of expression over the airwaves, UNESCO underlines.
UNESCO
As radio continues to evolve in the digital age, it remains the medium that reaches the widest audience worldwide, adds the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
“This multi-purpose medium can help people, including youth, to engage in discussions on topics that affect them. It can save lives during natural or human-made disasters; and it provides journalists with a platform to report facts and tell their stories.”
Through service to members, networking and project implementation, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC)**, brings together a network of more than 4,000 community radios, Federations and community media stakeholders in more than 130 countries.
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13/02/2013
Ottawa, 13 February 2013, Human Rights Watch* – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in northern British Columbia has failed to protect indigenous women and girls from violence, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Women and girls Human Rights Watch interviewed also described abusive treatment by police officers, including excessive use of force, and physical and sexual assault.
Highway 16, sometimes referred to as “the Highway of Tears” in recognition of the women and girls who have gone missing or been murdered in its vicinity, in northern British Columbia. July 2012. © Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch
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The 89-page report, “Those Who Take Us Away: Abusive Policing and Failures in Protection of Indigenous Women and Girls in Northern British Columbia, Canada,” documents both ongoing police failures to protect indigenous women and girls in the north from violence and violent behavior by police officers against women and girls.
Police failures and abuses add to longstanding tensions between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and indigenous communities in the region, Human Rights Watch said.
The Canadian government should establish a national commission of inquiry into the murders and disappearances of indigenous women and girls, including the impact of police mistreatment on their vulnerability to violence in communities along Highway 16, which has come to be called northern British Columbia’s “Highway of Tears.”
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 
