20/04/2013
By Shahira Amin*
Cairo, 18 April 2013 – Egyptian Information Minister Salah Abdel Maqsoud — a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ruling Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) — faces mounting pressure to resign, amid allegations that he sexually harassed a young female journalist.
Media workers protest in 2012 over plans to try to close one of the oldest printing press firms in Egypt – Khaled Basyouny / Demotix | Source: UNCUT
Speaking at an awards ceremony honouring journalists for courageous reporting last weekend, Abdel Maqsoud was interrupted by reporter Nada Mohamed, who asked “where is press freedom when journalists are being attacked and killed?”
The Minister responded with “come here and I will show you where media freedom is” — provoking an uproar from journalists, activists, bloggers, and TV talk show hosts, who suggested that his comments — made in Arabic — had a “sexual connotation”.
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20/04/2013
By Transparency International* – The upper house in Argentina’s Congress has approved a series of laws proposed by the government that allow the executive branch to exert considerable influence over the judiciary, threatening the already limited independence of the country’s judicial system.
An estimated 1 million Argentinians took to the streets of Buenos Aires on 18 April to protest against corruption, including the judicial reforms. | Transparency International.
Under these reforms, the Council of Magistrates (Consejo de la Magistratura), which is in charge of several key functions in the judiciary including proposing candidates and removing them, will be elected by citizens.
Argentina ranks 133rd out of 144 countries for judicial independence
This gives undue influence over the judiciary to the party in power. In the Transparency International 2011 Global Corruption Barometer people in Argentina identified political parties as the institution they perceived as most corrupt.
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20/04/2013
The United Nations human rights chief condemned the rampant use of the death penalty by the Iraqi Government, which executed 21 people earlier this week, stressing the country’s justice system is still not functioning adequately and should not carry out capital punishment at all.
The aftermath of a bombing attack in Iraq (file photo). Photo: IRIN
The High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on 19 April 2013 described the Iraqi justice system as “too seriously flawed to warrant even a limited application of the death penalty, let alone dozens of executions at a time.”*
The Government has executed 33 individuals in the past month, and the ministry of justice announced that a further 150 people may be executed in the coming days. A total of 1,400 people are believed to be currently on death row, and 129 people were executed in 2012 alone.
“Executing people in batches like this is obscene,” Pillay said.
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18/04/2013
By Human Rights Watch* – A bipartisan study finding “indisputable” evidence of torture for which the highest United States officials bear responsibility should spur the US government to thoroughly investigate detainee abuse since September 11, 2001, and provide redress to victims.
**Bush with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Shanghai, October 21, 2001| Credit: http://www.kremlin.ru. | Wikimedia Commons
The 560-page study, “The Report of the Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment,” released on April 16, 2013, is the product of a two-year study based on evidence in the public record.
It was conducted by a bipartisan task force assembled by The Constitution Project, a public interest organization.
Task force members came from a broad range of ideological perspectives and professions, and include both former Republican and Democratic policymakers and members of Congress, retired generals, judges, lawyers, and academics.
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18/04/2013
By Ashov Birry*, Greenpeace – Let me tell you a story of a polluted paradise. We used to call it ‘Parahyangan’ or the place where the Gods and Goddesses resided. The river that passes through it stretches 270 km from the Wayang Mountain to the Java Sea, giving life along its course.
Lake Citarum at Mount Wayang, the source of the Citarum river. © Andri Tambunan / Greenpeace
We call it the Citarum River. Ci and Tarum, “Ci” is water, and “Tarum” or indigo is a plant of the pea family that was widely cultivated over a century ago as a source of dark blue dye.
It is also linked to the ‘Tarumanagara’ Kingdom, one of the country’s oldest Kingdoms, once victorious on the outskirts of the Citarum River. Today, millions of people depend on the river and surrounding area for agricultural and domestic use.
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18/04/2013
Conflict-related sexual violence, horrific in itself, is also an impediment to national reconciliation and development, top United Nations officials told the Security Council at the start of a day-long debate on 17 April 2013 , urging increased political and financial pressure on those who commit, command or condone sexual violence in war zones*.
Internally displaced people in the Central African Republic. Photo: OCHA/Laura Fultang
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the 15-member Security Council that while preventing sexual violence is a primary responsibility of Governments, the international community must strengthen its collective efforts to root out its causes and prevent sexual attacks, which primarily target women and girls, but also affect men and boys.
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18/04/2013
Cairo – Violent attacks carried out by “unknown” individuals against Morqosiah Coptic Christian Cathedral in Cairo early this months, with several dead and injured, have fueled the fire of a politically provoked and ill-manipulated inter-religious conflict in Egypt.
A February demonstration in Tahrir Square against the Muslim Brotherhood | UNCUT Index on censorship
By Shahira Amin* – Egyptians who took to the streets in mass protests in January 2011 demanding the downfall of Mubarak’s authoritarian regime were rebelling — amongst other things — against restrictions on their civil liberties and infringement on their rights.
Religious minorities, like Coptic Christians and Baha’is, who participated in the January 2011, 18- day mass uprising had hoped that toppling Egypt’s oppressive regime would usher in a new era of greater freedom of expression and equality. More than two years on, many of them say it has not.
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16/04/2013
“North Korea could dismantle its verbal and physical threats, hoping for peace treaty-normalization in return. Like in Cuba 1962, that would not be one good for another, but one wrong for another. Would USA, used to dictate outcomes giving nothing in return, agree? Like in 1962 keeping it secret, with a “profile in courage” narrative? Hopefully, but not very likely, some secret deals are in the making. A change of mentality is needed, like in Europe in 1950. That may take centuries, but could also happen very quickly under enlightened statesmanship.”
Source: TRANSCEND Media Service
By Johan Galtung, Kyoto, Japan, 15 Apr 2013 – TRANSCEND*
It has never been this bad since the 1950-53 Korea war.
October 1962, the Cuba-USSR-USA crisis, comes to mind. There were horror visions of mushroom clouds.
A proud Cuba, with a strong leader-dictatorship, a social revolution in the near past, was denied a normal place in the state system, bullied by the USA and some allies with sanctions and boycotts into isolation for now more than 50 years.
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16/04/2013
By SIPRI*, Stockholm, 15 April 2013 — World military expenditure totaled $1.75 trillion in 2012, a fall of 0.5 per cent in real terms since 2011, according to figures released today by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).*
**A Royal Air Force British Aerospace Harrier GR.9 aircraft conducts a combat patrol over Afghanistan on 12 December 2008. | Photo: Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon | Wikimedia Commons
The fall—the first since 1998—was driven by major spending cuts in the USA and Western and Central Europe, as well as in Australia, Canada and Japan.
The reductions were, however, substantially offset by increased spending in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America.
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15/04/2013
By Andre Damon, WSWS*, 15 April 2013 – Judging by the official political debate and its media reflection in the United States, one would hardly know that the country remains in the grips of the deepest jobs crisis since the Great Depression.
**An 1837 political cartoon about unemployment in the United States | Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Allmightyduck using CommonsHelper. | (Original text : unknown) | Permission (Reusing this file) PD-US. | Wikimedia Commons.
Virtually all attention is concentrated, on the one hand, on record stock prices and corporate profits, declared to be proof of a robust economic recovery, and, on the other, the supposed need for ever-deeper cuts in social programs upon which tens of millions of people depend.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 