28/10/2014
Madrid, Spain, (UNHCR)* – The UN refugee agency on 28 October 2014 said it was concerned about a proposal by Spain to legalize automatic returns of people trying to cross border fences into its North Africa enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.
© J. Palazón } Golfers play on a course in Melilla, oblivious to the people crossing the border fence to try and enter the Spanish enclave in North Africa | Source: UNHCR
Under this initiative, a person trying to access Ceuta and Melilla irregularly and without the required documentation, would be automatically rejected and would not be entitled to the legal guarantees foreseen in national and European Union (EU) law relating to the right of an individual to seek asylum.
The two Spanish cities are the only land borders between the EU and Africa. Since last year, there has been an increase in the number of people arriving irregularly through this route. There has also been an increase in the proportion of those coming from countries torn by war, violence and persecution, including Syria, Central African Republic and Mali.
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28/10/2014
Senior officials from the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on 27 October 2014 warned today that an “immense” humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Iraq and called for greater resources from the international community to help with the upcoming winter season, as they concluded a four-day mission to conflict-riven areas in the country.
With rainy season started, and winter on doorstep, UNHCR, together with partners, and support from Kuwait, hurries finishing construction of Khanke camp for displaced people from Sinjar area. Photo: UNHCR Iraq
“We were able to see for ourselves the magnitude of the crisis,” said Rashid Khalikov, Director in Geneva of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in a press briefing at the end of a 20 to 23 October mission to Iraq. “An immense humanitarian emergency is unfolding in front of our eyes,” he added.*
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27/10/2014
25/10/14
It sounds like a joke. But it isn’t.
About a month ago, on the eve of the Jewish New Year, the government statistical office published a set of interesting items about the population of the state. It is intended as a gift for the citizens. The population is growing, it is getting richer and it is satisfied.
**Children returning home to Aida Palestinian refugee camp north of Bethlehem; Israeli West Bank barrier is in the background. | Author: Mrbrefast | Wikimedia Commons.
One of the items lists the most popular names given last year to newborn boys and girls.
When the statisticians saw the results, they were flabbergasted. It appears the name that topped the list was Muhammad.
Muhammad? The most popular name in the Jewish state?
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27/10/2014
Turning dry lands into fertile fields, a livelihood project is helping Somali women refugees in Kenya make a living and prevent sexual and gender-based violence.
Women take part in a business management training workshop at the Ifo 2 camp in the Dadaab refugee complex. Photo: UN Women/Tabitha Icuga
By UN Women*, October 2014 — In the world’s largest refugee complex — the sprawling Dadaab settlement in Kenya’s North Eastern Province — women listen attentively during a business management workshop held at a hospital in one of its newest camps, Ifo 2.
Leila Abdulilahi, a 25-year-old Somali refugee and mother, has brought her 5-month-old along, while her four other children wait at home. She asks question after question, eager to learn more. Leila has lived in the camp for the past three years and has no source of income, so her family depends on the rations distributed by the World Food Programme.
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27/10/2014
Marondera, October 2014 (IRIN)* — Jairos Maruwe used to beat up his wife so badly he once knocked her unconscious and broke her arm. It landed him in jail at least once, but it was the way he was raised.
Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN | A third of Zimbabwean women have experienced physical violence at the hands of their spouse or partner.
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“We grew up thinking that women are our tools and we can do whatever we want with them,” the 34-year-old farmer in northeastern Zimbabwe’s Marondera region told IRIN.
“We have this tendency to resort to violence and emotional abuse when we think they have wronged us,” he said.
That was then.
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27/10/2014
It took a full 5 minutes for New Zealand’s Ambassador for Disarmament, Dell Higgie, to read out the list of the 155 co-sponsors of the Joint Statement on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.*
Source: ICAN
The overwhelming support for the statement demonstrates concretely the momentum that in the period since the second International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons hosted by Mexico in Nayarit, there has been no waning of support for the humanitarian initiative. Indeed, non-nuclear weapon states are starting to speak openly and with confidence about the next steps.
The New Zealand Joint Statement is the latest and strongest in a series of statements delivered at Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) meetings and in the UN General Assembly and two multilateral conferences, in Norway and Mexico, aimed at highlighting the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons.
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27/10/2014
Dilma Rousseff Has been re-elected as President in the most fiercely fought contest in Brazilian history. The President-elect who managed to unite the support of social movements, parties of the left, ex-militants, academics and celebrities, will continue ruling the Latin American giant until 2018.
Source: Pressenza
The election has divided the country and inspire the small difference between the two candidates there was a clear gap between the richest states that supported the defeated candidate and the votes of the poorest, concentrated in the candidate of the Workers Party.
The campaign was marked by a strong manipulation of the media which turned out to be nothing more than “paid advertising” for the defeated candidate. Even the legal system was influencing the electoral process.
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26/10/2014
Human Wrongs Watch
By Ricardo Patiño, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador (RT)*
Ricardo Patiño | Photo: Cancillería del Ecuador
25 October 2014 — Transnational corporations have abused their privileges leading to “an unprecedented level of social and environmental injustice,” said Ecuador’s FM Ricardo Patino in his article calling on all nations to hold such companies accountable for their actions:
Ecuador has undergone a profound social, economic and political transformation over the past seven years, prioritizing the needs and rights of its citizens.
A great moral challenge of the 21st century is to establish people’s control over the forces that reign supreme in trade and commerce. Transnational corporations enjoy special rights, protections, and privileges that have led to an unprecedented level of social and environmental injustice, particularly in developing countries without sufficient legal recourse to defend against corporate power.
A new proposal spearheaded by Ecuador and South Africa to create a legally binding instrument to regulate the human and environmental rights abuses of transnational corporations, recently approved by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, is the start of setting things right.
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25/10/2014
Human Wrongs Watch
By RT*, 24 October 2014 — Falling oil prices embarrass and make life difficult for countries that depend on oil exports, including Russia and Venezuela, and the US would enjoy making life difficult for them, economist Richard Wolff told RT.
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**Anacortes Refinery (Tesoro), on the north end of March Point southeast of Anacortes, Washington | Author: Walter Siegmund (talk) | Wikimedia Commons
RT: What’s behind the fall in oil prices?
Richard Wolff: A larger factor everybody understands at this sudden and historical time, in a matter of a very few years, is the sudden explosion of oil production inside the US, part of that fracking scandal across the US, about this unorthodox and dangerous ways of getting oil from shale.
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25/10/2014
A bright colored van filled with educational materials and staffed by trained outreach workers is beginning to make a difference in the lives of street children in Pattaya, Thailand. The van – a mobile training unit donated by UNODC to the NGO Child Protection and Development Centre – provides support and basic school lessons that include sex education to street children living in slum areas of Pattaya, a popular tourist destination.*
Source: UNODC
The mobile training unit is also being used to educate parents and raise awareness of the dangers of families living on the streets.
“Street children are highly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation” said Margaret Akullo, UNODC Programme Coordinator in Thailand. “In three months, one van equipped with training materials and videos has helped close to a 1,000 children become more aware of the dangers of living in the street – and what they can do about it, and who can help them,” said Akullo.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 