Archive for November 4th, 2014

04/11/2014

Transnational Organised Crime in Southeast Asia Alone Worth Over USD $100 Billion per Year

Human Wrongs Watch

“Transnational organised crime in Southeast Asia alone is conservatively estimated to generate close to USD $100 billion per year, threatening intended economic and social benefits of regional integration,” said UNODC Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific Jeremy Douglas at a high-level UNODC meeting in Bangkok, “Supporting the Integration of Asia Through Effective Public Security.”*
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Source: UNODC

Source: UNODC

Speakers at a high-level UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) meeting warned that transnational crime and public security threats in Asia risk overwhelming border management, law enforcement and justice agencies of many states. This comes as the acceleration of trade and migration flows in the region increases.

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04/11/2014

Four Key Reasons to Understand the Irresistible Attraction of Radical Islam

Human Wrongs Watch

By Roberto Savio*

There are four historical reasons to understand how the anger and frustration now all over the Muslim world leads to attraction to the Islamic State (IS) in poor sectors. 

Reagan_sitting_with_people_from_the_Afghanistan-Pakistan_region_in_February_1983

**President Reagan meeting with Afghan Mujahideen leaders in the Oval Office in 1983 | Author: Unknown, possibly Tim Clary [1] | As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain | Wikimedia Commons

Rome, 3 November 2014 – The 23 October 2014 attack on the Canadian Parliament building by a Canadian who had converted to Islam just a month earlier should create some interest in why an increasing number of young people are willing to sacrifice their lives for a radical view of Islam.

Until now, this was dismissed as fanaticism, but when you have over 2,000 people who blow themselves up, it is time to look to this growing reality and put stereotypes to the side.

Let us recall that there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, with Indonesia the world’s largest Muslim country followed by India. The entire Middle East-North Africa region has 317 million, compared with 344 million in Pakistan and India alone.

There are 3.4 million Muslims in the United States and 43.4 million in Europe, making perhaps one jihadist for every 100,000 Muslims.

It is worth noting that there are a growing number of voices arguing that the Muslim world and its values are intrinsically against the West. Well, basic data do not support that theory, even although it is being used by all xenophobic parties which have sprung up everywhere in Europe.

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04/11/2014

How Does a Ball Help Change the Lives of Children?

Human Wrongs Watch

It all starts with a ball. Add an inspiring coach and a safe place to play, and the power of sport takes root. Since 2009, Just Play has helped empower and mobilize children in 11 Pacific Island countries in a positive, practical and fun manner.

Children in Tonga play a football match.

©Just Play/2012 | Source: UNICEF

By *, 03 Nov 2014 — It all starts with a ball. But when you add an inspiring coach and a safe place to play, the power of sport takes root. Children are naturally drawn to sport, recreation and play, which are a vital part of childhood.

Not only are they a vital part of helping children to grow, learn and explore, they are every child’s right. As outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary on November 20th, 2014, every child has the right to leisure, recreation and cultural activities.

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04/11/2014

Dancing Together against Child Labour

Human Wrongs Watch 

Bangkok, 3 November 2014 (ILO)* – Napatsara Ploysupaphol, a 13-year-old hip-hop dancer, has seen child labour on the streets of the Thai capital, Bangkok, since she was young. When she started dancing at the age of seven Napatsara would finish her practice in the evening and often see children, smaller than herself, selling flowers or cleaning car mirrors at traffic lights, working until the small hours of the morning to earn a little money.
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source: ILO

Source: ILO

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“It was late at night, and they still hadn’t gone home.” said Napatsara. “If I were them, I would feel like I was being tortured.”
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Napatsara is now a member of an up-and-coming hip-hop dance group, The Zoo Thailand.
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She heard about a new International Labour Organization (ILO) campaign, “All Together Against Child Labour”, (a part of the global ”Red Card to Child Labour” movement) which specifically tries to engage with the young city-dwellers who also form the core of The Zoo Thailand’s fan base.
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Napatsara persuaded her fellow dancers to put their talents to good use and get involved.
04/11/2014

Christianity vs Islam Countercyclicity

Human Wrongs Watch

By Johan Galtung*, 3 November 2014, Kuala Lumpur – Transcend Media Service — “Countercyclicity” means that both move through history in cycles, up and down; with one moving up when the other moves down.

The Trinity is the belief that God is one God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit | Author: AnonMoos | Wikimedia Commons

**The Trinity is the belief that God is one God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit | Author: AnonMoos | Wikimedia Commons

Christianity started with its founder crucified, like the first pope St Peter; Christians were tortured, killed, expelled from Jewish Palestine. But then indeed up, as religio licita in the Roman Empire in 313, defined in Nicaea in 325 by Emperor Constantine.

The Empire split in 395, with a Catholic Church in the West–contracting, monastic after the Western Empire fell in 476–and an Orthodox Church in the East, till Constantinople became Istanbul in 1453–Moscow became “the Third Rome”.

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04/11/2014

Syria — New UN Plan to ‘Freeze’ Conflict, Stop 'Carnage'

Human Wrongs Watch

The war in Syria must be “frozen locally” on the ground so that the growing threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) may be fully confronted, a United Nations envoy on 3 November 2014 said, suggesting that a peace introduced in increments would also provide all stakeholders with a better understanding of how to bring the three-year conflict to a definitive conclusion.
Hundreds of refugees from Syria cross the border into Jordan, receiving food and water before being transported to processing centres. Photo: UNHCR/J.Kohler

Hundreds of refugees from Syria cross the border into Jordan, receiving food and water before being transported to processing centres. Photo: UNHCR/J.Kohler

In an interview with UN Radio, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, described “a feeling of despair and of tiredness” in the Middle Eastern country from which he recently returned, adding that the strongest message he received from people on the ground was an appeal to “stop this carnage” and “give us some light.”*

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04/11/2014

UN Launches 10-year Global Campaign to End the 'Devastating Legal Limbo' of Statelessness

Human Wrongs Watch

Geneva, 4 November 2014 (UNHCR)*  The UN refugee agency, with endorsement from high-profile supporters, on  4 November 2014 launched a global campaign aimed at ending the devastating legal limbo of statelessness, which affects millions of people around the world.

© UNHCR One of the striking "I Belong" campaign images created by United Colors of Benetton. | Source: UNHCR

© UNHCR | One of the striking “I Belong” campaign images created by United Colors of Benetton. | Source: UNHCR

“The goal of eradicating statelessness is looking increasingly possible thanks to dramatic recent progress in the number of states acceding to two key UN human rights treaties,” said a UNHCR press release announcing the “I Belong” campaign. 

At least 10 million people worldwide are currently stateless and a baby is born stateless every 10 minutes. Not allowed a nationality, they are often denied the rights and services that countries normally offer their citizens.

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