Archive for November, 2014

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07/11/2014

'The Most Basic of All Human Rights -Water- Is Central to Global Peace and Security'

Human Wrongs Watch

The most basic of all human rights -water- is also a central element in global affairs and the development agenda with wide implications on international peace and security, the Deputy Secretary-General on 6 November 2014 told participants to the World Water Summit held in London.*

In the Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in Darfur, a child gets a drink of water. Photo: UNAMID/Albert González Farran

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“Around today’s world, we see how a lack of access to water can fuel conflict and even threaten peace and stability,” Jan Eliasson pointed out as he delivered the keynote address on “Tackling the Global Water Challenges: What’s Next?,” to the Summit, which was organized by The Economist.

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06/11/2014

Climate Change: Afghans on the Front Line

Human Wrongs Watch

By Joe Dyke, Mazar-i-Sharif, 4 November 2014 (IRIN)* – In northern Afghanistan, the residents don’t often use the phrase – most don’t even know it. But as they describe how increasingly extreme weather patterns are making their lives harder every year, they map out many of the symptoms of climate change. As a new UN report warns that “irreversible” climate change is affecting more people than ever, these Afghans are on the front line.
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**Photo: Joe Dyke/IRIN | Naim Korbon is rebuilding his home after devastating floods

Naim Korbon says he is 90 years old, though he admits he does not really know. Either way he is too old to be carrying cement. Yet in the northern Afghan village of Rozi Bay in Balkh Province, he and his extended family are rebuilding their homes.

Earlier this year his life’s work was destroyed as vicious floods cascaded through the area. It was, local experts say, the worst to hit the region in 42 years.

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06/11/2014

Humanitarian System ‘Scrambling’ to Meet Skyrocketing Needs, Warns UN Refugee Agency

Human Wrongs Watch

The global humanitarian system has reached its limits in dealing with the upward trend in forced displacement due to mounting pressures from conflicts and persecution around the world, the head of the United Nations refugee agency on 5 November 2014 warned, calling on the humanitarian community to “think out of the box” when it comes to funding emergency response.

Source: UNHCR

South Sudanese seek a chance to get on with life without fear | Source: UNHCR

In a briefing to the UN General Assembly’s main social, humanitarian and cultural body (Third Committee), António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said that at the end of 2013, more than 51 million people were in displacement due to multiplying conflicts, climate change, population growth, urbanization, food insecurity and water scarcity, and events indicate that this number will be even higher by December of this year.

“The humanitarian community is scrambling to respond, but every new crisis clearly shows that the system has reached its limits,” he stressed.

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06/11/2014

'States Obliged to Prevent and Eliminate Harmful Practices Inflicted on Women, Girls'

Human Wrongs Watch

For the first time, two United Nations human rights committees have joined forces to issue a comprehensive interpretation of the obligations of States to prevent and eliminate harmful practices inflicted on women and girls, such as female genital mutilation, crimes committed in the name of so-called honour, forced and child marriage, and polygamy.

Ruth Dureng (second left, with friends in Monrovia, Liberia) was abused at home and had to leave after refusing a forced marriage. Photo: UNICEF/Glenna Gordon

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on 5 November 2014 released the Joint General Recommendation/General Comment, which also highlights other harmful practices such as virginity testing, binding, widowhood practices, infanticide, and body modifications including fattening, neck elongation and breast ironing.*

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06/11/2014

A Conference on Gender Dimensions of Weather and Climate Services

Human Wrongs Watch

Aiming to develop more gender-sensitive services, a United Nations-led conference kicking off on 5 November 2014  in Geneva is spearheading a drive to ensure that weather and climate services reduce women’s vulnerability to disasters and climate change, and help them realize their potential as champions of community resilience.

The impact of disasters is different for women and men due to social constructs. Empowering women builds important capacities for disaster response and climate resilience. Photo: WMO

Hosted by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Conference on Gender Dimensions of Weather and Climate Services, which takes place from 5 to 7 November 2014, hopes to produce concrete actions to empower women to produce and use weather and climate services.*

Women, especially in developing countries, are often more exposed to the risks of extreme weather because they can be less mobile than men, lack access to traditional means of communication, and are more vulnerable to associated risks such as under-nutrition and water-borne diseases, according to the WMO.

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06/11/2014

In Guatemala, Indigenous Communities Prevail against Monsanto

Human Wrongs Watch

, Waging Nonviolence/Pressenza*, 05 November 2014 — Late in the afternoon of September 4, after nearly 10 days of protests by a coalition of labor, indigenous rights groups and farmers, the indigenous peoples and campesinos of Guatemala won a rare victory. 

In Sololá, hundreds of campesinos mobilized to oppose the “Monsanto Law,” which would have opened Guatemala to the privatization of seed. (WNV/Jeff Abbott)

In Sololá, hundreds of campesinos mobilized to oppose the “Monsanto Law,” which would have opened Guatemala to the privatization of seed. (WNV/Jeff Abbott)

Under the pressure of massive mobilizations, the Guatemala legislature repealed Decree 19-2014, commonly referred to as the “Monsanto Law,” which would have given the transnational chemical and seed producer a foot hold into the country’s seed market.

“The law would have affected all indigenous people of Guatemala,” said Edgar René Cojtín Acetún of the indigenous municipality of the department of Sololá. “The law would have privatized the seed to benefit only the multinational corporations. If we didn’t do anything now, then our children and grandchildren would suffer the consequences.”

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05/11/2014

Number of Ethnic Rohingya Muslims Fleeing Myanmar Hits Record Levels — Crisis Will Take Years to Resolve

SITTWE, 4 November 2014 (IRIN)* — As the number of ethnic Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar hits record levels, the prospects for a lasting settlement of the crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State look bleak.

**Photo: David Longstreath/IRIN | Crisis in Rakhine will take years to resolve.

Chris Lewa, the director of The Arakan Project, a research and advocacy group which monitors Rakhine State, told IRIN the number of Rohingyas that have fled western Myanmar since 2012 has now topped 100,000.

“We have been monitoring these exits for years, and this is the most we had ever seen,” she said, adding that in late October up to 900 left in a single day. Lewa attributes the surge to multiple factors.

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05/11/2014

'To Neglect the Plight of More than 5 Million Palestinian Refugees Is a Risk that the World Cannot Take'

Human Wrongs Watch

Political action on the part of the international community is urgently required to tackle the fundamental issues that would determine the fate and plight of more than 5.1 million Palestinian refugees, the head of the United Nations relief agency tasked with their assistance said on 4 November 2014.

Palestinians search the rubble of destroyed homes in Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip. Photo: UNRWA Archives/Shareef Sarhan

Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), emphasized that as the 65th anniversary of the UN General Assembly’s adoption of a resolution establishing his agency neared, Palestinian refugees – which amounted to just under one third of the world’s total refugee population – awaited a long overdue settlement of their problems, as well as the start of concrete negotiations to establish durable peace in the Middle East.*

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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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