Archive for April 24th, 2015

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24/04/2015

27 Million Latin America and Caribbean Youth in the Informal Economy

Human Wrongs Watch

Lima, 23 April 2015 (ILO)* – There are at least 27 million youth in Latin America and the Caribbean who work in conditions of informality, said the International Labour Organization (ILO).
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Source: ILO

Source: ILO

“Youth unemployment is very high in the region, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg that hides the wider problem of a lack of opportunities for those who are just starting their productive lives,” said Elizabeth Tinoco, ILO Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at a regional meeting in the Peruvian capital.*

Informality refers to economic activities that operate outside the formal reach of the law or those that, while operating within the formal reach of the law, are not subject to application or enforcement of the law in practice.

The informal economy also results from laws which discourage compliance because they are inappropriate, burdensome or impose excessive costs.

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Posted in Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, The Peoples | Leave a Comment »

24/04/2015

Blissful Ignorance Makes the West Slide into Mishaps

Human Wrongs Watch

By Roberto Savio*

Rome, April 2015 – I carried out a survey among friends to find out what they know about the present state of international affairs. It was disheartening to find out that only one of them knew that Iceland, a country qualified to join the European Union, had opted to withdraw its request for admission. This is not a minor affair, it shows that the European dream has now lost its appeal.

28 sovereign states (of which the map only shows territories situated in and around Europe) constitute the European Union | Wikimedia Commons

28 sovereign states (of which the map only shows territories situated in and around Europe) constitute the European Union | Wikimedia Commons

And no one knew that NATO has sent 120 armoured vehicles from the Second Cavalry Regiment to Poland, because the commander of the United States Army forces in Europe, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, had decided to show to Polish citizens that they were facing a possible Russian invasion.

In recent weeks, the government has been distributing weapons to citizens who want to form a militia, and training them. The same is happening in the Baltic countries.

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24/04/2015

NGOs: Migration Summit Fell Short of Expectations

Human Wrongs Watch

24 April 2015 (EurActiv)* — EU leaders have missed a real opportunity to make a serious difference in the lives and deaths of the people suffering daily in the Mediterranean, say NGOs.

Operation Triton, 2014. [Frontex] | Source: EurActiv

Operation Triton, 2014. [Frontex] | Source: EurActiv

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Meeting on short notice for an extraordinary summit on Thursday (23 April), EU leaders decided to treble annual funding to €120 million to the Operation Triton, an EU frontier operation off of the coast of Italy, putting it at the same level of funding as the defunct Italian Mare Nostrum mission.

Among 17 proposals in a summit communiqué, leaders agreed to “undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and destroy vessels before they are used by traffickers”. It is unclear how that may be achieved, and several leaders said they would need a UN mandate in the absence of a viable Libyan government.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country, along with Sweden, takes in a large proportion of asylum-seekers, called for a change in the EU’s system of managing asylum claims to better distribute the pressures across the bloc.

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24/04/2015

The Future of International Law (Part III)

Human Wrongs Watch

By John Scales Avery*

After the invention of agriculture, roughly 10,000 years ago, humans began to live in progressively larger groups, which were sometimes multi-ethnic. In order to make towns, cities and finally nations function without excessive injustice and violence, both ethical and legal systems were needed. Today, in an era of global economic interdependence, instantaneous worldwide communication and all-destroying thermonuclear weapons, we urgently need new global ethical principles and a just and enforcible system of international laws.

Photo: Andux | Source: UN

Photo: Andux | Source: UN

Part I dealt with: What is law?, Magna Carta, 1215, The English Bill of Rights, 1689, The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, 1789, Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928, and United Nations Charter, 1945.  

Part II dealt with: International Court of Justice, 1946, Nuremberg Principles, 1947, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, The Geneva Conventions, 1949, and The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 1968. 

Part III: The Biological Weapons Convention, 1972

During World War II, British and American scientists investigated the possibility of using smallpox as a biological weapon.

However, it was never used, and in 1969 President Nixon officially ended the American biological weapons program, bowing to the pressure of outraged public opinion.

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Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples | 3 Comments »

24/04/2015

UN Strongly Urges Europe to ‘Put Human Life, Rights and Dignity First’ in Response to Mediterranean Crisis

Human Wrongs Watch

23 April 2015 – The most senior United Nations officials dealing respectively with refugees, human rights, and migration and development, have appealed strongly to European leaders to put human life, rights, and dignity first when agreeing today a common response to what they called the “tragedy of epic proportions” unfolding in the Mediterranean Sea, where some 1,600 people have died this year trying to flee their strife-torn homelands.

Onboard an Italian ship, a Syrian father holds his one-year-old son as they wait to be checked by doctors. They were rescued in the middle of the Mediterranean. Photo: UNHCR/A. D'Amato

Onboard an Italian ship, a Syrian father holds his one-year-old son as they wait to be checked by doctors. They were rescued in the middle of the Mediterranean. Photo: UNHCR/A. D’Amato

A statement by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN Special Representative for International Migration and Development, Peter Sutherland, and the Director-General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), William Lacy Swing, comes as European Union (EU) leaders grappled to find ways to stem the number of people risking their lives while trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe after hundreds of refugees and migrants lost their lives on the high seas.*

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