10/07/2015
By Kumi Naidoo*
9 July, 2015 – Thirty years ago, groups of individuals in New Zealand were preparing to leave their families, their jobs and their homes to set off in small boats across the Pacific Ocean into a nuclear weapons testing zone. They hoped that their presence there would be enough to stop nuclear bomb tests.
Photo: Greenpeace
The French Government conducting the tests must have known it could not win against such a show of people power. So a few minutes before midnight on 10 July 1985, French secret service agents struck in Auckland harbour, New Zealand.
They bombed and sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, one of the ships that was due to lead the flotilla into the nuclear test zone. The French agents murdered Fernando Pereira, a photographer and crew member.
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10/07/2015
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9 July 2015 (RT)* – By the time this article is published, the last remaining activists aboard the ‘Marianne’, part of this year’s Freedom Flotilla campaign, will have been released after being deported by Israel following their illegal imprisonment for a number of days.
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Israel intercepts & escorts Gaza flotilla flagship, RT columnist aboard | Source: RT
One of the activists on board the ‘Marianne’ was tasered when Israeli forces intercepted the ship and took control of it by force, despite claims from the Israeli authorities that the event was ‘non-violent’ and ‘uneventful’.
It’s perhaps questionable to even refer to the sequence of events as activists being ‘arrested’ culminating in their ‘deportation’ from Israel, given that the Marianne was illegally boarded in international waters, and was on a humanitarian mission.
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10/07/2015
By Elizabeth Dickinson*
ABU DHABI, 9 July 2015 (IRIN)* – As the so-called Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) has spread, part of its success has been its ability to dominate the message online, with slick propaganda helping it develop legions of fans across the globe. For now, ISIS is winning the messaging war.
Photo: I. Prickett/UNHCR | Syrian Kurdish refugees flee Kobani (file photo) | (Islamic State attack puts Kobani reconstruction at risk: IRIN)
But what if you deployed those same tools to offer a compelling counter-narrative, to lay bare, for example, the devastating humanitarian toll that the Islamists’ campaign is having on women and children in Iraq and Syria?
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10/07/2015
July 2015 (UNRWA)* – Over 50 days of hostilities, the summer 2014 conflict caused unparalleled destruction and human suffering across the Gaza Strip. Families lost their children, entire neighbourhoods were torn to the ground, and tens of thousands were left with nothing as their homes were destroyed.
Source: UNRWA
Thousands remain displaced to this day. The 2014 conflict not only shattered homes and lives – much too often it has also shattered dreams.
One year later, Gaza’s people still live in rubble, and the world has broken its promises about rebuilding the enclave.
As one person portrayed in this photo essay asks, does anyone in the world listen or care?
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10/07/2015
The exodus spawned by the four-year long Syrian conflict has now become the United Nations refugee agency’s largest crisis in almost a quarter of a century and risks deteriorating even further as fighting in the country shows no sign of abating.
A meal being prepared at the Al-Riad shelter, Aleppo, Syria. Photo: OCHA/Josephine Guerrero
In a news release issued on 9 July 2015, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed the latest figures received from the field indicating that more than 4 million Syrian refugees have fled the Middle Eastern nation since hostilities began there in March 2011.
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09/07/2015
9 July 2015 (RT)* – Greek PM Alexis Tsipras had a hard time defending his country’s aim for a fair debt deal in front of an EU Parliament session in Strasbourg, opting to remind MEPs that even the strongest European economy was once on its knees seeking solidarity.
Source: RT
Facing an onslaught of criticism from several chamber members over his inability to produce “concrete” proposals for the country’s creditors, as well as over his failure to implement “necessary” reforms at home, the Prime Minister spoke instead of solidarity.
Tsipras reminded the MEPs who were “highly rhetorical” about the Greek government’s “inability” to find “solidarity with Europe[an] partners” that “lending is certainly a form of solidarity.”
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09/07/2015
9 July 2015 – Fast-paced technological innovation and widespread accessibility of information and communication technology (ICT) have transformed societies around the world. Children in particular have unprecedented access to computers and mobile technologies, and have in recent decades tended to adopt these from an early age, resulting in ICTs becoming thoroughly embedded in their lives, says the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).*
Source: UNODC
Although the exploitation of children is not a new phenomenon, the digital age has exacerbated the problem and created more vulnerability to children.
With the aim of gaining a better understanding of the problem and the challenges posed by it, UNODC recently published a Study on the Effects of New Technologies on the Abuse and Exploitation of Children.
The document is based on open source research as well as the work of a UNODC Informal Expert Group Meeting on the subject, convened in Vienna in 2013.
This meeting brought together experts from international organizations, law enforcement, specialists on the subject and members of academia.
A number of international legal instruments require States to take measures to protect children from abuse and exploitation, as well as engage in international cooperation in the investigation and prosecution of child abuse and exploitation crimes.
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09/07/2015
By Dan Nolan*
BICSKE, 8 July 2015 (IRIN)* – In recent months, Hungary has become a gateway to the European Union for tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers who have already journeyed through Turkey, Greece and the Balkans in search of international protection and a better life. But Hungarian authorities are doing their utmost to close off this increasingly well-trodden route.
**Photo: IRIN | New arrivals at the Debrecen centre for asylum seekers in Hungary have to sleep outside because of overcrowding.
On Monday, Hungarian MPs passed new legislation to clear the way for fast-track deportations of “economic migrants” and construction of a 110-mile fence along Hungary’s border with Serbia – the main entry point for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers.
The government also amended legislation classifying anyone who enters the country via “safe” third countries, including Serbia, as “economic migrants” who can be returned, without the need to examine their asylum claim.
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09/07/2015
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his Special Representative in Afghanistan Nicholas Haysom have welcomed direct talks held between Afghan Government and Taliban representatives in Islamabad, Pakistan – urging both parties to move towards reconciliation and peace.
Thirty years of strife have taken a heavy toll on Afghan institutions and on the economy. Seen here are women sorting pistachios by hand at a privately-owned factory in Herat in June 2012. UN Photo/Eric Kanalstein
In a statement issued on 8 July 2015 by his spokesperson in New York, Ban welcomed the direct talks between Afghan Government and Taliban representatives, which were held yesterday [7 July] in Pakistan.*
“[The Secretary-General] reiterates his support for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process. He expresses his appreciation for the commitment of the parties and the constructive role of the host, Pakistan,” said the statement.
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09/07/2015
New York, 8 July 2015 – As the United Nations Security Council failed to adopt a resolution that some of its permanent members called “vital” and others called “divisive,” senior UN officials stressed that the horror of the genocidal massacre at Srebrenica continued to haunt the Organization 20 years after thousands of ethnic Bosnian Muslim men and boys were slaughtered during a week of preventable brutality.
In 1995, a government soldier reads out the names of soldiers who are confirmed survivors or escapees from the fallen city of Srebrenica. UNICEF/NYHQ1995-0553/LeMoyne
The lessons learned from those “unspeakable” days in July 1995 still reverberate throughout the United Nations, according to UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson who, along with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein joining in via videoconference, urged better efforts aimed at prevention and greater cohesion among the international community as it confronts a growing litany of crimes against humanity perpetrated around the world.*
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 