Archive for August, 2017

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26/08/2017

Energy Habits Are Changing in Latin America’s Cities

Human Wrongs Watch

By Mario Osava*

BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil, Aug 24 2017 (IPS) – The Vaz de Souza’s were so keen on the solar water heater that they made it their mission and business, which prospered with the surge in innovation in their city, Belo Horizonte, recognised as the solar energy capital of Brazil.

Alejandro Casas’s electric taxi, which he drives in Montevideo, cost him 63,000 dollars, but he was given a five-year loan and he gets free recharges, as part of an initiative supported by the state-owned electric company and the government of the Uruguayan capital. Credit: Verónica Firme/IPS

Alejandro Casas’s electric taxi, which he drives in Montevideo, cost him 63,000 dollars, but he was given a five-year loan and he gets free recharges, as part of an initiative supported by the state-owned electric company and the government of the Uruguayan capital. Credit: Verónica Firme/IPS

In 1998 they founded the Maxtemper company, which has already installed over 40,000 solar water systems in homes, pools, companies and public facilities in the eastern state of Minas Gerais, mainly in Belo Horizonte, where similar suppliers have mushroomed.

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24/08/2017

‘Since 2001, US has renormalized the bombing of civilian areas’

Human Wrongs Watch

 23 Aug, 2017 (RT)* — The presence of a few combatants in a civilian area does not change the nature of that area. It is a still a civilian area, says Nicolas Davies, author of Blood On Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
YPG_and_YPJ_machine_gun_Raqqa_(February_2017)

**YPG and YPJ fighters reload a machine gun during the Raqqa offensive. | Author: Kurdishstruggle | Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

The UN is raising the alarm over reports of mass civilian deaths in US coalition air strikes in the Syrian city of Raqqa. Syria’s SANA news agency says 78 people were killed on Tuesday.

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24/08/2017

UN Rights Experts Criticise US Failure to Unequivocally Reject Racist Violent Events

Human Wrongs Watch

23 August 2017 – The United Nations body monitoring implementation of the global convention on prohibiting racial discrimination has called on high-level politicians and public officials of the United States to unequivocally and unconditionally reject and condemn racist hate speech and crimes in Charlottesville and throughout the country.

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Wide view of the Human Rights Council. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

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24/08/2017

Lebanon Joins Jordan and Tunisia in Fight Against Rapists Impunity

Human Wrongs Watch

ROME, Aug 23 2017 (IPS) – The top United Nations human rights official hailed the repeal of laws in Lebanon, Tunisia and Jordan that used to allow rapists to avoid criminal prosecution by marrying their victims.

Lebanon Joins Jordan and Tunisia in Fight against Rapists Impunity

Credit: OHCHR

“To punish a rape victim by making her marry the perpetrator of a horrible crime against her – there is no place in today’s world for such hideous laws,” on 22 August said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein.

He welcomed the stand that lawmakers in Lebanon, Tunisia and Jordan have taken towards eliminating violence against women and ensuring that perpetrators of such violence are held to account.

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24/08/2017

Australian Lawyer Jane Connors, Appointed as First UN Rights Advocate for Victims of Sexual Exploitation

Human Wrongs Watch

23 August 2017 – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Jane Connors, Australian law professional and long-time human rights advocate, as the first United Nations advocate for the rights of victims of sexual exploitation and abuse.

Jane Connors, newly-appointed Victims’ Rights Advocate for the United Nations. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

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24/08/2017

‘History of Slave Trade Can Help Combat Social Injustice’ – UN on Day of Remembrance

Human Wrongs Watch

Remembering the universal demand for freedom that led to the 1791 insurrection by slaves in what is now Haiti, the head of the United Nations cultural and educational agency on 23 August 2017 marked the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition by underscoring the importance of teaching this history to young people.

Shackles used to bind slaves. UN Photo/Mark Garten

“We are counting on the teaching of this history to place tomorrow’s citizens on the path to peace and dignity,” said Irina Bokova, in a message to mark the Day, which is observed annually on 23 August.

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23/08/2017

Use of Children as ‘Human Bombs’ on the Rise in North-East Nigeria – UNICEF

Human Wrongs Watch

The United Nations children agency on 22 August 2017 expressed extreme concern at the appalling increase in the cruel and calculated use of children, especially girls, as “human bombs” in north-east Nigeria.

A 17-year-old girl, ‘Aminata,’ forced to live with Boko Haram for two years, sits in an internally displaced persons camp in Maiduguri, Borno state, Nigeria. UNICEF/Abubakar

“Since the beginning of January 2017, 83 children had been used as so-called human bombs, 55 being girls, most of them often under 15 years old,” UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson Marixie Mercado told reporters in Geneva.

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23/08/2017

Interview: The Struggle for Migrant Workers’ Rights

Human Wrongs Watch

By Jennifer Rosenbaum and Penelope Kyritsis*

23 August 2017 — openDemocracy* — How can migrant workers protect their rights when they are often excluded from collective action?
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Penelope Kyritsis: Can you start by telling us your name and what you do.

My name is JJ Rosenbaum and I am a Robina fellow for the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School.

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22/08/2017

Law Allowing Rapists to Avoid Prosecution, Abolished in Jordan

Human Wrongs Watch

ROME, Aug 22 2017 (IPS) – In just three weeks time, two Arab countries adopted major steps to combat violence against women, with Jordan abolishing a law allowing rapists to avoid prosecution by marrying their victims, while Tunisia adopting its first national law to prevent gender-based violence and provide support to survivors.

Violence against women - Young Tunisian women. Photo: UN Women

Young Tunisian women. Photo: UN Women

In the case of Jordan, the law until now allowed a rapist to avoid prosecution by marrying his victim for a minimum period of five years. However, the Parliament of Jordan on 4 August voted to abolish the so-called “rape law” of the Penal Code.

Jordan becomes the third county in the region, after Morocco and Lebanon, to abolish the use of marriage to avoid rape prosecutions, the United Nations specialised body, UN Women, informed.

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22/08/2017

We Need Their Voices Today! Chapter 21: Helen Keller

Human Wrongs Watch

By John Scales Avery*

John Scales Avery, author of this book: We Need Their Voices Today! has generously granted Human Wrongs Watch permission to publish it in a series of chapters. This is Chapter 21: Helen Keller. The others will follow successively.

 

helen

Figure 21.1: A portrait of Helen Keller (public domain).

Annie Sullivan becomes Helen’s teacher

Helen Keller was born in 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her father had served as a captain in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, and her mother, Kate Adams, was the daughter of a Confederate general.

She was also related to Robert E. Lee, so by birth she was certainly a Southerner.

Today Helen Keller Day is celebrated each year in Alabama following a 1980 proclamation by President Jimmy Carter.

Helen was a normal child until the age of 19 months, when she contracted an illness which may have been scarlet fever or meningitis.

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