Torture is likely still widespread in Afghanistan’s State-run prisons for detainees linked to ongoing conflict there, the UN said on Wednesday [17 April 2019], while also noting an “encouraging reduction” in the level of abuse since 2016.
UNAMA/Eric Kanalstein | An elderly woman being held at a female detention centre in northern Afghanistan (2010).
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Based on interviews with more than 600 detainees and published jointly by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), their latest report on the treatment of prisoners in 77 facilities in 28 out of 34 provinces indicates that an average of nearly one in three, provided “credible and reliable” accounts of suffering.
15 April 2019 (OECD)* – The Japanese economy is undergoing the longest expansion in its post-war history, marked by strong job creation and business investment. Government policy must overcome the intertwined challenges posed by rapid population ageing and high government debt to ensure sustainable and inclusive growth for future generations, according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Representatives of governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations agree more must be done, and urgently, to manage the millions of tonnes of e-waste produced each year.
GENEVA, 17 April 2019 (ILO)* – The ILO has called for urgent action to better manage the toxic flood of electric and electronic waste (e-waste) produced around the world, so it can be turned into a valuable source of decent work.
17 April 2019 (Wall Street International)* — Today there is worldwide concern over ecological problems and climate change in particular. A systems-view of the world shows us that pollution and climate change mutually interact, thereby spawning further crises: the loss of biodiversity, the huge wealth gap between rich and poor that forces the dispossessed to migrate towards wealthier nations, and the destabilization of democracy. There is much to be concerned about, and the rage and anxiety felt by those most affected is exacerbated by the indifference of the majority of influential governments.
Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency, as Max Blumenthal points out in his insightful book “The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump,” was made possible not only by massive social inequality and concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of the oligarchic elites but by the national security state’s disastrous and prolonged military interventions overseas.
Swedish schoolgirl climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, reacts before a meeting of the Environment Committee at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, 16 April 2019. [Photo: EPA-EFE/PATRICK SEEGER]
The book documents an increasing trend towards the harassment and criminalisation of indigenous peoples and communities.
It also highlights the rising tensions between states and indigenous peoples, shrinking civil society space, loss of land rights and lack of access to justice for indigenous peoples to enjoy their rights.
“Indigenous peoples make up 5% of the world’s population, yet they represent 15% of the world’s poorest, and in 2017, half of the approximately 400 environmental and human rights defenders were killed.
DAYLESFORD, Australia, 15 April 2019 — On 11 April 2019, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange was dragged from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London by UK police and arrested for breaching a bail condition. See ‘Arrest update – SW1’.
Demonstration in support of Assange in front of Sydney Town Hall, 10 December 2010 | Elekhh – Own work | CC BY-SA 3.0
Noting a 300 per cent surge in the number of measles cases during the first three months of this year, compared to the same period last year, two UN agency heads declared on Monday [15 April 2019] that we now stand “in the middle of a global measles crisis”.
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World Bank/Dominic Chavez | Nurse at Redemption Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, prepares to vaccinate children. | Photo from UN News.
“Cases have soared across the world, including in places where measles had previously been eliminated, like the United States”, asserted Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The international community must support the real efforts of genuine organisations working for peace and reconciliation as the only way to change the Israel/Palestine political landscape.
Sign in front of the Galil school, a joint Arab–Jewish primary school in Israel (Image by Arikk (talk) • CC BY-SA 3.0)
LONDON, 14 April 219 — Following the elections Netanyahu is now making his deals with other ultra-right and ultra-religious groups to form his fifth government after failure from his closest opponent Benny Gantz, who by presenting himself as an alliance of centre and left wing ideologies in spite of his right leaning history managed to divert votes from the more pro Palestinian real left, and a partial boycott of the elections by the Israeli Arabs.
