BREAKING NEWS: PAX GAEA WORLD POST HUMAN RIGHTS HEADLINES (12/8)
The Big Question:
What's going on in Somalia, and is the Horn of Africa on the brink of war?
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Why is this an issue now? Because the UN security council unanimously adopted a resolution on Wednesday night providing for the dispatch of foreign peacekeepers to Somalia, which has triggered warnings that the move will spark all-out war and a regional conflagration. The peacekeepers were authorised to support the weak, unpopular transitional government which has international backing even though it only controls just one town in Somalia, Baidoa. The rest of the desperately poor Horn of Africa country, including the capital Mogadishu, is controlled by a loose coalition of Islamists known as the Union of Islamic Courts, whose fighters have swept across the country since June. Independent (UK) (12/8)
Afghanistan at crossroads, says head of UN mission
EDITH M. LEDERER
UNITED NATIONS — Afghanistan is at a crossroads and there is no guarantee that it won't slide into a broader conflict again, the head of a recent UN Security Council mission to the country said.Japan's UN ambassador Kenzo Oshima told the council Thursday that security was the dominant concern during the Nov. 11-16 mission, with many Afghans apprehensive about the rise in violence. While the Afghan economy is growing and there are promises of reconstruction and development and strengthening of democratic institutions, he said the country faces a growing Taliban-led insurgency, widespread insecurity in the south and east, an upsurge in illegal drug production and trafficking, and pervasive corruption. Toronto Globe and Mail (12/8)
An 80-hour week for 5p an hour: the real price of high-street fashion
Factories in Bangladesh are breaking pledges to workers made by big UK retailers
Randeep Ramesh in Dhaka
Some of Britain's best-known high street brands are selling "cheap chic" clothes at the expense of workers in Bangladesh who are paid 5p an hour despite pledges to protect basic labour rights, an investigation by War on Want will reveal today.Employees in Bangladesh are forced to work excessive hours, refused access to trade unions and face abuse and sacking if they protest, says the report, Fashion Victims, based on interviews with 60 garment workers from six factories. War on Want says that although Primark, Asda and Tesco have stated publicly they will limit the working week and pay a "living wage" overseas, these commitments are flouted in their suppliers' factories. The Guardian, which interviewed workers in Dhaka, confirmed the allegations of excessive hours and poor working conditions in the report. Employees making clothes for the three retailers said they had no choice but to work longer than the agreed 60 hours a week. The Guardian (12/8)
Corruption has a global foothold
A watchdog group finds bribery is most common in Africa, but Albania is named the top offender
From Reuters
BERLIN — Bribery demands from police and other officials is a major problem across the developing world and even in European Union countries such as the Czech Republic and Greece, a corruption watchdog said Thursday. "Corruption has infiltrated public life and burrowed in," said Robin Hodess, policy and research director at Transparency International. The Berlin-based nongovernmental organization said its report, "Global Corruption Barometer 2006," indicated that bribery was most prevalent in Africa, where an average of 36% of those surveyed said they or a member of their family had paid a bribe in the last 12 months. Los Angeles Times (12/8)
World Bank Study Faults Its Work in Rural Africa
By CELIA W. DUGGER
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — The World Bank, the premier financier of antipoverty programs in developing countries, has too often failed to tackle effectively the deprivation in the African countryside, home to most of the continent’s poor people, the bank’s internal evaluation office said in a report released Thursday. The bank’s strategy in Senegal, for example, favors cities, while in Malawi the bank neglects efforts to help the rural poor improve productivity on and off the farm, the report says. The evaluation team found that in about half the 48 countries it studied across the developing world, the bank’s aid to rural areas produced disappointing results. New York Times (12/8)
Microcredit can help put poverty in museums
CHRIS DENDYS
On Sunday, a Bangladeshi economist and the institution he founded 30 years ago will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. Muhammad Yunus, known to many as the "banker to the poor," started his journey toward creating the Grameen Bank in 1976 with a loan from his pocket to 42 desperately poor people in Bangladesh. The total loan amounted to $27 U.S. — less than $1 U.S. per person. Toronto Star (12/8)
GLOBE EDITORIAL
The perils of being born female
Survival is the first human right. Women around the world who suffer beatings, rape, enslavement, or ritual mutilation cannot hope to access the full benefits of higher education or political empowerment. Every American concerned about a healthy, sustainable world should start with this baseline effort: violence against women must be made illegal and intolerable in even the poorest societies. Last month the United Nations Population Fund issued a report documenting horrific gender violence in countries from Cameroon to Mexico, sometimes perpetrated under the protective rubric of "traditional cultural practices" or religious customs. The problems are widespread and deeply rooted: rape has become a routine weapon of war, for example; and 80 million girls are forcibly married before their 18th birthdays, an age when pregnancy is the leading cause of death. Boston Globe (12/8)
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, U.N. Envoy Under Reagan, Dies
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, an unabashed apostle of Reagan era conservatism and the first woman U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has died. The death of the 80-year-old Kirkpatrick, who began her public life as a Hubert Humphrey Democrat, was announced Friday at the senior staff meeting of the U.S. mission to the United Nations and on the Web site of the American Enterprise Institute, where she had been a senior fellow. New York Times (12/8)
posted by Dave Carroll @ 12/08/2006 02:15:00 PM
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