Pax Gaea Human Rights World Post

PAX GAEA WORLD POST HUMAN RIGHTS HEADLINES (12/19)

• UK to give battered women "panic rooms" for homes, evidence against partner
• U.S. grown marijuana outsells wheat and corn, most lucrative cash crop in states
• Libya court sentences foreign medical workers to death for child AIDS outbreak
• UN "Alliance of Civilizations" report stresses new way forward to advance peace among nations
• Israel and Palestine Prime Ministers agree to resume talks but no date yet set
• Sudan president should have until first of year to approve Darfur peacekeeping force or face sanctions
• Sri Lanka Tamil Tigers kidnap 21 children for soldier recruitment
• Uruguay pleads case at The Hague against Argentina 'blockade' of bridges to paper mill
• U.S. flexes muscles at Iran ordering additional carrier group into Persian gulf
• Migrant labor in Europe face poverty, squalor

Battered women to get home 'panic rooms'

From correspondents in London

VICTIMS of domestic violence should be given reinforced "panic rooms" in their homes to protect them from abusive partners, the government said today. Ministers have pledged extra money to pay for safe havens in more women's homes after they said trials across England had been a success. The secure rooms are fitted with toughened doors and locks and are designed to give women a safe place to take refuge when a violent partner arrives at their house. Some have cameras and alarms linked to the local police station. "It has been tested in some areas and 90 per cent of women are satisfied with that," Women and Equality Minister Meg Munn told the BBC. "It has enabled them to feel safer and to live a more normal life." Herald Sun (Australia) (12/19)

Marijuana largest cash crop in U.S.

SAN FRANCISCO — Marijuana is the most lucrative cash crop in the United States, worth more than the corn and wheat-growing sectors combined, according to a study released Monday by a pro-drugs group. The study by the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a Washington-based organization which is campaigning for the decriminalization of the drug, argued that successive crackdowns against marijuana have been unsuccessful. The report said using conservative price estimates, the marijuana crop was worth $35.8 billion this year — exceeding the combined value of corn ($23.3 billion) and wheat ($7.45 billion). The report said despite eradication campaigns which have seen 103 million marijuana plants seized and an average of nearly 36,000 cultivation sites per year destroyed, production increased tenfold between 1981 and 2006 from 1,000 to 10,000 metric tons. MPP communications director Bruce Mirken said the report lent weight to his organization's calls for the marijuana industry to be legalized and regulated. "Our current laws take our biggest agricultural product and hand a monopoly to unregulated criminals and gangs, while wasting millions of dollars and adding to the prison overcrowding crisis," he said. Japan Today (12/19)

Foreign medics sentenced to die in Libya case

By Lamine Ghanmi

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - A Libyan court sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death on Tuesday for deliberately infecting hundreds of children with the virus that causes AIDS, provoking a chorus of Western condemnation. The ruling in a deeply politicized case could set back oil producer Libya's hopes of better ties with the West, which meant a deal that saves the six from execution was still likely, analysts said. The children's relatives broke down in tears and hailed the ruling that ended a seven-month retrial as a welcome act of defiance of the West. Justice has been done. We are happy," said Subhy Abdullah, whose daughter Mona, 7, died from AIDS contracted at the hospital in the town of Benghazi where the medics worked."They should be executed quickly." The six deny infecting 426 children, more than 50 of whom have since died, with HIV at the hospital in the late 1990s. Their lawyer said they planned to appeal against their latest conviction, which some analysts say Libya may use to strengthen its hand as it seeks foreign financial compensation in order to placate the families. Reuters (12/19)

UN chief presents report on "Alliance of Civilizations"

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, along with the prime ministers of Spain and Turkey, presented on Monday the report of the High-Level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations to an informal plenary meeting of the General Assembly. In his remarks, the secretary-general said the report, launched last month in Istanbul, "shows us a way forward." "It emphasizes that the problem is not the faith but rather the conflicts, terrorism and other events of the past several years that have exacerbated tensions amongst people," he said. "And it presents specific recommendations for rebuilding trust and confidence between people of different faiths and cultures." The report's proposals - in the areas of politics, media, education, youth and migration -comprise an action plan to improve cross-cultural relations. Many of its suggestions - such as media campaigns to fight discrimination, or the critical review of educational materials -seek to foster tolerance and dispel stereotypes at the local and individual levels, he said. People's Daily Online/Xinhua (China) (12/19)

PA official: Abbas and Olmert making preparations for talks

By The Associated Press Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Tuesday that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were making preparations for holding a meeting. Both leaders have called in recent weeks for a meeting with the other as a way to re-ignite long-stalled peace talks."The preparation for the meeting ... is ongoing," Erekat said. "Once the preparations are concluded, the meeting will take place immediately. No date has been set yet." Meanwhile, King Abdullah II on Tuesday urged Olmert to renew negotiations with the Palestinians and restart the Middle East peace process, adding that delaying talks would bring the region deeper into a cycle of violence. Olmert made a surprise visit to Jordan Tuesday for talks on ways to revive Mideast peacemaking. Ha'aretz (Israel) (12/19)

'Al-Bashir has no more excuses'

London, United Kingdom- Sudan should have until the end of the year to agree to an international peacekeeping force in Darfur or face sanctions and other punitive measures, 15 former foreign ministers said in comments published on Monday. Writing a proposal for Darfur in the Financial Times, the group, which included Madeleine Albright of the United States, Joschka Fischer of Germany and Turkey's Ismail Cem, said a fully observed ceasefire leading to a sustained political settlement would be the best way to save lives in the war-ravaged region. In the interim, the international community had to convince Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir that his best interests would be served by allowing the African Union peacekeeping force to be strengthened with financial, logistical and other support from the United Nations, the group said. Mail & Guardian (South Africa) (12/19)

Tamil Tigers kidnap 21 children

Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka have admitted kidnapping at least 21 students in the east of the country. A rebel spokesman told the BBC that junior Tiger fighters had made a "serious mistake" in taking the children from their school. Correspondents say that in the past the Tigers have always denied abducting children to use them as soldiers. This year has seen a sharp increase in violence in Sri Lanka, with at least 3,400 people dead, the authorities say. Rebel military spokesman Rasaiah Ilanthirayan told the BBC Sinhala service that the junior Tigers who abducted the children had been expelled from the movement. "It was a mistake by the field commanders, but we are taking strict disciplinary action against our own people involved in this," he said. BBC (12/19)

Uruguay urges ICJ to halt Argentinian blockade

REUTERS

THE HAGUE • Uruguay urged the World Court yesterday to force Argentina to end blockades of vital bridges between the two nations by protesters against a planned pulp mill, which it says are “strangling” its economy. Demonstrations against the giant mill on the Uruguay river, which Argentina fears will cause environmental damage to the waterway the neighbouring nations share, have intensified since the World Bank said last month it would fund the project. Uruguay told the court the blockade would cost it hundreds of millions of dollars in lost trade and tourism, but Argentina refuted those claims, and argued neither the blockades nor their possible effects fell under the jurisdiction of the court. “Uruguay is confronted with an urgent crisis: the blockade of all three international bridges over the River Uruguay ... These acts have one sole object, namely to force Uruguay to stop the construction of the Botnia paper mill,” said Hector Gros Espiell, Uruguay’s ambassador to France. Argentina Star (12/19)

Central Command requests second battle group to Persian Gulf Region

From Barbara Starr CNN Pentagon Correspondent and Larry Shaughnessy CNN Pentagon Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- CNN has learned Central Command has asked the Pentagon for permission to send another aircraft carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean area. If the carrier request is approved by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the presence of the ships would be aimed at sending a signal to Iran in the aftermath of that country's recent naval exercises and other military maneuvers. Central Command wants to make clear to Iran that the U.S. military is not stretched thin and is capable of putting addition military force into the region if necessary. The USS Eisenhower battle group is already in the region as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. CNN sources say there is no indication of pending military action against Iran with this battle group, the movement would only be intended to sent a strong signal to government in Tehran. The carrier would also be available to assist in any action against targets in Iraq or Afghanistan if need be. If this request from Central Command is approved by the Pentagon, the battle group wouldn't move into the region until after the first of the year. CNN (12/19)

Bitter harvest

The migrants who work on Europe's fruit and olive harvests live on meagre wages, forced to survive in conditions that would fail to meet the UN's basic standards for refugee camps. Felicity Lawrence reports from southern Italy on life at the rough end of international trade

The migrants start walking up before dawn, when the town's Christmas decorations still cast a flickering light into the shadows of the main road. Soon hundreds of them have gathered, recreating a map of Africa's troubles and Eastern Europe's poverty along the litter-blown streets of Rosarno in Calabria. The town, in middle of the mafia-controlled toe of Italy, is an agricultural community of 15,000 people. It is one of the places where undocumented workers queue each morning for jobs on the Italian orange and olive harvests and in the juice and candied peel factories that supply northern Europe. About 5,000 of them live in the Rosarno area alone. On a December morning, the Moroccan men have formed a large gang in the middle of the main street, their pale skins giving them an advantage in the brutal pecking order. Opposite, a group of Bulgarian Roma women are taking their chances, huddling a young child close to them. Chain-smoking Romanians, both men and women, have marked out their territory slightly away from the Roma, whom they say they despise; next to them is a solitary Russian. Back across the way a knot of Egyptian youths has newly arrived in Europe and is dreaming of England; and at the end of the road are the black Africans, always last to be chosen, dozens of them, from Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Eritrea and Sudan. Then, with the full moon still up, the vehicles start arriving. A Pajero takes 10 or 12 men. A caporale, or gangmaster, arrives with a filthy minivan and picks off another 20, but 10 more climb in, determined not to be left behind. A row breaks out as the caporale tries to eject the surplus. Suddenly violence flares - a young Moroccan hammers on the roof of another van until it drives off in a skid of dust and exhaust. He has worked for the gangmaster for a week but now the man is refusing to pay the wages he owes. His friends are all shouting - it's happened to them too, but they are illegal, so what can they do, one of them says. The Guardian (United Kingdom) (12/19)

posted by Dave Carroll @ 12/19/2006 03:19:00 PM