Pax Gaea Human Rights World Post

PAX GAEA WORLD POST HUMAN RIGHTS HEADLINES MONDAY, JANUARY 1, 2007

• Thailand welcomes New Year with bomb blasts, two dead and sixty injured in wake of coup
• Cultural attitudes make adoptions in Japan rare, undesirable
• Children of Stalin's gulags attempt to avoid memories of the past atrocities
• Israelis returning from abroad find jail awaiting for avoiding military service
• Sub-Saharan illegal immigrants en route to Canary Islands wash up on Moroccan coast
• Zimbabwe dictator Mugabe moves against press critic, strips citizenship
• North Ireland Christians go to court to overturn laws granted civil rights to gays
• Throngs turn our in India's Delhi to protest murdered children, police inattention
• Argentina government seeks out of court settlement to cover eco damage from mill
• Front line troops may be at greater risk of heart disease, study shows

Two dead as New Year blasts rock Bangkok

BANGKOK - Two people were killed and 26 injured in six co-ordinated bomb blasts across Bangkok last night, prompting the cancellation of New Year celebrations in the Thai capital. The explosions occurred within 70 minutes of each other across Bangkok, and began at 5.20pm (11.20pm NZT) on downtown Sukhumvit Road. There was no indication of who was responsible.New Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, installed after a coup three months ago, called an emergency meeting with senior military leaders and the interior minister to discuss the attacks."The bombs were to scare people during the New Year festival," Ajiravid Subarnbhesaj, national police spokesman, said at a press conference. "The situation is under control, but all people should be united and patient," he added. The health ministry's information centre said two men -- a 36-year-old and a 61-year-old -- had been killed in the attacks, while 26 people were injured. New Zealand Herald (1/1)

Cultural attitudes spell few adoptions

By SETSUKO KAMIYA, Staff writer

Couples looking to start a family naturally want their own children. But amid the recent debate over whether to legalize surrogate births in Japan, one question has largely been overlooked: What about adoption? Without a doubt, there are many children without parents who need loving families, but adoption of unrelated children is rare in Japan, partly because of doubts that placing them in an unfamiliar home environment is better than raising them in a public welfare facility. Temporary foster care, in which families agree to care for a child for a few weeks or even several years without becoming the legal parents, is not common either.Child welfare specialists argue there must be a change in the mind-set of parents -- a desire to act in the best interests of children -- if adoption is to take root. The desire for a biological connection to one's child that leads parents to opt for surrogacy is understandable, experts say, but adoption is another option. Japan Times (1/1)

Children of the gulag live with amnesia

FORGETTING THE PAST: Young people don't know and aren't interested in the Stalin-era deportations and repression that landed their families in Kazakhstan's gulag camps

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE

KARAGANDA, KAZAKHSTAN- Maria Sadina hunched over fading pictures of her parents, ethnic Ger-mans who were deported in 1941 from Russia's Volga region to one of Karaganda's many gulag camps. Sadina's father was imprisoned for praising the quality of a German-made tractor, and for a decade he worked as a slave laborer in the nearby coal mines. Her mother was sent to the Karaganda gulag simply for her German heritage. They had married and reared their daughter, Sadina, in a two-room brick house so low to the ground that visitors must bend over to avoid hitting the ceiling. Sadina, now a grandmother, continues to live in the same house. She pointed to the neighbors' homes through her kitchen window. "These people are all children of the gulag," she said. "Nobody talks about it anymore. Nobody even wants to look at their pictures anymore." The gulags once spread over the Kazakhstan steppe like a thick wreath. Eleven camps with names like Alzhir, a Russian acronym for the Akmolinskii Camp for Wives of Traitors of the Motherland, housed hundreds of thousands of prisoners and their families. The camps, built shortly after the creation of the Soviet Union, were partly emptied to provide soldiers and workers during World War II and were eventually closed, although not dismantled, after Josef Stalin died in 1953.In Kazakhstan today, a large percentage of people have parents or grandparents whose lives were savagely rewired by deportation and imprisonment in the camps. But memories of the gulags are dying. "For younger generations the gulag is uninteresting," said Arest Savchak, a 61-year-old teacher whose parents and grandparents were exiled to Karaganda for supporting Ukrainian nationalism. Taipei Times (Taiwan) (1/1)

From Philadelphia to army prison

By Nir Hasson

Last Thursday Anna Tennenbaum celebrated her 27th birthday. Anna was born in Ukraine and came to Israel with her family in 1991. A short time later the family encountered difficulties and her father left them. In 2000, a short time before Anna's 18th birthday, her mother decided to send her to live with her grandmother in Philadelphia. "The first thing I did in the United States was to send letters to the Israel Defense Forces explaining my situation to them," says Tennenbaum. "After several letters I received an exemption from military service from the consulate by mail. I thought that it would be all right, although my mother continued to receive threatening phone calls from the army." Anna remained in the United States and completed her bachelor's degree in psychology. About two months ago she decided to return to Israel. "I had good intentions, I thought I might serve in the army," she says. But she soon discovered that the IDF was more interested in punishing her than in drafting her. At the airport she was told that she had to report to the recruitment center in Tel Hashomer within 48 hours. Anna tried to ask for a few days' postponement in order to spend the holidays with her family, but the army refused. From the recruitment office she was transferred to detention in a military prison. "I hadn't even had time to get used to Israel and I found myself in such a place. It was like a bad dream," she says. Ha'aretz (Israel) (1/1)

Bodies of nine sub-Saharan illegals discovered in southern Morocco

Laayoune, Dec. 31 - Moroccan authorities retrieved, on Saturday in Amgriou locality (60km north of the southern city of Laayoune), the bodies of nine sub-Saharan illegal migrants, whose boat capsized on its way to Spain's Canary Islands. The authorities also arrested 59 sub-Saharan illegal immigrants onboard a makeshift boat, according to local authorities. The bodies were transported to the mortuary of the Moulay Hassan Ben Lmahdi hospital in Laayoune, while the 59 would-be immigrants were transferred to the host center of the same city. On Friday, the security services arrested, in Akhfennir locality (170km south of Laayoune), some 111 sub-Saharan illegal immigrants who were trying to join the Canary Islands. Due to the Moroccan-Spanish joint patrols on the Mediterranean shores, illegal immigrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, try to cross to Canary Islands, from southern Morocco and also from Mauritania and Senegal. Maghreb Arab Presse (Morocco) (1/1)

Mugabe moves to silence critics

Robert Mugabe's government has moved to close Zimbabwe's remaining independent press by stripping newspaper owner Trevor Ncube of his citizenship. The action against the publisher comes as Mugabe (82) and president for 26 years, pushes for an extension to his term of office by a further two years. Frustrated by unprecedented resistance from within his Zanu-PF party, he appears to be trying to silence all of his critics. On Saturday an outspoken opponent, Lovemore Madhuku, accused the police of failing to investigate a fire at his home, which he said was arson. "It is very clear that the government is trying to silence all critical voices, including Trevor Ncube and his newspapers, and me. We are all opposed to Mugabe's attempts to extend his rule to 2010," said Madhuku, a law lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe. Senior government officials said Ncube, the publisher of the Mail & Guardian, the Zimbabwe Independent and the Standard, was not entitled to Zimbabwean citizenship because his father was Zambian. Mail & Guardian (South Africa) (1/1)

Northern Ireland divided over new rights for gays

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor

Twenty-five years after Northern Ireland's gay rights campaigners first defeated Rev Ian Paisley's infamous quest to "Save Ulster from Sodomy", a new war against homosexuality is being waged on the streets of Belfast. In 1982 Rev Paisley and his Free Presbyterian Church tried to stop the introduction of a gay age of consent. This time the church and its political allies are attempting to block new laws that will protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination by hoteliers and guesthouse owners. Under changes that come into force today Northern Ireland is to trailblaze regulations which make it unlawful to refuse goods and services to people on grounds of sexual orientation. In response, an alliance of church and political groups, has gone to the High Court in Belfast to try to have the law overturned, saying that they discriminate against Christians and their teachings. For P A MagLochlainn, 61, who was at the forefront of the campaign to stop Rev Paisley and his crusade it is a case of history repeating itself. "Before we had the age of consent the police would raid homes and guest houses and drag people out of their beds. "If they couldn't find anyone in them then they would check for pubic hair. Even after 1982, when we won the battle, I still saw people being beaten up just for snogging in public," he said. Independent (United Kingdom) (1/1)

Crowd protests at Delhi murders

Angry crowds, protesting against the disappearance and murder of several children, have been fighting with police in the Noida suburb of Delhi. The skulls of 17 people - most of them children - and other human remains have been found in a drain in the area. A local businessman and his servant have been arrested and charged with multiple rape, murder and abduction. Five senior police officers have been suspended, accused of ignoring people's fears over missing children. Groups of protesters pelted police with stones while TV footage showed a female protester being hit by a policewoman. The two women were filmed hitting and clawing each other, and pulling at each other's hair. The enraged mob attacked several other police personnel, hurling stones at them. Several policemen picked up the stones which were thrown at them and hurled them back at the mob. BBC (1/1)

Argentina seeks out-of-court settlement

Argentina yesterday expressed hopes for a diplomatic solution to the rift with Uruguay over a paper pulp plant that Finnish company Botnia is building in Uruguay before The Hague-based International Court of Justice Court takes a stand. "Why can’t we realize that we are putting too much at stake and finish once and for all with something that is harming both peoples?" Interior Minister Aníbal Fernández asked rhetorically yesterday. Meanwhile, Uruguayan Foreign Minister Reinaldo Gargano said that the conflict would be solved only when President Néstor Kirchner "puts an end to road and bridge blockades" The Kirchner administration has been refusing to remove blockades by demonstrators who oppose the plant. Argentina claims that the plant will contaminate its environment. Argentina Star/ Buenos Aires Herald (1/1)

War trauma may lead to future heart disease

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A groundbreaking study of 1,946 male veterans of World War II and Korea suggests that vets with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are at greater risk of heart attacks as they age. The new study is the first to document a link between PTSD symptoms and future heart disease, and joins existing evidence that vets with PTSD also have more autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and psoriasis. A second study, funded by the Army, found that soldiers returning from combat in Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder reported worse physical health, more doctor visits and more missed workdays. The Army study is based on a survey of 2,863 soldiers one year after combat. "The burden of war may be even greater than people think," said the first study's lead author, Laura Kubzansky of the Harvard School of Public Health, who studies anxiety, depression and anger as risk factors for heart disease. Her work, with colleagues from Harvard and Boston University, appears in Monday's Archives of General Psychiatry. Their study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Army study appears in Monday's American Journal of Psychiatry. The possible link with heart disease didn't surprise one Iraq veteran who has PTSD. CNN (1/1)

posted by Dave Carroll @ 1/01/2007 05:34:00 PM