Pax Gaea Human Rights World Post

PAX GAEA WORLD POST HUMAN RIGHTS HEADLINES THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2007

TOPICS

• Transformation underway in Pakistan quake zone and economy, rights emerge from dust
• The global battle on AIDS, malaria need long term strategy versus 'brush fire' approach
• Food security needs to be global priority as Africa struggles to feed itself
• Developing nations need to do more to cut down on greenhouse gases, UN says
• 1 million children slaves to the sex trade, U.S. State Department reports
• Heroin poppies will bloom uninterrupted this year in Afghanistan, government says
• Most violent Haiti slum is confronted by UN forces
• Australian nationalism reveals fear of multiculturalism, xenophobia
• Accused Argentine 'dirty war' Blonde Angel of Death insists , "it wasn't me"
• Violence ensues in Beirut from Hizbullah general strike, curfew called

Brisk recovery in Pakistan's quake zone

More than a year after a powerful tremor killed 73,000, the disaster has brought about social change.

By David Montero Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

ALLAI VALLEY, PAKISTAN - The brisk sale of nails and iron sheeting is more of a silver lining than Anwal Faroze could have asked for. His small hardware shop, sitting in one of the most remote valleys in Pakistan's earthquake zone, sells more supplies now than ever before in 16 years of business. "There is more need now. People are busy reconstructing," says Mr. Faroze, his bushy beard underscoring a bright smile. His revival is symbolic of the nation's recovery more than a year and nearly two frigid winters after a devastating earthquake killed 73,000 people in one of the worst natural disasters in human history. But as Faroze's shop attests, progress cannot be measured in the brick and mortar of reconstruction alone. There are other encouraging signs in this destitute valley: Local organizations and relief agencies are picking up where the military and international relief organizations – both now considerably diminished – have left off. Old social and economic mechanisms have sprung back to life, and new, transformative processes brought by the outside world – whether in attitudes toward women or livelihoods – have taken on a life of their own, nurtured by locals intent not only on recuperation, but progress. The earthquake destroyed more than 200,000 homes – some 10,000 here in Allai Valley alone – in an area twice the size of Connecticut, leaving more than 3 million homeless in Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province. When the Himalayan winter came last year with brutal force, some 600,000 people huddled in hurriedly made tent camps. Now winter has come again, but this time, only 30,000 people are left in camps, according to the International Organization on Migration (IOM). Not that the challenge is over. Few homes are completely reconstructed, meaning that nearly 2 million will face the second winter in temporary shelters, according to an assessment by OxFam International. "This is what we wanted – that the communities take charge of their lives," says Lt. Gen. Ahmed Nadeem, Deputy Director of the government's Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA). "I already see signs that they're turning this adversity into an opportunity." Christian Science Monitor (1/25)

DAVOS-INTERVIEW- Time for long view on AIDS, says Global Fund

By Ben Hirschler

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 24 (Reuters) - After years of fire-fighting HIV/AIDS, the time has come to develop a long term strategy for tackling the pandemic, the head of the global fund set up to fight the disease said on Wednesday. "As we get the fire engine to the scene and begin to put out the blaze, which I think is what is happening, our attention now must begin to focus on the long term," Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told Reuters. He was speaking as experts from international organisations and drug companies met at a satellite meeting during the World Economic Forum to discuss how the pandemic will develop by 2025. For the first 20 years, the world had failed to act to halt the carnage from AIDS in the developing world but that had changed in the last five years, he said. "Now we have some early successes, with 1.5 million on antiretroviral therapy -- and the number is doubling every year," Feachem said. The AIDS virus infects around 40 million people globally, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. It killed an estimated 2.9 million in 2006, according to UNAIDS, the U.N. programme on HIV/AIDS. But despite the recent advances in getting life-saving medicines to some of the world's poorest countries, for every person put on medication, 10 more are newly infected. The result is a "receding horizon" in getting to grips with the epidemic, which the world had to address, Feachem said. Reuters/AlertNet (1/25)

AFRICA: Help Africans to feed themselves, governments urged

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

NAIROBI, 25 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - Eighty percent of Africans who experience frequent food shortages live on poor land in rural areas - neglect of such communities is one of the main causes of hunger on the continent, campaigners for the right to food said. Speaking at a seminar on food security at the ongoing World Social Forum in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, Michael Windfuhr, the human rights director of the German charity, Bread for the World, said 50 percent of the hungry were small farmers who lived in areas without reliable infrastructure or credit facilities. "Governments should try to use the maximum available resources in order to enable people to feed themselves," Windfuhr said on Wednesday, citing cases of forced evictions where people lose access to land and water and lose their livelihoods. Other speakers said governments often seemed unaware of people's right to food. Mike Anane, coordinator for FIAN, an international NGO that campaigns for the right of people to feed themselves, said violations of the right to food in Ghana also resulted from poor water management. "Entire rivers and streams are diverted by mining companies towards their tributaries, thus depriving these communities of water for irrigation purposes," Anane said. In addition, he said, the dumping of mining rock waste on farmland also rendered the land unfit for cultivation. IRIN News (United Nations) (1/25)

UN urges developing countries on climate change

Reuters

TOKYO - The head of the UN’s climate body on Thursday urged major developing countries such as China, India and Brazil to play more active role in combating global warming. Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Secretariat, said efforts to combat global warming could fail unless a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change involving both advanced and major developing countries was reached this year. “The year 2012 is drawing very close. It takes a very long time to reach an agreement on such complicated global negotiations,” de Boer told reporters. He was speaking after senior officials from 20 countries wrapped up an “informal” two-day conference on climate change in Tokyo. The Tokyo conference, the fifth of its kind, was aimed at helping pave the way for the international community to set rules on combating climate change after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. “I fear if we don’t manage to resolve the future negotiations this year, we may well run the risk of not having policies in place by the year 2012,” de Boer said. He repeatedly said that more active participation by major developing countries such as China, India and Brazil was ”crucial” to bring global efforts to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. But he said that those countries had shown “clear indications” that they would be committed to taking further action on climate change. “But for this they need international help,” he said. The Kyoto Protocol obliges 35 developed nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. But the nations signed up to the protocol account for only about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates) (1/25)

Girl, 6, embodies Cambodia's sex industry

By Dan RiversCNN

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (CNN) -- At an age when most children might be preparing for their first day of school, Srey, 6, already has undergone trauma that is almost unspeakable. She was sold to a brothel by her parents when she was 5. It is not known how much her family got for Srey, but other girls talk of being sold for $100; one was sold for $10. Before she was rescued, Srey endured months of abuse at the hands of pimps and sex tourists.Passed from man to man, often drugged to make her compliant, Srey was a commodity at the heart of a massive, multimillion-dollar sex industry in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. "It is huge," said Mu Sochua, a former minister of women's and veteran's affairs who is an anti-sex trade activist. The precise scale of Cambodia's sex trade is difficult to quantify. International organizations -- such as UNICEF, ECPAT and Save the Children -- say that anywhere from from 50,000 to 100,000 women and children are involved. An estimated 30 percent of the sex workers in Phnom Penh are under the age of 18, according to the United Nations. The actual figure may be much higher, activists say. Around the world, more than 1 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade each year, according to the U.S. State Department. The State Department believes Cambodia is a key transit and destination point in this trade. "Trafficking for sexual exploitation also occurs within Cambodia's borders, from rural areas to the country's capital, Phnom Penh, and other secondary cities in the country," the State Department wrote in a 2006 report. "The Government of Cambodia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so." Sochua said that with millions of Cambodians struggling to live on less than 50 cents a day, many women turn to the sex industry. Poverty is also often what drives parents to sell their child or themselves on the streets. "Always a child is left behind, often a girl, who is preyed on by traffickers," Sochua added. CNN (1/25)

Afghanistan won't spray poppies

JASON STRAZIUSO , Associated Press

KABUL — Afghanistan's heroin-producing poppies will not be sprayed with herbicide this year despite a record crop in 2006 and U.S. pressure for President Hamid Karzai to allow the drug-fighting tactic, a spokesman said Thursday. However, Mr. Karzai told foreign and Afghan officials this week that if Afghanistan's poppy crop isn't reduced this year he would allow spraying in 2008, according to a Western official who requested anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity. Mr. Karzai's cabinet decided Sunday to hold off on using chemicals for now, according to Said Mohammad Azam, spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Counter Narcotics. “There will be no ground spraying this year,” Mr. Azam told The Associated Press. He said there would be more pressure to destroy poppy crops with “traditional” techniques — typically sending teams of labourers into fields to batter down or plow in the plants before they can be harvested. “If it works, that is fine,” Mr. Azam said. “If it does not, next year ground spraying will be in the list of options.” Fuelled by the Taliban, a powerful drug mafia and the need for a profitable crop that can overcome drought, opium production from poppies in Afghanistan last year rose 49 per cent to 6,700 tons — enough to make about 670 tons of heroin. That's more than 90 per cent of the world's supply and more than the world's addicts consume in a year. Globe and Mail (Toronto) (1/25)

UN soldiers move into Haiti slum

UN peacekeepers in Haiti say they have set up a stronghold in one of the largest and most violent slums of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The stronghold is to be a centre for operations against armed gangs, a UN spokesperson told the BBC. The UN troops came under fire as they moved into the Cite Soleil shantytown, but the UN contradicted reports that several people had been wounded. UN peacekeepers, in Haiti since 2004, have stepped up patrols in Cite Soleil. They were sent to the country to maintain order after a revolt ousted the former President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. On Wednesday, Brazilian soldiers of the UN mission took over an abandoned building used by gangs. Hundreds of people have died in Port-au-Prince in clashes between rogue police officers, ex-rebels and gangs. The Brazilian-led UN force includes more than 8,000 soldiers and police supported by some 1,000 civilian personnel. BBC (1/25)

Diversity breeds a stronger identity

Differing values pose no threat to national cohesion, contends a new Australian citizen

Masako Fukui

THIS is the first Australia Day I celebrate as an Australian, and a proud new citizen at that. And I'm pretty sure if you asked the other 100,000 or so people who, like me, pledged their allegiance to Australia in the past year, most would concur with my sentiments. So why does a discussion of citizenship in Australia evoke such fear and divisiveness? Why is there so much uncertainty about multiculturalism on a day when we should be affirming our identity? It seems to me that this paranoid nationalism is a reaction to some choice words emitted by one or two members of our Muslim community, yet there is little evidence that our country is about to be swamped by extremist Muslim values. If anything, we are more likely to be swamped by British values. According to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs' 2005-06 annual report, the largest group of people to take up Australian citizenship in that period were British, at more than 20,000. The second largest group were Chinese, at about 10,000. The department's figures do not indicate religious affiliation or the values espoused by these new citizens, but as they came from about 180 different nations, there are bound to be divergent sets of beliefs represented. Should differing values necessarily lead to multicultural doubts? Do they diminish our national identity and sense of cohesion? Quite the opposite, in my view. Australian (1/25)

Ex-Argentine navy captain denies involvement in abduction of French nuns

By Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - A former Argentine navy captain dubbed the ”Angel of Death” by human rights groups denied in his first court appearance Wednesday that he helped abduct two French nuns during the country’s ”dirty war” against leftists. Capt. Alfredo Astiz, 56, is accused in the 1977 disappearance of nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet, along with a dozen other people, including the founder of the human rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Azucena Villaflor. All were reported held at the former Navy School of Mechanics, the chief clandestine torture center of the 1976-83 military dictatorship. Judge Sergio Torres is investigating torture at the Navy Mechanics’ School in one of several junta-era human rights cases reactivated since the Supreme Court two years ago annulled a pair of 1980s amnesty laws. In his testimony Wednesday, Astiz declared his ”complete and total innocence” in the nuns’ disappearance and deaths. Nearly 13,000 people are officially listed as missing from the dictatorship era’s state crackdown on leftist dissent. Human rights groups say the toll is closer to 30,000. Duquet was abducted Dec. 8, 1977, in what lawyers say was a commando-style operation by state security agents working on behalf of the dictatorship. Domon was taken that same month. Lawyers for the nuns said they were targeted after befriending mothers of illegally detained dissidents. After they were seized, the nuns were taken to the Navy School of Mechanics and later disappeared, prosecutors said. Argentina Star (1/25)

Beirut under curfew after street battles kill 3

BEIRUT (AFP) - The Lebanese army declared an overnight curfew in Beirut after rival Sunni and Shiite Muslims fought street battles that left three people dead and 152 wounded, police said.The rioting was at a level not seen since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war, and came 48 hours after the Hezbollah-led opposition called a general strike which was also marred by deadly clashes. The chaos overshadowed an international aid meeting for Lebanon in Paris where donors pledged more than 7.6 billion dollars to bolster the Western-backed government and help the country recover from war. The army imposed the curfew from 8:30 pm (1830 GMT) until 6:00 am (0400 GMT) on Friday. Apart from army vehicles, Beirut's streets were deserted after the curfew took hold. The curfew, Lebanon's first since violent labour demonstrations in 1996, will not be enforced for journalists, doctors, pharmacists and bakeries. "The curfew will not disrupt activities at Beirut international airport, but passengers will have to respect it. Those arriving will stay at the airport until the end of the ban," a senior airport official told AFP. The danger of further violence erupting prompted Hassan Nasrallah, head of the powerful Shiite fundamentalist Hezbollah party which spearheads the pro-Syrian opposition, to respond with a call for army orders to be obeyed. "We are using a Fatwa (religious decree)... in the interests of the country and civil peace... everyone should evacuate the streets... we call for the measures of the Lebanese army to be respected," he said. Agence France Presse (1/25)

posted by Dave Carroll @ 1/25/2007 04:18:00 PM