TOPICSMozambique children break taboos, talk frankly with peers on young people's radio show
$485 million added to Central Emergency Response Fund to assist devastated nations
Americans overwhelmingly view UN negatively yet still want them to assert world leadership
Gaia Theory inspiration behind Virgin 's Branson $25 million greenhouse gas cleanup prize
Child soldiers of Sudan find difficulty reintegrating into communities
Honor killing of Pakistani women on the increase according to 2006 survey
'War on Terror' ally Ethiopia PM accused of terrorizing political opponents
Former State Dept., USAID officials form new rights group to address conflict in Darfur, Africa
UN Peacekeepers press battle against Haitian gangs in Port-au-Prince slums
Israel, Palestine clashes continue over excavations new mosque Israel claims as "routine repair work"
MOZAMBIQUE: Young people's radio show breaks down taboos
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
MAPUTO , 8 Feb 2007 (IRIN/PLUSNEWS) - Subjects like HIV/AIDS and child trafficking, usually considered taboo in Mozambican society, are being openly discussed by the teenage presenters of radio and television programmes for young people. Radio Mozambique presenter Amelia Maisha Tumgine, 13, is one of several presenters using the airwaves to talk frankly with their peers about subjects that matter to them but are often considered off-limits by parents. "I don't feel uncomfortable anymore talking about difficult subjects like HIV - it is no longer an adults' problem, as it also affects children. If the issue is only approached by adults, then kids will continue to believe that it is something they do not have to deal with," she said. According to UNAIDS, 16.1 percent of people aged between and 15 and 49 are infected with HIV. Although 33 percent of males and 20 percent of females aged between 15 and 24 know to prevent transmission of the virus, statistics indicate that only 6 percent of sexually active girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are having protected sex. Tumgine's colleague at Radio Mozambique, Larsen Msanjate, 17, who has worked on child-to-child radio shows for four years and has had his own slot for the past year, sees the programmes as a way of helping children understand not only childhood problems but also the challenges that come with adulthood. "I think that what we are broadcasting helps kids to grow into adults who know how to make good choices; I think that we are helping to make good changes in kids' lives - this [type of programme] is a window of hope," he told IRIN. IRIN News Service (United Nations) (2/10)
GLOBAL: UN announces $85m for under-funded emergencies
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
Source: IRIN
NAIROBI, 9 February (IRIN) - A United Nations fund, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has allocated about US$85 million for under-funded emergencies in 15 countries in Africa and Asia. This funding is part of CERF's two-part annual allocation for life-saving programmes around the world, according to Margareta Wahlström, the acting UN Emergency Relief Coordinator. "While each of these allocations represents but a fraction of the overall requirements in the individual emergencies, as a whole they help us pursue principled humanitarian action in which those who require aid the most are identified, based strictly on need and assisted accordingly," Wahlström said. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is scheduled to receive the highest amount of $36.6 million. The other beneficiaries are: Angola, $4.5 million; Bangladesh, $1 million; Burundi, $8.5 million; Central African Republic, $4.5 million; Cote d'Ivoire, $4.5 million; the Democratic Republic of Korea, $5 million; Eritrea, $2 million; Ethiopia, $6 million; Haiti, $2 million; Myanmar, $354,976; Namibia, $1 million; Somalia, $1 million; Sudan, $6 million, and Zimbabwe, $2 million. The CERF - funded by voluntary contributions - was officially launched on 9 March 2006 to improve emergency preparedness and response to the under-funded and sudden-onset crises. In its first year, CERF channelled at least $252 million to urgent humanitarian projects in 35 countries. Reuters AlertNet (2/10)
United Nations Ratings Remain at Lowest Ebb
Still, Americans want U.N. to contribute to international policy making
by Lydia Saad, Gallup News Service
PRINCETON, NJ -- The United Nations' public image among Americans turned sharply negative following the organization's failure to authorize the United States' use of military force in Iraq at the onset of the war in 2003. However, despite the souring of U.S. public opinion about the war within a year of the war's launch, the image of the U.N. remained low throughout 2005 and has now sunk even further in the past two years. Gallup's latest measure of the United Nations' job performance is the lowest Gallup has seen since first measuring it in 1953: Only 29% of Americans believe the United Nations is doing a good job of trying to solve the problems it has had to face while 66% say it is doing a poor job. This is statistically similar to the 30% saying it was doing a good job a year ago -- but is down from 36% in January 2005. The drop between 2005 and 2006 could be due to the negative publicity surrounding corruption charges against U.N. officials; particularly those involving the son of former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. Today's record negative perception of the United Nations follows a period from May 2000 to January 2003 when the organization received some of its most positive ratings from the American people -- routinely exceeding 50%. Gallup News Service (2/10)
Virgin boss offers $25m reward to save Earth
James Sturcke and agencies
Sir Richard Branson Thursday offered a $25m (£12.8m) prize for scientists who find a way to help save the planet from the effects of climate change. Flanked by the former US vice-president Al Gore and other environmentalists, the boss of Virgin Atlantic airlines called for scientists to come up with a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Describing the prize as the largest ever offered, Sir Richard compared it to the competition to devise a method of accurately estimating longitude. He denied that being the head of an airline prevented him from being concerned about climate change. "Let's confront the airline question. I have an airline. I can afford to ground that airline today. My family have got businesses in mobile phones and other businesses, but if we do ground that airline today, British Airways will just take up the space. "So what we are doing is making sure we acquire the most carbon dioxide-friendly planes. We're making sure that 100% of profits we make from our transportation businesses are put back into things like the prize we've offered today." Sir Richard said he had been influenced by James Lovelock, who developed the Gaia Theory, which suggests that the world may already have crossed a "tipping point". The Guardian (United Kingdom) (2/10)
Sudan child soldiers struggle to give up guns-UN
By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Former child soldiers in southern Sudan are failing to settle back into their communities and instead are picking up guns to fight again, a U.N. official said on Thursday. Radhika Coomaraswamy of Sri Lanka, the special envoy for children and armed conflict, visited Sudan late last month. "We were seeing the phenomenon of children not being re-integrated fully into their communities and actually coming back to the armed forces -- a remobilization," she said. UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency, had helped demobilize several thousand child soldiers in southern Sudan since 2001. She said the agency would conduct a study in the southern Sudanese capital Juba on child soldiers and the services needed in the region, devastated by decades of civil war, to help them reintegrate. "We met a lot of young people, orphans and all, and many of them want to get back into the fighting," Coomaraswamy told a news conference."They want to get back into the armed forces because they are used to carrying a gun, they have social status with a gun and they just can't get back into their communities." A peace deal was signed in January 2005 to end two decades of civil war in the South but has yet to be fully implemented. "Unless you build the community in Juba, unless you actually have education, sport, recreation for the community in Juba, these children are not going to go back," Coomaraswamy said. Reuters AlertNet (2/10)
Nearly 600 women killed in Pakistan 'honour killings' in 2006
At least 565 women and girls in Pakistan died in so-called honour killings in 2006, the country’s main rights organisation said today, nearly double the number it recorded the year before. The sharp increase from 287 in 2005 was due "at least in part" to expanded data collection, the privately funded Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said in its annual report. However, it said many more cases may have gone unreported and has estimated in the past that the annual total may be about 1,000. Many men in deeply conservative rural areas of Pakistan consider it an insult to family honour if female relatives have an affair outside of wedlock or even if they marry without their consent. Some view attacking or killing the women or their partners as a way to restore family honour. In the report released today, the commission said at least 475 of last year’s honour killings followed accusations of “illicit relations". Sixty of the dead were minors. Arrests were made in only 128 cases, it said. Irish Examiner (2/10)
Ethiopia is accused of 'torturing and illegally jailing opponents of regime'
By Steve Bloomfield
Addis Ababa- Ethiopia is conducting a systematic campaign of intimidation, detention and torture against political opponents of its increasingly autocratic government, human rights groups have alleged. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, a celebrated ally of the US administration in its "war on terror" and previously invited to sit on Tony Blair's Africa Commission, has become increasingly blatant in his suppression of opposition. At least 40 opposition supporters in the country have been held in prison since December where torture has become commonplace, according to evidence from Amnesty International. None of the detainees being held in Addis Ababa's Maikelawi prison have been allowed to see family members or lawyers and released suspects say prison guards routinely torture inmates. The opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) also claimed several of their supporters had been shot dead in a series of extra-judicial killings. Those held include a 23-year-old IT student called Endalkachew Melese who was arrested on 15 December in Addis Ababa. His family has been allowed to bring him food but have not been able to see him. Despite being taken to court, he is yet to be formally charged. Mr Melese, like the others held with him, is a supporter of the CUD.Mr Meles was once the poster boy for good governance in Africa and feted only two years ago by the West as one of Africa's brightest democratic leaders. Since then, his star has fallen rapidly. Mr Meles first changed the constitution to allow himself to seek a third term as prime minister and the subsequent elections in May 2005 were marred by allegations of fraud. Mr Meles and the opposition claimed victory and the prime minister called in the security forces to quell unrest. Several thousand suspected government opponents were arrested after demonstrations in Addis Ababa in 2005. Police and security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing 187 and wounding 765. Independent (United Kingdom) (2/10)
New Advocacy Group Aims To Point Up Atrocities in Africa
Former Officials Unite to Focus Public on Darfur, Other Conflicts
By Nora Boustany, Washington Post Foreign ServiceVeteran Africa activists, frustrated by the slow response from Sudan's government to international demands to ease the plight of refugees in Darfur, are regrouping to take their fight to the next level. A new group, calling itself Enough, has joined the growing list of nongovernmental peacemaking organizations. Its aim, the founders said, is to tap into the grass-roots awareness and sense of rage generated by the Darfur crisis and create a social and political network that can identify potential wide-scale atrocities, particularly in Africa, and stop them before they occur. The three co-founders are Gayle E. Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, who was previously an officer with the State Department and the National Security Council; Africa expert John Prendergast, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group who also served at State and the NSC in the Clinton administration; and Colin Thomas-Jensen, Africa research and advocacy manager for the International Crisis Group and a former official with the U.S. Agency for International Development. "We've got people's attention on Darfur. While we have it, there are other raging fires such as Uganda and the Congo, and it is more cost-effective to act in concert," Smith said. "I am both excited and moved by the activism on Africa and what has happened in the last 30 years. . . . It is breathtaking." In a survey by the Pew Research Center conducted in December, 51 percent of American respondents said they thought the United States had a responsibility to do something about ethnic violence in Darfur, and 53 percent were in favor of U.S. troops in Darfur as part of a multinational force to help end ethnic genocide there. Washington Post (2/10)
U.N. Troops Fight Haiti Gangs One Street at a Time
By MARC LACEY
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 5 — For years, street gangs have run Haiti right alongside the politicians. With a disbanded army and a corrupted wreck of a police force, successive presidents have either used the gangs against political rivals or just bought them off. Recently, something extraordinary has occurred. President René Préval decided to take on the gangs and set the 8,000 United Nations peacekeepers loose on them, a risky move that will determine the security of the country and the success of his young government. “We’re taking back Port-au-Prince centimeter by centimeter,” said Lt. Col. Abdesslam Elamarti, a peacekeeper from Morocco. “We’re pressing these gangs so the population can live in peace.” The offensive by the United Nations forces, who arrived here in 2004 after the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, began in earnest in late December. One of the fiercest battles took place on the morning of Jan. 25 with a raid by hundreds of United Nations forces on a gang hide-out on the periphery of Cité Soleil, this sprawling seaside capital’s largest and most notorious slum. After a fierce firefight in which gang members fired thousands of shots, United Nations officials succeeded in taking over the hide-out, a former schoolhouse that gang members had once used to fire upon peacekeepers and to demand money from passing motorists. The United Nations said four gang members had been killed in the battle. New York Times (2/10)
Arab Protesters in Jerusalem Clash With Israeli Forces
By GREG MYRE
JERUSALEM, Feb. 9 — Israeli troops charged onto the grounds of Jerusalem’s most contentious religious site on Friday and fired tear gas and stun grenades at stone-throwing Palestinians who were protesting Israeli excavation work taking place nearby. The confrontation, which began immediately after midday worship on the Muslim day of prayer, marked the fourth straight day of Palestinian protests against Israel’s renovation of a 50-yard walkway leading up to the compound, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount. The clashes quickly spread to streets nearby and to other parts of Jerusalem’s Old City as Palestinian youths barred from the compound hurled stones at a large contingent of Israeli police officers in riot gear. Over all, 19 Israeli police officers and 17 Palestinian protesters suffered minor injuries, and 17 Palestinians were arrested. Because of the holy site’s significance to Jews and Muslims, any dispute has the potential to ignite a major conflict here and in the wider region. The latest trouble began Tuesday when work on the walkway began. Palestinians say they fear that a section of the foundation of part of the 35-acre compound could be damaged, and Muslim countries have joined in criticizing Israel. But Israel says that it is carrying out routine repair work that does not endanger the mosque compound, and that Muslim extremists are trying to manufacture a crisis. With tensions running high, Israel prohibited men under 45 to attend Friday Prayer at the mosque. But some younger men did manage to get inside, and they emerged from the prayers chanting “God is great.” They immediately headed toward the police and began throwing stones and bottles at the officers, who were just outside the gate of the compound. Some 200 police officers then ran onto the grounds, firing tear gas and stun grenades, sending up clouds of smoke.As they chased the stone-throwers, the police approached the entrances to Al Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine, but did not enter. New York Times (2/10)
Labels: Darfur, Ethiopia terror, Haiti gangs, Mozambique, Pakistan honor killings, Palestinian Israeli clashes, Richard Branson, Sudan, UN Global fund, US opinion
TOPICS 2003 Nobel Prize winner challenges Iranian mullahs, male dominance through petition drive
Swaziland struggles to educate AIDS orphans as donor funds barely trickle in
Turkmenistan presidential candidates take oath for reforms, sparks hope for isolated people
Violence in DR Congo claims 134 lives, UN demands investigation
Military investigates itself over Gitmo abuse allegations, finds itself innocent
Saudi police arrest democracy advocates declaring them "terror suspects"
Iran bans civil society activists from travel abroad
Rights group condemns arrest of only Turkmenistan independent candidate not in exile
Warring Palestinian factions turn to Mecca to reach a peace accord
Hollywood hospital accused of dumping paraplegic patient on Skid Row
Challenging the mullahs, a signature at a time
Maura J. Casey
NEW YORK: 'Well-behaved women rarely make history," my favorite bumper sticker says. It surely applies to Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner whose relentless campaign against discrimination has enraged the mullahs for more than 25 years. In a country where the law values a woman's life at only half the price of a man's, Ebadi will not be quiet, and she is urging other women to find their voices. Her newest effort is to help collect the signatures of one million Iranian women on a petition protesting their lack of legal rights. The concept is simple and revolutionary, melding education, consciousness-raising and peaceful protest. Starting last year, women armed with petitions began to go to wherever other women gathered: schools, hair salons, doctors' offices and private homes.Every woman is asked to sign. But whatever a woman decides, she receives a leaflet explaining how Iran's interpretation of Islamic law denies women full rights. The material explains how Iran's divorce law makes it easy for men, and incredibly difficult for women, to leave a marriage, and how custody laws give divorced fathers sole rights to children above the age of 7. Ebadi says the petition drive has already trained "400 young women to educate others" about these injustices. The movement, made up of a network of women's organizations and publications, has no formal leadership, in part to lessen the chances of retaliation. That didn't help three female journalists who were arrested late last month after they wrote articles for feminist publications backing the drive. They have since been released but will face a hearing in two months. Ebadi will defend them. It's only natural to wonder how many more women will be arrested as they rebel, one signature at a time. And only natural to marvel about the courage of the 30,000 women who have already signed.
International Herald Tribune (2/9)
SWAZILAND: AIDS orphans locked out of schools
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
MBABANE, 7 Feb 2007 (IRIN/PLUSNEWS) - Thousands of Swazi AIDS orphans risk being locked out of school at the start of the new term this week, after the government failed to make good on a promise to provide scholarships for all those unable to afford school fees. "I don't know where to turn. The school said I must find someone to pay my fees, because the government money that was promised never arrived," said Anne, a secondary school student at St. Mark's High School, in the capital, Mbabane. She comes from the impoverished Msunduza Township, in the mountains overlooking the city. Her mother, a former domestic worker, and her father, who made ends meet with odd jobs, left little behind when they died of AIDS-related illnesses, and she now lives with relatives who cannot afford her school fees. Another AIDS orphan at the same school, who asked not to be named, said he was confident he could find sponsors to allow him into Form III, but only if he could prove he had passed the previous academic year. His dilemma is that "The school told me to go home at fetch the money owed from last year," before they will release his results, and the government has not paid his outstanding fees. For the past four years the government has tried to make good on its assurance that the 80,000 pupils who had lost their parents to AIDS would have their fees covered, but each term thousands are overlooked. Acting Minister of Education Mtiti Fakudze urged a meeting of headmasters on Wednesday to hold off expelling students and give the government a chance to sort out the mess.
IRIN News (United Nations) (2/9)
TURKMENISTAN: Election pledges raise hope of change
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
ALMATY, 8 Feb 2007 (IRIN) - As the Turkmen people go to the polls on 11 February to vote in their first presidential elections in 15 years, there are hopes for urgently needed reforms in healthcare and education. Most presidential candidates acknowledge that something needs to be done about the parlous state of Turkmenistan’s health and education systems, which suffered years of decline under President Saparmyrat Niyazov, who died in December. “There’s a lot to do and nothing has been done yet," Michael Denison of the University of Leeds, a specialist on the area, said. The 20-year rule of Niyazov – known as Turkmenbashy (leader of the Turkmens) - was marked by eccentricities that grabbed headlines in the West, ranging from a ban on ballet and gold teeth, to building a lake in the middle of the desert. Such reports often distracted the outside world from more serious social problems in this country of five million people, such as failing healthcare and a huge drop in education standards. Niyazov - Turkmenistan’s Soviet-era leader, who won 99.5 percent of the vote in presidential elections in 1992 and was named president for life in 1999 - ruled with an iron fist. He quashed dissent, forcing opponents into jail or exile, allowing only one political party - his own.
IRIN News (United Nations) (2/9)
UN calls for DR Congo death probe
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon has called on the Democratic Republic of Congo to investigate last week's violence in which 134 people died. The government says 87 people died but a UN spokesman in DR Congo told the BBC they estimated the true figure was 134. The violence broke out after demonstrators, alleging fraud in recent elections, rampaged through several towns in the province of Bas Congo. The disturbances were quelled by government troops. The deaths followed protests by the Bundu dia Kongo group, which correspondents say has an ethnic-based following and campaigns for the secession of parts of western DR Congo. They held protests in DR Congo's main port, Matadi, and the towns of Mwanda and Boma. Police say a gun fight began when they raided the home of the sect's leader Nemwanda Seni in Matadi. In Mwanda, members of the sect took control of the police station and freed prisoners. During street protests, Bundu dia Kongo members chanted: "The Congo can't be rebuilt on corruption." They are unhappy that the opposition-dominated provincial assemblies in Kinshasa and Bas Congo elected members of the ruling party as state governors. They say the MPs must have been paid to do so. President Joseph Kabila became DR Congo's first freely elected leader in 40 years after winning October's run-off presidential poll. The local elections complete a peace process begun in 2002 when a five-year war that had drawn in much of the region ended. Defeated presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba and his Union for the Nation party did well in western DR Congo, while Mr Kabila owed his majority to a landslide in the east. The UN has its largest peacekeeping force - 17,000 troops - in DR Congo.
BBC (2/9
Military: No Gitmo Guard Abuse Evident
By MICHAEL MELIA, The Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- An Army officer who investigated possible abuse at Guantanamo Bay after some guards purportedly bragged about beating detainees found no evidence they mistreated the prisoners _ although he did not interview any of the alleged victims, the U.S. military said Wednesday. Col. Richard Bassett, the chief investigator, recommended no disciplinary action against the Navy guards named by Marine Sgt. Heather Cerveny, who had said that during a conversation in September they described beating detainees as common practice.In an affidavit filed to the Pentagon's inspector general, Cerveny _ a member of a detainee's legal defense team _ said a group of more than five men who identified themselves as guards had recounted hitting prisoners. The conversation allegedly took place at a bar inside the base. "The evidence did not support any of the allegations of mistreatment or harassment," the Miami-based Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in southeastern Cuba, said in a statement. Investigators conducted 20 interviews with "suspects and witnesses," the Southern Command said. Bassett did not interview any detainees, said Jose Ruiz, a Miami-based command spokesman. "He talked to all the parties he felt he needed to get information about the allegations that were made," Ruiz said by telephone from Miami.Bassett's findings were approved by Adm. James Stavridis, the head of the Southern Command. The investigation began on Oct. 13 and was expanded ten days later to include a similar allegation from a civilian employee who recounted a conversation between a female guard and a male interrogator, according to the statement. Following Bassett's recommendations, Stavridis said a "letter of counseling" should be sent to the female guard who allegedly initiated a "fictitious account" of detainee abuse.
Human Rights First/Washington Post (2/9)
Detained Saudis Described as Democracy Activists
By Faiza Saleh Ambah, Washington Post Foreign Service
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 6 -- Saudi police have arrested 10 men and accused them of collecting donations to fund terrorist acts outside the kingdom, the Interior Ministry said. But a lawyer and a prominent dissident said that at least seven of the men were Saudi democracy activists whose arrest was a government attempt to abort their civic rights work. Matrouk al-Faleh, who was jailed in 2004 for calling for more democracy in the kingdom, said the seven men, most of them lawyers and professors, had been waiting for government approval to set up a civic rights group. They also had planned to present authorities this week with a list of more than 40 prisoners without legal representation whom they intended to defend. "The terrorist allegation is a coverup," Faleh said. "It was used against me as well when I was arrested. . . . This is an attempt to abort the civic rights work they were planning."Police went to the Jiddah beach house of lawyer Essam Basrawi on Friday night and arrested him and five other Saudi men. Saudi businessman Abdul-Aziz al-Khereiji was arrested at a checkpoint as he drove to Jiddah with his wife, said Bassim Alim, an attorney who represents four of the detainees. Basrawi's Moroccan personal assistant also was detained. There was no information on the identities of the two other men. An Interior Ministry spokesman told local newspapers that the arrested men had been involved in financing recruiters who sign up young Saudis to go into "turbulent areas," which is generally a reference to Iraq. The spokesman said sizable amounts of cash had been found during searches of the men's homes.
Human Rights First/Washington Post (2/9)
Iran: Activists Barred From Traveling Abroad
Travel Bans Isolate Activists From International Civil Society
(New York, February 8, 2007) – The Iranian government should immediately lift foreign travel bans used to prevent human rights activists and journalists from attending international forums, Human Rights Watch said today. In recent months, Iranian security forces have repeatedly confiscated passports of activists as they prepared to leave for international conferences. In some cases, the authorities detained and interrogated activists upon their return to Iran. “The Iranian government is effectively putting the country’s civil society leaders under national house arrest,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “After silencing activists inside Iran, the government is preventing them from expressing their views outside the country as well.” On February 4, representatives of the Information Ministry prevented two prominent activists, Hashim Aghajari and Abdullah Momeni, from departing on a plane to attend an international conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on political reform in Iran. Aghajari is a history professor at Tehran’s Tarbiat Modares University, and Momeni is a spokesman for an organization of former student activists. Both Aghajari and Momeni had their passports processed and stamped with an exit permit in Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport. While they waited to board the plane, however, plainclothes officials confiscated their passports and notified them that the Passport Services division of the Presidential Executive Office, under the order of the Revolutionary Court, has imposed a travel ban on them.
Human Rights Watch (2/9)
Turkmenistan: No Deals Without Rights Reform
International Community Should Not Reward Sham Election
(New York, February 8, 2007) – A new dictatorship will be consolidated in Turkmenistan by the pro forma presidential election on February 11 unless strong international voices insist on real human rights reform, Human Rights Watch said today. The election is for the successor to Saparmurad Niazov, who died in December after two decades of increasingly tyrannical rule. “The February 11 presidential election will be neither free nor fair, and the result is a foregone conclusion,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The international community has strangely failed to criticize the upcoming Turkmen election. It may be polite for outsiders to restrain their criticism to avoid accusations of prejudging the poll, but it’s clear the Turkmen authorities themselves have already prejudged the outcome.” Sunday’s poll will be the first multi-candidate presidential election in gas-rich Turkmenistan. But all six candidates are from the only permitted political party, and were pre-selected by the country’s supreme legislature. Candidates must have held state office and been resident in Turkmenistan for at least the past 15 years. These conditions made it impossible for opposition candidates to participate, since most opposition leaders are in exile and barred even from entering the country. The only potential independent candidate inside Turkmenistan, Nurberdy Nurmamedov, was reportedly abducted and beaten shortly after Niazov’s death was announced; he is now believed to be under house arrest.
Human Rights Watch (2/9)
Accord Is Signed by Palestinians to Stop Feuding
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
MECCA, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 8 — The main rival Palestinian factions agreed late Thursday to form a government of national unity aimed at ending a wave of violence between them and an international boycott. The agreement, signed here in Islam’s holiest city under Saudi auspices, appeared likely to end, at least for now, weeks of fighting that had ravaged the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Still, it seemed to stop short of meeting the demands of the international community for resuming relations and support for the Palestinian Authority. The accord, signed by Khaled Meshal of Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and leader of Fatah, its main rival, is the first time that the two parties have agreed to share authority. It sets out principles for a coalition government, like the distribution of ministerial portfolios, but leaves many of the details for later. Israel and international powers have said that they would lift their boycott of the Palestinian government imposed after the victory by the militant group Hamas a year ago only if it agreed to three conditions: recognize Israel, renounce violence against Israel and abide by previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. The Mecca accord addresses only the last of those and does so rather imprecisely, promising “respect” for previous agreements between the Palestinians and Israel. In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said, “The international community has made it clear that in order to be able to have a broader relationship with the Palestinian Authority government, that those principles are going to have to be met.” He added that officials were still studying the accord.
New York Times (2/9)
Cops: Homeless patient 'dumped' on Skid Row
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A hospital van dropped off a paraplegic man on Skid Row, allegedly leaving him crawling in the street with nothing more than a soiled gown and a broken colostomy bag, police said. Witnesses who said they saw the incident Thursday wrote down a phone number on the van and took down its license-plate number, which helped detectives connect the vehicle to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site. Police said the incident was a case of "homeless dumping" and were questioning officials from the hospital. "I can't think of anything colder than that," said Detective Russ Long. "There was no mission around, no services. It's the worst area of Skid Row." The case comes three months after the L.A. city attorney's office filed its first indictment for homeless dumping against Kaiser Permanente for an incident earlier last year. In that case, a 63-year-old patient from the hospital's Bellflower medical center was videotaped wandering the streets of Skid Row in a hospital gown and socks.An after-hours call Thursday to Hollywood Presbyterian seeking comment was not immediately returned. Kaylor Shemberger, the hospital's executive vice president, told the Times the incident was under investigation. "Obviously we are very concerned about the information that has been presented to us," Shemberger said. "If some of the facts are correct, it is clearly not in line with our policy of handling these types of patients." City officials have accused more than a dozen hospitals of dumping patients and criminals on Skid Row. Hospital officials have denied the allegations, but some said they had taken homeless patients to Skid Row service providers. In 2005, Hollywood Presbyterian was accused of homeless dumping.
CNN Associated Press (2/9)
TOPICSTime to Stop the Killing of Activists in the Philippines
State Department challenged to recruit diplomats for Iraq duty
Activists charge U.S. not handling asylum cases properly, putting refugees at risk
Inquest into East Timor killing of Australian newsmen underway after 31 years
Israel condemned for excavating under Muslim Jerusalem mosque, digging will continue
Sentences for official crimes "too lenient" argues Chinese prosecutor
Accord struck in Nepal Constituent Assembly as all agree government should be federal state
Defense attorney for Equatorial Guinea coup plotters hints South African government knew
UN Peacekeeper presence augmented on Israel-Lebanon border after clash
Franciscan priests say Latin American poverty, economy worse now than it was at last meeting 40 years ago
What's At Stake?
Time to Stop the Killing of Activists in the Philippines
The flood of extrajudicial killings since 2001 is a resurgence of an old problem in the Philippines. After President Marcos declared Martial Law in the 1970's, the government created armed civilian militias as part of the military's counter-insurgency operations. (The central government has been battling communist and Muslim separatist insurgencies for almost 40 years). After Marcos was deposed in 1986, many of the armed groups were dissolved after being linked to extensive human rights violations. However, in the vacuum that followed, numerous vigilante groups, many of them created and supported by the armed forces, targeted those alleged to have links to, or sympathies for, communist insurgents. During this period the insurgents also carried out bloody purges of their own members. In the 1990s these killings became far less common, as overall levels of violence declined due to a cautious peace process. However, in the last five years there has been a resurgence of attacks on left-wing political party activists, labor organizers, human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and judges. The human rights group Karapatan estimates that more than 800 activists have been killed since Mrs. Arroyo came to power in 2001. Many were members of a left-leaning political party called Bayan Muna and its affiliated groups. These attacks have been accompanied by increasing rhetoric by the civilian and military leaders accusing human rights, labor, and political activists of being linked to the communist insurgency. And more important than rhetoric, the antiterrorist operation known as Oplan Bantay Laya, (Operation Freedom Watch) launched in January 2002, may have increased the direct targeting of a wide range of peasant leaders and labor activists. There is also evidence of direct military involvement in some of the killings. Human Rights First (2/8)
Few Veteran Diplomats Accept Mission to Iraq
By HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — While the diplomats and Foreign Service employees of the State Department have always been expected to staff “hardship” postings, those jobs have not usually required that they wear flak jackets with their pinstriped suits. But in the last five years, the Foreign Service landscape has shifted.Now, thanks to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House is calling for more American civilians to head not only to those countries, but also to some of their most hostile regions — including Iraq’s volatile Anbar Province — to try to establish democratic institutions and help in reconstruction. That plan is provoking unease and apprehension at the State Department and at other federal agencies. Many federal employees have outright refused repeated requests that they go to Iraq, while others have demanded that they be assigned only to Baghdad and not be sent outside the more secure Green Zone, which includes the American Embassy and Iraqi government ministries. And while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice maintained Wednesday that State Department employees were “volunteering in large numbers” for difficult posts, including Iraq, several department employees said that those who had signed up tended to be younger, more entry-level types, and not experienced, seasoned diplomats. The reluctance highlights a problem with the administration’s new strategy for Iraq, which calls on American diplomats to take challenges on a scale unmatched anywhere else in the world, when the lack of security on the ground outside the Green Zone makes it one of the last places people, particularly those with families, want to go. Steve Kashkett, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, the professional organization that represents State Department employees, said that “our people continue to show great courage in volunteering for duty in Iraq.” But Mr. Kashkett added, “there remain legitimate questions about the ability of unarmed civilian diplomats to carry out a reconstruction and democracy-building mission in the middle of an active war zone.” New York Times (2/8)
U.S. May Be Mishandling Asylum Seekers, Panel Says
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — A bipartisan federal commission warned on Wednesday that the Bush administration, in its zeal to secure the nation’s borders and stem the tide of illegal immigrants, may be leaving asylum seekers vulnerable to deportation and harsh treatment. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, which Congress asked to assess asylum regulations, found two years ago that some immigration officials were improperly processing asylum seekers for deportation. The commission, which also found that asylum seekers were often strip-searched, shackled and held in jails, called for safeguards in the system of speedy deportations known as expedited removal, to protect those fleeing persecution. But the commission, which will issue its new findings on Thursday, says officials have failed to put into effect most of its 2005 recommendations. It says the failures come even as the Bush administration has significantly expanded efforts to detain and swiftly deport illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico without letting them make their case before an immigration judge. “We are clearly concerned as to whether, in addition to prioritizing secure borders, the government is ensuring fair and humane treatment of legitimate asylum seekers,” said Felice D. Gaer, who is head of the commission, which was created by Congress in 1998. “We are really quite disappointed and dismayed by the lack of a response.” New York Times (2/8)
Witness saw bodies of newsmen being burnt
Hamish McDonald
A TIMORESE witness wept as he told an inquest yesterday how he had seen the bodies of five Australian-based newsmen in a house at Balibo, East Timor, before they were burnt. Codenamed Glebe 3, the 56-year-old man said he had entered the village at the rear of Indonesian special forces led by then Captain Yunus Yosfiah who attacked on October 16, 1975. Later that morning, after hearing five white people had been killed, he went to a Chinese-owned shophouse fronting Balibo's central square, and went inside. "I saw three people dying, sitting there, and two more lying there," he told the State Coroner's Court, then correcting himself that all five were dead. "They were white people." As he answered crown counsel Naomi Sharp about his recollections, the witness began crying, and Deputy State Coroner Dorelle Pinch asked if he wanted a break from the witness box. "You can continue, I was just showing some emotion, that's all," Glebe 3 said through a Tetum interpreter. The soft-spoken Timorese said he had heard the dead men were Australian and were newsmen. The witness indicated where he had seen three bodies slumped in a sitting position under a window, and two lying in the same room, with blood on the floor. Later that day, he saw smoke billowing from the house. The inquest is being held more than 31 years later into the death of Channel Nine cameraman Brian Peters, a British citizen resident in Sydney, killed in the attack along with colleague Malcolm Rennie and Channel Seven's Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham and Tony Stewart. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) (2/8)
Olmert spurns bid to reconsider Jerusalem dig
By Jonathan Saul
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has spurned a call to consider halting excavation work near Jerusalem's most sensitive shrine, which has angered Muslims and threatened a Gaza ceasefire deal. Palestinians have warned Israel the work near a compound housing the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site, could derail a shaky truce in Gaza with the Jewish state. Militant group Islamic Jihad said it fired rockets from Gaza at Israel on Thursday, which caused no serious damage, in response to the work. Arab states have asked Israel to halt the digging, which began on Tuesday, saying it could damage the mosque's foundations. Israel has said the dig in search of ancient artifacts beneath the compound, known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount, would not harm the sacred site in Jerusalem's walled Old City, at the heart of Arab-Israeli conflict.A Palestinian uprising began in 2000 after then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon toured the compound. Israeli Deputy Defense Minister, Ephraim Sneh, said Defense Minister Amir Peretz asked Olmert to reassess the excavation. "He (Peretz) did not request the work be stopped," Sneh said. "He asked for a discussion to reconsider (the issue)." "Our problem with the work at the Temple Mount ... is its effect on our relations with important, moderate elements in the Arab world who are very angered by it," he told Israel Radio. Israel's Haaretz newspaper said Peretz had written to Olmert on Wednesday calling for an immediate halt to the work, fearing it could trigger violence. An Israeli official confirmed Peretz had written to Olmert, adding that "we are continuing the work."Olmert's office said in a response: "A thorough examination of the matter would reveal that nothing about the work underway will harm anyone, and there is no truth in the contentions against the work." Yahoo News/Reuters (2/8)
Chinese prosecutor challenges "too lenient" penalties for official crimes
Penalties meted out for dereliction of duty and abuse of power by officials involved in serious workplace accidents have been "too lenient" as a result of sympathy from local governments, a Chinese prosecutor said here Wednesday. Song Hansong, deputy director of the work-related crimes section of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), said that many workplace accidents were directly related to the abuse of power and dereliction of duty, such as authorizing unsafe mines or turning a blind eye to illegal mining activities. "Many officials have been exempted from prosecution, or given lesser sentences because local courts are usually under pressure from governments to believe the officials didn't intentionally cause the accidents," Song said in an interview. According to statistics, up to Dec. 20, Chinese prosecutors had investigated 1,383 cases of serious workplace accidents in 2006 and only 629 government employees were prosecuted. "Most of them were exempted from criminal sanctions or put on probation," said Song. He warned that some local governments still have not understood the harm of job-related crimes and impede investigations and ask for leniency for indicted officials. "Some local officials claim that it is simply a 'bad outcome generated by a good intention', rather than a violation of the law," he said. "Some local governments are reluctant to report and hand over cases to the procuratorates and contented themselves with giving the suspects administrative rather than criminal sanctions," Song said. The work safety situation in China is still grim. Statistics show that 2,459 serious workplace accidents occurred last year, taking 10,898 lives. People's Daily Online/Xinhua (2/8)
Nepal to become federal state , says Koirala
PTI
Kathmandu: Nepal's Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala said late on Wednesday night the major political parties, including Maoists, had unanimously agreed to meet the key demands of the protesters of the Terai region and declare the nation a federal state. In his address to the nation at the conclusion of the eight-party meeting, Mr. Koirala said the Government would amend the Constitution to fulfil the genuine demands of the Terai people.Mr. Koirala also called the agitating groups in Terai to withdraw their movement and come to the negotiating table for resolving the issue through peaceful means of dialogue. He said the government would delineate the constituency on the basis of population and geographical speciality and increase the seats for the Terai during the Constituent Assembly polls. The Hindu (India) (2/8)
Did SA govt know of E Guinea coup plot?
Louis Oelofse
Pretoria, South Africa- A defence lawyer for two of the eight men allegedly involved in an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea hinted on Thursday that the South African government might have given its permission for the attempt. Defence lawyer Alwyn Griebenow was cross-examining state witness Johannes Smit in the Pretoria Regional Court. Earlier in the week, Smit said it was an enigma why the men went ahead with the plan when everyone knew about it. On Thursday, Griebenow asked Smit whether the attempted coup would not have been a "suicide mission" had the government not given permission or its blessing for the mission.Smit agreed, saying Nick du Toit, one of the alleged leaders of the group, was told to call it off. He said he drew up two reports before the coup attempt, warning of its possibility. He told the court on Thursday that it was "highly unlikely" that the South African government did not know about a possibility of a coup in Equatorial Guinea. Another state witness, Nigel Morgan, who is also a private security consultant with a background in the British military, testified that he passed on reports to a source in the "foreign intelligence service of the South African government" about the alleged coup. Mail & Guardian (South Africa) (2/8)
UN boosts border presence after Israeli-Lebanese clash
TYRE, Lebanon (AFP) - UN peacekeepers boosted their presence on the volatile Lebanese-Israeli border after a clash between the armies of both sides, the first such incident in decades. Dozens of Italian and French soldiers deployed after the first direct clash involving Lebanese troops, who moved into the border area after Israel's 34-day war with Lebanese Shiite Muslim Hezbollah last summer. The peacekeepers, backed by armour, took up position along a five-kilometre (three-mile) stretch between the villages of Yaroun and Maroun ar-Ras, near the site of the overnight shooting. "The situation in the general area of Maroun ar-Ras has been relatively quiet today," said UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) spokesman Milos Strugar late Thursday. UNIFIL troops have been deployed in significant number," he said. "UNIFIL troops in coordination with the Lebanese army have also placed a sign to visibly mark the Blue Line in the area." Lebanese and Israeli troops exchanged fire across the border late on Wednesday, causing no casualties, in an incident sparked by Israeli sappers moving towards the border to clear unexploded ordenance. Tension remained high on Thursday as Israeli aircraft continued to fly over the border after Israeli officials pledged that warplanes will intensify controversial flights over Lebanon. Strugar said UNIFIL had called for a trilateral meeting with senior representatives of the Lebanese and Israeli armies next week. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora ordered the army to respond to any new Israeli violation, the state National News Agency reported. Agence France Presse (2/8)
Dominicans discuss poverty, failed economic policy in Latin America
By Barbara J. Fraser, Catholic News Service
LIMA, Peru (CNS) -- From his vantage point 170 miles south of the U.S. border, Bishop Raul Vera Lopez of Saltillo, Mexico, sees the people who pass through his diocese on their way to seek work in the United States as testimony to decades of failed economic policy in Latin America. The migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and places like the southern Mexican region of Chiapas, where the bishop worked in the 1990s, are victims of "a deliberately exclusive economy that makes an option for big business and excludes everyone else," he said. "It is no longer a matter of marginalizing them -- it's exclusion," he said.Despite decades of loans and economic adjustment packages -- and more recently economic growth -- more than 40 percent of Latin Americans still live in poverty. Economic policies adopted in recent years have made it difficult to change that figure, Bishop Vera told Catholic News Service Feb. 2, while in Lima for a meeting of Dominican provincials from Latin America and the Caribbean. Bishop Vera is a Dominican. "A new president can take office with great promises and plans but be unable to fulfill them because of the terrible conditions imposed by the global economy and requirements that macroeconomic figures be kept at a certain level," he said. "This means favoring capital growth and generally neglecting social responsibilities." In that sense, he said, the region has changed little -- and for the worse -- since the second general conference of Latin American bishops in Medellin, Colombia, in 1968, when the region's church leaders declared their "preferential option for the poor." Latin America today is "in a political and social situation even worse than the one that existed at the time of Medellin," Bishop Vera said. Argentina Star/Catholic News Service (Washington DC) (2/8)
Labels: China, diplomats, East Timor, Equitorial Guinea, Iraq, Israel, Latin America, Lebanon, Nepal, Philippines, South Africa, U.S. asylum seekers
TOPICSUN, Lebanon reach Hariri tribunal agreement
Jamaican diplomat, Global champion for women's equality dies
Profiting from pandemic: Indonesia refusal to share bird flu virus sparks WHO concerns
Religious propaganda campaign in Pakistan equates polio vaccine to 'birth control'
Resolution condemning use of child soldiers signed by 58 countries
United states refuses to sign treaty banning secret detentions
Cluster bombs dropped by Israel continue to have devastating consequences in Lebanon
Rich nations must take lead on curbing global warming, admonishes Brazilian President
U.S. 'optimistic' about upcoming six-party talks with North Korea
UN signs deal on Hariri court, raising pressure for ratification
Siniora defends letters to world body as government's 'right'
By Rym Ghazal , Daily Star staff
BEIRUT: The United Nations signed the draft for a mixed Lebanese-international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Tuesday, one week after the government reportedly requested that the document be sanctioned under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. A UN official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Daily Star that the agreement with the UN to establish the special court had been signed and that it would now be returned to Lebanon for ratification in Parliament. The agreement was signed less than 24 hours after President Emile Lahoud urged the UN to "disregard" letters sent by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora concerning the inability of his government to convene Parliament to vote on the tribunal. A report on Future TV late Tuesday also said the agreement had been signed. "Future TV has learned that the United Nations signed the text of the treaty regarding the international tribunal," the report said. "It also signed the bylaws of the tribunal." On Monday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the Lebanese government to ratify the pact as soon as possible. "We hope that once the United Nations signs this document, the Lebanese government will take the necessary measures to ratify this in accordance with their constitutional procedures," Ban said. Daily Star (Lebanon) (2/7)
Angela King, leading advocate for women's equality and top U.N. official on women's advancement, dies
The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS: Angela E.V. King, a Jamaican diplomat who became a leading advocate for women's equality and the first special adviser to the U.N. secretary-general on women's advancement, has died, the U.N. said Tuesday. King died from complications of breast cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center on Monday, her former husband Wilton James said. She was 68 years old. During a 38-year career at the United Nations, King led efforts to end discrimination against women and promote gender equality within the organization and globally. She was also one of a handful of women to lead a U.N. peacebuilding mission — in South Africa from 1992-94 during the country's first democratic, non-racial elections. King participated in U.N. conferences to promote women's rights in Mexico City in 1975, Copenhagen in 1980, and Beijing in 1995, where world leaders adopted a wide-ranging blueprint to achieve equality for women.In 1997, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed her to a new post as his special adviser on gender issues and advancement of women with the rank of assistant secretary-general to help ensure U.N.-wide implementation of the Beijing platform. International Herald Tribune (2/7)
Indonesia May Sell, Not Give, Bird Flu Virus to Scientists
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Indonesia, which has had more human cases of avian flu than any other country, has stopped sending samples of the virus to the World Health Organization, apparently because it is negotiating a contract to sell the samples to an American vaccine company, a W.H.O. official said yesterday. The strains of the H5N1 virus circulating in Indonesia are considered crucial to developing up-to-date vaccines and following mutations in the virus. The official, Dr. David L. Heymann, said the agency was “clearly concerned” about the development and was in talks with Indonesia. Dr. Heymann, the agency’s chief of communicable diseases, said he was not blaming the company involved, Baxter Healthcare of Deerfield, Ill. “But now that this has happened,” he said, “we have to sit down and figure out how to rectify it.” Indonesia signed a memorandum of agreement with Baxter today. A Baxter spokeswoman said the company had not asked Indonesia to stop cooperating with the W.H.O. She added that the agreement under negotiation would not give it exclusive access to Indonesian strains. The virus has not yet mutated into a strain easily transmitted among humans. But it has infected 81 people in Indonesia, 63 of them fatally. It killed more people in 2006 than in any previous year and is out of control in poultry in Indonesia, Egypt and West Africa, so experts fear it as much as ever.In addition, Indonesia’s decision upsets the pattern for making seasonal flu vaccines — by choosing among hundreds of samples sent in voluntarily from all over the world — and could set a dangerous example for other countries. Indonesia and other poor countries feel slighted by the system — justifiably so, some experts say — because the samples they send in are used to produce vaccines that they often cannot afford. New York Times (2/7)
PAKISTAN: Fighting disinformation in polio campaign
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
PESHAWAR, 7 Feb 2007 (IRIN) - Two women slip into the polio vaccination centre at the Khyber Teaching Hospital in Peshawar, a baby hidden in a shawl. The women are scared and seem desperate to leave as soon as possible. “My husband doesn’t know we are here. He does not want his children immunised against polio, because he says this is a western conspiracy to force birth control in a hidden form on people. But I want my son to be safe,” says Ajmeena Khan, 25. She has smuggled her five-month-old son, Ozair, to the vaccination centre with her sister, while her husband is away at the shop he runs in a bazaar in the capital of the Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP). “I normally never leave the house without him. He would be furious if he found I had disobeyed him,” Khan explained. NWFP is Pakistan’s most conservative province, and one of the manifestations of a Taliban resurgence has been a rising opposition to anything perceived as ‘western’ in origin – including polio drops. IRIN News (United Nations) (2/7)
58 countries commit to ending use of child soldiers
PARIS — Fifty-eight countries agreed Tuesday to take action to protect children from being recruited as soldiers in wars, joining for the first time an effort that had been largely confined to NGOs. The 58 countries that signed up to the so-called Paris commitments at the end of a two-day conference included 10 of the 12 nations where an estimated 250,000 children bear arms."We commit ourselves to spare no effort to end the unlawful recruitment and use of children by armed forces or groups in all regions of the world," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said at the end of the gathering held in Paris. The document put the onus squarely on governments to prosecute recruiters or commanders of child soldiers and to seek the unconditional release of all children enrolled in armies or armed groups.It also singled out the plight of girls abducted to work as domestic slaves for fighting forces and who are often victims of rape, stating that they deserved special assistance. In some armed groups, girls make up 40% of the children recruited, according to the U.N. Among the signatories to the Paris commitments were Burundi, Chad, Colombia, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Somalia, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Uganda, which are all on a U.N. black list of countries that recruit child soldiers.Two others on the U.N. list — Myanmar and the Philippines — did not take part in the conference, which was organized by the U.N. children's agency UNICEF and the French foreign ministry. Ten years after children's' rights campaigner Graca Machel unveiled the Cape Town principles that would guide non-governmental organizations, the Paris commitments were hailed as a key step that would inject new momentum to international efforts to end the use of children in combat. "For the first time, countries are solemnly committing to apply and respect these principles to combat the recruitment and use of children in armed conflicts," a foreign ministry official said. Japan Today (2/7)
U.S. Declines to Join Accord on Secret Detentions
By Molly Moore, Washington Post Foreign Service
PARIS, Feb. 6 -- Representatives from 57 countries on Tuesday signed a long-negotiated treaty prohibiting governments from holding people in secret detention. The United States declined to endorse the document, saying its text did not meet U.S. expectations. Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said the treaty was "a message to all modern-day authorities committed to the fight against terrorism" that some practices are "not acceptable." In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to comment, except to say that the United States helped draft the treaty but that the final wording "did not meet our expectations." The Associated Press reported that McCormack declined to comment on whether the U.S. stance was influenced by the Bush administration's policy of sending terrorism suspects to CIA-run prisons overseas, which President Bush acknowledged in September. "Our American friends were naturally invited to this ceremony," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said after the signing here. "Unfortunately, they weren't able to join us. That won't prevent them from one day signing on in New York at U.N. headquarters, and I hope they will." Some U.S. allies in Europe also declined to join, among them Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy. The convention defines forced disappearance as the arrest, detention or kidnapping of a person by state agents or affiliates and subsequent denials about the detention or location of the individual. Washington Post (2/6)
Cluster bombs: a war's perilous aftermath
UN figures estimate that 26 percent of south Lebanon's cultivatable land is affected by the ordinance.
By Scott Peterson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
MAARAKEH, LEBANON - Cease-fires end wars. Or so the Zayoun family thought, when Israel and Hizbullah agreed nearly six months ago to stop battling. But instead, this poverty-stricken Lebanese Shiite household found new agony when a remnant of this war was brought into their living room: one Israeli cluster bomblet, out of an estimated 1 million such unexploded munitions that carpet southern Lebanon. The US State Department said last week that Israel "likely could have" misused American-supplied cluster bombs by peppering civilian areas from which, Israel says, Hizbullah was operating. Similar Israeli usage in 1982 led to a six-year ban of US sales of the controversial weapon, though analysts do not expect such a sanction of the US ally today. But as UN-organized demining teams toil across olive groves and tobacco farms to destroy what they call an "unprecedented" concentration of the controversial cluster bombs here, the casualties continue to mount. The Zayoun family alone accounts for three of a postwar Lebanese toll that today stands at 184 wounded and 30 dead. Father Mohammed blames himself for picking up the small metal cylinder and putting it in his bag while cutting thyme in a field that had been marked with red and white warning tape. Just after nightfall, with the house lit only by a few candles, his 4-year-old daughter Aya Zayoun found the cluster bomb in her father's bag outside. She took it inside to the living room and handed it to her older sister, Rasha, who thought it was a toy bell. Then it exploded. Christian Science Monitor (2/7)
Brazil scolds rich on environment
By Emilio San Pedro, BBC News
Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has accused developed countries of failing to do enough to fight against global warming. In a speech in Rio de Janeiro, President Lula said it was time for wealthy countries to do more to reduce gas emissions. He called on them to stop preaching on what to do with the Amazon rainforest. President Lula said developed nations applied a double standard in their approach to global warming. The Brazilian president has accused wealthy countries of not doing enough on the environment before, but he has rarely been this direct. He said they were skilful at drafting agreements and protocols, like the Kyoto treaty, to appear as if they were doing something to reverse dangerous gas emissions. In practice, however, he said the results proved otherwise. BBC (2/7)
Envoys optimistic about N. Korea talks
By BURT HERMAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
BEIJING -- International talks on North Korea's nuclear program convene Thursday with a new sense of optimism about the possibility of the first tangible progress on the communist nation's disarmament since negotiations began more than three years ago.The main U.S. envoy said Wednesday that the first steps on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear weapons could be agreed upon at this round of meetings in Beijing, though he expected "hard bargaining." Ahead of the six-nation negotiations, the North has also signaled it's satisfied with changes in the United States' attitude, following an apparent greater willingness by all sides to compromise. The latest nuclear standoff with the North started in late 2002 after Washington accused Pyongyang of having a secret uranium enrichment program in violation of a 1994 deal between the two countries. North Korea kicked out nuclear inspectors and restarted its main reactor, moves that culminated in the country's first atomic test detonation in October. Seattle Post-Intelligencer (2/7)
FEMA Wants Over $300M in Katrina Aid Back
By FRANK BASS and MICHELLE ROBERTS,The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS -- In the neighborhood President Bush visited right after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government gave $84.5 million to more than 10,000 households. But Census figures show fewer than 8,000 homes existed there at the time. Now the government wants back a lot of the money it disbursed across the region. The Federal Emergency Management Administration has determined nearly 70,000 Louisiana households improperly received $309.1 million in grants, and officials acknowledge those numbers are likely to grow. In the chaotic period after two deadly hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, slammed the Gulf Coast in 2005 _ Katrina making landfall in late August, followed by Rita in late September _ federal officials scrambled to provide help in hard-hit areas such as submerged neighborhoods near the French Quarter. But an Associated Press analysis of government data obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act suggests the government might not have been careful enough with its checkbook as it gave out nearly $5.3 billion in aid to storm victims. The analysis found the government regularly gave money to more homes in some neighborhoods than the number of homes that actually existed. The pattern was repeated in nearly 100 neighborhoods damaged by the hurricanes. At least 162,750 homes that didn't exist before the storms may have received a total of more than $1 billion in improper or illegal payments, the AP found. The AP analysis discovered the government made more home grants than the number of homes in one of every five neighborhoods in the wake of Katrina. After Rita roared ashore, there were more home grants than homes in one of every 10 neighborhoods. "We don't dispute that more households received expedited assistance in certain zip codes than are listed in the 2000 Census," said David Garratt, FEMA's deputy director for recovery. But he called this "not only justifiable, it's defensible."Officials say a substantial number of those payments _ they cannot say precisely how many _ were made legitimately to homes where family members were separated after the storm, such as emergency workers who stayed behind as spouses and children fled. In such cases, a single family could qualify for more than one aid package. Garratt said officials were in a no-win position. Washington Post (2/7)
Labels: human rights
TOPICS US House Foreign Affairs Chairman accuses Bush budget of shortchanging UN obligations
Emergency aid funding faces bureaucratic hurdles, inefficiency claim agencies
Jakarta floods amplify heath risks in Indonesia
112 firms, individuals blacklisted by World Bank for corruption, graft, stealing from poor
Ancient sites attracting hordes of tourists help poorest economies, risk harm to antiquity
Iraqi conflict taking mental toll on children
Kenya activists struggle to overhaul colonial era labor laws
Attacks on Darfur aid workers on the uprise
Security Council warned 'Resolve Kosovo status or risk new violence'
East Timor peacekeeper mission needs to be extended, augmented suggests UN Chief
New US budget withholds UN dues
Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Congressman Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, has accused the Bush administration of short-changing the United Nations in the budget proposal delivered to Congress on Monday. In a statement, Lantos said this would ultimately harm national security. “We face a $130 million shortfall in the account used to pay US dues to the UN. For the first time since the historic Helms-Biden agreement to pay off old US debt to the UN, we will once again be in arrears. The administration is budgeting for massive new arrears to the UN at a time when we need the organisation to help us in Iraq, Darfur, Lebanon, Haiti and a host of other global hot spots.” Lantos said the administration’s budget also appears to provide far less money than necessary for the projected US share of the bill for UN peacekeeping operations in places such as Lebanon, Sudan, Haiti, Congo and Liberia. The budget appears to make unwarrantedly optimistic assumptions that there will be rapid improvement in the security situation in these countries, Lantos said, so the president’s budget provides hundreds of millions of dollars less than may be needed for these accounts in 2008. He said, “The US already is about $400 million short of its obligations to the peacekeeping account. UN peacekeeping operations are profoundly in US interests, yet the Bush administration has decided to reduce the deficit by under-paying for our national security in this critical area”. Daily Times (Pakistan) (2/6)
UN fund 'creates hurdles' for aid agencies
By Mark Turner
United Nations-A flagship UN emergency response fund established last year to speed assistance to people during humanitarian crises has failed to meet its goal and, in some cases, even slowed down the flow of life-saving goods, according to aid agencies. A study by Save the Children UK said the fledgling fund was "inefficient and actually reduces the amount of money going directly to work on the ground", creating an extra hurdle for aid agencies. The Central Emergency Response Fund, which was championed by the UK government, was heralded at its launch in March last year as a revolutionary new way to ensure money would be immediately available when crises struck, and to steer funds to otherwise forgotten emergencies. This year countries have given $40m (£20.3m, €30.8m) to the fund, and pledged a further $304m. But Save the Children said the fund's rules - which stipulate that the money has to be funnelled through the UN bureaucracy, rather than directly to aid agencies - had created dangerous layers of inefficiency and delay. Oxfam is preparing a review to coincide with the fund's first anniversary. "We certainly share [Save the Children's] concern it hasn't always resulted in the immediate speeding up of response," said Greg Puley, a policy adviser in New York. "We've encountered the same kinds of problems", although "as the year has gone on, things have improved". Oxfam believes, on balance, the fund had leveraged more resources and directed more money to underfunded regions. A European diplomat also acknowledged CERF's early problems, noting funds had taken up to seven weeks to reach the field. He said the UN claimed to have reduced the gap to 1½ weeks. Stephanie Bunker, of the UN's Humanitarian Affairs arm OCHA, insisted CERF money came on top of other sources of finance. "It's not like its draining funding out of anything else," she said. Financial Times (United Kingdom) (2/6)
Health fears rise in Jakarta
Disease threatens Indonesian capital after floods force 340,000 from homes
Anthony Deutsch , ASSOCIATED PRESS
JAKARTA–Filthy brown water flooded large parts of Indonesia's capital yesterday, forcing 340,000 people from their homes and cutting off power and clean water in the city, where at least 29 have died after days of torrential rain. In scenes reminiscent of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, residents of Jakarta waded through poor neighbourhoods in water up to their necks, or floated on makeshift rafts bearing clothes and other salvaged items. Some scrambled onto roofs to await rescue by soldiers and emergency workers, their dinghies crossing floodwaters as deep as 3.7 metres. Rising along with the water was the threat of diseases such as diarrhea and dysentery. Authorities estimated between 40 per cent and 70 per cent of the city, which covers an area of more than 660 square kilometres, had been submerged.Skies cleared yesterday and floodwaters receded in some parts of the city of 12 million, but Indonesia's meteorological agency predicted more rain in the coming days. The seasonal, torrential rains in Jakarta and the hills to the south forced rivers to overflow their banks Thursday. Landslides and flash floods during the wet season kill hundreds in Indonesia every year, but the capital has rarely – if ever – seen floods as bad as those in recent days. The high water washed into rich and poor districts alike, inundating markets, schools and businesses. The government dispatched medical teams on rafts to worst-hit areas, where doctors treated people for diarrhea, skin diseases, respiratory problems and exposure. Conditions were also conducive to the spread of malaria, typhoid, dengue fever and the bird flu virus, officials said. Toronto Star (Canada) (2/6)
World Bank Steps Up Anti-Graft Drive; Blacklists 112 in 2 Years
By William McQuillen
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The World Bank said it stopped doing business with 112 people and firms suspected of corruption over a two-year period as it stepped up a drive to combat graft. The number of people and firms barred from doing business with the Washington-based lender in the two years through last June 30 compares with 226 banned or reprimanded over the previous six years, according to a report released in Washington today.World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has made promoting good governance a hallmark of his leadership since he took over in June 2005, saying too much money intended to aid the poor winds up in the pockets of corrupt contractors and politicians. The former U.S. deputy defense secretary has stopped loans to Chad and threatened to slow debt forgiveness for Congo. ``When we find that scarce development dollars have been wrongly diverted from their intended purpose of benefiting the poor, we have a responsibility to take action,'' Wolfowitz said in a statement. The World Bank, which has about 10,000 employees around the world, distributes about $23 billion in aid each year for projects including improvements to sanitation, railways and rural roads in low-income countries. The bank's Institutional Integrity Department said it completed 227 probes of alleged acts of corruption within the bank over the two years through last June, resulting in 33 staff members being disciplined, fired or barred from being rehired. Bloomberg (United States) (2/6)
Ancient Temples Face Modern Assault
Rapid Rise in Tourism Is Overwhelming Cambodia's Ability to Protect Fragile Sites
By Anthony Faiola, Washington Post Foreign Service
ANGKOR, Cambodia -- Built by a mighty 9th-century Khmer king, the soaring temple of Phnom Bakheng stands atop the highest peak of ancient Angkor. With a sweeping view that takes in Angkor Wat -- the world's largest religious structure -- the monks stationed here were probably among the first to glimpse the approaching Siamese troops that snuffed out this city's centuries-long domination of much of Southeast Asia. So perhaps it is not surprising that more than 500 years later, Phnom Bakheng has become the ideal perch from which to watch another assault on Angkor -- by marauding armies of tourists. As Cambodia has settled into peace and opened to the world, the temples of Angkor have in recent years gone from stone to gold for the national government. This year, a deluge of tour operators is expected to cart in nearly 1 million foreign visitors, a sixfold increase since 2000. Including Cambodians, the number of visitors to the archaeological park will reach a record 2 million this year and at least 3 million by 2010, according to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which identified Angkor as a World Heritage site in 1992. The growth has put the Cambodian government in a difficult position, observers say, forcing it to balance the potential to make money against the need for preservation, restoration and study. It is a dilemma familiar to other countries that profit from treasured cultural sites. Washington Post (United States) (2/6)
Children of war: the generation traumatised by violence in Iraq
Growing up in a war zone takes its toll as young play games of murder and mayhem
Michael Howard
Baghdad- The car stopped at the makeshift checkpoint that cut across the muddy backstreet in western Baghdad. A sentry appeared. "Are you Sunni or Shia?" he barked, waving his Kalashnikov at the driver. "Are you with Zarqawi or the Mahdi army?" "The Mahdi army," the driver said. "Wrong answer," shouted the sentry, almost gleefully. "Get him!" The high metal gate of a nearby house was flung open and four gun-toting males rushed out. They dragged the driver from his vehicle and held a knife to his neck. Quickly and efficiently, the blade was run from ear to ear. "Now you're dead," said a triumphant voice, and their captive crumpled to the ground. Then a moment of stillness before the sound of a woman's voice. "Come inside boys! Your dinner is ready!" The gunmen groaned; the hapless driver picked himself up and trundled his yellow plastic car into the front yard; the toy guns and knives were tossed by the back door. Their murderous game of make-believe would have to resume in the morning. Abdul-Muhammad and his five younger brothers, aged between six and 12, should have been at school. But their mother, Sayeeda, like thousands of parents in Iraq's perilous capital city, now keeps her boys at home. Three weeks ago, armed men had intercepted their teacher's car at the school gates, then hauled him out and slit his throat. Just like in their game. "That day they came home and they were changed because of the things they'd seen," said Sayeeda as she ladled rice into the boys' bowls. "The youngest two have been wetting their beds and having nightmares, while Abdul-Muhammad has started bullying and ordering everyone to play his fighting games. I know things are not normal with them. My fear is one day they will get hold of real guns. But in these times, where is the help?" The boys live with their widowed mother and uncle in a modest family house in al-Amil, a once peaceful, religiously mixed suburb in western Baghdad that is yielding to the gunmen, street by street. Similar tales of growing up in the war zone are heard across the country. The Guardian (United Kingdom) (2/6)
RIGHTS-KENYA: Colonial Labour Laws Violate ILO Conventions
Joyce Mulama
NAIROBI, Feb 5 (IPS) - Human rights campaigners have appealed to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to suspend Kenya's membership for continuing to resist efforts to reform its archaic labour laws. The laws fail to address issues of employment, occupational health and safety or work injuries among others -- seriously undermining the constitutional rights of Kenyans. On Dec. 14 last year, the independent Kenyan Human Rights Commission (KHRC) wrote to the ILO calling for their country's suspension from the world body. The appeals were renewed recently. In 2004, a task force appointed to review the country's labour laws recommended a series of changes that would address all aspects of workers' rights including safety and health on the shop floor as well as compensation in the event of work injuries. Issues of sexual harassment, discrimination and wages were also covered. According to KHRC, very little has been done with regard to implementation of the worker-friendly recommendations. The rights watchdog has constantly expressed strong displeasure over the delay which it points out has enabled employers to take advantage of the existing labour laws to exploit workers "This is anomalous delay. In the meantime, the repugnant labour regime framework continues to visit massive (infringement of) human rights of workers who do not have adequate protection under the (current) framework, which is a relic of the oppressive colonial administration," stated the letter that was given exclusively to IPS. Inter Press Service News Agency (South Africa) (2/6)
UN says surge in attacks on Darfur aid workers
By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Attacks on aid workers in Darfur almost doubled in 2006 and assaults on people displaced by the 4-year-old conflict in Sudan's remote west more than tripled, the United Nations said on Monday. While the threat against the world's largest aid operation had become even more severe, the United Nations was resolved to keep working in the region, acting U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Margareta Wahlstrom said. Experts estimate about 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes to miserable makeshift camps following the rape, pillage and murder in Darfur, which Washington calls genocide. Khartoum denies genocide."Darfur was already one of the most dangerous areas for relief workers in 2005. But security incidents involving relief workers surged by another 67 percent in 2006 (to 1,800)," Wahlstrom said in a statement. She said the assaults on internally displaced people had risen to 414 in 2006, from 106 in 2005. Wahlstrom said more than 500,000 people were displaced by the violence in 2006, followed by another 25,000 during January, taking the total to more than 2 million. Around 13,000 relief workers are trying to reach 4 million people in the region. "Everyday there are more people who need our help, yet our colleagues are being threatened by all sides," Wahlstrom said. "Despite the attacks on aid workers, we are resolved to continue working in Darfur, adapting our operations as necessary to ensure that the most vulnerable in Darfur receive at least a minimum level of relief." Reuters AlertNet (2/6)
Ahtisaari warns UN: find Kosovo solution or risk return to violence
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
The UN envoy for Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, warned yesterday that if the UN Security Council failed to impose a solution for the contested province, it could lead to a return to violence there. Mr Ahtisaari has called for consultations, starting next Tuesday in Vienna, on his proposals to confer internationally supervised autonomy on Kosovo, a plan rejected by Serbia, which sees the province as the cradle of its culture. As of last night, Belgrade had not decided who, if anyone, should represent the country in Vienna. The UN envoy said if anyone came up with "a brilliant idea" to bridge the divide in the course of those consultations, he would incorporate it. But he made it clear he held out little hope for concessions and said he was not prepared to allow the talks to go on after the end of the month. After that, he said, the Security Council would have to impose a decision. "If the international community wants to solve the situation it has to be courageous enough to decide [Kosovo's] status, because the parties can't do it," Mr Ahtisaari told the Guardian. Failure to act would lead to "a weakening of the security situation" and a possible withdrawal of Nato peacekeeping troops, he said. "If I was advising my government I would say to pull out." Under his plan, the Serb minority would be protected by Nato troops in a self-governing multi-ethnic democracy. The proposal does not use the word "independent", but Kosovo would have its "own, distinct, national symbols, including a flag, seal and anthem". The Guardian (United Kingdom) (2/6)
UN East Timor mission should be extended, says Ban
By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 5 (Reuters) - A U.N. mission in East Timor due to expire this month should be extended for 12 months and additional police sent to the tiny nation ahead of a presidential election on April 9, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday. Ban, in a report to the Security Council, said the overall situation had improved in East Timor, which became independent in 2002, but security remained volatile and particularly fragile in parts of the capital Dili. Australia led a force of 3,200 foreign peacekeepers to the Asia-Pacific region's youngest country in late May after the firing of 600 mutinous soldiers sparked chaos and continuing sporadic gang-related violence. "The long term commitment of the international community to Timor-Leste (East Timor) remains critical to enabling the return of this new nation to the path of stability and development in a climate of democratic, accountable and responsive governance," Ban said in his report.The current U.N. mission, known as the U.N. Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste or UNMIT, is due to expire on Feb 25. It is made up of some 1,068 police and up to 35 military liaison officers. It was approved by the Security Council on Aug. 25 for six months. "In my view, an extension of the UNMIT mandate for a period of 12 months would send an important signal of the willingness of the Security Council to sustain its commitment to East Timor," Ban said. "In order to strengthen security for the critical electoral process, I support the government's request that an additional formed police unit be deployed," he said. Reuters AlertNet (2/6)
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