Pax Gaea Human Rights World Post

PAX GAEA WORLD POST HUMAN RIGHTS HEADLINES SUNDAY, 4 FEBRUARY 2007

TOPICS

• Aussie department store chain sues watch group over charges of 'Corporate Paedophilia'
• China media crackdown in spite of new 'openness' condemned by journalist watch group
• Pakistan ponders suspension of constitution, elections with declaration of 'emergency option'
• Palestinians call for end to factional fighting, remember who 'enemy' is
• Is potential of attacks on Iran Washington's attempt to make up for failures in Iraq?
• Womens rights in Africa meager, threatened by cultural tolerance of violence by men
• Nuclear power may be only salvation from global warming, argues Gaia Hypothesis scientist
• U.S. military snubs widows, family of UK soldiers killed by friendly fire during coroners inquest
• Latin America deadly beat for journalists with 26 killed in 2006
• Indiana killings spreads fear within the homeless community

Sex, lies and advertising: DJs sues over child exploitation claims

Adele Horin

IN WHAT is believed to be a world first, David Jones begins a legal case tomorrow in which it is suing the left-leaning think tank the Australia Institute and its executive director, Clive Hamilton, over claims the giant retailer's advertising eroticised and sexually exploited children. The case, in the Federal Court in Sydney, is thought to be the first time a court will consider the sexualisation of children in advertising. The retailer is suing under the Trade Practices Act, claiming the institute engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct. The avenue of suing for defamation was closed to big companies after the introduction of uniform defamation laws in January 2006. The case stems from a media release in October titled "Corporate paedophilia - sexualising children by advertising and marketing", which announced the launching of a discussion paper. The release named retail chains such as David Jones and Myer as having "jumped on the bandwagon" in eroticising children in the interests of the bottom line. It said: "When family department stores show no conscience on these issues, or are inured to the effects of their behaviour, the situation is very unhealthy." In a statement of claim filed with the Federal Court in December, David Jones said it had suffered "loss or damage" as a result of the actions of the institute and Dr Hamilton. It said the institute had refused to issue a corrective news release or to remove the David Jones advertisements from the electronic appendix attached to the discussion paper. The statement said the retailer did not eroticise children to obtain profits, and was not responsible for portraying children in an exploitative way: "David Jones does not knowingly cause the publication of material which can be used by paedophiles for their sexual gratification." Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) (2/4)

Media watchdog slams Beijing over press crackdown

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, BEIJING

A leading media watchdog group on Friday accused Chinese President Hu Jintao of seeking to bring the media to heel and instigating an expanding crackdown on the press despite China's pledge to enhance media freedoms before the Beijing Olympics next year. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in its annual report on press freedoms that conditions for the news media and for journalists had deteriorated in China. "The press is being forced into self-censorship, the Internet is filtered and the foreign media very closely watched," the group said in the report, which was released on Friday. "Faced with burgeoning social unrest and journalists who are becoming much less compliant, the authorities, directed by Hu, have been bringing the media to heel in the name of a `harmonious society,"' it added. The group cited the five-year sentence given to a Hong Kong reporter, Ching Cheong, and a three-year sentence for Zhao Yan, a researcher in the Beijing bureau of the New York Times, among other efforts to intimidate journalists. "In both cases they were convicted after shoddy trials with no defense witnesses," the group said. Taipei Times (Taiwan) (2/4)

Pakistan ponders emergency option

Concern over rising violence

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: Against the backdrop of mounting political uncertainty in Pakistan, the option before President Pervez Musharraf to postpone Parliament elections by declaring an emergency has just got another public airing. Quoting an unnamed official, The News reported on Sunday that the Government was seriously considering proposing to the President that in view of the tense law and order situation and the uncertainty due to "politics of agitation", he should proclaim an emergency. A spate of suicide bombings since January 26, including one in Islamabad, has claimed several lives. The latest incident was on Saturday when a suicide bomber rammed the jeep he was driving through an army convoy, killing two soldiers and injuring seven. Over the last few days too, the capital city has been in the grip of large-scale unrest with protests by religious groups against the Government's demolition of mosques that it said had encroached on public land. Moreover, with elections approaching, all Opposition political parties — even Benazir Bhutto's People's Party of Pakistan that is said to be close to a political deal with Gen. Musharraf — unanimously agree on one point — that the President must be thwarted from implementing a rumoured plan for re-election from the present electoral college comprising the National Assembly and the Provincial Assemblies. The newspaper quoted the official as saying that in view of the prevailing climate, one option before the President was the imposition of emergency. If endorsed by a mandatory joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament - the National Assembly and the Senate — within two months of its proclamation, the emergency would extend the National Assembly's life by a year. Several times, senior politicians of the ruling party have openly talked about using this option, and it appears that the Government is once again floating the idea. The Hindu (India) (2/4)

Meshal calls for Gaza restraint, says 'real battle' is with Israel

By Haaretz Service and the Associated Press

Hamas leader Khaled Meshal on Sunday called on rival Gaza Strip factions to cease fighting for the benefit of all Palestinians, and to remember the "real battle" with Israel. "I call on all our brothers in the Palestinian areas ... to shoulder their responsibilities. We want a lasting calm between us. We should preserve our blood. Dialogue is the only way to resolve our differences," Meshal said. Meshal is to meet Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Mecca on Tuesday for reconciliation talks hosted by Saudi King Abdullah, the highest-profile mediation effort in several weeks of fighting. "It is forbidden to fail," Meshal said of the talks in a televised address from the Syrian capital on Sunday. "I call on all our brothers ... to restrain themselves and to remember our real battle" with Israel. Senior Fatah and Hamas officials met in Gaza Sunday to try to firm up the ceasefire efforts and said the signs were encouraging. "The freeing of hostages will be completed tonight and a mechanism has been set up to remove checkpoints from the streets," said Ahmed Helles, a senior Fatah in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is holding nine Fatah abductees and Fatah has 28 men. Ha'aretz (Israel) (2/4)

An Attack on Iran to Make Up for the Iraq Failures?

Sir Cyril Townsend, Arab News

On Jan. 26 President George Bush was asked by a journalist if he had authorized a “kill or capture” policy against Iranians inside Iraq. The President replied: “It makes sense that if somebody is trying to harm our troops or stop us from achieving our goals or killing innocent citizens in Iraq, that we will stop them. Our policy is going to be to protect our troops. It makes sense.” Before the president’s reply, the White House national security officials had confirmed that last year the president had given the order for US forces to target Iranian intelligence officials and Revolutionary Guards, working with the many Shiite militias inside Iraq. This was about far more than protecting American servicemen. Twice this month the president has accused Iran of providing the latest military technology for ambushes on US servicemen — which I am sure it has and still does. Last month US troops detained some Iranian officials in Baghdad and then in Arbil in the north. The US claimed they were trained agents. The Iraqi government was furious and said the men had been invited in by Baghdad. It is a fact that the government of Nouri Al-Maliki, which is Shiite-dominated, has close ties with Iran. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, Robert Gates, the new secretary of defense, and Zalmay Khalilzad, the departing American ambassador to Iraq, have all made a point of criticizing Iran since the turn of the year. They have accused that country of seeking to destabilize Iraq and attempting to frustrate US policies in the region by, for example, supporting Hezbollah — one of the most powerful forces in the entire area — and Hamas. They also strongly condemned its nuclear policies. Tehran is doing nothing to reduce the tension with the United States. On Jan. 15 it announced that it was stepping up its uranium enrichment program, which experts believe will be a cover for providing highly enriched uranium, the fissile material required to construct an atomic weapon. The UN has been told by Tehran that it plans to install 3,000 centrifuges this month at its facility in Natanz to enrich uranium. Arab News (Saudi Arabia) (2/4)

HUMAN RIGHTS-MALAWI: Violence Threatens Women’s Meagre Gains

Pilirani Semu-Banda

BLANTYRE, Feb 2 (IPS) - Chanju Mwale is a true role model. Not only does the 28-year-old possess good academic credentials as a lawyer, landing her the job of the Malawi Defence Force’s legal officer, but she is also the only female officer in the force who holds the rank of captain. All of these accolades to her name did not protect Mwale against assault. She is recovering from serious wounds to her face after she was attacked by a junior officer at an end-of-year party in 2004. A number of scars on her face bear witness to her ordeal—a painful reminder that even before the attack she did not receive the respect that she deserves from her fellow officers and soldiers. This encumbered her in the fulfilment of her duties as a captain which involved commanding a platoon of soldiers. ‘‘The lieutenant beat me up because I refused his sexual advances. This defiance of my authority happened in the presence of some very senior officers in the army but I have not had much support from the army,’’ says Mwale. She has had ‘‘a terrible time’’ with the injuries. Three major operations were needed. But still a defence force disciplinary hearing only awarded her 72 US dollars in compensation for the injuries. She has sought court intervention outside the army. The matter is still in the courts. ‘‘The problem is that the army is a male-dominated institution which does not take kindly to women being in high positions. The Malawi Defence Force was used to being an all-male team until 1996 when women were allowed to join the army. They just cannot accept that a woman is capable of working as hard as they do,’’ Mwale points out. Despite everything, her encounter with the lieutenant has made her even stronger and more determined. Inter Press Service News Agency (South Africa) (2/4)

Environmental Guru Lovelock Urges Expansion of Nuclear Energy

By Marco Evers

James Lovelock is attracting attention again with his provocative ideas. The former hero of the environmental movement has called for an end to "green romanticism." The only way to delay climate catastrophe, says the environmental guru, is through the massive expansion of nuclear energy. A few days ago, the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking gave a speech in London in which he said that nuclear war no longer poses the only threat to humanity's very existence. According to Hawking, the dangers posed by climate change are now almost equally as great, and we must do everything that is humanly possible if we are to have any hope of averting them. When James Lovelock heard about Hawkings' lecture, three hundred and fifty kilometers away at his remote estate near Cornwall, he exclaimed loudly: "Hawking is underestimating the danger." Lovelock is a chemist, inventor, author and visionary environmental guru. Using a detector he invented himself, he was the first to provide evidence of ozone-consuming fluorochlorohydrocarbons (FCHC) in the atmosphere. More importantly, Lovelock is the inventor of the famous "Gaia hypothosis," which holds that the planet (which he named after the Greek goddess of the Earth, Gaia), constantly controls all of its systems on land, in the water and in the air in such a way as to preserve life -- almost as if the earth itself were a living organism.Lovelock's fellow scientists were initially appalled by the New Age nature of his theory. But now his ideas have not only become a cornerstone of the environmental movement, but have also acquired a new name: "Earth System Science." Lovelock's current prognoses for the earth's inhabitants are as gloomy as they are provocative. He is convinced that the 21st century will not be a good one. He claims that climate change caused by human activity will devastate large swaths of the earth, and by the year 2100 there will only be about a billion people left -- and possibly only half as many. Der Spiegel (Germany) (2/4)

Why won't the US tell us how Matty died?

Trooper Hull died in a hail of 'friendly fire' from our American allies in Iraq in 2003. Last week an inquest echoed to the fury of a coroner and the grief of a widow, but failed to answer why such a terrible accident happened. Here we reveal how ministers have battled for years to force the US to uncover the truth of this tragedy

Mark Townsend

Maybe she was naive to expect the truth. Four years after being killed by an American pilot, Mandy Hull has still to discover why her son was shot by US forces one morning in Iraq. As she left Oxford coroners court shortly before midday last Friday, she wept briefly. Her sense of betrayal had never felt keener.The British government had, she suspected, misled her. The Pentagon had point-blank refused to even identify the American servicemen who shot her 25-year-old son. Her only son. 'It makes you sick,' she said. The inquest into the death of Lance Corporal Matthew 'Matty' Hull is more than the tale of a man killed by people who were supposed to be on the same side. His death at the hands of American pilots who ignored British army pleas to stop shooting has led to strained relations between both sets of soldiers and frayed diplomatic ties amid fresh fears of an increasingly lopsided relationship between Britain and its closest ally in the 'war on terror'. The refusal of American authorities to discipline US servicemen who have killed British troops bolsters a perception among UK soldiers that the Pentagon has little regard for the sacrifices made by the British army in its support of the US-led coalition. But the inquest into Hull's death has also raised questions over the Ministry of Defence's attempts to ensure that soldiers' families are told how and why their sons died. Particularly damaging are claims that MoD officials ignored calls to install a system that could have saved Hull's life and that, despite the frequency of 'friendly-fire' incidents, also known as 'blue on blue', the government still has no central database of the killings. Most serious, though, are suggestions that the British government misled Hull's wife and family amid claims that it kept secret knowledge of vital evidence into the failures of the US pilots who mistakenly fired upon Hull's convoy. Hull's widow, Susan, was 'categorically' informed that no recorded footage from the cockpit of the two A-10 aircraft from which the shots killing her husband were fired was available. Then, unexpectedly, the tape arrived at the coroner's court last Thursday. Only then did it emerge that the MoD might have known about the vital evidence for years. It was the moment that relations between the US and UK over the treatment of British soldiers mistakenly killed by US servicemen began to unravel. Senior British defence officials asked the US authorities to declassify the cockpit recordings so its allegedly 'incriminating' footage could be screened at the inquest. The Pentagon refused, a reaction that surprised no one who has monitored its attitude towards Britain's inquest system. The Guardian (United Kingdom) (2/4)

Twenty-Eight Journalists Killed in Eight Latin American Countries in 2006

Hernán Uribe- Americas ProgramInternational Relations Center (I.R.C.)

Twenty-eight journalists were murdered, while five others disappeared, last year in eight Latin American countries, according to an overview of 2006 prepared by the Commission to Investigate Attacks Against Journalists (Comisión Investigadora de Atentados a Periodistas, C.I.A.P.), affiliated with the Latin American Federation of Journalists ( Federación Latinoamericana de Periodistas, F.E.L.A.P.). With 10 deaths, Mexico continues to boast the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous nation for journalists to ply their trade. Although figures on journalists victimized by violence vary, the most credible numbers appear to be those provided by the World Association of Newspapers, which says that 105 journalists were killed worldwide last year. Forty-eight of these deaths occurred in Iraq, a country racked by a bloody war resulting from the United States' illegal armed occupation. In late December, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution that "condemns all attacks against journalists in situations of conflict, and calls upon warring factions to respect communicators and their role." In so doing, however, the United Nations merely recalled that the Geneva Conventions on war classify journalists as civilians whose lives must be respected. In point of fact, journalists' lives are not being respected, as evidenced by the frequent murders of journalists in Iraq at the hands of rogue United States soldiers. Moreover, the United Nations resolution is completely oblivious to the situation in Latin America. In this region—with or without military conflicts—journalists are gunned down by drug-traffickers and by various mafias—invariably for having witnessed crimes. Journalists were killed during the civil-military dictatorships that gained strength in the 1970's. However, this situation has continued up to this day, despite the return to civilian rule. In August, the Organization of American States' Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression reported that in the last 10 years 83 journalists have been killed in Colombia and 24 in each of Brazil and Mexico. The O.A.S. said that journalists have also been killed in Guatemala, Ecuador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, among other countries. Argentina Star/Worldpress.org (Argentina) (2/4)

Indiana Killings Stir Fear Among Homeless

The first two bodies were found on a hunch in early January in South Bend, Ind., during a search of an old industrial part town. Two police officers popped open the lid of a manhole and down there, beaten to death and stacked upright one above the other, were two missing men, Michael S. Nolan Jr. and Michael W. Lawson. Just three days later, as the investigation expanded, the police opened another manhole about 100 yards away from the first and found two more men, Jason A. Coates and Brian Talboom, their bodies bludgeoned and discarded underground the same way. To one officer on the scene, Sgt. David Wells, the discovery seemed more like something from a dark crime drama than anything that tranquil and academic South Bend had ever experienced. “It was really horrific,” Sergeant Wells said. “And really perplexing.” The four men had only two things in common: they lived together in a burned-out building that they had painstakingly transformed into a makeshift home. And they made money by “scrapping” — hunting the urban landscape for increasingly valuable and marketable metals like copper and brass to sell to recyclers and construction businesses. On Saturday night, the police announced that two homeless men had been arrested and charged with murder in the four deaths, said Capt. Jeffrey Walters of the South Bend Police Department. The men, Daniel J. Sharp, 56, and Randy L. Reeder, 50, were being held in St. Joseph County, Ind., and Berrien County, Mich., respectively, according to The Associated Press. The police said Mr. Sharp and Mr. Reeder killed the four men because they believed they had stolen salvaged scrap metal that Mr. Sharp and Mr. Reeder had intended to sell. The killings have fostered a sense of dread in the unusually tight-knit community of homeless men and women in South Bend. “I don’t go out at night anymore,” said James Manns, 45, who is living in a homeless shelter near downtown. “All we can do is step back and see if it happens again.” New York Times (2/4)

posted by Dave Carroll @ 2/04/2007 06:48:00 PM