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November 30, 2004
Posted 10:38 PM
by Mary
UN Wire: "UNFPA gets boost from Canada
In a move designed to signal Canada's independence on the eve of a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush, Canada announced an increase of nearly 40% in funding to the United Nations Population Fund. The U.S. has ceased contributions to the UNFPA on the grounds that it underwrites forced abortions and sterilization in China, charges the UNFPA has consistently denied. The Toronto Star (11/30) "
Posted 8:21 AM
by Mary
Progressive Portal: Write Letters--Global Issues: Irish Peace Activist: "Support Irish Ploughshares Activist
On 29 January 2003, Irish peace activist Mary Kelly, a nurse and mother from West Cork, climbed the perimeter fence of Shannon Airport on Ireland's west coast -- a stop of the U.S. military on the way to Iraq -- and damaged a U.S. warplane with an axe, temporarily disabling it. (Subsequently, more warplanes were damaged in two other actions by five members of the Catholic Workers and Pitstop Ploughshares communities.)
Mary's July 2003 trial resulted in a hung jury after she argued that she acted to prevent criminal attacks upon the Iraqi people in an illegal war. She was retried in 2004, but the judge disallowed all testimony regarding the Iraq war and why Ireland's support is unconstitutional -- including expert testimony from such luminaries as former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. She was declared guilty by a 10-2 vote of the jury, the minimum required to convict.
Incredibly, Mary now faces a potential ten-year prison term for her action -- longer than terms meted out in Ireland to murderers and other violent criminals -- and if she is sentenced to more than a year or two, will likely not be able to get out on bail to prepare for subsequent appeals of her case. (She expects to win once her case is appealed to European Union courts.)"
Posted 8:20 AM
by Mary
Development Gateway: MDG 4: "How Poverty Endangers the Health and Life Chances of Children in Developing Countries
Children in poor countries are five times as likely to die before their fifth birthdays. Children under the age of 14 are among the most vulnerable people in the world. In poor countries, they are five times as likely to die before their fifth birthday due to perinatal causes and preventable diseases. Past the age of 10, the human rights of children are violated when they are exploited as child laborers, trafficked for sexual exploitation and pornography, and forced into service as child soldiers.
This Development Gateway Cross-Topic Special addresses Millennium Development Goal 4 , aimed at reducing by half child mortality for children under five by 2015; Goal 5, to improve maternal health; and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child whose anniversary is commemorated on Universal Children's Day on November 20. This Special also coincides with World AIDS Day on December 1, recognizing the social and medical impact on children of the global pandemic. "
November 29, 2004
November 28, 2004
Posted 11:40 PM
by Mary
Millions of Landmines Destroyed (Human Rights Watch, 17-11-2004): "Millions of Landmines Destroyed
Mine Ban Treatys First Five Years Show Progress and Problems
(Washington D.C., November 18, 2004) Since the international treaty to ban antipersonnel mines took effect in 1999, millions of landmines have been destroyed, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines said today in a new five-year survey. On November 28, the 143 countries that have ratified the Mine Ban Treaty will convene in Nairobi to review progress made in the past five years."
[breaking: US boycotts Nairobi conference]
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=qw1101645722865B245
http://www.reviewconference.org/
Posted 11:16 PM
by Mary
UN Wire
Since U.S. invasion, Iraqi childhood malnutrition nearly doubled.
Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, malnutrition among the country's children has nearly doubled leaving about 400,000 suffering from chronic diarrhea and protein deficiencies, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid groups and the Iraqi government. The situation, which is worst in the southern part of the country, is being attributed to -- among other things -- dirty water, spotty power supplies, lack of employment and armed conflict making assistance by aid organizations difficult. The Washington Post (free registration) (11/21)"
Posted 10:31 PM
by Mary
HUMAN RIGHTS: U.S. Double Standard Prompts UN Tactical Twists
Thalif Deen
The United States, which traditionally castigates human rights violators before the United Nations each year, has rarely or ever been formally condemned by the world body for its own transgressions of civil liberties... but things changed, at least momentarily.
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 22 (IPS) - The United States, which traditionally castigates human rights violators before the United Nations each year, has rarely or ever been formally condemned by the world body for its own transgressions of civil liberties.
But criticisms of recent U.S. abuses -- including arbitrary detentions, torture and mistreatment of prisoners of war in Iraq and Afghanistan -- were momentarily under a spotlight at the current session of the U.N. General Assembly, which ends mid-December. "
Posted 10:19 PM
by Mary
SundayMirror.co.uk - FALLUJAH NAPALMED: "FALLUJAH NAPALMED
Nov 28 2004
US uses banned weapon ..but was Tony Blair told?
By Paul Gilfeather Political Editor
US troops are secretly using outlawed napalm gas to wipe out remaining insurgents in and around Fallujah.
News that President George W. Bush has sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet fuel banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun governments around the world.
And last night Tony Blair was dragged into the row as furious Labour MPs demanded he face the Commons over it. Reports claim that innocent civilians have died in napalm attacks, which turn victims into human fireballs as the gel bonds flames to flesh.
Outraged critics have also demanded that Mr Blair threatens to "
November 19, 2004
Posted 7:29 PM
by Mary
ICRC Slams 'Utter Contempt' for Humanity Amid Fierce Fighting in Iraqthe Agence France Presse
GENEVA - The International Committee of the Red Cross sharply criticized the 'utter contempt' for humanity shown by all sides in Iraq amid fierce fighting between US forces and insurgents for control of the city of Fallujah.
A war-ravaged street in Fallujah. As the US offensive in Fallujah continued, the International Committee of the Red Cross sharply criticized the 'utter contempt' for humanity shown by all sides.
'We are deeply concerned by the devastating impact that the fighting in Iraq is having on the people of that country,' said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the ICRC's director of operations.
'As hostilities continue in Fallujah and elsewhere, every day seems to bring news of yet another act of utter contempt for the most basic tenet of humanity: the obligation to protect human life and dignity,' he added. "
November 17, 2004
Posted 11:24 PM
by Mary
Aljazeera.Net - UN seeks probe into Falluja war crimes
Top United Nations human rights official Louise Arbour has called for an investigation of alleged abuses in Falluja including disproportionate use of force and the targeting of civilians.
Those responsible for any violations – US-led forces, Iraqi government troops or fighters - should be brought to justice, the former UN war crimes prosecutor said in a statement on Tuesday. "There have been a number of reports during the current confrontation alleging violations of the rules of war designed to protect civilians and combatants," Arbour said.
She gave no specific examples. But on Monday, Amnesty International accused both sides of breaking rules designed to protect civilians and wounded combatants during conflict.
Posted 11:00 PM
by Mary
UN Wire: "Report: Foreign firms helped arm Sudan
A report from Amnesty International claims a number of the weapons being used to commit what is increasingly referred to as genocide in Sudan have come from United Nations Security Council member states, including firms in Russia, China and Britain. China and Russia have both opposed any arms embargo or sanctions against Sudan. The Independent (London) (11/17)"
Posted 10:58 PM
by Mary
UN Wire
The Bush administration says the proposed start of a new round of grants by the United Nations-backed organization needs to be delayed for six to 12 months because of a $285 million shortfall in funds needed for administration, continuing grants and a growing staff. The executive director of the Global Fund says the fund's internal projections are at odds with the shortfall figure and the budget could provide a modest amount of new grants in 2005.
November 15, 2004
Posted 10:31 PM
by Mary
Sudan: Safe Darfur Returns Imperative
Nairobi UN Security Council Session Must Act
Human Rights Watch
Nairobi, November 15, 2004
The U.N. Security Council must take immediate action to reverse ethnic cleansing and avert further displacement in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. On November 18-19, the Security Council will convene in Nairobi for a special session on Sudan.
In a new 43-page report, “If We Return, We Will Be Killed,” Human Rights Watch documents the continuing climate of violence and insecurity in Darfur, and the urgent need for an expanded international protection force, especially near the camps that hold many of Darfur’s 1.6 million displaced persons. Just this week, as the U.N. Security Council prepared to meet in Nairobi, Sudanese security forces brazenly overran camps for the displaced persons.
“The Sudanese government continues to terrorize its own citizens even in the face of the U.N. Security Council arriving in Africa,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division. “Unless the Security Council backs up its earlier ultimatums with strong action, ethnic cleansing in Darfur will be consolidated. And hundreds of U.N. personnel will be on the ground helplessly watching as it happens.”
November 14, 2004
Posted 1:30 PM
by Mary
.Maximnews
Putting ECOSOC Back In The Loop
by Barbara Crossette
The Security Council, charged with keeping the peace, has rarely been out of the limelight since — certainly not in the last 10 or 15 years.
However, its twin, the Economic and Social Council, known as ECOSOC, sank into obscurity over the decades, upstaged not only by the Security Council but also the General Assembly and a host of agencies and programs working on what should have been primarily ECOSOC's issues: development, health and human rights.
Those Americans who are perennially outraged by events around the United Nations are more often than not shocked by decisions made by ECOSOC's commissions or committees — on human rights, women's rights, sustainable development and such — or annoyed with the council's control over nongovernmental organizations' access to U.N. conferences...
Presidents of ECOSOC, chosen annually by its 54 member nations, come and go, often arriving with high hopes and leaving with frustrations. This year, a president with exceptional qualifications holds the chair, and she — the first woman elected to the post — has some innovative ideas about revitalizing the council.
The new president, Ambassador Marjatta Rasi of Finland, was her country's director general for international development cooperation and humanitarian assistance before being assigned to New York as ambassador four years... Rasi hopes to bring the same coherence to what some would call the runaway ECOSOC commissions by instituting regular meetings between her office and the various commission heads and getting them all to think together about concrete ways to deal with the social and economic problems that can lead to civil wars and terrorism.
In July, the ministerial-level meeting of ECOSOC will be built around the needs of the least developed countries.
"We all know that more than 70 percent of the U.N.'s work is social or economic," she said.
"But media, for some reason, is only interested in Iraq, and the Middle East.
"So this kind of work is mainly invisible work.
"When you talk about Millennium Development Goals or the Monterrey consensus it's not very dramatic or media attractive.
"But when you see what the U.N. is doing in the economic and social field, it really helps the lives of thousands and thousands of people."
ECOSOC needs to return to the fore.
"I think that with very intensive work, we can make a difference," Rasi said. "But it won't happen overnight."
Posted 1:09 PM
by Mary
The New York Times > Magazine > Spend $150 Billion Per Year to Cure World Poverty: "Spend $150 Billion Per Year to Cure World Poverty
By DAPHNE EVIATAR
Published: November 7, 2004
Sachs makes no pretense at modesty. ''To the extent that there are any international goals, they are the Millennium Development Goals,'' he told me over breakfast at the Sheraton Hotel in Addis Ababa, a palatial structure of archways and fountains perched on a hill rising up from the center of Ethiopia's decrepit and polluted capital. ''And I've helped put them much higher on the agenda.''
Sachs is in the process of calculating exactly what it will require to do them. Adding the costs of basic infrastructure, health care and primary education, among other things, he estimates that it will take about $100 per beneficiary per year for Africa to meet the Millennium Development Goals in the next 10 years. He figures African governments and households can kick in about $45, and donors already contribute about $10, so that leaves $45 more per person. On a global scale, meeting the goals would require about $150 billion of development assistance per year. If that sounds like a lot, it's still less than the 0.7 percent of G.N.P. a year that donor countries have repeatedly promised, most recently in Mexico, where in 2002 they signed the Monterrey Consensus pledging ''concrete efforts'' toward that goal. (Despite recent increases, the United States still spends under 0.2 percent of its G.N.P. on foreign aid -- less than any other wealthy industrialized country.) ''You can't have a civilized world in which the rich aren't even willing to live up to this tiny commitment,'' Sachs says. ''We're talking about less than 1 percent,'' he adds, a statistic that seems to astound him. ''It's stunning.''
Posted 12:41 PM
by Mary
The New York Times > Magazine > Spend $150 Billion Per Year to Cure World Poverty: "Spend $150 Billion Per Year to Cure World Poverty
By DAPHNE EVIATAR
Published: November 7, 2004
effrey Sachs is standing on a dusty brown hillside in Nazareth. Not the Nazareth of biblical renown, but the Nazareth of ancient Abyssinia, now Ethiopia, one of the poorest and most godforsaken places in the world.
Surrounded by skinny, dirt-caked children, Sachs looks awkward in a navy blazer, white dress shirt and tan slacks. Balanced carefully on a rock, he stands in brown loafers that offer just enough traction to keep him from sliding into the mounds of dirt that surround him. Although Sachs's eyelids droop, he seems to be listening intently. His brow furrows, he nods, he cups his chin as if deep in thought.
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An ash-colored woman with a creased face is mumbling in Amharic, Ethiopia's main language, pointing with a broken stick to rows of trenches, shrubs and stones. A translator offers a muddled explanation.
When the presentation is over, the odd mix of about 20 Ethiopian peasants, international aid workers and Columbia University academics respectfully applauds and starts back down the hill. Sachs scrambles after Lee Bollinger, Columbia's president and Sachs's boss. Blond and tanned, in jeans and sneakers, Bollinger shakes his head, looking perplexed. "
November 9, 2004
Posted 10:03 PM
by Mary
Addressing the Fourth Committee on 29 October, AssistantSecretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hédi Annabi stressed the need for more funds to reduce the impact of landmines. Over the past two years, UN peacekeeping operations in countries like Afghanistan, Burundi, Cyprus,the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Sudan and Kosovo have succeeded inintegrating mine action into their work to a larger extent, but there is still a need to further strengthen the capacity of land mine affected countries, he said. Mr. Annabi also urged governments to send the highestpossible level of representation to the Nairobi Summit on a Mine-FreeWorld. For more information, go to: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/gaspd300.doc.htm
November 7, 2004
Posted 4:00 PM
by Mary
CEDAW:
25th Anniversary of Adoption of CEDAWA commemorative roundtable was held at the United Nations on 13 October 2004 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Speakers included the Deputy-Secretary General, Louise Frechette, Thoraya Obaid, executive director of UNFPA, and several past chairpersons of the CEDAW Committee. For more information, read the press release and the Statement by the Committee on Human Rights.
excerpt:
PROGRESS
Legislative advancements are supported in many countries by policies, programmes and other measures to ensure that women’s de jure equality becomes a de facto reality. Temporary special measures are in place in many countries to accelerate achievement of de facto equality. The number of women in the formal labour force is growing, and measures to reconcile better work and family responsibilities for women and men are becoming more common. Programmes are in place to support women’s entrepreneurship, and to strengthen their position in the informal sector. This participation in the formal and informal labour market has also been accelerated by increasing levels of access to, and quality of education for girls and women. Their health status has benefited from policies that respond effectively to women’s overall health needs as well as to their reproductive health needs. States are also increasingly implementing specific measures targeted at disadvantaged groups of women who experience multiple forms of discrimination. To that end, women living in rural areas or in immigrant communities, indigenous, older and disabled women as well as refugee women, women victims of trafficking or of armed conflict, or who suffer discrimination on additional grounds such as race or ethnic identity, are being brought more fully within the realm of the Convention’s protective framework.
PROGRESS NEEDED
It must, however, also be pointed out that in no country in the world has women’s full de jure and de facto equality been achieved. Discriminatory laws are still on the statute books of many States parties. The co-existence of multiple legal systems, with customary and religious laws governing personal status and private life and prevailing over positive law and even constitutional provisions of equality, remains a source of great concern. Nationality laws also continue to discriminate against women by curtailing their capacity to confer their nationality to their children. Women continue to experience discrimination and disadvantage in the enjoyment of rights to own and inherit property, to access economic resources and social benefits and services. Women are far from enjoying equal and full participation in political and public spheres, especially at decision-making levels. Criminal law, especially in relation to sexual violence and crimes, continues to be discriminatory, inadequate or poorly enforced.
Discriminatory social norms, cultural practices, traditions, customs, and stereotypical roles of women and men continue to be major impediments to women’s enjoyment of their human rights in societies around the world. Insufficient political will to bring about gender equality, the extensive under-representation of women in decision-making positions, and a lack of resources to support mechanisms entrusted with gender equality work are further impediments to progress. Women themselves are often unaware of the rights they have under the law, and they may not be empowered to claim them effectively. Women’s lack of empowerment to assert their rights is often compounded by insufficient or ineffective means of redress for violations at the national level. Although violence against women -– a form of discrimination that seriously inhibits women’s ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on a basis of equality with men –- is now widely recognized as a public concern, it remains pervasive in all societies and is aggravated in situations of conflict and other forms of social upheaval.
Posted 3:28 PM
by Mary
The U.N. Deserves an Apology,
By Robert Scheer, AlterNet
Posted on November 2, 2004,
http://www.alternet.org/story/20382/
I want to cast my vote in favor of the United Nations. Some Americans like to talk as if the U.N. exists merely for the convenienceof the Third World, forgetting that it was the United States that fought to create an inclusive international forum to help restrain mankind's new ability to destroy itself. With the radioactive dust of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still in the air, it was shock over our own human barbarism that led this country to push aggressively for a world organization that would allow negotiation to take precedence over brute force, communication over willful misunderstanding.
In the decades since, the U.N. has undertaken hundreds of largely thankless humanitarian, arms control, nation-building and peacekeeping missions. If these actions have not cured man's rapaciousness and cruelty, they have certainly helped save countless lives and arguably prevented a third world war. Yet, even as we once again call on the organization to help broker peace and elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, American politicians find the U.N. an irresistible piñata, ripe for demagogic bashing. When the president honoredUnited Nations Day last week in a routine annual resolution and then asked state governors to follow suit, for example, opportunist Texas Gov. Rick Perry refused to sign the symbolic proclamation. It's not surprising, because the Texas Republican Party believes that the United States should leave the U.N. altogether. Of course, such posturing does a disservice to the many U.N. "blue helmets"who have died in the cause of peace over the last five decades.
Even more important than their bravery, however, has been the U.N.'s work in helping to restrain the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For more than a decade, to cite one example, the U.N. ably supervised the elimination of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction despite Hussein's trickery and resistance, as well as the CIA's stupid infiltration of the inspection teams. The CIA action gave Iraq's dictatorship an excuse to kick the inspectors out of the country at one point. Yet in this year's presidential campaign, both sides consistently managed to deny the obvious: In Iraq, the U.N. inspectors got it all right, while the top American military, political and intelligence leaders got it all wrong. As American inspectors finally admitted this past month, there simply were no weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq, and no serious effort was being made by Hussein's government to manufacture them, no matter what George W.Bush or John F. Kerry wrongly believed before the invasion.Yet nobody in either party who supported the war has the integrity to apologize to the United Nations and its inspectors, who were chased out of the country before a war campaign that Johns Hopkins University researchers estimate has killed 100,000 Iraqis to date.
Proof of the stolid effectiveness of the U.N. came again last week when itwas revealed that a cache of 377 tons of powerful explosives located and sealed by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency - the International AtomicEnergy Agency - before the war, had gone missing after the American invasion of Iraq. American military commanders in the field were not informed of the location of high-intensity explosives sites or of the significance of theUnited Nations' seals. The U.S. prevented the U.N. inspectors from returning to the country, while experts believe the special explosives - powerful enough to blow upskyscrapers or trigger nuclear warheads - may have been used by insurgents in bombings that have killed hundreds of American troops and thousands ofIraqis. Yet, in a classic case of blaming the messenger, some in the media have accused the U.N. of interfering in U.S. electoral politics by calling attention to the missing explosives. "The U.N. used 377 tons of high-grade Iraqi explosives to announce its opposition to re-electing George W. Bush," wailed a Wall Street Journal editorial. In response to the sniping of U.N.-bashers, Mohamed El Baradei, head of theIAEA, was forced to point out the obvious: "There is a world out there other than the American election."
Yes, and it is a world that clearly needs a strong United Nations, now morethan ever.
© 2004 Independent Media Institute.
.View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/20382/
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"War does not determine who is right--only who is left." - Bertrand Russell
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