In an uncharacteristically blunt Op-Ed contribution, the U.N. under secretary general for Humanitarian affairs, the executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the executive director of the U.N. Children’s Fund and the director general of the World Health Organization are pleading for help of any kind to stop [...]
Tag Archives: Iran
Signs of the NY Times: The disenfranchisement of drug abusers. The facts of fracking. Kenya’s new president, controversy. Civil rights in Iran.
Op-Ed contributors Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Ruth Dreifuss make a salient point in exposing drug abusers as one of the last demographic groups that is widely deprived of basic human rights. Drug users often find themselves on the margins of society, and their mistreatment – excessive incarceration, lack of medical care, physical abuse and sometimes [...]
Signs of the NY Times: The Harlem Shake in Tunis. Turkey and the Fertile Crescent. Cholera, Haiti and the U.N. Mexico is back. The decline of the Tibetan Nomads.
In an article titled Arab Spring Blues?, NY Times Latitude contributor Issandr El Amrani reported from Tunis on the new Harlem Shake meme that has gone viral. It began a few weeks ago in Queensland, Australia, and is most recently grabbing headlines in Tunisia, where the minister of education, Abdellatif Abid, in upping his conservative credentials [...]
Press Review: Deadly air pollution in Iran & China to reform labor camps
In its first steps towards changes to the legal system under new leader Xi Jinping, China plans to reform its controversial forced labor camp system. [Reuters] The longterm effects of global warming and its effects on poverty, inequality, and the global economy. [The Guardian] Air pollution in Iran is blamed for thousands of deaths over [...]
Press Review: Illegal wildlife trade funding civil conflicts & Iran’s lawyers face intimidation
A new report from the World Wildlife Fund finds that the illegal wildlife trade, worth $19 billion per year, funds civil conflicts and is a major contributor to the instability of many nations, including Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. [BBC] Despite the UN upgrade of North Korea’s food situation, starvation and hunger are [...]
Press Review: Iranian blogger tortured to death & Syrian refugee count soars
The Iranian human rights activist and blogger Sattar Beheshti, who was arrested at the end of October, has been tortured to death in prison. [Huffington Post] A record-breaking 11,000 refugees have fled Syria in just 24 hours. The United Nations now estimates the number of Syrian refugees to be at 408,000. [Reuters] Human rights organizations [...]
Press Review: Thousands missing in Syria & India eradicates polio
Human rights groups estimate that at least 28,000 Syrians have disappeared during the 19 months of uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. [The Guardian] The international community largely ignored the mass executions of 20,000 imprisoned Iranian activists during the 1980s. Now an independent tribunal in the Hague is set to hear the facts. [The Guardian] India [...]
10th World Day against the Death Penalty
We look back: The last decade has seen a large increase in the number of countries that have officially abolished the death penalty or eliminated the use of the death penalty in practice: 141 countries are abolitionist in law or in practice; 97 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes; 36 countries have [...]
News from the United Nations General Assembly
US President Barack Obama’s 30-minute speech at the U.N. General Assembly this Tuesday has generated both praise and criticism. In his address, Obama called for an end to the violence in the Muslim world that had been sparked by an anti-Islam short-film broadcast on Youtube. While condemning the video and labelling it “crude and disgusting”, the [...]
Iran muss mehr Gefangene freilassen!
Jeder, der im Iran lediglich wegen der friedlichen Ausübung seiner Menschenrechte inhaftiert ist, muss sofort und bedingungslos freigelassen werden. Dies fordert Amnesty International nach der Freilassung von Häftlingen aus dem Teheraner Evin-Gefängnis.
Todesstrafe weltweit: Weniger Henkerstaaten, aber mehr Hinrichtungen
Nur noch wenige Länder halten an der Todesstrafe fest, in diesen stieg aber die Zahl der Hinrichtungen: China ausgenommen wurden 2011 mindestens 676 Menschen (2010: 527) in 20 Ländern (2010: 23) hingerichtet und fast 2.000 Menschen in 63 Ländern (2010: 67) zum Tode verurteilt.
Press Review
As UN climate talks continue in Durban, the stench of the city’s toxic industries tells the story of deadly pollution. [The Guardian] Nigeria’s same sex marriage bill validates homophobia and violence against its LGBT population—as well as its pervasive violence, abuse, and harassment of women. [The New Internationalist] BP accuses American contractor Halliburton of destroying [...]
