News from Around the world
(UK) Sunday, 4 April 2010 - The murder of white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche has sent shock waves across South Africa and prompted nervous calls for calm. In the town of Ventersdorp many are angry at what they say is a climate in which violence against Afrikaners is encouraged, as the BBC's Karen Allen reports.
This murder has the power to unleash the demons of deep-seated racial hatred that have bedevilled this country for three centuries.
There have been...
(Kampala) March 28, 2010 -- The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) killed at least 321 civilians and abducted 250 others, including at least 80 children, during a previously unreported four-day rampage in the Makombo area of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo in December 2009, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
"The Makombo massacre is one of the worst ever committed by the LRA in its bloody 23-year history, yet it has gone unreported for months,"...
(Bujumbura) March 26, 2010 -- Mob attacks on suspected criminals in Burundi, often with official complicity, led to at least 75 killings in 2009, Human Rights Watch and the Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons (APRODH) said in a report released today. The government of Burundi should end official involvement in "mob justice" and should hold perpetrators accountable, Human Rights Watch and APRODH said.
The 105-page report, "Mob Justice in...
WARSAW, STRASBOURG, VIENNA, 19 March 2010 - In a joint statement ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the Council of Europe's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) strongly condemn manifestations of racism and xenophobia, with a particular focus on the Internet:
"We must remain...
Strasbourg, 22.03.2010 – In ratifying the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse today, San Marino has cleared the way for the convention to come into force on 1 July this year.
Designed to protect children against all forms of sexual violence, whether committed by persons close to the victims (such as sexual abuse within the family or in care facilities) or by strangers, the convention represents a...
12 March 2010 – Aid agencies in Zimbabwe are appealing to donors to support the $378 million appeal launched last December to support humanitarian and early recovery efforts in the country, the United Nations humanitarian wing reported today.
“Lack of funding at this crucial time could derail progress made between the latter part of 2009 and now,” warned the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which noted that the 2010...
WARSAW, 17 March 2010 - The OSCE's Roma adviser, Andrzej Mirga, today welcomed a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights against segregation of Roma children in elementary schools.
In the case Orsus and Others v. Croatia, the Court's Grand Chamber yesterday said that the segregation of Roma children into separate classes based on language deficiencies violates the prohibition of discrimination set out in the European Convention on Human Rights.
"The...
Monday, 8 March 2010 - Almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right, a poll for the BBC World Service suggests.
The survey - of more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries - found strong support for net access on both sides of the digital divide.
Countries such as Finland and Estonia have already ruled that access is a human right for their citizens.
International bodies such as the UN are also pushing for...
March 9, 2010 Cambridge, MA — Stateless refugees from Burma face death from starvation and disease in makeshift camps because the government of Bangladesh denies them access to humanitarian aid, warns a team of health researchers from Physicians for Human Rights who just returned from the region.
In a survey of 100 households at one camp conducted Feb. 11-13, they documented that more than 18% of children below age 5 suffered from acute malnutrition. Child...
Monday, 8 March 2010 - A friend asked me a couple of weeks ago if there was going to be a special AG issue celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD). Given the fact that AG is a publication dedicated to women, her inquisition was well placed. I told her “yes;” for what kind of online-publication for “women” kind of editor would I be if I told her that March 8th had totally slipped my mind as one of the important days to be celebrated this year? The next...
