February 27, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
‘Psychic numbing’ is a relatively new term, assigned to the phenomenon which shows people tend to feel less urgent compassion, and tend to give less, when the suffering in question is shown to be more systemic and more pervasive, or affecting larger numbers of people. Some psychologists believe it is linked to our intuitive sense that if one suffers alone, the suffering is worse, but if one is accompanied, there might be some security in numbers, not just emotionally, but practically.
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September 23, 2009 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: One Comment
The issue of women’s equality is a question as old as human history. And even now, in the most modern of democracies, which guarantee more or less political and economic equality for women, there remain fundamental imbalances in rights, privileges and enforcement. Women are often guaranteed freedom from discrimination, but nevertheless suffer essential inequalities that do in fact alter the landscape of their choices and freedoms.
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September 22, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The UN General Assembly, which brings together every head of government in the world, to offer their country’s position on issues, their country’s demands regarding trade and conflict negotiations, their country’s hopes for a more harmonious world, this year truly grapples with issues of global consensus. Economic recovery, for many parts of the world, will require an unprecedented expansion of women’s rights and sustained attention to responsible environmental stewardship.
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August 5, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The north Caucasus region, Sudan’s Darfur, eastern DR Congo, Sri Lanka, Iraq and North Korea, are just an example of the range of physical risks journalists are facing. How can governments and news agencies work together to ensure greater freedom and better guarantees of protection for journalists doing the most necessary and most perilous work?
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July 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The government of Sudan has abducted a United Nations media worker and is preparing to issue a verdict that might have her flogged 40 times for the “crime” of wearing pants. According to Sudan’s extreme interpretation of Islamic law, the aid worker’s two-legged pants are considered to cause “harassment to the public sentiments”. She will be brutally whipped 40 times as punishment for risking the emotional discomfort of Sudanese citizens, by wearing pants that for most people conceal a woman’s body from view.
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July 25, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Life for women in Darfuri refugee camps in Sudan and neighboring Chad is extremely hard. Many have no access to any public authority that will investigate violence against women, and medical facilities are scarce to non-existent. While rape is rampant, and has allegedly been used as a “weapon of war” by the Khartoum backed militia engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, women are seldom able to find safety in seeking help from local authorities.
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July 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Access to the internet must be a basic human right, across the globe, for a number of reasons. First of all, legitimate, transparent democratic processes of government require in today’s world that information flow freely and that citizens be empowered to share information and to find information, according to their choices and their needs.
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July 19, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Khmer Rouge sought to establish a red Khmer empire in Cambodia, with some ambitions of expansion beyond the nation’s borders, by stamping out any human life or mind that varied from the project, as narrowly conceived by Pol Pot and his murderous regime. The “killing fields” that ensued, with the mass slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million people, were an attempt to establish a new break in time, the time before and the time after the purification —as the regime proposed— of all Cambodia.
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March 24, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The status of women is not actually “equal” to that of men in any society in the world, despite decades of major advances in many countries both rich and poor. The UN’s annual Commission on the Status of Women seeks to examine in-depth those programs underway, especially in the developing world, to speed the shift toward greater gender equality, setting out a series of global standards in the form of “agreed conclusions”.
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March 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The government of Sudan, based in Khartoum, and under the rule of Pres. Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has expelled more than a dozen international aid organizations from the country, charging that their activities in Darfur helped agents for the International Criminal Court (ICC) develop their war crimes case against Bashir. Bashir has been indicted on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, and a fierce crack-down on dissent, press and international visitors, has been underway since.
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March 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
The Sudanese government attempted an artful campaign of misinformation by way of its presentation at the 53rd Commission on the Status of Women last week in New York. The event, hosted by the Sudanese Women Parliamentary Caucus (SWPC), focused on a government-backed study that was designed to show Khartoum to be concerned about violence against women, willing to take great pains to combat it, yet unable to find evidence of many cases in war-torn Darfur.
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March 6, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Kenya PM Raila Odinga denounces murder of human rights advocates… Sudan ambassador to UN says aid groups “spoiling” country, while Khartoum continues campaign against civilians in Darfur… GOP blocks spending bill for “earmarks”, despite requesting over 4,000 of them; GOP leaders propose “spending freeze”, a policy embraced by Pres. Herbert Hoover, which sped the arrival of the Great Depression… Italy to build world’s longest suspension bridge in stimulus plan, linking Sicily to mainland…
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March 5, 2009 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: Comments Off
The indictment of Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court means the nation of Sudan itself is, under international treaties to which it is party, obliged to arrest and extradite its own president. But the regime of the authoritarian ruler has, unsurprisingly, rejected that obligation and says the indictment is a conspiracy against Sudan by western powers.
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March 4, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bashir is charged with waging a deliberate, sustained campaign of violence and terror against civilians.
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February 11, 2009 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: Comments Off
The crisis in Darfur continues to worsen, as the Khartoum government continues to support groups attacking civilians indiscriminately under the guise of counter-insurgency. Various rebel groups in Darfur have sprung up as the crisis has worsened, making a political solution increasingly difficult, as Darfuris refuse to accept the rule of the Bashir government in Khartoum. Meanwhile, the killing goes on.
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December 25, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The global aid group, Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF / Doctors Without Borders) has released its 11th annual report on the ten most severe humanitarian crises around the world. This years list cites mass poverty, resource scarcity and ungovernability in Somalia, Ethiopia and DR Congo, severe health risks to the populations of Zimbabwe, Burma (Myanmar) and DR Congo, and the constant danger of violence against civilians in Iraq, DR Congo, and Sudan’s Darfur region, along the Chad border.
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July 27, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
There are few things more damaging to the right of witnesses and bystanders to contribute to the resolution of a given problem than harboring the assumption that no one involved has anything to contribute. For western and Asian lookers on, viewing the problems of the African continent as outsiders, there is absolutely nothing to be gained by surrendering to the ugly bias of the belief that Africans cannot contribute to the change and development they both need and deserve.
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July 16, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Hague human rights court’s prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, investigating allegations of war crimes and genocide in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, has recommended to the International Criminal Court it indict Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and genocide. Bashir would be the first serving head of state to be indicted by the court.
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June 23, 2008 :: staff :: Comments Off
A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. Over the past half-century grain prices have spiked from time to time because of weather-related events, such as the 1972 Soviet crop failure that led to a doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices. The situation today is entirely different, however. The current doubling of grain prices is trend-driven, the cumulative effect of some trends that are accelerating growth in demand and other trends that are slowing the growth in supply.
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March 17, 2008 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
A revolutionary web-based social networking project, Witness.org has created a platform for delivering evidentiary video documenting human rights abuses for the collective conscience of the online world. ‘The Hub’, as the video sharing platform is called, is designed to ensure that individuals who have documented potential human rights abuses, or who are able to give [...]
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February 5, 2008 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
5 February :: Quiet in Chad capital N’Djamena, after France announces it will intervene to protect Déby gov’t, rebels pull back; at least one Darfur rebel group also said it would fight to protect Déby’s gov’t, as it considers Déby an ally in its fight against the Sudan regime of Omar al-Bashir… CIA Director Michael [...]
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February 4, 2008 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
4 February :: US pres. George W. Bush has presented the nation’s first federal budget exceeding $3 billion in spending; while giving generous expansions to defense spending, the budget seeks to cut $196 billion from healthcare spending, and projects near record budget deficits for at least two years; Bush claims that part of the 6% [...]
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February 3, 2008 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
3 February :: Surge in violence in Chad appears to be coup attempt against Déby gov’t in N’Djamena; France has begun evacuating foreigners from Chad, in face of what could be severe violence between rebels, gov’t; rebel offensive comes just days before EU “humanitarian protection force” set to arrive in Chad… CSM reports “If President [...]
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January 1, 2008 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
1 January 2008 :: Le Monde has acquired a document that outlines irregularities recorded by observers of the Kenyan presidential poll, appearing to demonstrate fraud amounting to the altering of millions of votes: according to Le Monde, the report shows that opposition leader Raila Odinga led by as much as one million votes, a lead [...]
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December 23, 2007 :: staff :: Comments Off
The top ten most underreported humanitarian crises worldwide are, according to Doctors without Borders (MSF), “Displaced Fleeing War in Somalia Face Humanitarian Crisis; Political and Economic Turmoil Sparks Health-Care Crisis in Zimbabwe; Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Spreads As New Drugs Go Untested; Expanded Use of Nutrient Dense Ready-to-Use Foods Crucial for Reducing Childhood Malnutrition; Civilians Increasingly Under [...]
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November 18, 2007 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Due to the science we already have, the laws we have to govern our own activity and to force government to act for the public health, we face the real possibility of being forced, in American courts, in the future, to pay for damage done to the most affected populations in other parts of the world, as a result of inaction by our government. And if not in court, then as a matter of the de facto urgencies of international political stability.
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October 4, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
Sentido.tv :: Darfur, beset by years of bloody internecine violence, with the Khartoum-backed janjaweed militia killing civilians in numbers the US government has officially declared to be genocide, is still struggling to find a real beginning for peace. For years, human rights groups have pleaded with the international community to intervene, with or without the [...]
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October 2, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
2 October :: HRW says killing of 10 African Union peacekeepers, civilian police in Darfur is war crime, calls on Khartoum, gov’t forces in region to aid investigation, punish those responsible… WSJ reports “Frustrated by the stalemate over Iraq, House Democrats spelled out a strategy that would stall action on President Bush’s 2008 war budget [...]
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September 30, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
The Elders is a humanitarian initiative led by South African archibishop Desmond Tutu and former South African pres. Nelson Mandela, designed to bring the African “village elders” concept to the global village, in an effort to defuse flashpoint crisis situations and speed responsible policy-making. Its foundations are the basic principles of human rights and the [...]
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September 30, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
30 September :: US pres. George W. Bush has approved $25 million in fuel aid for North Korea, as part of a February deal to shut down nuclear facilities, dismantle weapons and allow IAEA inspections; the Yongbyon reactor was shut down in July… Six-party talks to negotiate North Korean denuclearization have been suspended for two [...]
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September 26, 2007 :: staff :: Comments Off
Lester R. Brown, EPI :: As land and water become scarce and as competition for these vital resources intensifies, we can expect mounting social tensions within societies, particularly between those who are poor and dispossessed and those who are wealthy, as well as among ethnic and religious groups. Population growth brings with it a steady [...]
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September 5, 2007 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
5 September :: Sudan gov’t announces it has successfully produced military-use drone aircraft and is seeking ballistic missile capabilities; the Khartoum-based gov’t of Pres. al-Bashir has said Sudan can now manufacture enough conventional weapons to be "self-sufficient" in defense-related production; observers say the announcement is disconcerting primarily because it is not clear against what perceived [...]
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August 8, 2007 :: staff :: Comments Off
Arusha, Tanzania, played host last week to leaders from “more than 10 Darfur rebel groups”, as the groups held talks to work out common ground and a structure for negotiating peace with the Sudan government, in light of the coming deployment of 26,000 UN-mandated peacekeepers for Darfur. The conflict which began as an effort to stamp out regional differences and secure control for Khartoum has become a crisis of global interest and one which the United Nations now seeks to put an end to.
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