No Place to Turn: Violence against women in the Iraq conflict will be presented at the U.N. Human Rights Council, March 2015. Credit: Minority Rights Group International and Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights.

By Leila Lemghalef
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 2015 (IPS)

Iraqi women continue to be subject to physical, emotional and sexual violence, according to a new report by Minority Rights Group International and Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights.

No Place to Turn: Violence against women in the Iraq conflict concludes that attacks on women – conducted by both pro- and anti-government militias across the country – are a war tactic in Iraq, and emphasises that while women are punished for the aggressions they have endured, their perpetrators are absolved from punishment under Iraqi Penal Code.

“Women are threatened by all sides of the conflict: by the armed groups which threaten, kill, and rape them; by the male-dominated security and police forces which fail to protect them and are often complicit in violence against them; and by criminal groups which take advantage of their desperate circumstances.

“They are simultaneously betrayed by a broader political, legal and cultural context that allows perpetrators of gender-based violence to go free and stigmatizes or punishes victims,” the report says in its opening remarks.

The rights of women are based on conditions and Taliban-style “moral” codes forbidding women from wearing gold or leaving home without a male relative.“The trouble is that the voices of female civilians... are effectively ignored in Iraq, and they’re ignored internationally.” -- Mark Lattimer, director of the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights

The report also points out the development of threats against female doctors, educators, lawyers and journalists.

Sexual assault is another major preoccupation, along with the commodification, disappearances, captivity and torture of women.

Yezidi (Kurdish) women are reported to be targeted on a massive scale, and many are said to be sold as sexual slaves or forced to marry ISIS fighters.

Human trafficking “has mushroomed in recent years” according to the report, which describes related prostitution rings.

Breakdown in Iraqi society

IPS spoke with Mark Lattimer, director of the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights, which delivered the report.

He said part of the challenge is Iraq’s “very poor rule of law”, and elements of its criminal code that “discriminate against women and enable abusers to get away with assaulting and even sometimes killing women”.

He also spoke of a long-term breakdown in Iraqi society, which has led to an explosion of violence against women in Iraq.

“What has happened in Iraq is not the story just of the last six months,” Lattimer told IPS. “It’s a story of the last 12 years.”

Before coming up with top-down military strategies that involve arming factions and further engaging in violence, he said, Iraqi civilians – especially the women – need to be listened to.

The High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) has declared the need for global reconciliation in the face of new and emerging ideological threats in the 21st century.

The International Community is facing an unprecedented alarming rise of cultural extremism, terrorist attacks and continued incitement to hatred,” said Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser.

“Manifestations of religious based intolerance and violence are increasing across the globe,” he said, referring to the terrorist attacks and violent acts in Paris, Copenhagen, Libya, North Carolina, Nigeria, Myanmar, the Middle East and elsewhere.

“Such unjustifiable acts have culminated into targeted killings against innocent people from different faiths, perpetuating stereotyping, xenophobia and racism.”

Rather than hampering the international resolve, these “vicious forces” should be combatted by the international community, he said, as a matter of priority.

He made the statement the same day a U.N. General Assembly draft resolution on the UNAOC was presented at the U.N. headquarters in an open meeting at the ambassadorial level.

The resolution was discussed in the context of ethnic and cultural dimensions in disasters and emergencies, by permanent representatives from Turkey, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Benin, Qatar, Azerbaijan and elsewhere.

Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General Emergency Relief Coordinator, said many conflicts arise or gain strength from the exploitation of ethnic, religious and cultural differences, and that today, 80 per cent of humanitarian work is in countries and regions affected by conflict.

“Eighty-two per cent of people killed or injured by explosive weapons in 2013 were civilians,” said Amos, adding that violence and other forms of persecution force, on average, 23,000 people daily to flee their homes.

Displacement – which is at record-high levels today – is a defining feature of conflict, she pointed out.

“Much of this displacement fueled by conflict is rooted in a lack of understanding, dialogue and respect between communities,” said Amos.

“The principles and initiatives of the Alliance of Civilizations have an important role here.

“Your work, with grassroots organisations can help to build openness and tolerance in communities from the ground up. When children and young people are involved in these initiatives, their influence can last a lifetime, and help to build peace and intercommunal respect for generations to come.”

Adding to the grassroots approach, Al-Nasser stressed: “It is clear that the protection of civilian populations requires global action”.

In his statement, he made the case for universally agreed-on parameters to combat speech and incitement in all their forms.

“Preventive action should entail the empowerment and reform of the relevant existing instruments needed by the international community to respond to and cope with the new and emerging ideological threats, for the sake of our collective security and Human Rights for all,” he said.

The political crisis engulfing Yemen is depriving the country’s youth of food and schooling, warns the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

According to UNICEF, increasing numbers of children are suffering from malnourishment and fewer are attending school, as a result of domestic hostilities in Yemen.

In a recent briefing, UNICEF representative to Yemen, Julien Harneis, reported that around 900,000 children are currently malnourished, and 210,000 of them are suffering sever acute malnutrition.

Access to education is also a foremost concern facing Yemeni children today. The dropout rate is reported to be above 20 per cent, mainly made up of girls.

Harneis spoke of the “multiplicity of localised conflicts” impacting the ability of some 200,000 children to attend school.

Part of UNICEF’s work has been in building and refurbishing schools across the country where infrastructures and properties have been damaged and basic social services have not returned to their pre-2011 levels.

Adding to the weight of worry, the U.N. agency faces a pecuniary challenge due to a $60 million funding gap.

According to the U.N., approximately 61 per cent of Yemen’s population – almost 16 million people – is in need of humanitarian assistance, for food, clean water, and sanitation. More than 10 million people face food insecurity, 5 million of which are in a severe food crisis.

Children are among the worst affected. On top of increased hunger and decreased schooling, children are also at times forced to serve as combatants, and they suffer from poor health.

Disease is another factor threatening the child populace.

The U.N. has estimated that 7,500 children are expected to contract vaccine-preventable diseases. High numbers are already having chronic diarrhoea and respiratory infections.

The “biggest worry” related to vaccinations is whether the supply chain for the vaccine against tuberculosis could and will be interrupted, Harneis said in the briefing, adding that Yemen is a transit grounds for migrants coming from Africa, exposing Yemen to the possible reappearance of polio.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council last week that “Yemen is collapsing before our eyes – we cannot stand by and watch.”

He stated that the country’s president, prime minister, government ministers and other state officials must be granted freedom of movement.

The country attempting to transition into democracy has been further destabilised by clashes between secessionist Houthi militants and government troops, amid a takeover of the capital city Sana’a. Al-Qaida is also adding to the havoc on the Arabian Peninsula.

“Given these troubling circumstances, we all have a solemn obligation to live up to our commitments under the U.N. Charter,” said the U.N. Chief.

“We must do everything possible to help Yemen step back from the brink and get the political process back on track.”

Supporting small-scale farmers is no small-time feat, according to consultants at a conference on “Setting the Course for a World without Hunger – North-South Dialogue on the Role of the G7”.

Smallholders play a vital role in world food and nutrition security because they produce the majority of food in developing countries, and because unlike industrial scale monocultures, they rely on much less fossil energy inputs, and encourage biodiversity, reducing hunger, according to a report released last week.

“Smallholders have demonstrated over many generations their ability to provide healthy nutrition and maintain intact ecosystems.”

Yet, says the report, smallholders – especially women – are the least powerful competitors for land and other natural resources, and commercial interests easily beat them for good.

“To disregard those who – based on their cultures, traditional knowledge, social cohesion, perseverance and ingenuity – still provide more than 70% of food in developing countries is clearly both, unacceptable and unwise.”

The recently published document, the “Berlin Memorandum on Sustainable Livelihoods for Smallholders”, presents policy recommendations to the German G7 Presidency and other G7 nations on how to reorient their development policy on food security and agriculture.

The first element is ensuring smallholder rights, including the formal recognition and implementation of land tenure, water, and seed rights of smallholders, particularly women, as well as transparency and accountability at local levels.

The second element is promoting and integrating viable smallholder livelihoods and rural job opportunities, with an accent on the Millennium Development Goals.

According to the U.N., up to 80 per cent of the extremely poor and hungry live in rural areas.

The report reads: “Rural people do not have adequate infrastructure, administrative services, agricultural extension services and inclusion in research agendas. They face difficulties in benefitting from the formal market, let alone global trade. They rarely get decent rural jobs. The culture, vitality and social cohesion of rural communities and their socio-economic potential are weakened.”

The report states that failure to activate jobs and income opportunities to overcome poverty in rural areas “will increase the migration into the slums of rapidly growing urban areas with already existing job shortage and social problems. It is naive or irresponsible to assume that the creation of a sufficient number of decent jobs in urban areas for all rural migrants will be feasible in the short time frame available.”

The third element is strengthening the environmental pillar of sustainable development for smallholders.

A new approach is talked about here, one that is rooted in natural resource management and puts an end to the current trend on the global market, which operates on economies of scale.

The awaited successes of a new such approach are multifold: “It protects the rights and aspirations of all people… It establishes participatory and decentralised planning… It diversifies production systems based on agro-ecological principles… It better distributes the workload for farming families… It invites knowledge, practices and innovations of smallholder communities to contribute to improved natural resource management…”

In a time-sensitive appeal, a U.N. Human Rights Expert has urged the Indonesian Government to halt further executions of people convicted of drug-related offenses.

It is reported that 14 persons have been slated for execution in Indonesia without a fair trial, to which U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Christof Heyns, is seeking immediate reverse measures including clemency.

“Despite several appeals by U.N. human rights experts and civil society organisations urging the Indonesian Government to reconsider imposing the death penalty for drug-related offences, the authorities decided to execute six people by firing squad on 18 January 2015,” said Heyns, in Geneva.

More recently, Indonesian officials have announced that eight convicted drug traffickers would be executed by firing squad any day now.

It is reported that 12 out of the 14 cases are foreign nationals who generally have not received access to adequate interpreting services, the right to a translator or a lawyer at every stage of trial and appeal.

“Any death sentence must comply with international obligations related to the stringent respect of fair trial and due process guarantees, as stipulated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Indonesia is a State party.

“I previously expressed concerns over the imposition of death penalty for drug-related offenses, and that such death sentences undertaken in contravention of Indonesia’s international human rights obligations is tantamount to an arbitrary execution,” said Heyns.

International law regards punishment by death to be an extreme form of punishment, which should never be imposed in the absence of the strictest safeguards including a fair trial.

“I have urged Indonesia to restrict the use of the death penalty in compliance with its international obligations. I regret that the authorities continue to execute people in violation of international human rights standards.”

In his statement, Heyns also drew attention to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, by which anyone sentenced to punishment by death has the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence, reminding of the option to grant amnesty, pardon or commutation of the death sentence.

On a broader note, he concluded by saying: “I urge the Government of Indonesia to establish a moratorium on execution with a view of its complete abolition, in order to comply with the international move towards the abolition of the death penalty”.

Source: Reporters Without Borders

By Leila Lemghalef
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 13 2015 (IPS)

A leading advocacy group warns of a “worldwide deterioration in freedom of information” last year.

Out of the 180 countries being surveyed, two-thirds have slipped in standards compared to last year, according to the Reporters Without Borders’  World Press Freedom Index 2015. The best have become less near-perfect, and the worst have gotten even worse.“We live in a world where there is much more data available. But how we can trust that data, the source of that data, and how we might understand that data, is subject to all kinds of forces." -- Charlie Beckett

Finland and Eritrea remain at first and last place, respectively. Norway and Denmark are in 2^nd and 3^rd place, while Turkmenistan and North Korea are second runner-up and runner-up to Eritrea, respectively.

In an interview with IPS, the U.S. Director of Reporters Without Borders, Delphine Halgand, brought up several cases, including China “the world’s biggest prison for journalists”, and Azerbaijan, which has “managed to eliminate almost all traces of pluralism”.

Since 2002, Reporters Without Borders has been publishing the Index to measure the degree of press freedom. The Index is not a measure of the quality of media.

“It’s a way for anybody to be aware of how press freedom, journalists, are attacked, in many countries. Sometimes they don’t have any idea. Like, ‘we love to go to Turkey, we love to go to Vietnam, but we don’t have the idea that there’re so many news providers that are targeted in these beautiful countries.’ So it’s a way to highlight this very important issue,” said Halgand.

She said that this year, for the first time, a lot of the data has been made public in order to improve the transparency and methodology used in the Index, which uses qualitative and quantitative criteria.

The 2015 Index trends are grouped into seven causes:

• Total control – “Regimes seeking ever more information control” – in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
• Conflict – “News control – the powerful weapon of war” – such as in Ukraine, Syria, and Iraq.
• Lawless entities – “Non-state groups: tyrants of information” – such as Boko Haram, Islamic State, the Italian mafia and Latin American drug lords.
• Sacrilege – “Blasphemy: political use of religious censorship” – or the criminalisation of blasphemy, which the index says endangers freedom of information in approximately half of the world’s countries.
• Demonstration dangers – “The growing difficulty of covering demonstrations” – seeing an increase in violence against reporters and ‘netizens’ covering demonstrations.
• Gaps in the European Union – “European model’s erosion” – EU countries rank from 1^st to 106^th in the index.
• Laws – “‘National security’ – spurious grounds” – among authoritarian and democratic governments alike, to control independent speech.

Measuring up

Press freedom and how to measure it is a very complex question today, said Halgand.

“Press freedom in Sudan isn’t the same thing as press freedom in Italy. So that’s why we try to work around these seven criteria of pluralism, media independence, self-censorship, legislative frameworks, transparency, infrastructure, abuses.

“It’s a complex issue definitely and that’s why we need to use many criteria to try to be as precise as possible. But even if we try to put this complicated issue into criteria, of course the situation is always unique in each country,” she told IPS.

Charlie Beckett is professor at the London School of Economics (LSE) in the department of media and communications, and is also the director of Polis, which is the LSE’s journalism think tank.

“Whilst at some levels it’s very complicated,” he told IPS, “at some levels it’s very simple.

“If you look at journalists that have been put in jail, if you look at journalists who have been hurt physically, then it’s quite crude but that’s quite a good measure of basic journalistic freedom. And I know personally, I’ll start to worry about the more subtle things, such as disinformation, I’ll worry about them, but my life isn’t being threatened if I’m a journalist.

“So first give me my basic freedoms and you know, then we can talk about the more sophisticated problems.”

The more sophisticated problems include surges in data.

“I think it’s increasingly difficult to measure media freedom because increasingly media has become so complex,” Beckett told IPS.

“We live in a world where there is much more data available. But how we can trust that data, the source of that data, and how we might understand that data, is subject to all kinds of forces.

He explained that it is no longer straightforwardly about censorship, or laws, or even about the physical manifestation of violence against journalists.

There’s also the “chilling climate” wherein if one journalist gets killed, the other 99 are much more likely to do as they’re told, he said.

“Even where the press is publishing something, you don’t know under what circumstances. Are they being intimidated, are they being bribed, are they being pressurized?”

Another point is that “there’s no point in having free journalists if people aren’t free to share the information, for example, themselves”, as Beckett said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The research team has been studying this relatively acidic coral reef in the Palauan archipelago. Seawater pH on this reef today represents acidification levels predicted for tropical western Pacific by the end of the 21st century. Credit: Tom DeCarlo, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

By Leila Lemghalef
NEW YORK, Feb 6 2015 (IPS)

A recent study suggests that one of the multiple threats to coral reefs contains both the problem and solution.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), based in Cape Cod, conducted a study highlighting multiple threats to coral reef ecosystems and also identifying a management strategy that could slow reef decline."Management of a local coral reef, in terms of limiting human nutrient supplies to that coral reef, can actually have real substantial effects over the next century." -- marine researcher Thomas DeCarlo

Coral reefs are animal organisms that are like sea castles, vibrant with algae and home to sponges, mollusks and creatures seeking shelter. In fact, 25 per cent of marine life relies on coral reefs as part of their habitat.

Coral reefs build their skeletons using limestone, or calcium carbonate. The increase of acid in the ocean due to excess carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere causes the carbonate ion to become less available. Coral reefs rely on carbonate to produce their well-cemented skeletons, which they are doing more slowly.

As a result, the natural equilibrium governing production–erosion of coral reefs has been disrupted in favour of erosion.

To add to the imbalance, the added component of ‘nutrients’ to water accelerates the rate of erosion 10 times.

The interaction between high levels of nutrients with acidity makes the effect of ocean acidification 10 times greater.

‘Nutrients’ refer here to pollution by humans on a local scale.

And herein lies the study’s seed of good news as it says in encouraging terms that “…people can take action to protect their local reefs. If people can limit runoff from septic tanks, sewers, roads, farm fertilizers and other sources of nutrient pollution to the coastal ocean, the bioeroders will not have such an upper hand, and the balance will tip much more slowly toward erosion and dissolution of coral reefs”.

Mark Eakin is coordinator of Coral Reef Watch, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Reducing erosion by tenfold is major,” he told IPS.

He also explained that coral reefs face both global and local threats, thereby requiring solutions at each level, regardless of whether the global stressors or the local factors, such as overfishing, are paramount (and in fact, both are severe).

“In addressing things like pollutant runoffs that contribute to the local issue of why ocean acidification can be so harmful, what you’re doing is you’re pointing to a local solution to a local problem,” said Eakin.

While the climate change remains a problem of planetary scale, requiring concerted efforts on a cross-national level, the plus-side of local problems is that they can be addressed on a local scale.

“And by doing that what you’re doing is making the reefs more resilient to climate change and ocean acidification. So that better helps them to survive, while we work on getting the global problems under control,” he said.

A good warning sign

Thomas DeCarlo is doing his PhD in the joint programme of oceanography between Massachusetts Institute of Technology and WHOI. He led the Woods Hole study.

In an interview with IPS, DeCarlo was asked the extent to which cleaning up waters locally could alleviate the overall strains on coral reef development.

He explained that local action could buffer or limit to some extent the global impact of ocean acidification, which is certain to continue over the next century.

“I guess the source of optimism is that whereas the CO2 ocean acidification problem is really truly global, and that’s a really big problem because reefs can’t really escape that, it’s such a global phenomenon that all coral reefs are going to be seeing this ocean acidification effect.

“But the nutrient problem from human nutrient addition is really a pretty local problem, in a lot of respects so, the optimism is that that can actually be limited and controlled on a local scale, so management of a local coral reef, in terms of limiting human nutrient supplies to that coral reef, can actually have real substantial effects over the next century,” he said.

There is an economic incentive that could help the political agenda bend to the needs of nature, with the total dollar value of coral reef services estimated in the billions annually in the U.S. alone.

Furthermore, coral reefs protect shorelines by absorbing storm energies and perform many other roles in the world as we know it.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) continues to engage health personnel in helping terminate the practice of altering or injuring the female genitalia for non-medical reasons.

Some 130 million living girls and women have undergone FGM, and three million girls are at risk each year, according to the United Nations.

Over 18 per cent of cases of FGM have been carried out by healthcare providers. The rate is as high as 74 per cent in some countries. Accelerating the abandonment of FGM is part of the new development agenda.

“The medical community’s active support for the rights of girls and women to be protected from FGM has been critical in achieving the renewed commitments of Member States as reflected in the recent United Nations General Assembly Resolution on this issue,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a message last week.

The U.N. Chief also spoke about inspiring steps that have been taken, in Mauritania for example, as a result of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: Accelerating Change, which strives for the total abandonment of all forms of FGM within the next 2 ½ decades.

Jaha Dukureh, an FGM activist and youth mobiliser and FGM survivor, of Gambian origin, said: “The biggest success for me, what I see in The Gambia is we are now hearing the government saying that they are ready to do something about it,” adding that religious leaders are voicing change. “They’re coming out and saying FGM is not mandatory by Islam.”

In the U.S., she started Safe Hands for Girls support group for survivors. “We talk to community leaders, religious leaders, talking to them about the laws in the United States, and newly arrived refugees,” she said.

She highlighted that in a survey done by the Obama administration, in response to a petition she launched, newly-released results show that 513,000 women are at risk of FGM in the U.S.

“That’s three times an increase since the last time a survey was done in this country,” she said, mentioning that those figures do not surprise her.

“But now that we have those numbers, I believe that the U.S. government needs to step up and they need to do more,” said Dukureh.

Edna Adan Ismail, a nurse and midwife, and founder and director of a maternity hospital in Somaliland, said: “We have been advocating for governments in countries that welcome many immigrants, like the United Kingdom, like the United States, like Canada, to have a law in their embassies, and notice in their embassies, informing visa applicants that if a visa is granted to the applicant to enter these countries, are they aware that FGM is a crime, and is a violation against the human rights of women, and is an aggression against the body of young girls.”
She said “it would be one more deterrent, one more reason, one more opportunity, to protect young girls”.

Children exposed to mining industry pollution in Peru. The debate on mining is raging throughout Latin America. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

By Leila Lemghalef
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 2015 (IPS)

A recent case study on Canadian mining abuses in Latin America has woven one more thread of justice into the tapestry of international law.

The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) has found five Canadian mining companies and the Canadian government responsible for human rights violations in Latin America, including labour rights violations, environmental destruction, the denial of indigenous self-determination rights, criminalisation of dissent and targeted assassinations."The battle for international justice is absolutely the same as the battle for internal democracy." -- Judge Gianni Tognoni

Gianni Tognoni was one of eight judges in the decision, and has been secretary general of the PPT since its inception in 1979.

In an interview with IPS, he spoke about how the PPT’s claims have previously become part of the international debate.

“And in the experience of the Tribunal, that has been happening in different ways,” he said.

Out of many examples, he cited the case of child slave labour in the apparel industry, which was denounced by the tribunal, and which was “taken up in order to strengthen the controls and the monitoring by NGOs of the conditions that were there”.

The big panorama, he said, shows that “whatever could be done is being done… in order to integrate the tribunal with other forces… in order to formulate in juridically solid terms the claims”.

International processes are rarely rapid, he said, articulating that the judgement on the former Yugoslavia would “appear to be more a kind of judgement on the memory, the same is true for Rwanda”.

He contrasted that to the immediate effectiveness of economic treaties, and also brought up the well-known clash between human rights and transnational corporations, and the latter’s attitude of impunity.

“It’s not possible to have a global society which is progressively responding only to the economic criteria and the economic indicator,” he summed up.

Formally, Canada is expected to uphold the same rights abroad as at home, in accordance with the Maastricht Principle under which public powers are supposed to monitor non-state actors.

“But they simply fail to do that,” Tognoni said.

The 86-page ruling reports that 75 per cent of mining companies worldwide are based in Canada, and that Canadian companies with estimated investments of over 50 billion dollars in Latin America’s mining sector represent 50-70 per cent of mining activities in that region.

“And the verdict in Canada is clearly showing Canada outside is favouring the violation of fundamental human rights,” Tognoni said.

The PPT on the session on Canadian mining delivered the guilty verdict in Montreal on Dec. 10, 2014 – Human Rights Day – in an ongoing investigation until 2016.

So far, it has made recommendations to the Canadian government, the mining companies in question, as well as international agencies and bodies including 22 divisions of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Access to justice is a long-term effort

The PPT’s efforts are long-term ones.

“It is clear that it is important to organize the movement of opposition in order to give a strong also juridical support to the political and social arguments so that it would be clear that the battle for international justice is absolutely the same as the battle for internal democracy. Because the two things are more and more linked.  There are no more countries which are independent from the international scene,” Tognoni said.

PPT sessions “serve to add to that body of work to demonstrate that there is a crying need for instruments that will provide access to justice”, co-organiser of the PPT session on Canadian Mining in Latin America, Daniel Cayley-Daoust, told IPS.

“The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal is not an enforcement kind of initiative, where it does not having legal standing in a concrete way,” he said, explaining that it serves to support for affected communities and to document abuses committed, “in the sense of broadening that debate… to increase the pressure and to add that as kind of further proof to what the abuses are, that are permitted.”

A priority of the PPT is to add “more voice and credibility to something that has been largely ignored by the people who kind of have the power to make the changes”, said Cayley-Daoust.

In 2011, the U.N. Human Rights Council established a Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises.

Cayley-Daoust expressed concern that the U.N. has come under corporate influence over the last three to four decades, specifically because of its closer relations with corporations.

Rolando Gómez, spokesperson for the U.N. Human Rights Council, told IPS corporations are not immunised.

“There’s not one human rights issue within any setting – a corporation, a city, a country, a community – that would escape the attention of the council,” he said.

“We have seen positive trends of corporations, large and small, taking those issues to heart,” he said.

As for the challenge of political effects – “I think what we’ve been seeing is states are recognising more and more that we have to depoliticise the discussions,” he told IPS.

He emphasised that “the Human Rights Council is not merely about the resolutions adopted, but it’s about the follow-up, the action, it’s about the fact that there’s a setting here in Geneva where issues which often don’t get heard are heard.”

“The extent to which NGOs are active here is unique,” he told IPS, mentioning the participation of human rights victims and civil society, in delivering statements, sitting in on negotiations, and informing discussion going on in the formal setting.

As for whether talk translates into action… that depends on the issue as well as the willingness of states and decision-makers on the ground, said Gómez.

“Justice takes a long time,” he said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The power of intercultural dialogue in a diverse world was discussed from many angles at an event launching the Third World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue.

The forum will be held May 18-19, 2015, in Baku, Azerbaijan. The presentation focused largely on Azerbaijan as a microcosm of what can be experienced by humanity on a larger scale.

Azerbaijan belongs to both the Council of Europe and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and has been shaped by Islamic, Persian, European, Turkish and Russian communities.

The High Representative of the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, highlighted “the ever-growing involvement of Azerbaijan in promoting intercultural and interreligious understanding at the regional and international levels”.

He added that acts of terrorism are best left unassociated with specific religions, nationalities or civilizations, while reaffirming the need for commitments towards reconciliation and forgiveness, in favour of advancing “a common vision of inclusive, indivisible and respectful societies, contributing to the pressing themes of the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda”.

The global problems of religious extremism, violence and terrorism are being viewed from the solution standpoints of tourism and knowledge, among others.

Special representative of the U.N. World Trade Organization (UNWTO), Rafeeuddin Ahmad, took the podium to deliver a message on behalf of the UNWTO secretary general, Taleb Rifai.

“We live in a diverse, interdependent and interconnected world; we also live in a world going through turbulent times; a world in which every day we are reminded that despite our differences in cultures and fundamental beliefs, we need to live together in peace,” Ahmad read, going on to emphasize tourism as a force for peace, for promoting mutual understanding, because “visiting new places and meeting new people is a powerful transformative force”.
Dialogue and the rapprochement of cultures are acknowledged as indispensable to unity.

“This is the necessity of bringing better understanding to each other, to forget about phobias, forget about misunderstandings, try to listen to each other better, and to accept the right to exist within different cultures,” said Minister of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan, Abulfas Garayev.

“We all understand that culture connects people,” said Mike Hardy, Executive Director of the Center for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations at Coventry University. He said that through shared culture “we can together take responsibility for our shared security”.

Youth empowerment, as well as the roles and responsibilities to do with social media are also themes that will shape the forum this May.

Long-term investments in education and knowledge are another important way forward, which the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is addressing.

Global food security is an antidote to conflict, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva said in a special meeting of the U.N. Peacebuilding Commission in New York.

He traced the FAO back, recalling that it was founded in 1945 to help alleviate the devastation of war “with the belief that with peace it would be possible to end hunger”.

Agriculture and food security are essential factors in peacebuilding and conflict resolution, he said in the speech entitled “Peacebuilding and Food Security”.

On top of remaining tied to post-conflict and recovery solutions, food security is a driving force in peace, political stability and sustainable development, he said.

“It is working to make sure that hunger is not the spark that ignites further conflict and that, if conflict happens, the food systems in place are more resilient and have a greater chance of enduring.”

In summary, “what we truly need to do is create conditions that can prevent a crisis from happening. This includes guaranteeing food and nutrition security”.

He drew attention to the fact that spikes in food pricing gave way to civil unrest in more than 40 countries at the time of the 2008 crisis.

Furthermore, conflicts and emergencies such as natural disasters can escalate into crises, unless vitiated by existing resiliency frameworks.

“In post-conflict situations, persistent high food insecurity is a factor that can contribute to a fall back into conflict,” said Graziano da Silva.

In this context, food security is relied on as a mitigation tool.

“In the history of humanity, time and time again we have seen vicious circles linking violence and hunger. And these are conflicts that are not restricted by national borders.”

He underlined that hunger, which is estimated to have killed more than 250,000 people in Somalia alone between 2010 and 2012 due to drought-induced famine, “is a global issue that requires global action and responses”.

The dialogue has come ahead of the Sustainable Development Goals, which will be formulated in 2015.

The future of sustainable development has promise — and that promise is now, according to the head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

“At UNDP, we see 2015 as a huge opportunity to advance the global sustainable development agenda,” said Helen Clark, at the opening session of the UNDP’s Executive Board meeting in New York.

The agenda’s focus is on a new framework for disaster risk reduction, financing for development, and tackling climate change.

Through a series of processes, the international community will come up with post-2015 agenda agreements.

The key upcoming events this year include the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in March in Japan; the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in July in Ethiopia; and the U.N. Climate Change Conference in December in Paris.

“The outcomes of each of these processes will be more powerful if there are synergies between them. It is widely accepted that eradicating poverty, building resilience, and reducing carbon emissions must go hand and hand”, said Clark, pointing out the potential for “a once in a generation opportunity to set a transformational global agenda for sustainable development.”

She mentioned the “agenda is expected to be broader and more transformational than the MDGs were”, referring to the eight Millennium Development Goals.

“The MDGs run their course at the end of the year, and U.N. Member States are due to agree in September on the Sustainable Development Goals, which will guide global development priorities for the next 15 years.”

Sustainable development encompasses the equitable use of natural resources, the protection of the environment, and an accent on social justice and economic growth.

Clark addressed today’s crises, including Ebola, Ukraine, Yemen, South Sudan, Central African Republic, but first and foremost, the four-year crisis in Syria and its impact on Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt.

“The fighting has drastically rolled back the country’s human development and pushed over three-quarters of the population into poverty – 4.4 million people are estimated to be living in extreme poverty,” said Clark.

Her statements also revolved around the axis of the UNDP’s 2014-2017 Strategic Plan, which is committed to “Helping countries to achieve the simultaneous eradication of poverty and significant reduction of inequalities and exclusion”.

In this vein, despite the many challenges, 2015 presents a unique opportunity to move ahead on the goal of eradicating poverty.

Images from the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945. Credit: public domain

By Leila Lemghalef
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 23 2015 (IPS)

Unchecked climate change and the nuclear arms race have propelled the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock forward two minutes closer to midnight, from its 2012 placement of five minutes to midnight.

The decision was announced in Washington DC by members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS), the body behind the calculations and creation of the 1947 Clock of Doom.“The simple truth on nuclear weapons is that they are inconsistent with civilisation." -- Alyn Ware

The last time the clock was at three minutes to midnight was in 1984, when U.S.-Soviet relations were described by BAS as having “reached their iciest point in decades”.

Today’s polemic takes into account the immutable laws of science in relation to the “climate catastrophe” as well as the activities of modernisation of massive nuclear arsenals, which come with inadvertent risks.

“The question gets much more complicated than someone with their finger on the button,” said Kennette Benedict, executive director of BAS.

Another major problem is the world’s addiction to fossil fuels, said BAS.

Climate change and nuclear tensions were placed on equal footing in this year’s warning.

“And while fossil-fuel burning technologies may seem like a less kind of abrupt way to ruin the world, they’re doing it in slow motion,” said Benedict.

Citizen’s potential

“Negotiators on the international treaty of climate change or any international treaty are working within the fairly narrow latitude afforded them by their governments. And the governments themselves are working within the latitudes afforded them by their constituencies,” said BAS member of the Science and Security Board Sivan Kartha, senior scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Real cooperation on the international front, he said, “will rely on there being a demand for that, a mandate for that, from constituencies within countries,” also noting “today’s extremely daunting political opposition to climate action”.

President of the Global Security Institute Jonathan Granoff described a series of global existential challenges that could accelerate the arrival of doomsday, including the stability of the climate, the acidity of the oceans, and biodiversity, as well as widespread goals of strategic stability and the pursuit of dominance.

“Remember we are extinguishing species at up to one thousand times faster than what would be the normal evolutionary base rate,” he told IPS. “The backdrop of these challenges arising from science, technology, and social organisation is the immature relationship between states in their pursuit of security through the application of the threat or use of force. The most dangerous tool of the pursuit of security through force are the world’s nuclear arsenals.

“…On the other hand, a growing consensus within informed members of global governance and civil society is rapidly coming to understand that no nation can be secure in an insecure world. And the business community has rapidly integrated in such a fashion that they have demonstrated the capacity of cooperation, if driven by recognised self-interests,” he said.

“I am reminded that in the 17^th Century, the world moved from the predominance of the city-state into the modern world of the nation state. Such a phenomena required national identity. National identity occurred largely because of national grammar and language, which rested on the technological innovations of the printing press.

“Today, the technology that will allow us to have global cultural grammar and identity is being provided by the Internet. And thus, the tools, to move from the dis-functionality of posing national interest against the global common good has the potential to be overcome.”

In light of his analysis, the clock’s minute hand can be influenced for the better or for the worse, and 2015 will present opportunities for progress to be made.

The simple truth

Alyn Ware is a member of the World Future Council and the coordinator of Global Wave 2015, an initiative on “Global Action to Wave Goodbye to Nukes”.

Ware spoke to IPS ahead of the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

“The hundreds of billions of dollars that’s wasted on nuclear weapons is needed in order to shift our economy from a carbon-based economy to an economy based on renewable energy,” he told IPS, also explaining that “the competition and the confrontation and conflicts that are perpetuated by nuclear weapons prevent the type of cooperation that’s required for addressing climate change.

“The simple truth on nuclear weapons is that they are inconsistent with civilisation. Threatening to annihilate cities, innocent people, future generations, is not consistent with humanity,” Ware told IPS.

“And then there’s also a simple truth with climate change,” he added. “The simple truth is we have to move from a carbon-based economy to one that’s focused more on renewable energies.”

He also acknowledged the nuances surrounding the implementation of these simple truths.

“At the moment, we don’t have sufficient political commitment to either of them,” he said, addressing vested interests preventing that kind of action, including corporations making nuclear weapons or selling oil, coal or gas.

“What we’re looking at is empowering people,” he said.

For that reason, he thinks the Doomsday Clock is very good. “Because it’s simple, it’s really understandable, and it gives the idea that, hey, we can all be involved in this.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The protection of children in Nigeria’s northeast relies on urgent action, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict concluded during a weeklong assessment in the war-torn country.

Leila Zerrougui’s visit was mandated by the Security Council, following the Secretary-General’s recognition of Boko Haram as a party to conflict that kills and maims children, and attacks schools and hospitals.

The insurgency and the military’s response, have resulted in the displacement of close to 1 million people so far. Zerrougui met with children and women from the conflict zones who have fled their homes.

“I witnessed people’s shock and disbelief at the devastation suffered by their communities. I saw trauma in children’s eyes. The scale of the suffering is beyond what I anticipated to find,” said Zerrougui. “The people I met demand and deserve urgent protection,” she added.

Her visit centred on mobilizing efforts to assess grave violations committed against children, in a conflict that has been ranked one of the world’s deadliest for children in 2014, by the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, which reports that “relentless violence” is the status quo.

Over 300 schools have been severely damaged or destroyed, while hundreds of children have been killed, injured, or abducted in attacks on homes, schools, and dormitories. Violence against girls has included forced marriage and rape.

Fatal blows to civilians are unabated in 2015, including a suicide bombing carried out by a young girl in the northeastern state of Borno, where Boko Haram was created in 2002.

“Children are allegedly used for intelligence purposes, tracking movements of the security forces, transporting guns and taking part in attacks, including the burning of schools and churches,” explains a report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council.

“Hundreds of children were killed or maimed by Boko Haram in bomb and gun attacks against anyone who supported democracy or so-called Western values.”

It also indicates that humanitarian access to monitor these kinds of incidents involving minors has become more difficult, especially after the closure of Maiduguri airport in a post-attack by the Islamist militant group in December 2013.

Zerrougui’s visit last week stressed the twin goals of protecting children during armed conflict and promoting accountability.

She met with federal and state authorities, the U.N. (including UNICEF), diplomatic cadres, NGOs and partners such as representatives of the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign, an appeal for the couple of hundred abducted school girls in Chibok in April 2014.

In open dialogue with Zerrougui, Nigerian authorities expressed their commitment to collaborate with the U.N., to investigate allegations of violations committed against children, and to follow up with necessary measures to hold perpetrators accountable.

“I commend the Minister of Justice and Attorney General for his willingness to respond to reports of recruitment and use of children by government-affiliated self-defense groups in the three north-eastern states. He has agreed to issue an advisory recalling the prohibition of such a practice,” said Zerrougui.

Meanwhile, Avaaz launched its campaign last week calling on the UN Security Council to convene an emergency meeting to issue a presidential statement on Boko Haram’s ongoing reign of terror, and to move toward comprehensive action. The campaign has been supported by more than 725,000 citizens around the world (and rising), and shared by 50,000 people on Facebook.

Alice Jay, Campaign Director for Avaaz said: “Boko Haram has butchered its way into the global spotlight and finally the Security Council is reacting”.

Today’s presidential statement is a critical start and all eyes are now on Nigeria, its neighbours and the international community to put words into comprehensive action to stop ten year olds being strapped to bombs or kidnapped in the night, she added.

The Asia-Pacific region is expected to register a moderate increase in growth in 2015, according to the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

The main factors shaping the outlook are structural reform programmes and lower oil prices. And prospects for 2015 will improve on these conditions.

The region’s developing countries are forecast to grow at an average of 5.8 per cent this year, up from 5.6 per cent in 2014, according to ESCAP’s Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2014: Year-end Update.

http://www.unescap.org/resources/economic-and-social-survey-asia-and-pacific-2014-year-end-update.

Structural reforms in India and Indonesia are projected to boost their growth to 6.4 and 5.6 per cent respectively, from the 2014 figures of 5.5 and 5.2 per cent respectively.

China’s growth is expected to be around 7 per cent in 2015, in line with the ongoing economic rebalancing.

Growth in the region remains inferior to pre-crisis levels, and a decrease in regional inflation to 3.5 in 2015 from 3.9 per cent in 2014 will allow some regional economies to loosen their monetary policies in support of growth.

The report was launched by U.N. Under-Secretary General and ESCAP Executive Secretary Shamshad Akhtar.

“Despite improved prospects many developing economies in the region face structural constraints which have kept them from realizing their growth potential. Infrastructure shortages remain acute and growth has not translated into enough decent jobs,” he was cited in a press release.

The U.S. economy will support growth in Asia-Pacific exporting economies, while the slow growth of the eurozone and Japan, and the moderate growth region of China, will present challenges.

ESCAP has underlined that Asia-Pacific should “brace for capital outflows following an expected raising of interest rates by the US Federal Reserve although this could be buffered to some extent by new financial injections by the eurozone and Japan.”

Thailand’s economy is forecast to see a 3.9 per cent increase as a result of heightened short-term consumer/investor confidence.

While domestic business environments are seen as positive, policy implications will be both positive and negative, according to ESCAP, which estimates that a $10 per barrel fall in the oil price in 2015 will increase GDP growth by up to 0.5 percentage points in energy-importing countries.

The recent fall in oil prices could set off a longer-trend, and the impact of the decline will have a varying impact across the region.

Russia’s growth could go down by 1.1 percentage points, which would deprive the Central Asian vicinity of $1.7 billion in remittances.

Declining global oil prices are a valuable opportunity for Asia-Pacific economies to scale back on fuel subsidies, which ESCAP estimates could free up significant shares of the budget, thus contributing, for instance, to universal access to health and education in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand.

“This is a particularly critical and opportune time to decrease subsidies,” said Akhtar.

“Reducing subsidies can raise significant public financial resources for productive investment in the region and could make needed funds available for financing sustainable development.”