Archives

29.09.2007 Fleeing violence, drought, and unemployment, a growing number of Somali and Ethiopian immigrants are attempting to escape across dangerous waters, often encountering death at the hands of smugglers, the sea, or Yemeni forces, reports the UN.

28.09.2007 Press freedom groups said Friday that Burma's military junta has stepped up its strategy of isolating the country, trying to reproduce the scenario of the 1988 massacres when witness accounts of the bloodshed only reached the outside world after it was over.
From: Reporters Without Borders, Burma Media Association

28.09.2007 "The role of the sons of Lord Buddha" by Maung Zarni; "Burma's hour of need" by Sholto Byrnes; "The world must act for Burma" by Zoya Phan; "Burma: the history behind the protests" by Michael Charney; "The way I see it" by Htein Lin.
From: New Statesman

28.09.2007 The UN Human Rights Council today agreed to establish a new Forum on Minorities Issues - a "breakthrough move" welcomed by minority rights activists.

28.09.2007 The Clinton Global Initiative was launched to help solve complex global problems that governments either are not solving or cannot solve alone. At this year's meeting 1,000 leaders from diverse sectors have raised billions for education, energy and climate change, global health, and poverty alleviation.

28.09.2007 Emergency relief and a month's worth of medical supplies have reached a small town in the Rutshuru district of North Kivu where 4,000 displaced people are seeking refuge from ongoing conflict.

28.09.2007 Nike and Changemakers have teamed up to hold a worldwide search for projects that use the transformative power of sport to achieve social change. A group of influential leaders in the field will choose three finalists to receive cash prizes of $5,000.

28.09.2007 The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) recently declared war on the Nigerian government and oil companies, demanding that local communities see benefits from the billions of dollars of oil removed from the region.

28.09.2007 Rageh Omaar travels through the city of Tehran, showing the lives of average Iranian citizens through video clips.

28.09.2007 Abdelbagi Jibril compares South Africa's economic and trade relations with China and the Arab Gulf states and its defence of the Khartoum regime with its indifference towards the tragedy of the people of Darfur, which, he argues, is tantamount to the genocide of Africans.
From: Pambazuka News

28.09.2007 Anthropologist William Beeman delves into the complexity of sexuality in Iran, revealing, for example, that it is socially acceptable for a man to have sexual relations with another man if he plays the "active" or "masculine" role in the relationship.
From: New America Media

28.09.2007 As the United Nations takes an increasingly dominant role in guiding the climate change debate, there is renewed interest in a longstanding proposal for the creation of an international court to try environmental crimes.

28.09.2007 As the International Monetary Fund announces its 10th successive European chief, anti-poverty agency ActionAid challenges Dominique Strauss-Kahn to push for fundamental democratic reform at the institution.

27.09.2007 Amid a series of international conferences on climate change this week, the BBC has released a 21-nation survey in which two out of three respondents said they believed "major steps starting very soon" need to be taken to combat global warming.

27.09.2007 Major breakthroughs have recently been made in granting citizenship to roughly 3 million stateless people living in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, and to children born to expatriate Brazilians.

27.09.2007 Thanks to an organization providing special low-cost prosthetics, northern Pakistanis who lost a limb during the 2005 earthquake can now return to their regular lives.

27.09.2007 While governments argue over responsibility for global warming, development experts are thinking about the humanitarian consequences for the world’s poor. Mara Hvistendahl reports from the United Nations.
From: Chinadialogue

27.09.2007 Freelance journalist Jason Motlagh unearths the India beyond Bollywood and the info-tech boom. Keep up with his blogs and photo reports on the country's rural poor, who are dealing with flooding and a four-decade-long guerrilla insurgency.

27.09.2007 Denmark, Finland and New Zealand are listed as least corrupt and Somalia and Myanmar most corrupt in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index published by the global coalition against corruption.
From: Transparency International

27.09.2007 Until Israel gives further word the West Bank border passings will be open only for humanitarian emergencies due to the "significant terror threat" during the Jewish holiday Sukkot, which lasts a week.