IDN-InDepthNews

News for a Sustainable World, Peace and Security

IDN-InDepthNews

Category: HUMAN RIGHTS

HUMAN RIGHTS

Rights Group Warns of Growing Division and Fear

By A.D. McKenzie

PARIS (IDN | SWAN) – Politicians have shamelessly been peddling a “toxic rhetoric” that is creating a more divided and dangerous world, according to human rights group Amnesty International.

Speaking at the launch of its annual report on rights around the world in Paris on February 21, the organisation’s Secretary General Salil Shetty warned that the “politics of demonisation” was threatening to unleash the “darkest aspects” of human nature.

“Too many politicians are answering legitimate economic and security fears with a poisonous and divisive manipulation of identity politics in an attempt to win votes,” Shetty told journalists.

Migration

South Pacific: ‘Sea-Level Rise’ Migrants Posing a Problem

By Henry Oritimae and Sonal Shivangani*

This is the second in a series of features on the South Pacific produced in collaboration with Wansolwara, an independent student newspaper of the University of the South Pacific.

SUVA, Fiji (IDN) – With sea levels rising rapidly across the South Pacific and the resulting movement of people within and across countries, the region is facing a new problem of a lack of proper migration policies to address the issue, according to experts.

Inhabitants of artificial islands in the Soloman Islands are migrating to settle in the bigger islands because of sea-level rise and coastal inundation.

Indigenous Peoples

Revelations of Australia’s Abu Ghraib Force Gov’t to Act

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – Screening of secretly filmed shocking footage of abuse of juvenile prisoners in a remote northern Australian prison by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC), renowned investigative reporting program ‘Four Corners’, has outraged thousands of Australians who took to the streets to protest and forced the government to act.

The video material filmed between 2010 and 2014 at the Don Dale youth detention centre in the Northern Territory in Australia and screened on July 25 has drawn comparisons to the treatment of prisoners in the notorious prisons run by the U.S. government in Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous Peoples Insist on Equality of All Rights

Analysis by Rizwy Raheem

NEW YORK (IDN) – The world’s indigenous peoples – estimated at over 370 million living across 90 countries and accounting for 15 percent of the poorest – remain isolated, both politically and geographically.

So, nearly a thousand participants from Asia, Africa, North America, Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean gathered together to air their grievances before the United Nations at a two-week long conference, which concluded May 20.

Their plea for inclusiveness was a reiteration of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s appeal to the international community on the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for a more humane and prosperous world for all – “leaving no one behind”.

The conference ended with a resounding call for greater participation in the United Nations and in UN bodies by some of the world’s most neglected minorities who are increasingly victims of armed conflicts, corporate greed and rising economic inequalities.

Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous Peoples Seek Rights and Distinct Identities

By J. Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and how it relates to indigenous peoples, will feature prominently in discussions at the fifteenth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

The Forum will also focus on issues of peace and conflict, often relating to indigenous peoples’ lands, territories and resources and to their rights and distinct identities. More than 1,000 indigenous participants from all regions of the world are attending the gathering at United Nations Headquarters in New York from May 9 to 20.

“Since its establishment, the Permanent Forum has expressed great concern over the continuation of conflicts affecting indigenous peoples in different parts of the world,” said Alvaro Pop, the incoming Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Population

China’s New Two-Child Policy No Economic Panacea

By Shastri Ramachandaran* | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

BEIJING (IDN) – The ending of China’s one-child policy, which gained notoriety for its coercive implementation, is a landmark event of immense economic and political significance, but there are serious question marks about whether it can effectively produce the positive economic fallout that its architects expect.

The importance of the October 29 decision of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to jettison the 35-year-old draconian one-child policy in favour of a new, universal two-child norm is primarily political as underscored by the fact that the announcement was made in a communique released at the conclusion of the four-day conclave – Fifth Plenum – of the CPC’s 18th Central Committee.

The main purpose of the plenum was to finalise China’s 13th Five-Year Plan – the first since Xi Jinping became President – and map the road ahead for the world’s second largest economy, which has had to contend with a falling growth rate in the last few years. China now aims to strive for a GDP growth rate of 6.5 to 7 percent during the five years of this Plan ending in 2020.

Gender

Global Report Calls for End to ‘Media Sexism’

By Jutta Wolf | IDN-InDepthNews Report

BERLIN | BRUSSELS (IDN) – A new report finds that progress towards equality of women and men in the news media has virtually ground to a halt over the past five years. In fact, “progress towards news representation that acknowledges women’s participation in economic life remains elusive”. The report calls for “an end to media sexism by 2020”.

According to the findings of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), released on November 23, worldwide, women make up only 24% of the people heard, read about or seen in newspaper, television and radio news, exactly the same level found in 2010.

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