Category Archives: human rights

Flint Wants Safe Water, and Someone to Answer for Its Crisis – The New York Times

“Put yourself in our shoes,” she said. “It’s hurting kids, the elderly. It’s hurting all of us.”And there was plenty of blame to go around, she added. “It’s almost like a stepladder — you start from the top and you go all the way down to the bottom,” she said.Switching the source of drinking water was meant to relieve some of the financial pressures on this struggling city. Flint has high rates of gun violence and crumbling infrastructure. And as manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, the population has steadily dropped to fewer than 100,000 — more than 40 percent of whom live below the poverty line.But it was not long before some in Flint were pointing out the nasty color and odor of what was coming out of their taps, and digging into their wallets to buy bottled water for drinking and cooking, and baby wipes for bathing.State and city leaders had largely dismissed residents’ complaints for months, assuring them that the water was safe and being tested regularly. With the emergence of the blood level data, officials began advising residents not to drink unfiltered tap water — a recommendation that remains in effect.

Source: Flint Wants Safe Water, and Someone to Answer for Its Crisis – The New York Times

Jewish settlers bore into Palestinian children’s bedroom | The Electronic Intifada

Israel’s high court has temporarily halted the eviction of the Sub Laban family from their home in the Muslim quarter of occupied Jerusalem’s Old City, but that has not stopped Jewish settlers from harassing the family in an apparent attempt to pressure them to leave.On 3 January the family came home to find that the Jewish settlers who took over the adjacent apartment last month had drilled six large holes into the concrete walls of the children’s bedroom.The video above shows the surreal situation where family members could peer through the holes and see the settlers continuing to bore into the house.According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, the Sub Laban family called the police, who came to the house and asked the settlers to repair the damage, but took no further measures against them.

Source: Jewish settlers bore into Palestinian children’s bedroom | The Electronic Intifada

Over 200 children allegedly abused in Bavarian Catholic choir | News | DW.COM | 08.01.2016

{National outrage and calls for mass arrests of German leaders of the choir similar to outrage over New Year’s Eve Attacks in Cologne? Not yet…}

Ulrich Weber, the lawyer representing the alleged victims, was commissioned by the church diocese to look into the cases.In a press conference on Friday, he said: “I have here 231 reports of physical abuse.” These ranged from beatings to food deprivation, sexual assault and rape, Weber told journalists.”The reported cases of sexual abuse in Regensburg were mostly concentrated in the period of the mid-to-late1970s,” he said. According to the lawyer, “50 victims spoke of 10 perpetrators” at the Regensburger Domspatzen boys’ choir and two associated boarding schools between 1953 and 1992.However, the actual number of victims could be much higher, Weber said, because at least every third child out of the 2,100 pupils in the choir had been subjected to physical violence.

Source: Over 200 children allegedly abused in Bavarian Catholic choir | News | DW.COM | 08.01.2016

Last-Ditch Resistance: More Countries, More Dire Results – Phenomena: Germination

Laurent Poirel and colleagues in Switzerland have identified an E. coli strain, recovered from an 83-year-old Swiss man who was hospitalized last month, that possesses both colistin resistance and also VIM resistance to the carbapenems, the family of antibiotics that was considered the last and toughest before colistin. The colistin-resistance gene shared a plasmid with genes conferring resistance to chloramphenicol, flofenicol and co-trimoxazole. The authors warn, “Such accumulation of multidrug resistance traits may correspond to an ultimate step toward pandrug resistance.”Our data suggest that the advent of untreatable infections has already arrived.Marisa Haenni and collaborators in France and Switzerland queried the Resapath network in France, which conducts surveillance for antibiotic resistance in animals, found that 21 percent of bacterial samples collected from veal calves on French farms between 2005 and 2014 carried the signal of mobile colistin resistance, the gene mcr-1. There were 106 positive samples (out of 517) and they came from 94 different farm properties. On seven of those isolates, the mcr gene lived alongside ones for ESBL resistance—that’s to penicillins and to the first three generations of cephalosporin drugs—and also genes for resistance to sulfa drugs and tetracycline.

Source: Last-Ditch Resistance: More Countries, More Dire Results – Phenomena: Germination

Last-Ditch Resistance: More Countries, More Dire Results – Phenomena: Germination

Laurent Poirel and colleagues in Switzerland have identified an E. coli strain, recovered from an 83-year-old Swiss man who was hospitalized last month, that possesses both colistin resistance and also VIM resistance to the carbapenems, the family of antibiotics that was considered the last and toughest before colistin. The colistin-resistance gene shared a plasmid with genes conferring resistance to chloramphenicol, flofenicol and co-trimoxazole. The authors warn, “Such accumulation of multidrug resistance traits may correspond to an ultimate step toward pandrug resistance.”Our data suggest that the advent of untreatable infections has already arrived.Marisa Haenni and collaborators in France and Switzerland queried the Resapath network in France, which conducts surveillance for antibiotic resistance in animals, found that 21 percent of bacterial samples collected from veal calves on French farms between 2005 and 2014 carried the signal of mobile colistin resistance, the gene mcr-1. There were 106 positive samples (out of 517) and they came from 94 different farm properties. On seven of those isolates, the mcr gene lived alongside ones for ESBL resistance—that’s to penicillins and to the first three generations of cephalosporin drugs—and also genes for resistance to sulfa drugs and tetracycline.

Source: Last-Ditch Resistance: More Countries, More Dire Results – Phenomena: Germination

Study shows high resistance to first-line malaria treatment | CIDRAP

More resistance woes possibleIn an accompanying commentary, however, two US Army experts caution that resistance to mefloquine is likely to return quickly now that artesunate-mefloquine has replaced dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine in Cambodian areas where artemisinin resistance is common.The writers are David Saunders, MD, MPH, of the US Army Medical Materiel Development Activity at Fort Detrick, Md., and Chanthap Lon, MD, of the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences in Phnom Penh.With other effective drug combinations lacking, they suggest, one way to fight resistant malaria in Cambodia would be to hospitalize all malaria patients to ensure full adherence to treatment. They note that that approach is used successfully in the country’s tuberculosis control program.

Source: Study shows high resistance to first-line malaria treatment | CIDRAP

Mobs and Counter-Mobs: Pitfalls, Prejudice and the Cologne Sexual Assaults – SPIEGEL ONLINE

The events in Cologne were perpetrated by a sexist criminal mob — and have triggered the rise of racist digital mob in response. The incident has shown that much of the public doesn’t care much about sexual violence, unless it comes from foreigners.

Source: Mobs and Counter-Mobs: Pitfalls, Prejudice and the Cologne Sexual Assaults – SPIEGEL ONLINE

The sudden interest in women’s rights is feigned and is nothing other than a fake argument to legitimize one’s own racism. The trivialization of sexual violence is ubiquitous and deeply rooted in society and culture — German society and culture as well. The Cologne attacks on women perpetrated by mobs of men would have been a fitting occasion to address this state of affairs and to figure out why the majority of the German public cares so shockingly little about sexual violence — unless it is committed by “men with a North African or Arab appearance.”

Parallel to this is the fact that demands for a harsh reaction by law enforcement officials are silly. Such a reaction is so obviously necessary and it is also extremely cheap. Harshness costs nothing.

Instead, structures and narratives must be focused on: in Muslim families and in other families, in the education system, in the civil administration, in society at large. What are the factors that contribute to the development of such mobs, beyond those that were obviously present: namely the collection of drunk, sexist, criminal men? What do officials actually do about “repeat offenders known to the police?”

How can one prevent the creation of racist counter-mobs that head off to light refugee hostels on fire because they are home to people who look similar to the Cologne perpetrators? And finally, the core question: How can one confront the (worldwide, cross-cultural, also German) problem of violence against women without acting as though it only has to do with a few criminals in Cologne?

Attacks on Women in Germany – The New York Times

“For the chancellor, it is important that first of all the whole truth is laid on the table, that nothing is held back, or prettified,” said Georg Streiter, a spokesman for Ms. Merkel. Anything else would undermine Germany’s rule of law and also hurt the overwhelming majority of innocent refugees who seek shelter, he added.Regarding the assaults in Cologne, “this is a matter not of refugees, but above all of criminality,” Mr. Streiter said.

Source: 18 Asylum Seekers Tied to Attacks on Women in Germany – The New York Times

Constitutional Smoke and Mirrors: Illegal Occupation of Malheur Wildlife Refuge – Native News Online

The Hammonds and the County of Harney have neither invited nor welcomed Bundy and his group of militiamen. Nonetheless, the militiamen are referring to themselves as ‘patriots’ and are encouraging all who value the constitution to come join their fight-which directly contradicts the property clause of the Constitution. Article IV, section 3, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution states, “The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States ….”  Although there are some parts of the Constitution that may seem vague or up for interpretation, this particular clause is not one of them. Additionally, the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge lies on land that was formally designated for the Paiute tribe. Conflicts in the region between Native Americans and ranchers led the federal government to discontinue the reservation in 1879 and relocate the Paiutes under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. In 1908 Teddy Roosevelt declared the area a wildlife refuge for birds and other migratory animals.

Source: Constitutional Smoke and Mirrors: Illegal Occupation of Malheur Wildlife Refuge – Native News Online

Burns Paiute Tribe Reacts to Takeover of Ancestral Land by “Group of Clowns” – Native News Online

“We as a Tribal Council, believe it is important to set the record straight: the land prior to 1890 belonged to the Paiute, not ranchers as Bundy has stated,” said Cecil Dick, tribal council member.“WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF A GROUP OF NATIVES HAD GONE OVER THERE TO TAKOVER THE LAND? I THINK PEOPLE NEED TO THINK ABOUT THAT AND WE DON’T NEED SOME GROUP OF CLOWNS TO COME IN HERE TO SPEAK FOR US…THEY NEED TO GET OUT. WE ARE HARD-WORKING PEOPLE. WE CAN STAND UP FOR OUR OWN RIGHTS,” STATED JARVIS KENNEDY, TRIBAL COUNCIL MEMBER AND  OF THE BURNS PAIUTE TRIBE.Charlotte Rodrique, tribal chairperson of the Burns Paiute Tribe. Photo from FacebookRodrique, who has been tribal chairperson of the Burns Paiute Tribe for the past five years, disputes that any group of ranchers were ever rigthful owners of the land. While the land was never ceded by the Paiute, she said the wildlife refuge land was part of a the Treaty of 1868 that was never ratified by the U.S. Senate, but both parties have  upheld the language fo the treaty.

Source: Burns Paiute Tribe Reacts to Takeover of Ancestral Land by “Group of Clowns” – Native News Online