Category Archives: human rights

US ship arrives in Italy port for Syria chemical weapons | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR

The U.S. ship MV Cape Ray sailed into the southern Italian port of Gioia Tauro on Tuesday to handle the unprecedented transfer and destruction of about 1,300 tons of Syrian chemical weapons.

The 648-foot (197.5-meter) U.S. government cargo ship has been fitted with two machines designed to neutralize the most toxic chemicals – including mustard gas and the raw materials for sarin nerve gas – that were removed from Syria as part of the international effort to destroy its chemical weapons.

via US ship arrives in Italy port for Syria weapons | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR.

Israeli groups call for more settlements in response to the killing of the three settlers

A group of Israeli settlers led by the mayor of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, Benny Kashriel, set up a tent today in the area between the settlement and Jerusalem, known as Area E1.

Kashriel called on the Israeli authorities to construct new settlement units in the area in response to the killing of the three Israeli settlers.

Construction in E1 is very controversial, as building settlements there would create a physical link between Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem, dividing East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and its Palestinian population centers. It would also divide the West Bank into two almost separate parts, jeopardizing the prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state.

Moreover, the Israeli right-wing political women’s group Women in Green also set up a tent, in order to pressure the authorities to build new settlements in the area between Jeba’at Auz and Gush Etzion, in the north of Hebron.

via Israeli groups call for more settlements in response to the killing of the three settlers.

Tim’s El Salvador Blog: Maura’s death and preventing more like it

Unfortunately, Maura’s story is all too familiar in El Salvador. A thousand or more people die on El Salvador’s roads each year. Through June 25, 454 persons had been killed in traffic accidents in El Salvador in 2014.   That is more than two per day.   Of those deaths, 247 people who died were pedestrians.   More than 3600 people have been injured.

via Tim’s El Salvador Blog: Maura’s death and preventing more like it.

Israeli forces ‘blow up homes’ of Palestinian suspects | Maan News Agency

{“Guilt?” being Palestinian and relatives of two – suspects, not convicted people – this is democracy?}

The two houses, which are both located in the same neighborhood in northwest Hebron, belong to the families of Marwan al-Qawasmeh, 29, and Amer Abu Eisha, 33.

After Israeli forces in Halhul north of Hebron found three bodies presumed to be those of three Israeli teens who went missing on June 12, soldiers surrounded the houses, forcibly removed the families, and declared the area a closed military zone, locals said.

Witnesses said the homes were then blown up by explosives.

Locals had told Ma’an earlier that soldiers were preparing to demolish the homes.

via Israeli forces ‘blow up homes’ of Palestinian suspects | Maan News Agency.

Spain’s unlikely squatters — New Internationalist

The Platform is best known for actively obstructing evictions. But it has also occupied 15 blocks of flats and countless more houses, specifically those owned by banks that were bailed out by the government.

It is negotiating for evicted homeowners to live there legally while paying ‘social’ rent – no more than a third of their income. So far, banks have acquiesced in two buildings.

The group reports that over a thousand Spaniards are now squatting these homes, including more than 300 children.

‘Spain has three million empty buildings – the most in Europe – and more than a million of them belong to the banks,’ says the Platform’s Gala Pin. ‘We don’t need to build more houses. We rescued the banks with our money – millions of euros of public money – and they have to give something back.’

Pressure from the Platform and its cohort of disgruntled citizens secured new social housing and mortgage relief laws last year. But the policies have largely been branded a failure. Of the more than 6,000 bank- owned properties given over to social housing under the new laws, as many as two-thirds remain empty because application conditions are so strict. Particularly galling is the clause that requires families to apply through the same financial entity that evicted them in the first place.

via Spain’s unlikely squatters — New Internationalist.

Japan Moves to Permit Greater Use of Its Military – NYTimes.com

 

The new policy cannot go into effect until at least this autumn as Parliament must still clear legal barriers to broader military action by revising more than a dozen existing laws, experts and lawmakers said. However, with Mr. Abe’s governing coalition enjoying a comfortable majority in both houses, the change seems all but certain to become reality.

Still, even under the new policy, the Japanese military, called the Self-Defense Forces, will face strict limits that will allow it to act only when there is a “clear danger” to Japan or its people, and to use only “the minimum level of force necessary,” according to the text of the cabinet decision.

via Japan Moves to Permit Greater Use of Its Military – NYTimes.com.

GOP’s Boehner Endorses Sharia for Closely Held Muslim Firms? The Political Repercussions of the Hobby Lobby Decision – NYTimes.com

“Today’s decision is a victory for religious freedom and another defeat for an administration that has repeatedly crossed constitutional lines in pursuit of its Big Government objectives,” Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. A more honest statement of the party’s thinking came in this tweet from Erick Erickson, the conservative blogger: “My religion trumps your ‘right’ to employer subsidized consequence free sex.”

via The Political Repercussions of the Hobby Lobby Decision – NYTimes.com.

So, if a firm is owned by someone who “religiously” supports FGM, child brides, honor killings, polygamy, or opposes all forms of medical assistance, blood transfusions – be careful of what you support, in case you think it’s just for you!

Mayan People’s Council Organizes National Strike in Guatemala

The majority of the 50,000 people who participated were not only local authorities from several Mayan groups, but also union members, workers from the health sector and other social groups, in a joint force which some referred to as a historical day.

Archbishop Alvaro Ramazzini talked to the people who had gathered in the Central Park of Quetzaltenango, the second city of Guatemala: “It is a historical moment to see all of you here today and with such a great consciousness. I can see this lead to the fundamental change of the state structure that we need in order to create an inclusive society, without racism and discrimination, providing common good for all of its citizens.”

Ramazzini also warned that the tactic for domination in Guatemala has always been, and still is, to “divide and rule.” He explained that the political parties are especially keen to apply this strategy and therefore the citizens must vote with great

via Mayan People’s Council Organizes National Strike in Guatemala.

Sick Majority of Supreme Court rules in favor of Hobby Lobby – chicagotribune.com

Major fail – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that business owners can object on religious grounds to a provision of President Barack Obama’s healthcare law that requires closely held companies to provide health insurance that covers birth control.

The court held on a 5-4 vote on ideological lines that such companies can seek an exemption from the so-called birth control mandate of the healthcare law. The decision means employees of those companies will have to obtain certain forms of birth control from other sources.

In a majority opinion by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, the court said the ruling applies only to the birth control mandate and does not mean companies would necessarily succeed if they made similar claims to other insurance requirements, such as vaccinations and drug transfusions.

via Supreme Court rules in favor of Hobby Lobby – chicagotribune.com.

Thousands rally against expected decision by Japan to allow greater military role

The Cabinet is expected to announce the decision Tuesday. It is one of the biggest changes in Japan’s security policy since World War II. Previously the constitution has been interpreted as allowing the use of arms only for Japan’s own self-defence, and critics say the change undermines the charter.

Abe says the revision is needed because of China’s military expansion and missile and nuclear threats from North Korea.

via Thousands rally against expected decision by Japan to allow greater military role.

Deja vu WWII build up? In September 18, 1931, a group of Jap­anese soldiers stationed in the no­rthern Chinese province of Manchuria, masquerading as Chinese bandits, blew up a few feet of the Japanese-controlled South Manchurian Railway. The clumsily orchestra­ted incident was used as a pretext to launch an attack by the Kwantung Army (Japan’s field army in China), which aimed to occupy the whole of the province and bring its rich resources under Japanese control. This was the start of a decade of escalating violence that would culminate in the German assault on Poland and the start of World War II.

Within months of the Japanese seizure of Manchuria, the fragile international order of the 1920s was in tatters. The League of Nations did little to protect China from Japanese aggression, and in February 1933 Japan left the League altogether. Japanese statesmen and military leaders had grown frustrated by an international political and economic order that they thought gave them a second-rate status.