Social Watch news

Ezzaddin Alasbahi, from Yemeni Human
Rights Network, and UN officers.
(Photo: HRITC)

Source: HRITC

The Human Rights Information & Training Center (HRITC) condemned the continued targeting of peaceful demonstrators in Yemen and the use of the armed force against them. This organisation, focal point of Social Watch in the Arab country, reported that a young man had died and five others resulted injured by live bullets the day before in Taiz city.

Source: PNGO

The Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO) condemned the kidnapping and killing of Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian supporter of the Palestinian cause, in Gaza. This crime was done by individuals who don't represent the Palestinians and their values, traditions, struggle, and cause, said the organisation.

Source: CELS

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) decreed this month safety measures to guarantee the return of the members of the Toba indigenous community known as “La Primavera” to its land at the Argentinian province of Formosa. The action was promoted by the State Prosecutor’s Office of this Latin American country and the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, CELS), national focal point of Social Watch.

Source: Eurostep (based on UN documents and articles published by The Guardian)

On the occasion of the International Day of Peasant’s Struggles, celebrated on 17 April, the importance of peasants and small farmers for the world’s food production has been stressed. Despite their importance for feeding the world’s populations, many continue to suffer from oppression and intimidation, experts have warned.

Source: African Agenda Editorial, 21 April (Third World Network Africa)

Since the need for stimulus packages in the developed world became an issue after the global economic crisis, there has been a strident call for the return of the 'developmental state'. Africa, once more caught in the whirlwind of the global economic downturn is mulling over its lost opportunities as it went for broke and under the guidance of the IFIs abandoned the developmental state agenda that most of its countries set for themselves after independence, according to the last editorial of African Agenda published this week by Third World Network Africa.

The European Parliament's Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee (FEMM) discussed last week the draft opinion report on “EU external policies in favour of democratisation”, that calls to put gender equality at the heart of all Community policies, programmes and projects at EU level as well as towards third countries.


St. Mary's Home for maternal
services in Ottawa
(Photo: Nancy MacNider)

Source: Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA)

Women in Boznia and Herzegovia now have a greater chance of surviving childbirth than women in Canada, according to the Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA), focal point of Social Watch in that North American country.

Source: Intermon Oxfam

In a letter to the G-20 economy ministers assembled in Washington, a thousand economists have expressed their support for the Robin Hood tax on speculative financial transactions. Those who signed the letter include leading figures from universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Berkeley and the Sorbonne.

by Martin Khor*

In the last round of negotiations about climate change, which was held at the start of the month in Bangkok, the developing countries of the South asked the countries of the industrialized North to definitively clarify once and for all whether they wish to remain within the limits of Kyoto Protocol or renounce the convention, writes Martin Khor, executive director of South Centre.

by Roberto Bissio*

The negotiations of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, also known as the “development round” because they ought to include subjects of interest to countries on the periphery, began in 1991 and have now bogged down. To get the press interested, some pro-free trade negotiators are making an effort to find intelligible metaphors to save journalists the time and effort involved in actually analyzing the figures and documents, wrote Roberto Bissio, executive coordinator of Social Watch. Some of these metaphors are extremely feeble, like comparing trade liberalization to bicycles (as the United States did) or to mules (an idea from the Director General of the WTO, Pascal Lamy).

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