Cambodian Government Uses NGO Law to Silence Critics
In late July the Cambodian government released a third draft of a highly contentious law that has the potential to impair the activities of human rights and civil society actors in the country.
Month: September 2011
How 9-11 Configured in Pakistan’s Aspirations for Democracy
Some two decades may have separated President Gen. Zia ul Haq and President Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf’s military rule in Pakistan, but they had one person in common – Benazir Bhutto.
Lethal Weather: The Rise of Natural Disasters Due to Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned a few years ago that “It is very likely that heat extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.”
Honduras: Dying for the Land
(IPS) – The deployment of large numbers of troops in the Bajo Aguán region of Honduras is reviving the age-old conflict over land in an area torn between organised crime groups capable of undertaking armed actions, wealthy landowners and peasants demanding further land reform.
Violence grew in the second half of August in the fertile Bajo Aguán valley, in the country’s northeastern Caribbean region. Fourteen people were killed, including the leader of the Authentic Movement for Peasant Resistance (MARCA) and a leader of the United Campesino Movement of Aguán (MUCA).
Congo rape victims face slavery in gold and mineral mines
Source: The Guardian Unlimited
Rape victims in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are being forced to work in conditions of slavery in mines producing the gold, coltan and tin ore needed to manufacture jewellery, mobile phones and laptops, a Guardian investigation has found.
The girls and women fled their villages after being raped by one or more of the militias terrorising the region. Traditionally the women were engaged in farming but their fields are in forests occupied by rebels and growing food has become too dangerous. Instead they are forced into exploitative work in mines to survive.
Brazilian Women Press Rights of Rural and Forest Labor
Last month, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, a self-proclaimed ally of rural women, promised them floating health clinics for rural rivers and stronger enforcement of labor standards.