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Around the World
José Adán Silva
IPS News
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:08 EST
Managua- Gender-based violence and sexual abuse are serious public security problems in Central America, and Nicaragua is no exception, according to reports by United Nations agencies and women's organizations.
The Central American Human Development Report 2009-2010, released on October 20 by the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, says violence against women, adolescents and children is the "hidden" and "most invisible face" of public insecurity in the region.
According to the study, entitled "Opening Spaces for Citizen Security and Human Development", two out of three women murdered in Central America are killed for gender-related reasons, a phenomenon that is known as femicide.
Zofeen Ebrahim
IPS News
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:48 EST
© Credit:Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
A bowl of curry and two rotis (unleavened wheat bread) in this child’s should tide him over to the next meal.
Karachi - Until meager resources began dwindling to almost nothing, 43-year-old Firdaus Begum had not ventured into the Khana Ghar (Food House), which serves up inexpensive but filling meals.
Not too long ago, she finally stepped into the 'tandoor' (clay oven where unleavened wheat bread is baked) restaurant and bought meals priced so low they are practically giveaways. She could not have been more grateful to Perween Saeed for her soup kitchen - where food is offered at a very low price.
Saeed - a small, energetic woman now approaching her 50s - has been running her first 'tandoor' center in Taiser Town's Khuda Ki Basti-3, located some 30 kilometers from the center of Karachi, for the past six years. She offers meals comprising a bowl or plate of curry or vegetables - depending on what is on the menu on any given day - and two 'rotis' (unleavened wheat bread). All these for the price of three Pakistani rupees (less than one U.S. cent).
Press TV
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:48 EST
© Unknown
Protestors shout slogans during a rally against the visit of Israel's President Shimon Peres to Argentina outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, November 16, 2009.
Thousands of anti-Israel demonstrators gathered in the square opposite the Argentinean parliament in Buenos Aires to protest President Shimon Peres' visit to Argentina.
"It's a disgrace that the president of our country is meeting today with the child-murderer, Shimon Peres... There are thousands of people who came here today to protest against the hospitality shown to a representative of an occupying and oppressive government," one of the protestors said.
The protestors carried pictures and placards glorifying Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, and the Leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
The signs read "Get out of Argentina, murderer Shimon Peres", while others said "Death to Zionist-fascist Israel, officer of American imperialism in the Middle East, murderers of the Palestinian people!" the signs also included pictures of Palestinian children killed during Israel's Operation Cast Lead at the beginning of the year.
Jocelyn Uy, Julie Alipala & Jeoffrey Maitem
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:41 EST
© RAFFY LERMA
Fr. Michael Sinnott, the Irish missionary freed from a "previously unknown terrorist group" in the Philippines [CIA]
Irish missionary Fr. Michael Sinnott Thursday cleared the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) of involvement in his abduction, saying a "lost command" and the "original lumad" (indigenous people) of Mindanao were responsible.
"[My abductors] are not the MILF ... They want it to be known that they are the original lumad of Mindanao who lost their homeland and everything else when the merchants came in," said Sinnott, who was freed early Thursday after 31 days as a captive.
Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno agreed on Wednesday to let the MILF facilitate Sinnott's release, according to Press Secretary Cerge Remonde.
Puno had earlier accused the MILF of involvement in the kidnapping.
Sought for comment on Sinnott's statement that his captors were not members of the MILF, Puno said through Assistant Interior Secretary Brian Yamsuan: "I stand by my previous statements.
Neeta Lal
IPS News
Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:57 EST
© Credit:Salaam Balak Trust
Indian government’s mid-day meal scheme for marginalized children has not yielded the desired fruit.
New Dehli - Here is a sobering thought on the eve of Children's Day celebrated across India on November 14. Despite the country's impressive economic growth trajectory and growing geopolitical heft, the benefits of that prosperity are not percolating down to its children who constitute a size able 30 percent of the country's 1.2 billion population.
Hence, 6,000 children die in India every day - a shocking 3,000 due to malnutrition - which Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh recently described as a "national shame". India also hosts a third of the world's child brides, according to the United Nations Children's Fund report, released in October,
Progress for Children: A Report Card on Child Protection.
Sabina Zaccaro
IPS News
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:46 EST
Rome - World farmers are not part of the official delegations at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food summit on food security that opened here Monday. But they came anyhow to express their views, since, they say, it is their communities that are most impacted by the food crisis.
Small-scale producers from the Amazonian rain forest, from Africa, the Pacific islands and the Himalayas gathered in Rome for the Peoples' Food Sovereignty Forum (Nov. 13-17), held in parallel to the FAO meetings, to discuss the serious effects of the crisis in their communities.
Judy Rebick
Rabble.ca
Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:17 EST
On December 6, Bolivia will hold a general election where Evo Morales, the first Indigenous President in South America will no doubt be re-elected. His party, the MAS, has recently released an election programme that Susan Harvie has kindly summarized and translated. Bolivia is reinventing democractic socialism. They are in the process of creating a plurinational state with equal rights for all nations and people, redistributing land, providing free health and education for everyone, creating what they call a pluri-economy that includes public, private, co-operative and communitarian. In four years of power they have eliminated illiteracy, reduced extreme poverty by 6%, insituted a senior's pension for the first time, nationalized hydrocarbons and achieved a 6.5% economic growth. They are showing that a government that acts in the interests of the majority really can succeed and that an alternative is truly possible. The full list of achievements and election platform for the next four years is below:
John Pilger
NewStatesman
Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:11 EST
When General Suharto, the west's man, seized power in Indonesia in the mid-1960s, he offered "a gleam of light in Asia", rejoiced
Time magazine. That he had killed up to a million "communists" was of no account in the acquisition of what Richard Nixon called "the richest hoard of natural resources, the greatest prize in South-east Asia".
In November 1967, the booty was handed out at an extraordinary conference in a lakeside hotel in Geneva. The participants included the most powerful capitalists in the world, the likes of David Rockefeller, and senior executives of the major oil companies and banks, General Motors, British American Tobacco, Imperial Chemical Industries, American Express, Siemens, Goodyear, US Steel. The president of Time Incorporated, James Linen, opened the proceedings with this prophetic description of globalisation: "We are trying to create a new climate in which private enterprise and developing countries work together for the greater profit of the free world. The world of international enterprise is more than governments . . . It is a seamless web, which has been shaping the global environment at revolutionary speed."
Xinhua
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:00 EST
Yemeni tribesmen have kidnapped a Japanese engineer who serves the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) northeast of the capital Sanaa, a provincial official said on Monday.
The official told Xinhua that Yemeni tribesmen had kidnapped a Japanese engineer in the Arhab district which is located about 60 km northeast of Sanaa.
A source at the Japanese embassy told Xinhua that "the kidnapping incident occurred when the engineer was on a working visit to one of the projects financed by JICA"
The official, who asked not to be named said "negotiations are underway with the kidnappers to release the Japanese architect" and predicted it could be released in the near future.
"They (the kidnappers) want their relatives jailed (in Yemen) to be released," the official said.
Brian Smith and Ann Talbot
World Socialist Website
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:10 EST
The ministerial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation met in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, last week, attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and representatives of more than 300 Chinese companies. Wen took the opportunity to chide the US for its large budget deficit.
He made it clear that China intended to press ahead with its programme of investment in Africa despite American opposition. He pledged $10 billion (£6bn) in concessional loans - loans with lower interest rates and longer repayment periods than standard loans - to Africa over the next three years. His offer was warmly welcomed by African ministers.
Within days of the conference closing, the US responded. The International Monetary Fund threatened to cut off lines of credit to the Democratic Republic of Congo if it did not scale back a Chinese investment plan. The IMF, a body dominated by the US, showed that it is quite prepared to plunge this war-torn and impoverished African country into financial isolation, a fate that has already befallen Zimbabwe, with disastrous consequences for the mass of the population.
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