The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda suffered a major loss this past week with the untimely death of prosecutor Shyamlal Rajapaksa. His body was found in his Arusha home in Tanzania where the international tribunal is located. Mystery surrounds the forty-two year old’s death with explanations proffered from drug overdose to murder. What has been […]
Many stories of the fate of Iran’s young protestors, journalists, and academics have become front page news as allegations of rape and torture on those arrested this summer comes to the front page of papers worldwide. The infamous Evin Prison is where many of those arrested political prisoners have been detained this summer, but what […]
There are administrations that have been undermined as a result of disasters, but others have emerged from crises more powerful than before. The difference lies in how disasters and crises are handled. Taiwan is predisposed to earthquakes and storms and is experienced in handling the typhoon season that hits the island at this time every […]
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) must prosecute those officers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) allegedly responsible for war crimes taking place during the 1994 genocide, says Human Rights Watch (HRW). The advocacy organization argues in a series of letters that the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) has enough evidence to prosecute senior […]
Shareholders for two Fidelity Investment mutual funds chose yesterday not to pass proposals that would prevent them from investing in companies that do business in Sudan. The Sudanese government is accused of committing various war crimes in relation to the conflict in Darfur. This past March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for […]
They always say that communities across the globe are often united by film, but what about generations. Film is a powerful medium that can unite cultures, bridge generation gaps and open doors. However the use of film as a medium of expression is often seen as an adult world, but the leaders of tomorrow are […]
Not even 30 km outside of Tbilisi and the first road sign to Sukhumi, Abkhazia’s de-facto capital, is a reminder of a legacy and war that continues to haunt the imaginations of IDPs who wish to return home and Georgians who wish to reintegrate the break away region. It is a sign of a conflict […]
In a three part series in Der Spiegel a new approach to aid is looked at in one Namibian village, that has been plagued by racial disparity and poverty. working to shift from a historical bias against the black poor and the elite white farmers, Namibia is seen as a country that is easily on […]
New aerial photographs show at least four illegal logging camps inside the Murunahua Reserve in Peru, Survival International reported yesterday. The Reserve is located deep in the Amazonian rainforest of Peru and was established to protect the uncontacted Murunahua Indians. The illegal logging camps present a huge threat to the Murunahua Indians, who like their neighboring ancestors, […]
According to the ‘Fatal Neglect’ report by UK based WaterAid; the International aid community is not effectively responding to the causes child deaths. In fact the system in itself is essentially broken, or damaged, as it fails to lower the child mortality rates using sustainable and targeted approach. In fact WaterAid says the international aid system is […]
In a new development in the ongoing saga of the ouster of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, the head of Honduras’s human rights commission, Ramon Custodio, publically declared Zelaya’s exile to nearby Costa Rica a mistake. However, Custodio does not believe that the actual ouster of Zelaya to be wrong, saying that Zelaya’s violations of the […]
The August 4 mass shooting of a women’s dance class in Collier, Pennsylvania, in which three women were killed and six others wounded, should be considered a bias motivated hate crime and should reinvigorate our work to end gender based violence. There is a tendency when hearing a story like this one—in which 48 year […]
A few facts about the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Numerous individual conflicts since 1996, involving up to 7 nations and 25 armed groups. Estimates of between 3.5 and 7.8 million deaths since 1998. Hundreds of thousands of refugees. Over 200,000 UN reported rapes in the last decade. Women in the […]
Aye Chan Naing, Executive Director of the Democratic Voice of Burma, was in Brussels last April for the One World film festival where Danish film maker Anders Ostergaard had screened Burma VJ. I spoke to Aye afterward and was struck by his resilience and determination in the face of an oppressive military junta. “We now […]
Arrest in China Rattles Backers of Legal Rights Chinese authorities have detained Xu Zhiyong, a scholar whose work has been marked by legal rights advocacy for migrant workers, prisoners and parents of children poisoned by tainted milk. Though he was arrested on charges of tax evasion, it is widely believed Xu is the subject of […]