Press freedoms and diversity of the press have long been contentious issues in Italy ever since the current Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi secured almost 90% of the entire private Italian media market. Berlusconi, who has been rapt in scandals and corruption charges since his first stint as prime minister in 1994, seems immune as he continues […]
Kaing Guek Eav, the leader at the notorious S-21 prison for the Khmer Rouge regime known simply as Duch, told a U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal Monday that the children of inmates were murdered to keep them silent. “When children arrived at the center I gave the order to kill them because we were afraid those […]
Childbirth is still too deadly in Nigeria Only 35 percent of births are attended by a skilled health professional, and one in 18 women dies in pregnancy or childbirth, according to World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) statistics. The statistics have changed little over the past decade. “Nigeria’s maternal mortality rate is […]
With Italy deporting asylum seekers and infringing on the fundamental rights inscribed within the EU, European policy makers are facing some tough decisions on how to best manage immigration. EU member states are supposed to embody the ideals of the Union. But the reality is often very different. And by deporting those seeking refugee back […]
Cross-strait relations between the Chinese mainland and the Republic of Taiwan have made significant progress with an extension of goodwill to Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which strives for Taiwanese independence. Earlier this month, Kaohsiung municipality Mayor Chen Chu became the highest ranking DPP official to have set foot on the mainland. Not only is […]
Iranian human rights activist and former journalist Emad Baghi has been awarded the 2009 Martin Ennals Laureate Award. For a man who has been thrown in jail, threatened with death, and continues to struggle against the insurmountable odds in Tehran, Baghi is testament to a passion for justice and fundamental rights. A peacemaker, his controversial […]
Earlier this month Nicolas Kristof, a long time advocate on all forms of modern slavery, wrote a piece entitled, Girls on Our Streets, in which he sought not to bring attention to modern slavery itself, but to the plight of young girls right here in our own backyard. American teenage girls continue to work the […]
Last week Judge Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama to the Supreme Court. Politico is not alone in interpreting the move as part of the Obama administration’s “relentless courtship” of women and Latinos who were key in securing his election. Sonia Sotomayor’s appointment to the Supreme Court would be historic. She would be […]
“We worry about what a child will be tomorrow, yet we forget that the child is already someone today.” -Stacia Tauscher In a world that is increasingly fast paced we focus on today and we rarely look past the moment at hand, towards tomorrow and what will come following. However it is this inability to […]
A U.N. human rights team is scheduled to visit the Gaza Strip during the weekend to investigate Israeli conduct during the Gaza offensive in December. South African Judge Richard Gladstone, the former chief prosecutor with the international tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, leads a team of four to the Gaza Strip, entering through […]
This blog has also been posted in FPA’s Latin America Blog. Mexico in 2009 has become the recipient of at least half of the most famous biblical plagues starting in 2008. This past week brought yet another earthquake to Mexico, the second this month that received some media coverage outside the country. In addition to […]
Yesterday, Amnesty International released their global survey report on the state of human rights around the world. Iren Khan, Sec-Gen of Amnesty, made a salient observation when she attended a high-level meeting in New York on MDGs last September. Countries are hard pressed to back up their rhetoric on meeting the MDG goals set for 2015 she […]
What do you sell when you have nothing left to sell, you have no money, no food, little water, and no prospects of employment? The future looks bleak and so you sell the only thing you have left…your own child! For if you cannot sale one child then how can you feed the others? News […]
Cholera still plagues Zimbabwe Zimbabwe will soon see more than 100,000 people infected with cholera even though the epidemic appears to be subsiding, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned in a report released Tuesday. A collapse of water, health and sanitation infrastructure has helped drive the epidemic and has yet […]
First the child is led into a small holding room. She waits. Her mother is visibly shocked, the stressed lines of her face and swollen eyes awash in tears. An hour or two pass; a television is stuck on one channel as the incessant rabble of another world enters the surreal shock of her horror. […]