Populism is eroding human rights across the world, says Amnesty International | News | DW | 22.02.2018

Populism is eroding human rights across the world, says Amnesty International | News | DW | 22.02.2018

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International published its annual report, warning of increased violations across the globe.

Amnesty International's David Griffiths told DW that they made a conscious choice to release the report in Washington, given "how President (Donald) Trump's hate-filled rhetoric has translated into reality." "There are complex links between human rights abuses and social inequality," Griffiths added. "But one of the ways we see them connected is how many leaders have exploited people's fears about economic fragility in order to promote hatred and fear."

But the United States isn't the only place to witness a dangerous erosion of human rights due to populist leaders. Across the globe, Amnesty said, political leaders have used divisive rhetoric to shore up support for their causes, including in Turkey, Hungary and Myanmar.

The report said that at least 312 human rights activists were killed in 2017 because of their work. Journalists and media workers are increasingly being targeted by state actors, it noted. Griffiths said the number of human rights defenders killed in 2017 marked an "increase on the previous year."

"But it is not just killing; it is also intimidation and smears and harassment, making life very difficult for those who choose to stand up for human rights," he said. "And those threats are coming from lots of different places, whether it is governments or armed groups or companies or others."

The report called on Germany to do more at the international level to defend human rights, especially for the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told DW that the human rights situation is "getting alarmingly worse in many places" across the globe.

"It seems people are forgetting it now, and that's very worrying because then you risk a repeat of many of the awful things that have happened in not-so-distant history," Colville said.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, backed by 48 of the 58 UN member states in 1948, was created in response to the atrocities committed during World War II.

"The anniversary this year is a critical opportunity to try and reclaim those values that are articulated so beautifully in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - the idea of the fundamental dignity and equality of every member of the human family,"

Oppose Ford's Plan to Cut Access to Safe Drinking Water

Oppose Ford's Plan to Cut Access to Safe Drinking Water

The media is reporting that Ford is proposing changes to allow businesses to bypass environmental regulations, including the Ontario Clean Water Act which keeps our drinking water safe.

These rules were brought in after six people died and thousands were poisoned in the Walkerton ecoli outbreak.

Doug Ford is putting people's lives at risk in order to help his big business friends make more money. He's putting our lives and the environment at risk just so businesses can make generate bigger profits. We must not let this happen.

Email Doug Ford, the Minister of the Environment and your Conservative MPP to tell them not to cut safe drinking water protections. 

Ten Good News Stories for Kids in 2018 | Human Rights Watch

Ten Good News Stories for Kids in 2018 | Human Rights Watch:

A couple of years ago, a friend following me on Twitter said he found my feed really depressing. “Doesn’t anything good ever happen for children?” he asked.   Spreading doom and gloom sometimes seems an occupational hazard of human rights work. But I’ve taken my friend’s words to heart and now, as we approach the end of the year, here are 10 good news stories for kids:

1.  A number of armed forces and armed groups released child soldiers from their ranks in 2018, including more than 900 in South Sudan, 833 in Nigeria, and 75 in Myanmar.

2. Twenty-one US states now ban sentences of life without parole for crimes committed by children, up from only five in 2012.

3. The number of children detained in adult prisons in the US has dropped by more than 80 percent in the past 20 years.

4. The number of children and adolescents who are out of school has dropped by 110 million since 2000.

5.In 1979, only one country prohibited all corporal punishment of children: Sweden. Today, 54 do. 6. AIDS-related deaths are expected to decline by 57 percent among children under 14 by 2030.

6. Child marriage is on the decline. In the past decade, rates have dropped by 15 percent globally, and by one-third in South Asia.

7. Rates of female genital mutilation have also fallen dramatically among girls in Africa since 1990. A 2018 fatwa in Somaliland forbids the practice.

8. Eleven countries endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration in 2018, bringing to 82 the number of countries that have pledged to protect students, teachers, and schools during war.

9. The UN reports that military use of schools has dropped by one-third since 2014.

10. Since 2000, the number of children in child labor globally fell by 94 million, a drop of more than one-third.

To be sure, millions of children continue to experience exploitation and abuse on a daily basis. But these successes show progress is possible. As we celebrate them, let’s also renew our commitment to advance the rights of children in 2019.

Council of Canadians debunks Fraser Institute water report | The Council of Canadians

Council of Canadians debunks Fraser Institute water report | The Council of Canadians: The Fraser Institute recently released the report, Evaluating the State of Fresh Water in Canada. The report concludes that “...there is no shortage of freshwater in Canada as a whole. Despite concerns about water usage and the unequal distribution of freshwater across the country, freshwater resources in Canada are abundant and Canadians consume only small fraction of the water supply.”  
 The information in the report and its conclusions paint an inaccurate and dangerous picture of water security in Canada. Information about long-standing drinking water advisories in First Nations, droughts and other climate events, and extreme energy projects like the tar sands is missing from the report. This gives a skewed view of water quantity and quality in Canada.  
 Drinking water advisories in First Nations   Council of Canadians chapters flagged the lack of information on Drinking Water Advisories (DWAs) in First Nations. Nowhere in the report are DWAs in First Nations (or municipalities for that matter) mentioned.

A War on Science, Morals, and Law (US)

A War on Science, Morals, and Law: new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists accuses Trump’s Interior Department of “relentless attacks on science ranging from suppressing and sidelining the work of the department’s scientists to systematically refusing to act on climate change.” To put it mildly, this is concerning.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is an advocacy group whose words are chosen to advance their viewpoint. They refer often to “science,” which we assume to be non ideological, universal, and true. In this sense, science is the highest guiding principle that all should follow, as it is in the best interest of our nation and planet. In practice, the power dynamics and other social divisions within our society don’t go away when one does “science.”

 Yale sociologist Justin Farrell points out that disputes over the management of nature can be more moral than scientific in nature. Science can tell us how many wolves or grizzly bears live in Wyoming, or how much habitat and genetic diversity they need to survive as a species. But the belief that humans should manage nature to preserve intact ecosystems is a moral one. Economics and politics matter too, as we determine whose interests and opinions matter most. What’s it worth to us to protect Bears Ears National Monument, which encompasses land sacred to Native Americans? To Native Americans and those who support them, the land is priceless. The mining industries can put a specific price tag on the minerals in the ground. Whether it’s worth banning mining on land that is beautiful, ecologically valuable, and sacred to Native Americans is a moral question, not a scientific one.

 That said, science is needed to help us make sound decisions that compromise between groups with competing values and interests. The government needs to produce, believe, and disseminate science that will allow it to act in the best interests of the American people, and to help the people hold the government accountable. The Trump administration clearly isn’t doing that. According to the LA Times, “Interior isn’t the only science agency that has been turned into a billboard for political and ideological propaganda. The Environmental Protection Agency has been similarly hollowed out, and the Department of Health and Human Services has all but abandoned its duty to advance Americans’ access to affordable healthcare.” There’s another reason why we need solid science within the government: to enable the government to follow its own laws. Trump’s administration is taking a see no evil, hear no evil approach. Without information about how a mining project might impact an endangered species, or human health, or water quality, they’re going to end up enabling projects that violate existing laws. Which is probably the point. It’s understandable that some people disagree with our laws or don’t wish to follow them.

However, we have a democratic process for changing those laws. When it comes to public safety regulations, industries and politicians have no business going around voters by suppressing the science needed to uphold the laws that protect them.

#HumanRightsDay: I have to be the voice to the powerless - Michelle Bachelet | IOL News

#HumanRightsDay: I have to be the voice to the powerless - Michelle Bachelet | IOL News

Exclusive: Today marks 70 years since the signing of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights. Noni Mokati chats to former Chilean President and now United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet about the status quo of human rights across the world.

Before she relinquished her position in government in March this year, Michelle Bachelet had a myriad of responsibilities. One of these, which she was vehemently determined to see through, was to ensure that the dignity and rights of fellow Chilean men, women and children were upheld. Now in her new position, she maintains that her mandate is very clear.

“I have to be the voice to the powerless,” she said. On Friday, Bachalet joined South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg where both leaders spoke on the important role the declaration of human rights has played post World War 2.

Indifference to sexual violence eats away at us all, say Nobel pair | World news | The Guardian

Indifference to sexual violence eats away at us all, say Nobel pair | World news | The Guardian

Nobel laureates Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad have called on the world to protect victims of wartime sexual violence as they angrily criticised indifference to the plight of women and children in conflict in their peace prize acceptance speeches.

Mukwege, a Congolese gynaecologist and world expert on rape in conflict, and Murad, a Yazidi activist and survivor of Isis sexual slavery, said victims were sometimes valued less than commercial interests.

In a ceremony in which the laureates were cheered and given standing ovations, Mukwege and Murad called on the world to do more.

“If there is a war to be waged, it is the war against the indifference which is eating away at our societies,” Mukwege said at the ceremony in Oslo. His Panzi hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s war-torn east has treated the wounds of tens of thousands of women and children for sexual assaults that have become a “new reality” in the country. He said the violence “shames our common humanity”.

In her speech, Murad implored the global community to help to free hundreds of women and girls still held by jihadis, saying the world must protect her people and other vulnerable communities.

“It is my view that all victims deserve a safe haven until justice is done for them,” she said, pausing briefly, seemingly overcome with emotion.

Write on your own | Amnesty Canada, Dec 10

Write on your own | Amnesty Canada

This event registration is for those who are not attending a letter writing event, but are writing on their own.

Join Amnesty International on December 10th to Write for Rights on Human Rights Day! On or around December 10th millions of people across the world use the power of letter writing to protect individuals or communities whose human rights have been denied.

Everyone can participate! You don`t need to have any previous letter writing or Amnesty International experience. Amnesty welcomes all those who are keen to keep shining the light on human rights. Whether you plan to participate as a letter-writer, event organizer, event attendee or donor, you'll be making a difference.

Does letter writing work? It sure does! Check out our success stories page to learn more about previous Write for Rights cases that have been freed from prison or seen victory in their struggle: http://writeathon.ca/successes/

Write for Rights - Amnesty INternational, Human Rights Day

Write for Rights

WRITE4RIGHTS EVENTS
When thousands of people from around the world speak out at the same time, our voices united cannot be ignored. By participating in Write for Rights, you’re challenging systemic human rights abuses like torture and the death penalty. You’re standing up for women’s rights, LGBTI rights and corporate accountability. Each letter you write can change a life.

Use the link to find an event, or create one in your area.

#

Apocalyptic Climate Reporting Completely Misses the Point

Apocalyptic Climate Reporting Completely Misses the Point | Portside
(read the entire report - this is a very good analysis)
Are we doomed? It’s the most common thing people ask me when they learn that I study climate politics. Fair enough. The science is grim, as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just reminded us with a report on how hard it will be to keep average global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But it’s the wrong question. Yes, the path we’re on is ruinous. It’s just as true that other, plausible pathways are not. That’s the real, widely ignored, and surprisingly detailed message of the IPCC report. We’re only doomed if we change nothing. The IPCC report makes it clear that if we make the political choice of bankrupting the fossil-fuel industry and sharing the burden of transition fairly, most humans can live in a world better than the one we have now...

Reporting on the IPCC, and climate change more broadly, is unbalanced. It’s fixated on the predictions of climate science and the opinions of climate scientists, with cursory gestures to the social, economic, and political causes of the problem. Yet analysis of these causes is as important to climate scholarship as modeling ice-sheet dynamics and sea-level rise. Reductionist climate reporting misses this. Many references to policy are framed in terms of carbon pricing. This endorses the prevailing contempt in establishment circles for people’s capacity to govern themselves beyond the restrictions of market rule. Meanwhile, the IPCC report is overflowing with analyses showing that we can avoid runaway climate change, improve most people’s lives, and prioritize equality through a broad set of interventions.

It remains physically possible to keep global warming at a relatively safe 1.5 degrees Celsius, and certainly a less safe—but not apocalyptic—2 degrees. This would require dramatic changes in economic policy and doubling down on the powers of public planning. Taxing carbon is essential, but is just one of many complementary tools. Using “command and control” regulatory methods, the Clean Air Act cleaned up much of the United States years before “market mechanisms” became famous. Indeed, “command and control” is the centerpiece of the best climate policies in the United States. Take California: There, the state’s regulatory mandates forcing utilities to source more renewable energy are the main reason emissions have gone down. In contrast, the market-mechanism piece of California’s climate policy, a “cap and trade” program, has failed to slash emissions; it may even have facilitated a moderate increase in carbon pollution in the state’s poorest neighborhoods.

Despite the framing of most news coverage about it, the latest IPCC report is innovative precisely because it uses new social science to highlight the climate implications of a range of political choices. But you have to read beyond the “Summary for Policymakers” to see it. The IPCC has embraced an approach developed by climate scholars called “Shared Socioeconomic Pathways,” or SSPs. Prior to the latest report, the IPCC projected future scenarios based on skeletal, technocratic models of energy, land use, and climate. They represented climate politics as being like a dashboard with a few dials that engineers could turn—a little more renewable energy here, a touch less deforestation there. In contrast, the SSPs imagine different possible climate futures in terms of realistic clusters of policy decisions, which in turn affect emissions, land use, and how the impacts of extreme weather are felt.

In the current report, there are five SSPs, which illustrate the huge differences between possible paths forward. Each pathway represents a different set of approaches for slashing emissions and coping with climate change. The first three strike me as most plausible. SSP 1, called “Sustainability,” imagines a world where policies increasingly favor sustainability, equity, education, and health care (which all reduces population growth), technological progress, and energy efficiency. This pathway also includes major cuts to fossil-fuel investment, which combined with public policy drive a hard, fast shift to clean energy and increased efficiency.

Compared to this rosy scenario, SSP 3, “Regional rivalry,” is terrifying: It projects low technological progress, few advances in health and education, high energy use, low international cooperation, and a booming population. Thanks to Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, it’s depressingly easy to imagine this world, though we’re not there yet. SSP 2, a “middle of the road” scenario, feels closest to our current reality; it projects only moderate amounts of technological progress, cooperation, and social investment. While SSP 2’s climate implications are also scary—limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius on this path is hard—the scenario is flexible enough for a turn to 1 or 3, better or worse. SSP 4, “Inequality,” and SSP 5, “Fossil-fuelled development” explore other unsettling options. The next report will have nine of these.

The scenarios do a nice job of tying together disparate social science about drivers of greenhouse-gas emissions beyond crude energy accounting. For instance, women’s improved education, job prospects, and smaller families in SSP 1 are a key reason climate models find that it is the easiest path to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. Keywan Riahi, one of the architects of this new modeling approach, told me that some of the numbers glossed in the IPCC report’s “Summary for Policymakers” miss crucial takeaways, like the social-impact analysis buried deeper in the report’s third chapter. For instance, at two degrees Celsius warming, in an SSP 3 world, between 750 million and 1.2 billion people would be severely exposed to climate-linked extreme weather, according to a 2018 study discussed in the IPCC report. In contrast, the IPCC reports, under the SSP 1 scenario, well under 100 million people would be hard hit by extreme weather at the same level of warming.

Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN |

Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN | Environment | The Guardian
The world must thrash out a new deal for nature in the next two years or humanity could be the first species to document our own extinction, warns the United Nation’s biodiversity chief.

Ahead of a key international conference to discuss the collapse of ecosystems, Cristiana Pașca Palmer said people in all countries need to put pressure on their governments to draw up ambitious global targets by 2020 to protect the insects, birds, plants and mammals that are vital for global food production, clean water and carbon sequestration.

Petition: No milk from BGH-injected cows in Canada

Petition: No milk from BGH-injected cows in Canada!
In January 1998, the Health Canada internal review team found evidence that rBST is not broken down in digestion. They noted the effects of the drug on test animals in a 90-day rat study conducted in the late 1980s for Monsanto and contained in the manufacturer's New Drug Submission. The Gaps Analysis Report noted that 20 to 30% of test animals that received high doses of the drug orally for 90 days produced antibodies to it. Some also showed evidence of cysts and other early effects. Some studies suggest an increase of IGF-1 levels in rBST milk, and evidence that IGF-1 is not broken down in digestion but survives in the presence of casein, a milk protein. Recent articles in scientific journals suggest that elevated IGF-1 levels are associated with a higher incidence of breast and prostate cancer, showing that IGF-1 may have local effects.

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,

Twenty years ago, Canada made the wise and responsible decision to keep genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH) out of our dairy supply, protecting the health of cows and consumers across the country.

Now, the pending USMCA and CPTPP trade agreements threaten to bring imported dairy to Canadian grocery stores in unprecedented levels - and rBGH along with it.

I call on you to uphold Canada's higher standard and keep this harmful genetically engineered hormone out of Canada.