Ethical Action Alerts for Human Rights, Environmental Issues, Peace, and Social Justice, supporting the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and UN Treaties and Conventions.
The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have pushed between 143 and 163 million people into poverty in 2021.
The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have increased poverty by 8.1% in 2020 relative to 2019 (from 8.4% to 9.1%).
The number of people living under the international poverty lines for lower and upper middle-income countries is projected to have increased in the poverty rate of 2.3 percentage points.
Almost half of the projected new poor will be in South Asia, and more than a third in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In the Middle East and North Africa, extreme poverty rates nearly doubled between 2015 and 2018, from 3.8 percent to 7.2 percent, spurred by the conflicts in the Syrian Arab Republic and the Republic of Yemen.
Current projections indicate that shared prosperity will have dropped sharply in nearly all economies in 2020–21, as the pandemic’s economic burden is felt across the entire income distribution.
COVID-19 has already been the worst reversal on the path towards the goal of global poverty reduction in last three decades.
Parents, guardians, education workers and community members are concerned about children in Ontario who are not yet eligible for vaccination against COVID-19.
The Ford government has placed the burden of purchasing the rapid antigen tests on to parents, guardians, and education workers, thereby increasing inequality of access to health and safety measures for communities that disproportionately bear the burden of the impacts of COVID-19.
Join us for a virtual event on Orange Shirt Day, a national movement in recognition of the experiences of survivors of residential schools in Canada. In the spirit of reconciliation and healing, Canadians are asked to wear an orange shirt on this day to acknowledge that every child matters.
Whether you are working or going to school online or in-person, wear your orange shirt on September 30 to show your solidarity with Indigenous people.
As Canada prepares to recognize the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Thursday, Shingoose, who is affectionately known as Gramma Shingoose, says the desire to hear from survivors has soared across the country. “This year, 2021, is a year of truth for us survivors,” Shingoose said in an interview. When the Tk’emlups te Secwe’pemc Nation announced the grim discovery of what are believed to be the 215 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., Canadians had to face the horrific realities Indigenous children and youth had to live with while being forced to attend the schools.Stories of unmarked burial grounds were featured in a report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2015, but the events of this summer sparked a national conversation unlike anything before.Some schools, businesses and different levels of government across the country are also choosing to observe the day, which is also known as Orange Shirt Day. As non-Indigenous people in Canada navigate the best way to commemorate and honour survivors and their families, educators and those who were forced to attend the schools are offering advice on what can be done in the lead up to Sept. 30. Shingoose believes it’s important to listen to survivors’ experiences. “I ask Canada to see us, to hear us and to believe us,” she said, echoing the sentiments of Murray Sinclair, who served as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This year Shingoose suggests Canadians take a moment of silence at 2:15 p.m. – referring to the number of graves found in Kamloops. She adds small gestures such as displaying an orange shirt in your window can have a powerful impact on survivors.
On September 23, Kenya’s Film Censorship Board (KFCB) slapped a ban on “I Am Samuel,” claiming the film contravenes Kenyan values. Which values? During my years living in Kenya, the values I saw in action every day included care and kindness, tolerance, and openness to difference. Kenya is diverse in every way: geographically, ethnically, religiously, and, yes, in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity. For over a decade, LGBT people have publicly staked out their place within Kenya’s vibrant social fabric, challenging discrimination and claiming their rights.
KFCB may want to silence them with flimsy claims that reduce Samuel and his partner Alex’s rich relationship to a “same sex marriage agenda.” It will not succeed; censorship rarely does. Like the lesbian-themed film “Rafiki,” banned by KFCB in 2018, Samuel's story will be seen by Kenyans who will make up their own minds. In trying to force on the blinders to deny LGBT people’s existence and rights, KFCB is on the wrong side of history.
September 28 has been a regional campaign for the decriminalization of abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean for over twenty years before being taken on by SRHR activists all over the world in 2011. The campaign was formerly known as the Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion.
China’s pledge to limit abortions puts women’s bodies under the state’s control just as the one-child policy did and could endanger the lives of women seeking abortions, rights groups have said.
The Chinese government announced on Monday that it would seek to reduce abortions for “non-medical reasons” – a move seen as being in line with its attempts to accelerate birthrates.
Government guidelines did not provide detail on what constitutes a non-medical abortion.
Yaqiu Wang, China researcher for Human Rights Watch, said: “This government in the past 40 years has tried to restrict women’s reproductive rights, making women forcefully abort their children and now restricting abortions. I don’t know what non-medical means, but everyone who knows Chinese government knows this isn’t good.
“The core of the policy is the same – to restrict women’s reproductive means, to see women as a tool. Now there’s an ageing population, a not large enough labour force, so we need more babies. It’s the same: seeing women as a tool for economic goals.”
Yaqiu Wang said what the government defined as non-medical reasons and how the rules would be implemented was unclear, but that the move could endanger the lives of women who were denied abortions. “Around the world a lot of women die from not having safe access to abortions,” she said.
Amnesty’s China researcher Kai Ong, said: “The Chinese government has a record of enforcing birth policies that blatantly violate reproductive rights, such as implementing forced birth control measures and limiting women’s access to healthcare. This announcement could further restrict women’s access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, especially for unmarried women and same-sex couples.
U.S., Europe urge Turkey to revist ditching violence-on-women pact: ISTANBUL, March 21 (Reuters) - U.S. and EuropISTANBUL, March 21 (Reuters) - U.S. and European leaders denounced what they called Turkey's baffling and concerning decision to pull out of an international accord designed to protect women from violence, and urged President Tayyip Erdogan to reconsider.
Erdogan's government on Saturday withdrew from the Istanbul Convention, which it signed onto in 2011 after it was forged in Turkey's biggest city. Turkey said domestic laws, not outside fixes, would protect women's rights.
The Council of Europe accord pledged to prevent, prosecute and eliminate domestic violence and promote equality. Killings of women have surged in Turkey in recent years and thousands of women protested on Saturday against the government's move in Istanbul and other cities.
The United States, Germany, France and the European Union responded with dismay - marking the second time in four days that Europe's leaders have criticised Ankara over rights issues, after a Turkish prosecutor moved to close down a pro-Kurdish political party.
U.S. President Joe Biden said Turkey's withdrawal from the accord was "deeply disappointing" and a step backward in efforts to end violence against women globally.
"Around the world, we are seeing increases in the number of domestic violence incidents, including reports of rising femicide in Turkey," Biden said in a statement on Sunday. "Countries should be working to strengthen and renew their commitments to ending violence against women, not rejecting international treaties designed to protect women and hold abusers accountable."
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said late on Saturday that the decision was incomprehensible and "risks compromising the protection and fundamental rights of women and girls in Turkey (and) sends a dangerous message across the world. ... We therefore cannot but urge Turkey to reverse its decision."
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen - who spoke with Erdogan a day before Turkey ditched the pact - wrote on Twitter on Sunday: "Women deserve a strong legal framework to protect them," and she called on all signatories to ratify it.
The Council of Europe, which gathers 47 members states, also regretted the decision.
The convention had split Erdogan's ruling AK Party (AKP) and even his family. Officials floated pulling out last year amid a dispute over how to curb domestic violence in Turkey, where femicide has tripled in 10 years, one monitoring group has said.ean leaders denounced what they called Turkey's baffling and concerning decision to pull out of an international accord designed to protect women from violence, and urged President Tayyip Erdogan to reconsider. Erdogan's government on Saturday withdrew from the Istanbul Convention, which it signed onto in 2011 after it was forged in Turkey's biggest city. Turkey said domestic laws, not outside fixes, would protect women's rights. The Council of Europe accord pledged to prevent, prosecute and eliminate domestic violence and promote equality. Killings of women have surged in Turkey in recent years and thousands of women protested on Saturday against the government's move in Istanbul and other cities. The United States, Germany, France and the European Union responded with dismay - marking the second time in four days that Europe's leaders have criticised Ankara over rights issues, after a Turkish prosecutor moved to close down a pro-Kurdish political party. U.S. President Joe Biden said Turkey's withdrawal from the accord was "deeply disappointing" and a step backward in efforts to end violence against women globally. "Around the world, we are seeing increases in the number of domestic violence incidents, including reports of rising femicide in Turkey," Biden said in a statement on Sunday. "Countries should be working to strengthen and renew their commitments to ending violence against women, not rejecting international treaties designed to protect women and hold abusers accountable." EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said late on Saturday that the decision was incomprehensible and "risks compromising the protection and fundamental rights of women and girls in Turkey (and) sends a dangerous message across the world. ... We therefore cannot but urge Turkey to reverse its decision." European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen - who spoke with Erdogan a day before Turkey ditched the pact - wrote on Twitter on Sunday: "Women deserve a strong legal framework to protect them," and she called on all signatories to ratify it. The Council of Europe, which gathers 47 members states, also regretted the decision. The convention had split Erdogan's ruling AK Party (AKP) and even his family. Officials floated pulling out last year amid a dispute over how to curb domestic violence in Turkey, where femicide has tripled in 10 years, one monitoring group has said.
The price of bitcoin has reached US$50,000 (£36,095) – another all-time high. It’s hard to believe that 10,000 bitcoin would only buy a couple of pizzas
ten years ago. It’s even stranger to think that bitcoins are completely
virtual. You can’t hold one, except on a hard drive, and there’s no
underlying asset to them. A bitcoin is simply a digital representation
of the computer power needed to make one, what’s called its
“proof-of-work”.
This isn’t actually a new idea though. Rai stones were one of the first forms of money used on the Micronesian islands of Yap. To get hold of a Rai, you had to row a canoe for 500km or so to Palau and chisel away at some local limestone. Then you needed to take the 3m-wide lump of rock back to Yap without sinking in the Pacific. No one is quite sure when it started, but the practice is at least several centuries old. Yapese money had no inherent value. For everyone to respect the proof-of-work, the process was deliberately inefficient and incredibly resource-intensive, just like bitcoin
This might all sound like a harmless game of digital bingo. But with
more and more people enticed by the heady rewards, bitcoin mining on
some days uses as much energy as Poland and generates 37 million tonnes of CO2 each year.
‘Poster child for destruction’: The fight to save the Duffins Creek wetland from developers | TVO.org: PICKERING — Several months ago, Devin Mathura and Ally Zaheer learned that a large swath of wetland in their hometown of Pickering was set to be turned into a massive warehouse. Stuck in their respective bedrooms amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the university students started interviewing experts and local politicians about the proposed development.
“What is most at stake is the future of our green spaces,” says Zaheer. “I am extremely worried about the fact that they're just going to get into this cycle of paving over things, and it's going to be too late before they realize what's done."
The friends reached out to students at their former high school to share what they’d learned about the Duffins Creek wetland complex, which has long been designated provincially significant, indicating its special ecological value. They set up a Zoom session with other students and explained that the development had been approved through a Minister’s Zoning Order — a provincial edict that allows the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to make decisions on land zoning while bypassing normal planning processes, such as the citizens’ rights to appeal. Then they coordinated a “phone zap.”
“Everyone muted themselves, and we started spamming Doug Ford’s
office, [MPP] Peter Bethlenfalvy’s office, and the [Pickering] mayor’s
office,” says Mathura, who is attending his first year of environment,
resources, and sustainability studies at the University of Waterloo from
his home in Pickering. “It’s really hard to see,” says Zaheer, who
studies environmental engineering at the University of Guelph.
“Pickering is setting itself up as the poster child for wetland
destruction.”
Zaheer and Mathura see the fight for this 57-acre
site, consisting largely of wetland, as part of a larger battle over
public participation and the future of conservation in Ontario. They’re
not alone. In a recent letter, 96 environmental organizations slammed
the Progressive Conservative government’s use of MZOs to overrule
protections for provincially significant wetlands and called for the
Duffins Creek MZO to be revoked. And the matter is also headed for
judicial review: two environmental organizations, Environmental Defence
and the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, filed papers about a month
after the MZO was issued.
President Joe Biden's decision to scrap a "deadly" Trump-era policy banning funding for aid groups that discuss abortion could unleash billions in dollars for life-saving services in developing countries, women's rights groups said on Thursday. "It's very, very good news. It sends a strong message that reproductive rights are human rights," said Evelyne Opondo, Africa director at the Center for Reproductive Rights. "I'm hoping this will allow many clinics to reopen across Africa and save thousands of women's lives," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Almost $9 billion in U.S. foreign aid is at stake under the "Mexico City Policy", also known as the "global gag rule", which prevents foreign groups providing abortion services or counselling from receiving U.S. funding. Those that have rejected the ban have lost funding, forcing them to shut reproductive health clinics and other services including HIV care. Opondo said the closures had hit women in rural areas particularly hard. "Women have died because they were not able to access facilities. They've died due to pregnancy and childbirth complications, and complications from unsafe abortions as well."
1. WHAT IS THE NUCLEAR BAN TREATY? CLICK ON IMAGE TO VIEW PDF VERSION. Formally known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the nuclear ban treaty is a legally binding multilateral instrument that establishes an explicit prohibition of nuclear weapons, as a step to achieving their complete elimination. It was adopted by 122 states on July 7, 2017, at United Nations headquarters in New York. On October 24, 2020, Honduras became the 50th state to ratify the TPNW. When Honduras deposited its instrument of ratification at the United Nations, it triggered a 90-day process culminating in the treaty’s entry-into-force on January 22, 2021. Many civil society organizations, current and former diplomats, humanitarian agencies, academics and scientists from all continents, and victims of nuclear weapons testing and use view the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as the most consequential nuclear disarmament development in decades.
2. WHAT ARE THE KEY PROVISIONS OF THE TREATY?
The TPNW prohibits all activities that relate to the development, testing, production, acquisition, possession, stockpiling, transferring, stationing, and use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.
It also proscribes assisting with, encouraging, or otherwise inducing other states to take part in any of the prohibited activities and specifically prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons on territories under the control of states parties to the treaty. States parties also have an obligation to prevent and suppress any activity prohibited under the TPNW by persons under its jurisdiction.
In addition to these negative obligations, states parties to the TPNW have positive obligations to assist individuals and communities that have been affected by the testing or use of nuclear weapons and must also engage in environmental remediation in areas under their jurisdiction or control in which the testing or use of nuclear weapons has resulted in contamination.
With the explicit goal of universal adherence, the TPNW requires states parties to encourage all other states to join this treaty. It outlines paths to membership for states that possess nuclear weapons, states that hold nuclear weapons belonging to another state, and states that do not possess nuclear weapons or rely on nuclear alliances. In the first two cases, the treaty lays out a time-bound plan for new adherents to disassociate from any nuclear-weapons activities. A designated competent international authority will verify and ensure compliance.
3. HOW AND WHY DID THE TPNW COME TO BE?
More than 13,000 nuclear warheads exist today. Many are on high-alert status, ready to be launched within minutes, either deliberately or as the result of accident or misunderstanding. Any such launch would have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth.
Remarkably, while every other category of weapons of mass destruction has been specifically prohibited under international law, until the TPNW, nuclear weapons—by far the most destructive—had not. Several years ago, protesting the many failures of the global nuclear disarmament regime and openly acknowledging the catastrophic impact of any nuclear-weapons use, the nuclear-ban movement came together to eliminate this legal anomaly.
In 2013 and 2014, three conferences that focused on the catastrophic consequences of any nuclear-weapons use were held in host countries Norway, Mexico, and Austria. From these gatherings grew the widespread recognition that a legal prohibition of nuclear weapons was not only necessary but possible.
In December 2016, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution L41, which called for negotiations on a ban on nuclear weapons; negotiations began in March 2017. Critical to these negotiations was renewed attention to the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. The humanitarian imperative to disarm served as an effective catalyst and rallying point for states and civil society organizations committed to the negotiation of the treaty.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) was a strong champion for the treaty and actively participated in negotiations. In 2017, ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition on such weapons.”
4. WHY IS THE BAN TREATY NECESSARY WHEN THE NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY (NPT) HAS EXISTED FOR DECADES?
The NPT has failed to deliver on its promise of complete nuclear disarmament. The Non-Proliferation Treaty was designed to both prevent non-nuclear-weapon states from acquiring nuclear weapons and to compel nuclear-weapon states to eliminate their stockpiles of nuclear weapons. While it has been generally successful in achieving the former, it has utterly failed in achieving the latter. In fact, the international community remains woefully distant from a credible process that would make even the most optimistic observer believe that the abolition of nuclear weapons is within sight.
Opponents of the nuclear ban treaty have often declared that the TPNW effectively undermines the NPT. But the NPT does not prohibit complementary efforts— such as the negotiation of a prohibition treaty— to implement its provisions and advance the goal of nuclear disarmament. In fact, the negotiation of a nuclear-weapons ban constitutes a rare, specific instance of actual implementation of Article VI of the NPT, which calls on states to “pursue negotiations in good faith” that lead to nuclear disarmament.
States with nuclear weapons and their rallies continue to insist on a strict step-by-step approach to nuclear abolition. Deep-seated skepticism about this approach is not just based on doubts about future progress, but on historical evidence and current practice. The ongoing costly (possibly more than one trillion dollars) modernization of nuclear arsenals and related infrastructure, heightened tensions between superpowers, and a dysfunctional multilateral disarmament machinery underscore the inadequacy of the step-by-step process and the NPT itself.
5. WHICH STATES OPPOSE THE NUCLEAR BAN TREATY?
The chief opponents are nuclear-armed states and their allies. All permanent members of the UN Security Council fall into this category, as do do all NATO member states and other nuclear-dependent states.
In a memo issued to all its NATO allies in advance of the 2016 UN General Assembly vote on the resolution that convened the ban treaty negotiations, the United States demanded that NATO members boycott the entire ban enterprise, partly because “the effects of a nuclear weapons ban treaty could be wide-ranging” and it “could impact non-parties as well as parties.”
In 2020, when it seemed clear that the TPNW would soon enter into effect, the P5 of the UN Security Council issued a letter to states that had joined the treaty, urging them to withdraw. The United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France indicated that they “stand unified in opposition to the potential repercussions” of the treaty.
States with nuclear weapons continue to insist that a comprehensive multilateral effort to achieve nuclear abolition is premature, although the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took place more than 75 years ago; the NPT came into force more than 50 years ago; and the Cold War ended more than 30 years ago.
Photo: On behalf of ICAN, Setsuko Thurlow, middle, and Beatrice Finn, right, accept the Nobel Peace Prize Medal from Berit Reiss-Andersen of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo in December 2017. ICAN Photo
