Posts Tagged ‘UN’
Monday, March 8th, 2010
Lucy Turnbull; 8/3/10
Australian women should never settle for anything less than full equality and equal pay for equal work. On International Women’s Day, we should also cast our minds to the unsatisfactory fact that there are not nearly enough senior women managers, chief executives or directors of our large corporations. But we should also look beyond our shores. All Australians should reflect on the lives of women who are permanently marked by deep and deepening tragedy and injustice – women such as Aung San Suu Kyi and countless thousands of Burmese women. For decades Suu Kyi, her Burmese sisters and ethnic minorities have undergone systematic cruelty – political persecution and imprisonment in her case, and in the case of her Burmese sisters, acts of criminal brutality: torture, rape, and displacement at the hands of the military dictatorship. There will be “elections” in Burma this year. But we should not be fooled into believing they will be free or fair.
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Tags: Burma, UN, Women
Posted in Burma, Human Rights, Terrorism, United Nations, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
Robert Grenier; 2/3/10
In the various commentaries we have seen concerning the alleged Israeli assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Israel’s Mossad is coming in for a great deal of criticism. How, it is asked, could the vaunted Israeli spy service have left behind so much evidence? Isn’t the point of such operations to “eliminate” an enemy without being detected? And when, according to this analysis, one factors in the ensuing political and diplomatic “firestorm” which is still gaining momentum, this Israeli operation – for such it certainly was – begins to look like a colossal blunder. I would suggest, however, that those making these criticisms are missing the point.
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Tags: Australia, Israel, Terrorism, UN, USA
Posted in Australia, Human Rights, Terrorism, USA, United Nations | No Comments »
Monday, March 1st, 2010
1/3/10
It is wrong that no one has yet been held accountable for war crimes committed during the brutal fighting in Gaza in January 2009. During the three-week war that left more than 1,400 Palestinians and 11 Israelis dead, there were well-documented cases of Israel firing white-phosphorus shells and using vastly excessive force. For their part, the Israelis accused Hamas of targeting unarmed civilians with random shelling, for which the Palestinians need to hold their own enquiry. The alleged war crimes were the subject of a UN commission of inquiry by South African judge Richard Goldstone, which reported in November 2009. Goldstone asked both Israel and Palestine to hold independent enquiries and report back to the UN in three months. That deadline has just passed with no action taken.
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Tags: Israel, Terrorism, UN
Posted in Human Rights, Terrorism, United Nations | No Comments »
Monday, March 1st, 2010
Mark Dodd & John Lyons; 1/3/10; (3 Items)
Australia has abstained from a key UN vote supporting a war crimes probe of Israel’s military intervention into Gaza last year, three months after voting against the resolution. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said yesterday the decision was unrelated to “recent events”, a reference to Canberra’s anger at Israel’s failure to explain the use of three Australian passports by suspects in the murder in Dubai of a senior Palestinian militant. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied the involvement of its spy agency Mossad in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, which Dubai police say involved 26 people travelling on false passports from four nations. However, Israel said last night it would provide whatever assistance was needed by any Australian investigation into the misuse of its passports, saying it was “a friendly country”.
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Tags: Australia, Hebron, Israel, Settlers, UN, USA, War Crimes
Posted in Australia, Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, Terrorism, USA, United Nations | No Comments »
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Jason Koutsoukis; 27/2/10; http://www.smh.com.au/world/australia-set-to-back-away-from-israel-at-un-20100227-p9el.html
Australia was last night preparing to abstain in a United Nations vote on a resolution urging Israel and the Palestinian Authority to investigate allegations of war crimes committed during last year’s war in Gaza. The UN General Assembly was expected to vote this morning. Allegations of war crimes committed by Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas were raised in a report by the South African judge Richard Goldstone. In a strong show of support for Israel, Australia was one of only a few countries to vote against a similar resolution last year. An abstention by Australia would represent a significant shift away from Israel and would be interpreted as a sign of the Rudd government’s anger over revelations this week that fake Australian passports were used in the operation to assassinate the Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mahbouh.
Tags: Australia, Human Rights, Israel, UN
Posted in Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, United Nations | No Comments »
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Julian Drape; 25/2/10
The United Nations has questioned whether the federal government’s proposed reforms to the Northern Territory intervention will ensure Australia meets its international human rights obligations. Visiting Australia last August, UN special rapporteur on indigenous rights James Anaya labelled the intervention “overtly discriminatory”. Now, in a report to the UN’s Human Rights Council, Prof Anaya says it’s “open to question” whether Labor’s proposed changes will comply with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The former coalition government suspended Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) in order to roll out the more controversial aspects of the intervention, including income management, alcohol and pornography bans and compulsory leases.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights, UN
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights, Racism, United Nations | No Comments »
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Lindsay Murdoch; 19/2/10
Many of the asylum seekers aboard a boat that exploded near Ashmore Reef, killing five people, were aware of a plan to set it alight, the Northern Territory Coroner said yesterday. Greg Cavanagh said he held the reasonable view that a crime was committed on the boat known as SIEV 36 before the explosion and would refer allegations against three Afghan men to authorities for the possible laying of criminal charges. But Mr Cavanagh said it might well be that no charges are laid because any one of 49 people on the boat could have ignited the fuel, causing the explosion. Summing up evidence at a three-week inquest into the deaths, Stephen Walsh, QC, counsel assisting the coroner, said it was likely that Sabzali Salman, Arman Ali Brahimi and Mohammad Anwar Mohammadi acted in concert to implement a plan that involved a series of deliberate acts to ensure they could not be sent back to Indonesia.
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Tags: Australia, Human Rights, Indonesia, Migrants & Refugees, UN
Posted in Australia, Human Rights, Indonesia, Refugee & Migrant, United Nations | No Comments »
Monday, February 15th, 2010
Global asylum claims drop as Australia’s rises
Glenn Milne ; 15/2/10
Kevin Rudd’s claim that the spike in asylum-seekers arriving illegally in Australia is a shared global problem due to international “push” factors has been contradicted by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ own figures. The UNHCR’s monthly data on asylum applications shows that while on average such applications globally rose by only 5 per cent in the nine months to September last year, in Australia they increased by more than 25 per cent.Figures released at the end of January show there were 279,624 asylum applications in 44 key industrialised countries in the nine months to September, only 5 per cent more than in 2008.
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Tags: Global, Migrants & Refugees, UN
Posted in Refugee & Migrant, United Nations | No Comments »
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
Peter Wilson; 11/2/10
Fiji’s government has lied to the UN in an official report aimed at whitewashing its human rights performance, says Amnesty International. The military junta that overthrew Fiji’s elected government in 2006 has submitted the report to the UN Human Rights Council denying that its abrogation of the constitution last April had undermined freedom of speech and religion and the independence of the judiciary. Fiji’s declaration is due to be considered by the UN body in Geneva tonight as part of a review process that checks the human rights performance of each country every four years. But Amnesty International slammed the Fijian report as thoroughly dishonest, saying the government had stomped on the judiciary, harassed the Methodist Church and imposed stifling media censorship
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Tags: Fiji, Pacific, UN
Posted in Pacific Region, United Nations | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Andrew Darby; 9/2/10
A UN committee has ruled that the Japanese government repeatedly breached human rights guarantees in pursuit of two Greenpeace whistleblowers who exposed a trade in whale meat. The finding is seen as an embarrassment for Japan ahead of the trial next week of the ”Tokyo Two” activists for their alleged theft of a box of the meat. The UN Human Rights Committee’s working group on arbitrary detention found the rights of the activists to not be arbitrarily deprived of liberty, and to engage in protest, were not respected by the Japanese justice system.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Japan, Pacific, Trade, UN
Posted in Aid / Trade, Australia, Environment, Japan, Pacific Region, United Nations | No Comments »
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
Jason Koutsoukis; 4/2/10; (3 Items)
A senior Israeli military official during last year’s war in Gaza has said that an independent commission of inquiry should investigate allegations that Israeli troops committed war crimes. Colonel Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, who was in charge of the Israel Defence Forces’ international law division and is now a law lecturer at Tel Aviv University, said the United Nations report on the war by Justice Richard Goldstone had severely damaged Israel’s international standing. The offensive left 1400 Palestinians dead. ”We are now in a situation in which we need to give [Israel's] friends, who don’t want to see lawsuits filed against us in their own courts, the tools to do away with such claims, along with other charges against us,” Colonel Sharvit-Baruch said.
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Tags: Europe, Human Rights, Israel, Jerusalem, Settlers, UN
Posted in Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
Abraham Rabiinovich; 2/2/10; See: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/israeli-officers-reprimanded-over-gaza-shelling-incident/story-e6frg6so-1225825655802
Israel has reprimanded a brigadier-general and a colonel for authorising the use of phosphorous shells against standing orders in an incident during the incursion into the Gaza Strip a year ago. The disciplinary action was included in a 46-page report to the UN responding to allegations of war crimes made by a UN commission headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone last September. The report to the UN said that several phosphorous shells, used to provide smoke screens, were fired to shield Israeli troops from Hamas fighters. Shrapnel fell into a UN compound between the two forces, said the report, causing burns to a UN employee and two civilians sheltering there. The report noted that use of phosphorous shells is permitted under international conventions but that standing orders in the Israel Defence Forces forbids their use in populated areas. The report also acknowledged several “operational and intelligence errors” that inadvertently caused civilian casualties. It vigorously denied any calculated effort, as suggested in the Goldstone report, to cause civilian casualties in order to punish Gaza for the eight-year-long rocketing by Hamas of Israeli communities.
Tags: Human Rights, Israel, Terrorism, UN, USA
Posted in Environment, Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, USA, United Nations | No Comments »
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
Peter Rodgers; The Australian; 30/1/10;
Peter Rodgers worked in Indonesia as a diplomat and journalist and received the Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year award for his reporting on East Timor.
If You Leave Us Here We Will Die: How Genocide Was Stopped In East Timor; By Geoffrey Robinson; Princeton University Press, 319pp, $54.95
Geoffrey Robinson is a campaigner, determined to prove that Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in 1975 led to genocide and that a second Indonesian-created genocide in 1999 was prevented only by UN-led armed intervention. The broad-brush nature of the UN Convention, which he relies on, gives him a head start. Its definition of genocide includes the killing of or causing harm to national, ethnic racial or religious groups “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part”. Early in the book Robinson writes that there is no evidence that the Indonesian army commanders who planned the operation in East Timor in 1975 intended to kill one-third of the population. Yet, he argues, the very nature of the “culture of terror” fostered within the Indonesian military “inevitably and predictably led to a massive loss of life”.
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Tags: Australia, Indonesia, Timor, UN
Posted in Australia, Human Rights, Timor, United Nations | No Comments »
Friday, January 29th, 2010
Rory Callinan; 29/1/10
UN peacekeepers stood by and watched as the East Timorese police they were supposed to be mentoring allegedly hit, kicked and repeatedly stomped on a young man near an official ceremony. The incident late last year raises concerns about the supervision and training provided to the local police by the UN Integrated Mission in East Timor, which is supported by a contingent of Australian Federal Police and Australian soldiers. The beating, which involved Policia Nacional de Timor-Leste officers allegedly grinding their heels into the man’s back up to a dozen times, kicking him in the head and hitting him with a rifle butt, came to light after film of the incident was handed to East Timorese authorities this month. The film, since posted on the internet, initially shows a young man with a sign relating to a local fishing group standing on a beach on Atauro Island where East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta was opening a fishing competition about 25km north of Dili.
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Tags: Australia, Timor, UN, Violence
Posted in Human Rights, Timor, United Nations | No Comments »
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
28/1/10; http://www.theage.com.au/world/hmong-resettled-in-laos-20100127-mywu.html
Thousands of ethnic Hmong expelled from Thailand last month, including 158 UN-recognised refugees, have been returned to their original homes in Laos or resettled in new villages, according to the Lao Government. Bangkok sparked outrage in late December when it defied global criticism and used troops to forcibly repatriate about 4500 Hmong from camps on the border with communist Laos. The Hmong, a South-East Asian ethnic group, were seeking asylum in Thailand, saying they risked persecution by the Lao regime for fighting alongside US forces in the Vietnam War during the 1960s and 1970s.
Tags: Thailand; Laos, UN
Posted in Human Rights, USA, United Nations, War | No Comments »
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Ethan Bonner; 25/1/10
The Israeli military is completing a rebuttal to a United Nations report accusing it of serious violations of international and humanitarian law in its invasion of the blockaded Gaza Strip a year ago. The UN report, by a committee led by South African judge Richard Goldstone, was published in late September and called on Israel to carry out an independent investigation of its conduct of the three-week war. The Israeli Government, which refused to co-operate with the investigation and at first dismissed its findings, has now put a priority on fighting the charge that it deliberately sought to terrorise the Palestinian population. ”We face three major strategic challenges,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said recently. ”The Iranian nuclear program, rockets aimed at our civilians and Goldstone.”
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Tags: Human Rights, Israel, Terrorism, UN, USA
Posted in Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
