According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), some 12 million people worldwide are unable to claim citizenship to any country and are at risk of statelessness, because of war, secession, change of state boundaries or past discrimination. The new bill increases U.S. efforts to encourage states to recognize people who have no nationality "...U.S. Congress will be offering new hope to 12 million stateless people worldwide by making the prevention and resolution of statelessness a high priority for U.S. foreign policy for the first time," said Ken Bacon, president of Refugees International. "Reducing statelessness not only increases the quality of life for these individuals; it increases stability within nations, reduces forced displacement and trafficking, and even lessens refugee flows." - Refugees International

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 01-Jul-2008

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The UN agency is calling on municipalities in each region to create networks of cities to improve their policies to fight discrimination and promote diversity, mutual respect and dialogue. The goal is for each regional coalition to implement its own 10-point action plan to tackle discrimination specific to its region, covering areas such as education, housing, employment and cultural activities.

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 01-Jul-2008

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Every night more than 850 million people, most of them women and children, go to bed hungry. For these people, tomorrow won’t be any better. Hunger is the leading cause of death worldwide, killing an estimated 10 million people every year – more than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. The United Nations World Food Programme estimates that one child dies every five seconds from hunger related causes. Melanie Heaphy looks at the global food crisis and what it means for the world’s poor.

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 01-Jul-2008

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Human Rights Watch documented numerous incidents of intimidation, violence and manipulation of the vote by Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party before, during and after the June 27 runoff vote. In the neighborhoods of Chitungwiza and Westlea, several people told Human Rights Watch that in the early hours of June 28, ZANU-PF supporters went door to door, forcing people to show their fingers for signs of the indelible ink which shows that a person voted. The ZANU-PF supporters took those who did not have ink on their fingers to ZANU-PF bases in the areas and beat them with batons and thick sticks. - HRW

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 01-Jul-2008

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"Global biofuel policies are not solving the climate or fuel crises but are instead contributing to food insecurity and inflation, hitting poor people hardest, according to a new report by international agency Oxfam. In today’s report “ Another Inconvenient Truth”, Oxfam calculates that rich country biofuel policies have dragged more than 30 million people into poverty, according to evidence that biofuels have already contributed up to 30% to the global rise in food prices. “If you drive up to a petrol station and there is a sign over the biofuel mix that says ‘Sourced from Indonesia’, does it tell you that indigenous people in Borneo have just lost their forest home? Clearly not,” said Coates. “Oxfam supports having a biofuels bill, but we need to sort out the sustainability criteria first and then have a review period to make sure the framework is adequate at protecting both the environment and people,” he added." - OXFAM

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 01-Jul-2008

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In the land of one-child policy, the death of an only child is unimaginable. Greiving parents are protesting after the shoddily built schools that were the only hope of a future for their children turned into death traps during the Sichuan Province Earthquake in China. "the number of student deaths seems likely to exceed 10,000, and possibly go much higher, a staggering figure that has become a simmering controversy in China as grieving parents say their children might have lived had the schools been better built." - By JIM YARDLEY Published: May 25, 2008 (NY Times - Grief in the Rubble: Chinese Are Left to Ask Why Schools Crumbled)

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 02-Jun-2008

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Xenophobic violence continues against thousands of immigrants to South Africa as unemployment and housing shortages increase. "Those left behind by the nation’s post-apartheid economy commonly blame those left even further behind, the powerless making scapegoats of the defenseless" "A familiar litany of complaints against foreigners are passionately, if not always rationally, argued: They commit crimes. They undercut wages. They hold jobs that others deserve." - By BARRY BEARAK and CELIA W. DUGGER Published: May 20, 2008 (NY Times)

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 02-Jun-2008

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"Ms. Safia, a 25-year-old mother of five, has not eaten in a week. Her 1-year-old son is starving too, an adorable, listless boy who doesn’t even respond to a pinch... This may be no accident. The Ethiopian government is struggling with an insurgency in the Ogaden, and the report said that “food is clearly being used as a weapon,” with the government starving out rebel areas, while a mysterious warehouse of American-donated food was discovered across the road from an Ethiopian Army base." - Jeffrey Gettleman (NY Times)

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 02-Jun-2008

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Thousands of South Africans who suffered under apartheid won the right yesterday to sue a number of companies, including BP, Citigroup and Ford, for allegedly helping to perpetrate human rights abuses. - Suzy Jagger in New York

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 02-Jun-2008

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Children have the right to be protected from physical and sexual abuse but when abuse is condoned by their family - and religiously justified - other rights can be threatened while attempting to ensure their safety. A Texas court has ruled that 469 children taken from a polygamist ranch in Eldorado were illegally removed by the state who were concerned but lacked sufficient evidence that the children were at risk.

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 02-Jun-2008

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"An illegal retroactive application of nationality laws is leaving increasing numbers of Dominicans of Haitian descent functionally stateless. Hundreds of thousands of people are left in legal limbo and, in practice, most of them now have no access to either Dominican or Haitian nationality." - Refugees International

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 02-Jun-2008

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Rebecca Sommer (SommerFilms) for Earth Peoples presents: Indigenous Peoples “2nd May REVOLT” at the UNPFII, 2008. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues does not seem to be willing to reflect the true opinions and positions of Indigenous people on the issues of conservation instead using that forum to promote their own agenda.

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 02-Jun-2008

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According to media reports, Myanmar’s military government says nearly 22,500 people have died and about 41,000 are still missing. Most of the deaths reportedly came from the tidal wave that followed in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, which hit the low-lying region with winds of up to 120 miles per hour. UN officials have said 1 million people may be homeless as a result of the emergency. UNICEF staff members on the ground report widespread devastation and a dire need for water, food and shelter.

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 07-May-2008

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(CBS) Right now there's a war taking place in the heart of Africa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and more people have died there than in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Darfur combined. You probably haven't heard much about it, but as CNN's Anderson Cooper reports, it's the deadliest conflict since World War II. Within the last ten years, more than four million people have died and the numbers keep rising. As Cooper and a 60 Minutes team found when they went there a few months ago, the most frequent targets of this hidden war are women. It is, in fact, a war against women, and the weapon used to destroy them, their families and whole communities, is rape.

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 07-May-2008

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Human Rights Films: OPENING NIGHT - Thursday 8 May!

• Posted by AbbyWendy
• Published: 07-May-2008

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