News

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) suggests that a discussion about the implications of the proposed UN Fifth World Conference on Women in 2015, and 20 years after the last one in Beijing, is urgently needed among feminists and women’s rights activists from all regions of the world.

There are diverse opinions about the organization, hosting and purpose of the proposed conference, which have not been broadly debated, wrote on AWID’s web site Susan Tolmay, in charge of Information at this institution.

Marcus Agius. (Photo: CBI)

Marcus Agius was called in 2006 to manage the rescue of Barclays Bank, a British firm on the verge of bankruptcy due to irresponsible financial bets. Six years later, on Monday 2 July, the City woke up to the news of the resignation of Agius to all his public and private offices due to “unacceptable behavior within the bank”… nothing less than the largest financial fraud ever attempted, a white-collar theft of billions of dollars that has duped governments around the world and ultimately impoverished millions of people who never heard of Agius, Barclays or the City of London and just happened to have borrowed money from a bank.

Photo: Association for the Prevention of Torture

The Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), the Arab Human Rights Organization (Egypt) and the Libyan Human Rights League, among several organizations and activists, signed on Sunday an international Pact of Honour against torture in Tunis, reported TAP news agency.

“Children and poor families were left behind before the crisis, they have been severely affected by the multitude of global shocks since 2008, and that, although they were briefly supported during the first phase of the crisis (2008-09), they were again left behind in 2010 despite their significant needs and increasing vulnerability,” wrote Isabel Ortiz and Matthew Cummins in the first pages of “A recovery for all: Rethinking socio-economic policies for children and poor households”, a book recently edited by UNICEF.