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Africa’s climate concerns don’t count in negotiations, warns TWN
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(Photo: IRRI Images/
Creative Commons
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Calls from the developing countries that suffer the worst impacts of climate change seem to fall on deaf ears in the negotiations on the road to the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) of the UNFCCC next November in Durban, no matter how strident they sound, warned this week Africa Agenda, Third World Network-Africa’s bimonthly magazine.
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Canada: Unions warn against electric company privatization
Privatizing Manitoba Hydro, electric power and natural gas utility owned by the government of the Canadian province of Manitoba, would result in soaring power rates, job losses and the handover of an essential service to wealthy, out-of-province owners, union leaders warned this week quoting a report publisheb by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), a focal point of Social Watch.
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Burma: Regime accuses Shan people of detonating bombs without evidence
Through the state-run press, Burmese military regime has accused this week three Shan men of responsibility for a series of simultaneous bomb blasts in the cities of Naypyidaw, Mandalay and Pyin Oo Lwin, according to The Irrawaddy, a media group managed by Burmese journalists living in exile in Thailand. “They can’t use the word ‘culprit’ because they haven’t arrested anyone yet,” said Thein Oo, the chairman of the Burma Lawyers’ Council, national focal point of Social Watch.
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Civil society claims for an intergovernmental commission on tax cooperation
Some 50 civil society organisations from all over the world claimed this week for the creation of an Intergovernmental Commission on International Cooperation on Tax Matters to protect nations from abusive practices, including evasion and the race to the bottom in corporate taxation. The claim is headed by the international networks of development groups Eurodad, CIDSE, ActionAid, Christian Aid and the Tax Justice Network (TJN), and the Danish group Ibis.
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Ethics and psychology of inequality
Economic heterodoxy is reducing inequality in South American countries while the gap between rich and poor widens in the United States, with even psychological consequences. Recent studies have concluded that income does not contribute to people’s happiness, but equity indeed does, wrote Social Watch coordinator Roberto Bissio in his last article for Agenda Global.
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Progress goes hand in hand with Women's Empowerment
Empowering women and advancing their rights can lead to progress on a range of issues, including the fight against poverty, hunger and violence. This was stressed this week by the head of UN Women, the U.N. agency tasked with promoting women’s rights in Pakistan, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
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Egypt-Tunisia: Western financial aid plan could divert the revolution’s goals
A group of 67 civil society organizations from across 12 Arab countries raised concerns about the European Union (EU) and United States backed financial aid packages for Tunisia and Egypt, on the grounds that it could damage the process of democratic transitions and divert their revolutions’ economic and social justice goals.
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Bachelet: Tunisian democracy will not be complete without women
“From Tunisia and Egypt to Syria, Yemen, Libya and Bahrain, women have been active participants, calling for democracy, dignity and equality,” said Michelle Bachelet, UN Women Executive Director, at an international conference organised by the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, national focal point of Social Watch in that country.
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