Photos of missing and murdered aboriginal women lent a somber presence to the three-day Assembly in Vancouver. (Photo: Viveca Ellis/The Epoch Times)

With the Missing Women’s Inquiry ongoing in Vancouver, a Canadian national forum aimed at improving the security and safety of First Nations communities couldn’t have come at a more opportune time last month, wrote journalist Viveca Ellis on an article published by The Epoch Times international media network.

A crowd in a mall in Robinson, Pennsylvania, USA, (Photo: David Fulmer/Flickr/CC)

The production and trade indicators that are usually used to measure prosperity are the product of unsustainable consumption patterns in the richest social sectors and countries, and these patterns promote the plundering of natural resources, damage the environment and do nothing to reduce poverty. The Social Watch Report 2012 enhances our understanding of this phenomenon and of proposals to set concrete limits that will be put forward next June at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro (Rio 2012).

Photo: Social Watch India

“The notion of evaluating social development on the basis of economical growth should change, as the studies from different aspects reveal the growing disparities in the societies across the globe,” said Dr.Yogesh Kumar, Executive Director of Samarthan and National Convener of Social Watch India. Kumar was talking in Bangalore at the launching of the Social Watch Report 2012.

Photo: AFTINET

The 11th Round of Negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement negotiations between Australia, the US, New Zealand, Malaysia and four other countries starts in Melbourne on March 1. Civil society groups from those countries are in that city to contest corporate influence and debate the issues.

“Although most central banks are independent, they are in the end government bodies. As such, central banks are subject to the human rights obligations of their state,” argues in its second publication the initiative “A bottom up approach to righting financial regulation”, a consortium of civil society networks and organizations, including Social Watch and some of its members.