Social Watch news

Annual Report on Women

Source: Inesc (in Portuguese)

Brazil’s Annual Report on Women, released this month by the government, shows that 43.1 per cent of women have suffered some kind of violence in their own homes. The percentage falls to 12.3 per cent in the case of men. “The Annual Report is essential for the political struggle in favour of women’s rights”, said Eliana Gracia, expert of the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies (Inesc, one of the focal points of Social Watch in Brazil).

Roberto Bissio (Photo:
Social Watch/Agustín Fernandez)

Source:InterAksion, news portal of TV5:

The principles of accountability are universal and  “the ‘naming and shaming’ mechanisms are essentially the same", but the means for attaining those principals vary from country to country, said Roberto Bissio, Social Watch coordinator, on Tuesday, the first day of the network's Global Assembly that is taking place in Manila, Philippines. 

Bissio explained, in short, that when "a situation of injustice or rights violation is detected, information is gathered, a demand is articulated, solutions are proposed and the authorities are engaged to solve the problem or remove the obstacles." 

Waiting in the Erez Crossing.
(Photo: Rima Merriman/
Electronic Intifada)

Source: PressTV: http://bit.ly/mQW8F2 
and http://bit.ly/p3cJhc

The Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO, focal point of Social Watch) warned about a rise in the number of residents in Gaza looking for medical treatment in the West Bank who are arrested by Israeli forces at the Erez crossing. 

Jejomar Binay. (Photo:
Pilippine VP Office)

Sources: The Philippine StarThe Daily Tribune.

Leading Philippine newspapers and other media are paying attention to the Social Watch 2011 Global Assembly that will begin tomorrow in Manila. The participation of Vice President Jejomar Binay in the first session, where he will deliver the inaugural speech, was stressed by The Philippine Star, The Daily Tribune and InterAksion, news portal of TV5.

Protests in Cairo. (Photo:
Danish-Egyptian Dialogue
Institute)

Source: Al Ahram On Line.

Revolutionary political parties and civil society organizations that have been participating in a sit-in in Tahrir Square since last Friday, including the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement (EACPE, focal point of Social Watch), issued a statement on Sunday stressing their demands and calling for a million people to march on Tuesday. 

The Coordinating Committee
elected in Accra, 2009.
(Photo: Social Watch)

Source: Social Watch.

Social Watch will define its strategy for the next years in its Global Assembly, which will bring together next week in Manila, Philippines, the diverse membership of the network. Representatives designated by national coalitions from over 70 countries of all continents will participate: women groups, human rights activists, unionists and campaigners for social justice. During three days, they will be discussing the new challenges brought about by the global crises and the civil society responses to it. 

Source: Yonhap News report cited by The Korea Herald.

The number of affiliates of South Korea’s 15 largest chaebols has increased about 65 percent over the past four years, as those huge family-run business conglomerates have aggressively expanded their territory in the construction and real estate industries, reported this week the civic group Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ, focal point of Social Watch). 

Source: The New Indian Express.

The new figures set by the Indian government to define poverty (an income of USD 0.45 a day for urban people and one of 0.33 for those living in rural areas) are “abysmally low”, wrote Himanshu Jha, the national coordinator of Social Watch India, in his most recent column for The New Indian Express, one of the major newspapers of his country. The politics fixed according to these indicators can exclude “a large section of the population” that needs aid from “the available social security net, which in this country is minimalist by any standard,” he warned. 

Jha’s column reads as follows:

SOS Racismo

Sources (in Spanish): SOS RacismoEl Comercio, Ecuador, EFE, at Mugak, Cadena SER.

Racism and xenophobia have intensified in Spain under the influence of political forces and traditional parties that have assumed postulates until now restricted to the extreme right, warned the federation of non-governmental organizations SOS Racismo in its latest annual report. In recent months, “a time bomb” has been created, while “the political class fails as a whole; ones for playing the racist game and others for not condemning it enough”, said Alba Cuevas, the spokeswoman for the network in Cataluña.

Arab Spring at Tahrir Square.
(Photo: Jonathan Rashad/
Creative Commons)

Sources: The GuardianInter Press ServiceANND's statement.

Egypt's government decided not to borrow from the IMF, and the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) warned that conditions attached to lending by development banks --as liberalisation of trade, investment and deregulation advocated by the US and the EU-- had contributed to the current unrest in the Arab world, reported the British newspaper The Guardian. 

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