Social Watch news
Published on Wed, 2011-05-25 06:01
Sources: Third World Network, LiveScience, The Wall Street Journal The World Health Assembly decided on Tuesday in Geneva to keep, for now, the world's remaining smallpox virus samples, kept alive by U.S. and Russia, with the opposition of developing countries and civil society organisations headed by the Third World Network (TWN). |
Published on Tue, 2011-05-24 07:23
Source: CNCD-11.11.11 Twenty-five years after the Chernobyl disaster, and when another tragedy is going on in Japan, the Belgian chapter of Greenpeace International, WWF, the Walloon Inter-Environmental Federation and Bond Beter Leefmilieu (BBL) launched the national platform "Stop & Go" that calls for the end of nuclear energy generation and claims for promoting renewable sources. |
Published on Mon, 2011-05-23 13:08
Sources: IPS, The Financial The first global UN inter-agency initiative to promote and protect the rights of indigenous peoples was launched on May 23 on the occasion of the 10th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The United Nations-Indigenous Peoples’ Partnership (UNIPP) initiative is a commitment to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and calls for its full realization through the mobilization of financial cooperation and technical assistance. |
Published on Fri, 2011-05-20 08:36
Source: Agenda Global, The Star The Fourth United Nations Conferences onthe Least Developed Countries (LDCs) ended last Friday in Istanbul with new pledges to supporth those 47 nations. However, the success of this meeting is determined on whether a strong follow-up structure is built to monitor and fulfill the pledges, wrote Martin Khor, executive director of South Centre, in his last column for the newspaper The Star, of Malaysia, and Agenda Global. The LDCs are even more vulnerable than before to the fluctuations of the world economy and the prospects are anything but bright. |
Published on Fri, 2011-05-20 08:32
Source: PNGO The Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO, focal point of Social Watch in Gaza and the West Bank) denounced the brutal repression suffered last Sunday by peaceful demonstrators at the hands of Israeli forces. The protests were convened to commemorate the sixty-third anniversary of the Nakba, the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian when the State of Israel was created. Israeli soldiers used live bullets against the demonstrators. |
Published on Fri, 2011-05-20 08:15
Sources: Press release from the Bretton Woods Project. Dozens of civil society organizations launched a campaign calling for an open and merit-based process to elect the next International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director, after the resignation this Wednesday of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused of sexual abuse. |
Published on Thu, 2011-05-19 13:31
Source: AWID "The gains women achieved over the last decades were not granted, rather the result of the hard work and struggle of women's rights movement and its supporters in Egypt and the Arab region", warned the Network of Women's Rights Organizations in Egypt (NWRO) in a statement launched this month. |
Published on Wed, 2011-05-18 13:14
Source: Plataforma 2015 y Más Plataforma 2015 y Más [Platform 2015 and Beyond], one of the focal points of Social Watch in Spain, urged citizens to exert their right to vote with responsibility in the upcoming autonomic and municipal elections on Sunday 22. Thus, citizens were urged to vote for the options that include the defence of public policies in their programmes so as to ensure the State’s commitment to the eradication of poverty and inequalities. |
Published on Tue, 2011-05-17 08:27
Sources: AP, Wall Street Journal, NY Times, TWN. The Sixty-fourth World Health Assembly will discuss this Thursday in Geneva, for the fifth time, the destruction of the remaining smallpox virus samples that U.S. and Russia keep alive arguing they will be necessary in case of a breakout or a "bioterrorist attack". The Third World Network is lobbying for the destruction, while Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that "the chance of an outbreak is reasonably low, but not zero". |
Published on Mon, 2011-05-16 07:10
A hundred civil society organisations from 17 arab countries condemned this Sunday, in an open letter to the Arab League and to the heads of government of the region, the killing of over 800 peaceful demonstrators and the arrest of 9,000 in 16 Syrian cities since the 15th. March. The also urged the League "to show consistent [...] leadership in dealing with the situation in Syria". |