Social Watch news
Published on Mon, 2013-10-28 11:56
In the early morning of October 3 a tourist was enjoying the beautiful quiet beach of the Italian Mediterranean Island when three swimmers appeared. Three African young men frantically asked for help. They had left their mothers behind in a ship on sea that was on fire.
The ship had made the crossing that night and had reached the 800 perimeter of Lampedusa with over 500 passengers on board. While waiting to be able to offload the passengers, the ship was pushed away from the shore. When the captain tried to start the engine to bring his ship back into the perimeter, it didn’t work. He then decided to seek attention to get help by making a basket-fire. He burnt himself and threw the burning rod in the boat, rather than in the sea. The passengers on the boat panicked and rushed to one side. Inside the boat, in the cabins, women and children were asleep. Locked in the cabins, they would not survive the journey. Only six women made it alive.
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Published on Mon, 2013-10-28 10:51
(Asmara 25 October) Members of Project Arbi Harnet (Freedom Friday) inside Eritrea have, this afternoon disclosed that fearing public discontent the Eritrean regime has ordered all Obituary notices of Lampedusa victims be taken off street notice boards in Asmara.
Following the accident on the 3rd of October, off the cost of Lampdusa that claimed the lives of over 350 Eritreans, Asmara residents had put up customary notices with pictures of victims and many people were gathering to read those notices and expressing their anger at the political and economic predicament that is pushing young Eritreans to take extreme measures to leave their country.
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Published on Mon, 2013-10-28 10:08
The most important battles are generally the hardest fought. Such is the case of the financial transactions tax (FTT), a crucial element in the creation of a more just global financial system, which is facing renewed opposition from those who want to maintain the failed economic architecture of the past.
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Published on Fri, 2013-10-25 08:51
More than 300 Eritrean refugees lost their lives last October 3 off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa. The survivors say that the Italian Navy could have prevented the deaths. The tragedy exposed the failings of the EU’s migration policies, and its failure to protect refugees - a legal obligation under International law.
This week there was a commemorative ceremony in Italy for those who died. The catholic priest Father Mussie Zerai and the journalist Meron Estefanos, founder of the International Commission on Eritrean Refugees witness the ceremony, and denounce it as a charade - a gimmick arranged for the convenience of politicians and an offense to the families of the victims.
Read the full statement of Father Zerai and Estefanos
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Published on Wed, 2013-10-23 11:25
Radio Liberty discussed Azerbaijan’s place in the Open Budget Index (OBI) last week, as part of the “Joint Advocacy Platform” project, just on the eve of 2014 budget discussions in Parliament.
Kenan Aslanli, National Budget Group (NBG) member (and Social Watch member in Azerbaijan) and social and youth activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev participated in the program.
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Published on Mon, 2013-10-21 08:47
Twenty years after the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights and its Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action were adopted, more than 140 civil society representatives from around the world gathered at Vienna to commemorate the occasion. The 2013 conference, convened under the theme “Strengthening the Human Rights Movement Globally: Vienna +20,” was held in Vienna on June 26-27, and agreed on an Outcome Document that was presented by civil society at a High Level Conference on Vienna +20 hosted in the same city by the Austrian government.
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Published on Thu, 2013-10-17 14:44
Prof. Leonor Briones
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In the Philippines, Social Watch Philippines monitors the MDG programs as implemented by the government. Its main advocacy is more government spending for health, education, agriculture, the environment, and for social protection for all. It has organized the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI) which proposes alternative budgets for these MDG-related expenditures.
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Published on Wed, 2013-10-16 18:00
Huduma is an initiative of INFONET previously incubated at SODNET (Social Watch in Kenya), the United Nations Millennium Campaign and the African Institute for Health and Development (AIHD) that seeks to improve public service delivery through the strategic use of Technology.
The strategy is coined within a logic of improving the capability of the state and that of an informed citizen to collectively improve service. While the state remains the largest provider or guarantor of services, the citizenry have a right and responsibility to engage in the improvement of such services. Huduma places in the hands of citizens, simple technology and media based tools and platforms to amplify their voices, while at the same time, improves the capacity for better responsiveness.
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Published on Wed, 2013-10-16 10:01
The decade-long economic expansion in Africa has not translated into improved conditions of living for ordinary Africans. Indeed, many Africans remained trapped in the circle of joblessness, material deprivation, poverty, insecurity, loss of livelihood and mining related environmental disasters. African governments challenged to reinforce ongoing fiscal reforms and mining contract renegotiations with other measures to improve the equity between state and investor in the booming extractive sector and also to finance the AMV in full.
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Published on Thu, 2013-10-10 14:29
Photo: UNHCR/S. Malkawi
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One cannot discuss policy priorities and challenges in Lebanon without first addressing the dangerous developments the region is currently experiencing. Oppression, backwardness and the shortcomings of democracy in the region as a whole are serious hindrances that could turn the tide and reverse the more positive trends. Despite the challenges they raise, the current developments clearly demonstrate the potential for change in the region: people are no longer willing to stand idle in the face of tyranny, poverty, unemployment and marginalization.
Lebanon is still facing the systemic challenges of the political confessional system. The state must be an institutional and constitutional expression of democracy and people’s rights. Genuine citizenship cannot be achieved without the rule of law, without a system that gives citizens their rights and duties towards both society and the state, which are also preconditions for an effective civil society. Thus the main obstacle to true citizenship in the country is still the partition of state offices and institutions among the different religious confessions.
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