Archive for Asia & Africa
February 1, 2013 at 9:06 am · Filed under Education, Family, Women & Children, Media, Military, Politics, Poverty, Economics & Governance, religion & islam, Society & Culture, World News and tagged: Asia & Africa, Economics & Governance, Europe & Americas, media, Women & Children
POLISH is now the main language spoken in England and Wales after English and Welsh, according to 2011 census data released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
The language-speaking figures recorded for the first time from a survey of 56.1 million residents of England and Wales show 546,000 speak Polish. It is now the second main language in England. There are still slightly more Welsh speakers in Wales at 562,000.
The next biggest main languages are the south Asian languages of Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali and Gujarati, followed by Arabic, French, Chinese and Portuguese. The statisticians said they recorded over 100 different languages and 49 main languages with more than 15,000 users. English was the biggest of that group and Swedish the smallest.
Chinese people alone listed 67 different languages or dialects, although a minority of those were different spellings of the same language. All but three of the London boroughs, excluding the City, Richmond and Havering, have residents speaking more than 100 main languages, the ONS said. Hillingdon is the most linguistically diverse, with 107 languages listed, followed by Newham, with 103.
Some of the languages are in a tiny minority. For example, there was only one person in Barnet who said they spoke Caribbean creole and one person in Bexley.
Fifty-eight people speak Scottish Gaelic, 33 speak Manx Gaelic and 629 speak Romany.
Ealing in west London is the nation’s hotspot for Polish speaking, the town of Slough for Punjabi/Urdu, the city of Leicester for Gujarati, Kensington in central London for French and Manchester for Cantonese and Mandarin.
One million households have no residents with English as a main language, although most had some proficiency in English, the ONS said.
Only 138,000 people could not speak English at all.
“The West Midlands is the region with the lowest percentage of people that can speak English very well or well at 72 per cent,” said Roma Chappell, census director. It was the region that also had the highest number of people who can’t speak English at all.
The latest figures from the 2011 census also revealed how people in England and Wales get to work. The university cities of Cambridge and Oxford were the cycling capitals with 18 per cent and 10 per cent of their populations commuting on two wheels but London had the most cyclists, with the number more than doubling from 77,000 in 2001 to 161,000 in 2011.
Half of London residents travel using public transport but two per cent now use bikes and nine per cent of the people of Hackney in east London cycle to work.
Source: Dawn News/Guardian News
January 6, 2013 at 9:21 am · Filed under Education, Family, Women & Children, Media, Politics, Poverty, Economics & Governance, religion & islam, Science, Technology & Environment, Society & Culture, World News and tagged: Asia & Africa, health, Islam & Muslims, medicine, politics, Poverty, research, science, USA, Women & Children
Minority and Medicaid cancer patients are less likely to have their prostates removed at hospitals that use robot-assisted surgery, according to a new study that stops short of suggesting the robotic technique represents better care.
“People who are poor – frequently Hispanic, African American or black, and Medicaid patients – tend to get what is considered to be less high-quality care than those who are middle class and wealthy,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical and scientific officer of the American Cancer Society.
But Brawley, who wasn’t involved in the new study, also said there is no evidence that removing a prostate with a robot is better than the old-fashioned way, with “open” surgery that requires an incision across a man’s stomach.
Those are two of several treatment options available for prostate cancer, including radiation as well as active surveillance, also known as watchful waiting.
The American Cancer Society estimates approximately 250,000 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012, and about 28,000 died from it.
Despite a lack of evidence showing its superiority, robot-assisted prostate removal has become the predominant method since being approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Simon Kim at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Robotic surgical tools allow doctors to operate through small incisions with the aid of a tiny video camera, an approach that is considered less invasive but also tends to be more expensive.
Kim and his colleagues write in The Journal of Urology that evidence does exist to show that black patients are already less likely to get radiation or to have their prostates removed, but there is less data on whether they and other minorities have equal access to robot-assisted prostate removal.
For the study, Kim’s group used two national databases to compare the differences between the approximately 20,500 cancer patients who had their prostates removed at hospitals offering robotic surgery, and the 9,500 who had their surgery at hospitals without robots between 2006 and 2008.
Overall, the researchers found, the proportion of all prostate removals shifted from about 56 percent taking place at hospitals with robots in 2006 to 76 percent in 2008.
They also found that hospitals offering robotic surgery removed more than four times the number of prostates as other hospitals during that time.
That’s important because hospitals that remove more prostates tend to report better patient outcomes after surgery.
In addition, black patients were 19 percent less likely to have their surgery at a hospital using robots compared to white patients, and Hispanic patients were 23 percent less likely.
Medicaid patients were also 30 percent less likely to go to a hospital offering robotic surgery, compared to patients with private insurance.
Dr. Michael Barry, who was not involved in the new research but has studied prostate cancer treatment and outcomes, pointed out that the new work shows a gap in who is able to access the hospitals that perform the greatest number of prostate removals.
“The issue here is not access to robot (surgery) but high-volume hospitals,” said Barry, a clinical professor of medicine at Boston’s Harvard Medical School.
The study authors, who were not available for comment by press time, similarly conclude that gaps in access to robotic surgery hospitals may also indicate limited access to high-volume hospitals.
“More effective health care policies focusing on incentives to provide better access for minorities or for patients primarily insured by Medicaid may reduce disparities in access to high volume hospitals with robotic surgery,” they write.
Source: News International
January 3, 2013 at 7:33 am · Filed under Education, Family, Women & Children, Media, Military, Politics, Poverty, Economics & Governance, religion & islam, Society & Culture, World News and tagged: Asia & Africa, bashar al assad, Economics & Governance, human-rights, middle-east, politics, president bashar, war crimes charges
A Syrian child plays at the Bab al-Salam refugee camp on the Syrian-Turkish border. -AFP Photo
GENEVA: More than 60,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime erupted in March 2011, a top UN official said on Wednesday.
Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that an exhaustive analysis carried out by data specialists showed that 59,648 people had died through the end of November.
“Given there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013,” Pillay concluded in a statement.
“The number of casualties is much higher than we expected, and is truly shocking,” she said.
Pillay had said in December 2011 that the UN was unable to provide a precise figure on the number of deaths, and media have been relying on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based watchdog, which on Monday had put the total number of those killed at more than 46,000.
In reference to the UN figure, Pillay said Wednesday that “although this is the most detailed and wide-ranging analysis of casualty figures so far, this is by no means a definitive figure.
“We have not been able to verify the circumstances of each and every death, partly because of the nature of the conflict and partly because we have not been allowed inside Syria since the unrest began in March 2011.”
The UN High Commissioner added that “once there is peace in Syria, further investigations will be necessary to discover precisely how many people have died, and in what circumstances, and who was responsible for all the crimes that have been committed.”
The analysts cited by the UN official noted that 60,000 was likely to be an underestimate of the actual number of deaths, given that reports containing insufficient information were excluded from the list, and that a significant number of killings might not have been documented.
The analysis, which the UN High Commissioner stressed is “a work in progress, not a final product”, shows a steady increase in the average number of documented deaths per month since the beginning of the conflict, from around 1,000 per month in the summer of 2011 to an average of more than 5,000 per month since July 2012.
The greatest number of reported killings have occurred in Homs (12,560), rural Damascus (10,862) and Idlib (7,686), followed by Aleppo (6,188), Daraa (6,034) and Hama (5,080).
Source: Dawn News
January 3, 2013 at 7:30 am · Filed under authors, Family, Women & Children, Media, Military, Politics, Poverty, Economics & Governance, Society & Culture, World News and tagged: Asia & Africa, delhi lawyers, indian lawyers, politics, rape murder, Women & Children
Indian university students shout slogans during protest march in New Delhi on Dec 31, 2012. — Photo by AFP
NEW DELHI: Lawyers at an Indian court hearing the case of a fatal gang-rape which has shocked the nation said on Wednesday they would refuse to defend the men accused of taking part in the assault and murder.
Hearings are expected to begin on Thursday at the Saket district court in south New Delhi, where police will formally present a 1,000-page charge sheet against the six-person gang.
“We have decided that no lawyer will stand up to defend the rape accused as it would be immoral to defend the case,” Sanjay Kumar, a lawyer and a member of the Saket District Bar Council, told AFP.
Kumar said the 2,500 advocates registered at the court have decided to “stay away” to ensure “speedy justice”, meaning the government would have to appoint lawyers for the defendants.
Another lawyer at the court confirmed the boycott to AFP.
Five men are expected to face charges including rape, murder and kidnapping in the Saket court, with the prosecutor likely to seek the death sentence.
A sixth suspect is believed to be 17 years old, meaning he would be tried in a juveniles’ court, but police are conducting bone tests to determine his age.
The brutality and horrific nature of the attack on a 23-year-old has led to protests in the capital and elsewhere over the widespread abuse of women and sex crime in India.
The rape victim died at the weekend after 13-day struggle to survive injuries so grievous that part of her intestines had to be removed.
She was repeatedly raped and violated with an iron bar on a bus on December 16 before being thrown from the moving vehicle at the end of a 40-minute ordeal.
In 2008, Indian lawyers also refused to defend a gunman who took part in attacks on Mumbai which killed 166 people, leaving him with a government-appointed lawyer. He was executed in November last year.
Source: Dawn News
December 15, 2012 at 9:35 am · Filed under Education, Family, Women & Children, Media, Military, Politics, Poverty, Economics & Governance, religion & islam, Science, Technology & Environment, Society & Culture, World News and tagged: Asia & Africa, aviation, Economics & Governance, entertainment, Europe & Americas, human-rights, Islam & Muslims, media, politics, Poverty, transportation, USA, war crimes charges
The comic uses his libel victory cash to fund landmark legal bid
He’s the television comedian best known for controversial jokes about swimmer Rebecca Adlington, The Queen and Down’s syndrome sufferers.
But Frankie Boyle is now using his fame, and wealth, for more serious ends, by donating tens of thousands of pounds of his money to help Britain’s last inmate at Guantanamo Bay to sue the MI6.
Yesterday the Glaswegian comic announced the £50,000 compensation he won from a recent libel victory against the Daily Mirror newspaper, would go towards a landmark legal attempt to sue Britain’s security services over accusations they have defamed Shaker Aamer, the only British resident still languishing without charge in Guantanamo.
Boyle, who has decided to retire from comedy early next year after repeated clashes over his controversial style of humour, unveiled his plan alongside Reprieve, the British-American charity which has long represented inmates of Washington’s extra-judicial jail.
Even Boyle, who is best known for his performances on BBC panel show Mock the Week, admits his involvement in the case sounds a little far-fetched. “I remember reading [the US pop star] Usher crashed a hot air balloon into something, and I thought ‘this is just a random word generator’”, he told The Independent yesterday. “It feels a bit like that.”
Clive Stafford-Smith, the director of Reprieve, admitted the libel action untested legal formula but said there was important legal ground that needed to be explored. “If the Daily Mirror says something bad about Frankie that embarrasses him or humiliates him then he has the right to sue,” he said.
“If, on the other hand, a far more powerful organisation, the British government and their agents, say something about Shaker – whereby instead of being humiliated he’s banged up in prison for eleven years for something he patently didn’t do and something he’s never been charged with – then the British government’s position is Shaker can do nothing.”
Aamer was arrested in Afghanistan in late 2001 and is the only British resident left in Guantanamo, a US detention centre in Cuba. He has been cleared for release by the US authorities but has yet to be freed as the Americans have insisted on returning him to Saudi Arabia. Although he holds Saudi nationality with his British residency, Aamer’s wife and four children – one of whom he has never met – live in London. The British government are supportive of him returning to the UK but the Americans have so far refused to hand him over.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said they could not comment on any on-going legal proceedings but Reprieve claim that they have already seen a response from Government lawyers claiming the security services are protected by legal privilege.
“The claim they would make is they would have law enforcement privilege,” said Stafford-Smith. “But our response to that is they’re not enforcing any law because Shaker has not broken any law, he’s not been prosecuted for breaking any law and they’re not investigating him for breaking any law. So our position is they would have no such privilege.”
Source: The Independent Newspaper
December 13, 2012 at 7:52 am · Filed under authors, Education, Family, Women & Children, Literature, Media, Military, Politics, Poverty, Economics & Governance, Publishing, religion & islam, Science, Technology & Environment, Society & Culture, World News and tagged: Asia & Africa, climate, Economics & Governance, Europe & Americas, global economic collapse, Islam & Muslims, middle-east, News, politics, science, USA
The study is presented to US policymakers to plan for the best and worst possible scenarios. It includes a Goldman Sachs list of “Next Eleven” consisting of Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam.
WASHINGTON: The “Next Eleven,” which include Pakistan, will collectively overtake EU-27 in global power by 2030, says a US government report released on Monday.
Although America’s influence will reduce, it will remain the “first among equals,” adds the report prepared by the US National Intelligence Council with inputs from 18 American intelligence agencies and dozens ofthink-tanks.
Based on socio-economic trends across the globe, the study also presents the best and the worst case scenarios in the report titled, “Global Trends 2030.”
The best case scenario: Nearly two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2030. The middle class will outnumber others. Most people will have access to technology, advanced health care and most countries will learn to link with each other. The United States and China will also cooperate with each other to lead the way.
In the worst case scenarios, rising population leads to conflict over water and food, especially in the Mideast and Africa, and the instability contributes to global economic collapse.
The study is presented to US policymakers to plan for the best and worst possible scenarios.
It includes a Goldman Sachs list of “Next Eleven” consisting of Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam.
The “Next Eleven” will collectively overtake the EU-27 in global power by 2030. “When this second tier is combined with the non-Western giants of China and India, the shift of power from the West to the emerging or non-Western world is even more pronounced,” the report notes.
The study suggests that China will surpass the US in 2022 if GDP is measured at purchasing power parity and sometime near 2030 if GDP is measured at market exchange rates.
India will most likely continue to consolidate its power advantage relative to Pakistan, says the report. India’s economy is already nearly eight times as large as Pakistan’s; by 2030 that ratio could easily be more than 16-to-1, it adds.
Both Pakistan and India probably will have youthful ethnic and regional populations that could remain a security concern.
Youthful age structures are likely to persist for most of the next two decades among tribal populations in Pakistan’s western provinces and territories.
In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the rates of childbearing are probably greater than five children per woman among the Pushtun.
The report warns that South Asia may face a series of internal and external shocks during the next 15-20 years. Low growth, rising food prices, and energy shortages will pose stiff challenges to governance in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s youth bulges are large, similar in size to those found in many African countries. “When these youth bulges are combined with a slow-growing economy, they portend increased instability,” the study warns.
India is in a better position, benefiting from higher growth, but it will still be challenged to find jobs for its large youth population.
Inequality, lack of infrastructure and education deficiencies are key weaknesses in India, the report adds.
A growing sense of insecurity in South Asia will bolster military outlays. Conflict could erupt and spread under numerous scenarios.
Conflicting strategic goals, widespread distrust, and the hedging strategies by all the parties will make it difficult for them to develop a strong regional security framework.
Insufficient natural resources, such as water and arable land, and disproportionate levels of young men increase the risks of intrastate conflict breaking out. Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan also havefaltering governance institutions.
The study notes that nuclear powers such as Russia and Pakistan and potential aspirants such as Iran and North Korea see nuclear weapons as compensation for other political and security weaknesses, heightening the risk of their use. The chance of non-state actors conducting a cyber-attack, or using WMD, also is increasing.
Globally, power will no longer reside with one or two key nations, but be spread across networks and coalitions of countries working together.
Sixty present of the world’s population will live in cities.
Nearly half of the world’s population will live in areas experiencing severe water stress.
Among the anticipated crises is the worry of global economic collapse, fighting among nations that don’t adapt rapidly enough to change and the
possible spillover of instability in the Mideast and South Asia to the rest of the world.
Technology is seen as a potential saviour to head off some of this conflict, boosting economic productivity to keep pockets filled despite rising population, rapid growth of cities and climate change.
The report warns of the mostly catastrophic effect of possible “Black Swans,” extraordinary events that can change the course of history. These include a severe pandemic that could kill millions in a matter of months and more rapid climate change that could make it hard to feed the world’s population.
Two positive events are also listed, including “a democratic China or a reformed Iran,” which could bring more global stability.
APP adds: Pakistan-India economic relations will be critical to determining stability of the South Asia and Islamabad’s economy could grow on sustained basis if normalisation of trade between the two nuclear neighbours takes place, a new US report, looking into the world scenario in 2030, said Monday.
“In a Turn-the-Corner scenario, sustained economic growth in Pakistan based on the gradual normalisation of trade with a rising India would be a critical factor,” says the report.
An improved economic environment would produce more opportunities for youth entering the workforce, lessening the attractiveness of militancy and containing the spread of violence, the authors of report say of Pakistan’s economic possibilities.
Intra-regional trade would also be important in building trust between India and Pakistan, slowly changing threat perceptions and anchoring sectors withvested interests in continuing economic ties, it argues.
The report projects a strong economic engine in India could lay down new foundations for prosperity and regional cooperation in South Asia.
Over several decades, Pakistan would grow into a relatively stable economy, no longer requiring foreign assistance and IMF support. However, authors of the report stipulate that such a scenario would need sustained good governance and tax reforms that spur new industries, jobs and more resources for modern education in Pakistan.
It also presents other scenarios with pitfalls, including the militants, retarding developments in the region with violence.
A collapse in neighbouring Afghanistan would probably set back any such civilian-led agenda, reinforcing security fears and retrenchment, the report cautions.
Source: Dawn News
December 9, 2012 at 8:29 am · Filed under Education, Family, Women & Children, Literature, Media, Military, Politics, Poverty, Economics & Governance, religion & islam, Society & Culture, World News and tagged: apartheid state, Asia & Africa, human rights groups, human-rights, Islam & Muslims, jammu and kashmir, lieutenant colonels, Life, major generals, politics, Poverty, war crimes charges, Women & Children
An Indian paramilitary soldier stands guard at a closed market during a strike in Srinagar. – File Photo by AP
For the first time since the inception of popular armed uprising against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir in 1989, two leading human rights groups have named 500 “alleged perpetrators”— including two Major Generals and three Brigadiers of the Indian Army besides many other serving officers and soldiers — involved in killings, fake encounters, torture, rape and other serious crimes like abduction and enforced custodial disappearances in the disputed Himalayan region.
After the discovery of about 6,000 unmarked and mass graves in different parts of the Kashmir Valley not that long ago, the latest report could finally ‘embarrass’ the “world’s largest democracy”.
According to International Peoples’ Tribunal for Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir (IPTK) and the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) — two leading human rights bodies operating in the Valley — their report is the outcome of two-year-long painstaking research.
“Out of 214 cases a list emerges of 500 individual perpetrators, which include 235 army personnel, 123 paramilitary personnel, 111 Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel and 31 Government backed militants/associates. Among the alleged perpetrators are two Major Generals and three Brigadiers of the Indian Army, besides nine Colonels, three Lieutenant Colonels, 78 Majors and 25 Captains. Add to this, 37 senior officials of the federal Paramilitary forces, a recently retired Director General of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, as well as a serving Inspector General,” the report alleges.
“By naming names the report seeks to remove the veil of anonymity and secrecy that has sustained impunity. Only when the specificity of each act of violation is uncovered can institutions be stopped from providing the violators a cover of impunity,” the report further says. The institutional culture of moral, political and juridical impunity has resulted in enforced and involuntary disappearance of an estimated 8000 persons (as on Nov 2012), besides more than 70,000 deaths, and disclosures of more than 6000 unknown, unmarked and mass graves. The last 22 years have also seen regular extra-judicial killings punctuated by massacres. The Gow Kadal (Srinagar) massacre of around 50 persons on 21 January 1990 and other mass killings discussed in this report are symbolic reminders of the persistent human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir,” it adds.
The 354-page report released on December 6, 2012 in Srinagar by these groups also accuses India of institutionally ‘obstructing justice’. India has all along been dismissing allegations of such serious nature against its armed forces by saying that the unfortunate acts are a mere “aberration” and “error in judgment” on part of some individual soldiers, not a matter of policy.
But Khurram Parvez, one of the co-authors of the report, told Dawn that the Indian State has used its various institutions in Jammu and Kashmir – judicial and otherwise – in a sophisticated manner to “continue its control over territory”. “This fits in with the State’s policy and design in Jammu and Kashmir. The State has ensured a lowering of the standard of the serious human rights discourse. Our analysis of the cases in this report clearly evidences this. The State on occasion allows for the filing of FIR’s (First Information Reports), or ordering investigations but it will not allow prosecutions despite information being present,” Parvez writes in response to our questionnaire.
Asked how confident his group was about the findings of the report, he writes: “We are confident of our documentation and analysis in this report. We intend to engage on this report with international rights groups and UN working groups and Special Rapporteurs. We will use this [report] to build awareness in India and internationally regarding the processes of injustice in Jammu and Kashmir.”
Programme coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and Tribunal Liaison, Parvez, hopes that the international community will take notice of their group’s report.
The other authors of the report are Kartik Murukutla, who has worked in a UN tribunal in Rwanda for five years, and leading human rights activist in Kashmir, Parvez Imroz.
The authors of the report have a word of caution, though: “The IPTK cannot conclusively pronounce on the guilt of any of the alleged perpetrators, but it is clear that enough evidence exists to warrant further action. However, in the absence of any institutional or political will to take the evidence to its natural conclusion – a trial where the crime and the guilt of a perpetrator can be proven beyond reasonable doubt – the Indian State stands indicted,” read the contents of the report’s executive summary.
How significant are the findings of this report released by IPTK and APDP? When I posed this question to Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of Jammu and Kashmir’s oldest English daily The Kashmir Times, she had this to say: “Well, I feel this report is significant because the groups have used the information from the same government that is involved in crimes against humanity. In this report a pattern is revealed and that is to bury the investigation.”
She feels that the government can not deny the findings of the report. “Human rights groups have heavily relied on the government version, court case proceedings and information gathered after filing Right to Information (RTI) applications with different state-run departments,” she adds.
How embarrassing could it [the report] be for the state? “The state is too thick skinned to be embarrassed,” she mocks.
Until now, the state government officials and ruling party spokespersons are sounding over cautious and, therefore, reluctant to give a detailed official reaction.
Tanvir Sadiq, spokesperson of the ruling pro-India party National Conference (NC) while speaking to Dawnsaid it will be “too premature to give a reaction” on a report which is of course of “serious nature”. “Let us read the contents of the report first; study them properly so that we will be in a position to give our party’s reaction.” Asked about the coalition government’s position, Tanvir said: “Our Chief Minister, Mr. Omar Abdullah, has already informed the media in Jammu — the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir which is about 300 kilometres from the summer capital, Srinagar — that the State home department has asked for the copy of the report to study and examine it, and once that is done; the official reaction will come.”
“This report, prepared over two years using information gleaned mostly from official State documents in addition to witness testimonies, in cases available with IPTK/APDP, portrays the state of impunity prevalent in Jammu and Kashmir. Where identities of individual perpetrators of crimes are known it seeks a process of accountability for institutional criminality. The State documents used range from police records, judicial and quasi-judicial records and Government documents. IPTK/APDP using the Right to Information (RTI) legislations sought information on First Information Reports (FIRs), High Court petition numbers and other documentation,” claim the authors of the report.
The contents of the report paint a grim picture of the law and order situation and also highlight the environment of impunity under which Indian forces are operating in Jammu and Kashmir. Experts say that the draconian laws like the AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act), PSA (Public Safety Act) and DAA (Disturbed Area Act) have served as “shield” for the armed forces in Kashmir to “avoid punishment” under law.
Many in Kashmir are expecting a strong reaction from the international community.
Zareef Ahmad Zareef, noted Kashmiri humourist-poet based in Srinagar at his home. – photo by writer
Zareef Ahmad Zareef, a renowned Kashmiri humorist-poet, believes it is time for the powerful world nations to act. “For one Malala Yousufzai — a victim of Taliban violence in Pakistan — the entire world community expressed solidarity and made special arrangements for her treatment outside a sovereign country to ensure she was safe. Now, we shall see what is the measuring rod for justice and equality? If they’re genuinely sincere and care for justice and human rights everywhere across the globe, they should come forward to the rescue of the victims of Indian state-sponsored violence in Jammu and Kashmir,” Zareef says. The report, according to Zareef, has exposed India’s “hollow claims of being a secular and democratic” nation having a “responsible and professional army”.
“India has declared a war on the civilians in Kashmir. There is no Kashmiri family which is not either directly or indirectly a victim of the state violence. There are some Indians who care for human rights and justice and I’m sure they will not remain silent on this. Whatever has come in open through the report, it is clear that Kashmir has a strong case against India in the International Criminal Court (ICC),” he adds.
Parvez also sounds hopeful about it. “We have flagged issues regarding the application of international criminal law for crimes committed in Jammu and Kashmir. These issues need to be further debated. We ourselves and particularly, other countries that are members of the United Nations need to read this report and push the Security Council to consider further action, including possibly engaging with the procedures at the International Criminal Court. Towards this end, we will lobby with member States of the United Nations. Further, we expect other rights groups and the Kashmiri Diaspora to do the same. The process must continue,” he hopes.
There is also this perception that the international community is selective in its approach in relation to the cases of human rights abuses in different parts of the world. While there is an uproar if violation occurs in countries like China, Iran or Pakistan, very little or nothing is said against India even when the magnitude of excesses may be too big. Some experts opine that the Kashmiris need to learn “marketing their sufferings”, because their supposed supporters are currently on a weak wicket.
Dr. Sheikh Showkat, an expert in international law, says that Kashmir needs to “project its pain” so that the prosecutors at the ICC can take cognizance. “Our supporters are too weak at the moment. We need to market our pain and convince the international community to take action. Also, there is little doubt that there exists disparity because of powerful UN member nation’s selective approach on issues of human rights and self-determination,” Dr. Showkat believes.
Meanwhile, to all cases related to gross human rights excesses in Kashmir during the past 23 years, the Indian Army has more often used expressions like “it was a mistaken identity”, “it was an aberration”, “it was a rare error of judgment”, “we do not shoot with an intention to kill”, “anger of people against killings is justified, but we will conduct our own enquiry to ascertain the facts”, etc.
In a high-profile case, one Major Avtar of the 35 Rashtriya Rifles unit was accused of being involved in the killing of a well-known human rights defender in Kashmir, Jaleel Andrabi, and four counterinsurgents in 1996. Major (Retd.) Avtar Singh committed suicide on 9 June in California, USA before killing his wife and children. Fugitive Avtar had taken refuge in California and kept a low profile there. Some in Kashmir interpreted Avtar’s death as “divine justice”.
In March 2000, the Indian Army claimed neutralising five “terrorists” in Pathribal area and said they were responsible for the killings of 35 members of minority Sikh community in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) — India’s premier investigating agency — conducted an inquiry and found that those killed by the army in an ‘encounter’ were actually civilians. The CBI then filed the charge sheet against the accused Army officers in 2006. Nothing has happened since except for the unconvincing court proceedings and open to doubt Court-Martials.
In majority of the abuse cases, the guilty haven’t been punished. ‘Not only is justice delayed but denied as well’ is the common perception in Kashmir!
Tailpiece: I remember covering an Army press conference in Kashmir in July 2005. Lieutenant General S S Dhillon was the GoC (General Officer Commanding) at Srinagar-based sensitive 15 Corps of the Indian Army. The press conference was organised in the backdrop of killing of three teenaged boys in North Kashmir’s frontier district, Kupwara on 24 July that year. Tens of thousands of people had protested against this incident. I vividly remember Dhillon’s words then. “This incident was unfortunate and most regrettable. It was an ‘error of judgment’ on part of the troops who opened fire on the teenaged boys. The anger of people against the Army over the killings of three boys was justified.” Dhillon had visited Bungargund, an area falling under Trehgam hamlet in Kupwara, where he had himself witnessed the anger of people. Army bunkers were being attacked by the protesting crowds. Besides seeing the parents of those killed, I went to feel the anger of people, to see the anger of people, and I saw some of it. It (anger against the Army) is justified,” the then GoC of the most sensitive Corps said. After his assurances that there will be no such repeats, four more civilians were allegedly killed by the army in Kupwara district in February 2006. The town observed complete shutdown for five consecutive days and staged massive anti-India demonstrations. The unfortunate incidents kept repeating. Not that long ago, one more civilian named Hilal Ahmad, 25, was killed allegedly at the hands of 27-Rashtriya Rifles of the Indian Army in North Kashmir’s Bandipora district.
Source: Dawns News (Story by Gowhar Geelani)
December 2, 2012 at 6:36 am · Filed under authors, Education, Family, Women & Children, Literature, Media, Military, Poetry, Politics, Poverty, Economics & Governance, Publishing, religion & islam, Science, Technology & Environment, Society & Culture, World News and tagged: ancient monasteries, Asia & Africa, climate, Economics & Governance, environment, Family, happiness levels, human-rights, politics, science, Social
Bhutan measures prosperity by gauging its citizens’ happiness levels, not the GDP. Now its ideas are attracting interest at the UN climate change conference in Doha
A series of hand-painted signs dot the side of the winding mountain road that runs between the airport and the Bhutanese capital, Thimphu. Instead of commands to cut speed or check mirrors, they offer the traveller a series of life-affirming mantras. “Life is a journey! Complete it!” says one, while another urges drivers to, “Let nature be your guide”. Another, standing on the edge of a perilous curve, simply says: “Inconvenience regretted.”
It’s a suitably uplifting welcome to visitors to this remote kingdom, a place of ancient monasteries, fluttering prayer flags and staggering natural beauty. Less than 40 years ago, Bhutan opened its borders for the first time. Since then, it has gained an almost mythical status as a real-life Shangri-La, largely for its determined and methodical pursuit of the most elusive of concepts – national happiness.
Since 1971, the country has rejected GDP as the only way to measure progress. In its place, it has championed a new approach to development, which measures prosperity through formal principles of gross national happiness (GNH) and the spiritual, physical, social and environmental health of its citizens and natural environment.
For the past three decades, this belief that wellbeing should take preference over material growth has remained a global oddity. Now, in a world beset by collapsing financial systems, gross inequity and wide-scale environmental destruction, this tiny Buddhist state’s approach is attracting a lot of interest.
As world leaders prepare to meet in Doha on Monday for the second week of the UN climate change conference, Bhutan’s stark warning that the rest of the world is on an environmental and economical suicide path is starting to gain traction. Last year the UN adopted Bhutan’s call for a holistic approach to development, a move endorsed by 68 countries. A UN panel is now considering ways that Bhutan’s GNH model can be replicated across the globe.
As representatives in Doha struggle to find ways of reaching a consensus on global emissions, Bhutan is also being held up as an example of a developing country that has put environmental conservation and sustainability at the heart of its political agenda. In the last 20 years Bhutan has doubled life expectancy, enrolled almost 100% of its children in primary school and overhauled its infrastructure.
At the same time, placing the natural world at the heart of public policy has led to environmental protection being enshrined in the constitution. The country has pledged to remain carbon neutral and to ensure that at least 60% of its landmass will remain under forest cover in perpetuity. It has banned export logging and has even instigated a monthly pedestrian day that bans all private vehicles from its roads.
“It’s easy to mine the land and fish the seas and get rich,” says Thakur Singh Powdyel, Bhutan’s minister of education, who has become one of the most eloquent spokespeople for GNH. “Yet we believe you cannot have a prosperous nation in the long run that does not conserve its natural environment or take care of the wellbeing of its people, which is being borne out by what is happening to the outside world.”
Powdyel believes the world has misinterpreted Bhutan’s quest. “People always ask how can you possibly have a nation of happy people? But this is missing the point,” he says. “GNH is an aspiration, a set of guiding principles through which we are navigating our path towards a sustainable and equitable society. We believe the world needs to do the same before it is too late.”
Bhutan’s principles have been set in policy through the gross national happiness index, based on equitable social development, cultural preservation, conservation of the environment and promotion of good governance.
At a primary school in Thimphu, the headteacher, Choki Dukpa, watches her students make their way to class. She says that she has seen huge changes to the children’s emotional wellbeing since GNH principles were integrated into the education system four years ago. She admits that at first she had no idea what the government’s policy to change all education facilities into “green schools” meant.
“It sounded good but I wasn’t sure how it would work,” she says. But after Unicef funded a “green schools” teacher training programme, things improved. “The idea of being green does not just mean the environment, it is a philosophy for life,” says Dukpa.
Alongside maths and science, children are taught basic agricultural techniques and environmental protection. A new national waste management programme ensures that every piece of material used at the school is recycled.
The infusion of GNH into education has also meant daily meditation sessions and soothing traditional music replacing the clang of the school bell.
“An education doesn’t just mean getting good grades, it means preparing them to be good people,” says Dukpa. “This next generation is going to face a very scary world as their environment changes and social pressures increase. We need to prepare them for this.”
Despite its focus on national wellbeing, Bhutan faces huge challenges. It remains one of the poorest nations on the planet. A quarter of its 800,000 people survive on less than $1.25 a day, and 70% live without electricity. It is struggling with a rise in violent crime, a growing gang culture and the pressures of rises in both population and global food prices.
It also faces an increasingly uncertain future. Bhutan’s representatives at the Doha climate talks are warning that its gross national happiness model could crumble in the face of increasing environmental and social pressures and climatic change.
“The aim of staying below a global two-degree temperature increase being discussed here this week is not sufficient for us. We are a small nation, we have big challenges and we are trying our best, but we can’t save our environment on our own,” says Thinley Namgyel, who heads Bhutan’s climate change division. “Bhutan is a mountainous country, highly vulnerable to extreme weather conditions. We have a population that is highly dependent on the agricultural sector. We are banking on hydropower as the engine that will finance our development.”
In Paro, an agricultural region one hour out of the capital, Dawa Tshering explains how the weather is already causing him problems. The 53-year-old farmer grew up in Paro, surrounded by mountains and streams, but has found it increasingly difficult to work his two acres of rice paddy.
“The weather has changed a lot: there is no snow in winter, the rains come at the wrong times and our plants get ruined. There are violent storms,” he says. Around 70% of Bhutan’s people are smallholder farmers like Tshering.
“The temperature has got hotter so there are more insects in the fruit and grain. I don’t understand it, but if it continues we’re going to have many problems in growing food and feeding ourselves.”
Bhutan is taking action to try to protect itself. Ground-breaking work is being done to try to reduce the flooding potential in its remote glacial lakes. Yet it cannot do it alone. Last week in Doha, campaigners pushed for more support to countries such as Bhutan that are acutely vulnerable to climate change.
“While the world is now starting to look to Bhutan as an alternative model of sustainable economics, all of its efforts could be undone if the world doesn’t take action in Doha,” says Stephen Pattison from Unicef UK.
“Small and developing countries like Bhutan must get more support, and the UK and other governments must start actually taking action, like pledging their share of money to the green climate fund and get it up and running as soon as possible.”
In Paro, teenagers in school uniform heading home from lessons are well aware of the hard times ahead for Bhutan as it tries to navigate a path between preserving its sustainable agenda and the global realities it faces. All say they are proud to be Bhutanese. They want to be forest rangers, environmental scientists and doctors. At the same time they want to travel the world, listen to Korean pop music and watch Rambo.
“I want to be able to go out and see the world but then I want to come home to Bhutan and for it to be the same,” says Kunzang Jamso, a 15-year-old whose traditional dress is offset with a hint of a boyband haircut. “I think we must keep the outside from coming here too much because we might lose our culture, and if you don’t have that then how do you know who you are?”
Source: Guardian News
December 1, 2012 at 8:34 am · Filed under Family, Women & Children, Media, Military, Politics, Poverty, Economics & Governance, religion & islam, Society & Culture, World News and tagged: Asia & Africa, british colonial rule, foreign relations committee, gop lawmaker, Islam & Muslims, Latest News, leon panetta, middle-east, politics, Poverty, USA, war crimes charges
An Afghan boy looks at a US soldier of B Troop, 1st squadron of 4th US Cavalry Regiment as they patrol the town of Sar Howza in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, Oct 30, 2012. — Photo by Reuters/File
WASHINGTON: Reflecting a war-weary nation, the Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday for an accelerated withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan after more than a decade of fighting.
The strong bipartisan vote of 62-33 sends a clear message to President Barack Obama and the military as they engage in high-stakes talks about the pace of drawing down the 66,000 US troops there, with a White House announcement expected within weeks.
Although the vote was on a nonbinding amendment to a defence policy bill, its significance could not be discounted amid the current discussions.
Thirteen Republicans, including Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top GOP lawmaker on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, backed the measure.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., its chief sponsor, argued that Al Qaeda was stronger in other parts of the world and that nation-building in Afghanistan had gone off track. His measure endorsed Obama’s timetable to withdraw all combat troops by the end of 2014 but pressed for a quicker pace, without specifying how that would be achieved.
“It is time to end this war, end the longest war in United States history,” Merkley said during Senate debate.
Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday the US would need to keep troops in Afghanistan even after the combat mission ends in 2014 because Al Qaeda was still present in the country and was trying to strengthen its influence.
He would not say how many American troops he thought will be needed to conduct that mission, nor did he mention a time period.
“The goal here is an enduring presence therefore that will direct itself toward three important missions. One is obviously counterterrorism to insure that we continue to go after whatever Al Qaeda targets remain in Afghanistan,” Panetta told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
He added that the United States also would have to train and assist the Afghan forces while providing support.
The overall defence bill authorises $631 billion for weapons, ships, aircraft and a 1.7 per cent pay raise for military personnel. The White House threatened to veto the legislation in its current form, citing limits on the president’s authority in handling detainees at the US military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and restrictions on cuts to the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve.
The Senate hopes to wrap up its version of the bill by week’s end. It then would have to be reconciled with the legislation the House passed in May. The House bill calls for Obama to maintain a force of at least 68,000 troops in Afghanistan through the end of 2014.
Late Thursday, the Senate revived last year’s debate over how to handle terror suspects and whether restrictions interfere with the president’s powers as commander in chief.
Lawmakers approved an amendment that would prevent the transfer of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to prisons in the United States. The vote was 54-41, with several Democrats vulnerable in the 2014 elections voting with Republicans.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., argued that the 166 terror suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-styled mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, should remain at the US naval facility and not be transferred to any facility on American soil.
Responding to Ayotte, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the United States not only could but had handled terrorist suspects, with 180 now languishing in super maximum prisons. Feinstein complained that the measure would erase the president’s flexibility.
“I don’t think the right thing to do is to tie anyone’s hands,” she said.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., who had pushed for several of the provisions on terror suspects in last year’s defence bill, said Ayotte’s measure was “unwise in terms of our national security.” He also warned that the provision was certain to draw a presidential veto.
In fact, the administration, in threatening to veto the bill, strongly objected to a provision restricting the president’s authority to transfer terror suspects from Guantanamo to foreign countries. The provision is in current law.
The White House said the provisions were “misguided when they were enacted and should not be renewed.”
Current law denies suspected terrorists, including US citizens seized within the nation’s borders, the right to trial and subjects them to the possibility they would be held indefinitely. It reaffirms the post-Sept 11 authorisation for the use of military force that allows indefinite detention of enemy combatants.
An unusual coalition of liberal Democrats and libertarian Republicans backed an amendment by Feinstein that said the government may not detain a US citizen or legal resident indefinitely without charge or trial even with the authorisation to use military force or declaration of war.
Feinstein recalled the dark days of World War II when the United States forcibly removed thousands of Japanese-Americans and placed them in permanent internment camps amid unfounded fears that they were spies and a national security threat.
Civil rights groups said the measure did not go far enough, but it was approved on a 67-29 vote with the backing of conservative Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah.
The Senate eliminated one provision from the bill that had attracted White House objections. In a strong bipartisan vote Wednesday, senators voted to allow Pentagon investment in alternative fuels.
Source: Dawn News
November 30, 2012 at 11:48 am · Filed under Education, Family, Women & Children, Literature, Media, Military, Politics, Poverty, Economics & Governance, religion & islam, Science, Technology & Environment, Society & Culture, World News and tagged: Asia & Africa, british authorities, british colonial rule, colonial authorities, politics, Poverty, psychological scars, war crimes charges, Women & Children
Thousands of recently released files reveal rampant use of torture by Britain against subjects during colonial era.
Three Kenyans won the right to sue the UK government for torture under British colonial rule using the files [AP]
London, UK – For historians, it represents a treasure trove of boundless rewards and an opportunity to revisit some of the most enduring myths about Britain’s colonial past.
But for some of those still living with the physical and psychological scars, the release of thousands of previously secret government-held documents offers fresh hope of finally gaining a measure of justice for their suffering under British rule.
Last month, a judge in London’s high court ruled that three elderly Kenyans could sue the UK government for torture they endured at the hands of the colonial authorities during the 1950s Mau Mau uprising.
The government conceded that the trio, Paulo Muoka Nzili, 85, Wambugu Wa Nyingi, 84, and Jane Muthoni Mara, 73, had suffered brutal abuse, including castration, sexual assault and beatings as a result of their detentions during one of the bloodiest and most enduring rebellions of the British empire’s final days. But it argued that the distance from the events over which it was accused meant a fair trial was impossible.
That argument came unstuck when the foreign office was forced last year to reveal the existence of almost 9,000 hidden files brought to Britain from 37 former colonies. The files had been concealed as a consequence of a government policy that any “embarrassing” documents should not be left in the hands of the territories’ successor governments.
Among them were several thousand papers relating to the British authorities’ handling of the Mau Mau crisis, including details of how senior officials had colluded in the mistreatment of detainees by changing the law to provide legal cover for what they deemed “acceptable punishment”, even knowing that what they were condoning equated to torture by international standards.
“If we are going to sin, then we must sin quietly,” wrote Eric Griffiths-Joyce, the Kenyan attorney general, in a memo to Sir Evelyn Baring, the colonial governor, in 1957.
Seeking justice
David Anderson, the historian whose painstaking paper trail tracing the documents’ transfer from Nairobi finally led to their re-discovery at the government’s Hanslope Park archive, said that their contents had been “absolutely critical” to the success of the Kenyans’ legal case.
“Although we had a very good general idea of what had gone on in Kenya, we didn’t have some of the detail that you would need to make a legal argument,” he told Al Jazeera. “But these documents show they discussed it. We now know who was in the room at the time, we know what was said, so we have it, as it were, chapter and verse.”
Now the Kenyans’ success and the gradual trickling into the public domain of the Hanslope Park documents has encouraged others tortured by British hands to ask whether they too could take action against the UK government.
Last week, a group of Cypriot veterans of the 1950s Eoka uprising said they were working with lawyers to build a case based on their own violent experiences in custody.
“The British nature is to document things, even torture and abuse.”– Martyn Day, Lawyer representing the Kenyan plaintiffs
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Others draw parallels with imperial hotspots such as Malaya, where British abuses during the late 1940s and early 1950s are well documented, and Aden, where an official inquiry at the time found that the torture of detainees was routine prior to the end of British rule in 1967.
Martyn Day, the lawyer representing the Kenyan plaintiffs, said the likeliest beneficiaries of the judgment in their case would be other survivors who suffered similar abuse during the Mau Mau uprising. He estimated they could number anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 people.
He added that new material from Hanslope Park could also be useful in substantiating claims brought by torture victims elsewhere in the former empire.
“The British nature is to document things, even torture and abuse,” Day told Al Jazeera. “We need to be in a position where there is a significant amount of documentary evidence, and Hanslope Park is quite useful in having a reasonable amount of material about places such as Cyprus and Malaya.”
But he said others seeking to build cases beyond Kenya faced an uphill struggle in getting their cases heard, based on the advanced age of many of those involved and daunting logistical and legal hurdles.
Culture of cover-up
And the biggest frustration for those seeking to shine a light into the darkest corners of the UK’s imperial past may still come down to black holes in the paperwork amid suspicions of a continuing culture of cover-up at the heart of government.
While the Hanslope Park archive has offered an unprecedented insight into the bureaucratic processes that accompanied the retreat from empire, it has also confirmed that far more material, including that assumed to be the most incriminating, was simply destroyed or disposed of at the time, or now appears to be missing.
After the foreign office finally admitted the existence of the secret files, William Hague, the foreign secretary, appointed Tony Badger, an eminent Cambridge historian, to oversee the transfer of the documents into the public domain.
Since then, tranches have been handed over to the National Archives in London every few months.
In response to an email, Badger said the UK’s track record of releasing previously secret documents was “pretty good” and said he was confident that he would at least be able to fully audit what had been destroyed and to discover the fate of 170 hitherto unlocated files.
“We have the certificates of destruction basically for what was destroyed in the run-up to independence. In terms of what we ‘know’ is missing, I think the chances of them being found is pretty remote but the search will go on. I have more confidence that we may find evidence that they were destroyed at some point 20 years ago,” wrote Badger.
But other historians remain unconvinced by the process by which the files have been made public.
“I think there is a myth in Britain that we are moving towards a more transparent government and we are opening up and we are letting our records be seen,” said David Anderson. “It has always been the case that some very powerful stuff has been destroyed. It’s far too easy to bury bad news. We can only guess at what might have been.”
Source: AlJazeera
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