Human Rights

The U.N. backed tribunal for the Khmer Rouge included war crimes on the indictment for the notorious prison leader, Kaing Guek Eav, or “Duch.” Duch, who faces charges for crimes against humanity, had war crimes added to his list of charges stemming from atrocities during the reign of the regime from 1975 to 1979. Five […]

Yesterday, August 12th, was International Youth Day 2008, this year's theme is; Youth and Climate Change: Time for Action. Climate change is an increasingly growing problem, which affects everyone, especially those who will inherit the mistakes of the past. It is essential that young people across the globe be given a voice in working to combat […]

Russia has long seen itself as the designated protector of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, however the relative quite cease-fire was broken last Thursday as Russian troops once again asserted their might and hold on the region, catching innocent civilians in the wake. It is estimated that some 100,000 people have been displaced since the […]

As everyone reading this almost certainly knows, Russia invaded Georgia on Friday in support of separatists in the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia – the locations of the so-called “frozen conflicts.” Pravda accuses the President of Georgia, Mikhal Saakashvili, of “war crimes against humanity” as a result of Georgia's attempts to pacify South […]

France, who assumed the six-month European Presidency on July 1st, is pushing its own strict immigration agenda onto Europe. Amnesty International, alarmed at some of France's proposals, is calling on the European Parliament to respect its human rights mandate.  Meanwhile French President Nicolas Sarkozy's historically low home approval ratings and less than stunning attempts at […]

Yesterday, August 9, 2008 marked the first International Day of the World's Indigenous People, The first event of its kind to take place, thanks to the landmark adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the General Assembly in September 2007. The convention and the event seeks to promote the culture and […]

Some 2 million people die each year of AIDS, and around 33 million people around the world are infected with HIV.  A shortage of healthcare providers, access to treatment facilities, high cost and often unavailability of ARVs , and a lack of adequate education, has lead the disease's spread to continue climb.  Therefore the HIV/AIDS epidemic of […]

"Children find everything in nothing; men find nothing in everything."  – Giacomo Leopardi (1798,1837), Italian poet and philosopher, from Zibaldone Scelto. It is true that as we grow our eye's seem to change, we seem to lose the wide and open vision that we had in childhood.  Our eye's no longer see everything with hopefulness, […]

Ending his three day tour of Asia in Beijing, US President George Bush chided China on its dismal human rights record.  In July, Amnesty International released a report claiming human rights violations in China have increased in the lead up to the games. Just hours before the Olympic ceremony is to kick off, Bush, standing […]

The jury in the U.S. war crimes trial of Salim Hamdan delivered a sentence Thursday of 5 ½ years in prison for providing material support to al-Qaida.  With time served, the sentence amounts to slightly less than 5 months in jail. The Pentagon had sought a 30-year term for the former driver of Osama bin […]

The court at the U.S. naval detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Wednesday found Salim Hamdan, the personal driver for Osama bin Laden, guilty of supporting terrorism, though it acquitted him of conspiring with al-Qaida, Jane Sutton reported for Reuters. In the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War II, the Bush administration , […]

First, the Times of London is reporting that the United Kingdom cut a deal with radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, which resulted in British forces sitting out the critical battle for Basra last year. The Times reports that the attack has caused some friction between the US and the UK and dented Britain's relationship on the […]