JERUSALEM, April 28, 2008 (AFP) - The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees will resume distributing food aid in Gaza on Tuesday after a four-day interruption caused by fuel shortages, a spokesman said.
“UNRWA has collected 55,000 litres (14,470 gallons) of diesel. Because of that we will be able to resume our food distribution tomorrow,” said Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the agency.
[JURIST] Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] said Monday that he will join fellow detainees in a boycott of his upcoming military commission trial. Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden who has been in US custody since 2001, said at a pre-trial hearing that he will not participate in the trial and will refuse any aid from lawyers.
HARARE, 25 April 2008 (IRIN) - About 400 people seeking refuge from alleged state-sponsored violence at the opposition party offices of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the capital, Harare, have been arrested by riot police, according to an IRIN correspondent.
Hundreds of people, including children, have fled to Harare from rural areas, seeking medical attention after the ZANU-PF government launched “Operation Mavhoterapapi” (Who did you vote for?) in the wake of their parliamentary election defeat and an anticipated second round of voting in the presidential ballot.
President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF lost control of parliament after the 29 March poll for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980, while the MDC have claimed that their leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the presidential vote by the required 50 percent plus one vote, ruling out the need for a run-off ballot. ZANU-PF have said there was no clear winner in the presidential race, although the results have yet to be announced.
A political analyst who declined to be identified, told IRIN the victims of Operation Mavhoterapapi, including those who sought refuge at the MDC offices, were being portrayed by the state media as the perpetrators of post-election violence and were likely to be charged with public violence.
BUJUMBURA, 23 April 2008 (IRIN) - The resumption in the violence in Bujumbura is causing panic in the country. Outside the capital, residents spend their nights in the bush for fear of being attacked, as the death toll rose to 33.
President Jose Ramos Horta made a warmly greeted return to East Timor last week, two months after he was shot in an early morning encounter with rebels. By all accounts, he has made a remarkable recovery, but his country’s wounds are slower to heal.
There are some positive signs. The Government did well in its initial response to the crisis. Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and other senior figures came across as statesmanlike and decisive, and explained their actions to the population. The Government followed correct procedures — convening an early meeting of the Council of Ministers and getting parliament to confirm the state of siege — and avoided playing party politics.
In short, in sharp contrast with 2006, the Government looked like a government and gained credibility. The events also brought reconfirmation of international solidarity. In particular, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s visit to Dili was widely interpreted as a sign of support, not only for Timor’s democracy, but for Gusmao and Ramos Horta personally.
The Observatory has been informed by reliable sources about the extra-judicial killing of Reverend Fr M X Karunaratnam, a Catholic priest as well as the founder and Chairperson of the North East Secretariat on Human Rights (NESOHR), operating in the areas administered by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), requests your urgent intervention in the following situation in Sri Lanka.
On the eve of the examination of the human rights record of the Philippines under the newly established mechanism of Universal Periodic Review in Geneva, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), in cooperation with its national member, the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA), and with the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), make public a report entitled Terrorism and Human Rights in the Philippines: Fighting Terror or Terrorizing?
The report highlights that torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings are common practice in the Philippines in the context of the « war on terror ». The Human Security Act (2007), the main legislation aimed at combating terrorism, enshrines a very vague definition of the crime of terrorism and gives extensive and unchecked power to the Executive. The lack of a law punishing superior officers for the acts of their subordinates and the absence of a law specifically penalizing acts of torture are condoning the use of torture.
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 21 (IPS) - A significant proportion of the world’s 2.2 billion children, many of whom are victims of violence, sexual abuse, labour exploitation and preventable diseases, are from the crisis-plagued African continent.
As the United Nations points out, too many of the world’s children, largely African, have been “bought and sold, exploited and abused, harmed and orphaned.”
Of the 11 countries where 20 percent or more of children die before the age of five, 10 are in Africa: Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger and Sierra Leone. The only non-African country on that list is Afghanistan.
“The conditions in many African countries, especially for children, are very grave,” Dr Mustafa Ali, the Kenya-based secretary-general of the African Council of Religious Leaders, told IPS.
After a recent tour of several African countries, including Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire, he lamented the fact that “in some countries, it is worsening every day”.
The number of children living with HIV/AIDS increased from 1.5 million in 2001 to 2.5 million in 2007. And nearly 90 percent of all HIV-positive children are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations.
OSLO, Apr 22 (IPS) - An internationally condemned Chinese cargo ship attempting to transport arms to Zimbabwe is partially insured by a Norwegian company. This may be illegal, according to Norwegian law.
A company spokesman has condemned the transport, adding that they it not know the ship was carrying weapons.
The Chinese-controlled An Yue Jiang is reportedly carrying three million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortar rounds destined for President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, where the political opposition alleges increasing violence against the party and its supporters following last month’s disputed elections.
An Yue Jiang was anchored off the port of Durban for four days until Friday Mar. 8, when a South African court refused to allow the ship to transport the weapons across the country to Zimbabwe and ruled that the cargo should be confiscated. The ship left before law officers acted on the order, and was rumoured to be heading for Angola or Namibia, which are being pressurised by the United States not to allow the ship to dock.
Zambia’s President Levy Mwanawasa has said he hopes no African country accepts the ship, in order to avoid further destabilising the situation in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe’s justice minister Patrick Chinamasa has told reporters Zimbabwe has a right to buy weapons if it wishes to do so.
It has been revealed that Norwegian marine insurance company Assuranceforeningen Skuld sold An Yue Jiang’s shipping company, the Chinese state-owned COSCO, a so-called third party insurance for the ship in 2003. The insurance covers damages caused by the ship to third parties.
HAVANA, Apr 22 (IPS) - The break-up of a demonstration by a small group of Cuban women demanding the release of their imprisoned dissident husbands came just a few days after a government warning that in Cuba there is no space for “subversion” or the dreams of “internal mercenaries.”
“This is a bucket of cold water for those who believe in a gradual democratisation of our country,” moderate dissident Manuel Cuesta told IPS, commenting on Monday’s incident, when female police officers broke up a sit-in by 10 members of a group known as the Women in White.
The women, who had gathered near government headquarters in Havana, were forced into a bus by the police and driven home.
Cuesta, spokesman for the Arco Progresista, a dissident coalition of small groups with social democratic tendencies, said he is “worried” because he sees the police removal of the protesters as an indication of a change in attitude from the stance seen since Raúl Castro took over as president from his ailing brother Fidel in February.