Human Rights

London – It will take two centuries for sub-Saharan Africa to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, according to NGO WaterAid, which calls on national leaders to commit 3.5 percent of their annual budget to the sector.

Geneva – Over 12,000 refugees and migrants arrived in Yemen by boat in October, the highest monthly total since the United Nations refugee agency began tracking the flow of between the Horn of Africa and Yemen nearly six years ago. Many of them are victims of abductions, extortions, kidnappings and sexual assaults.

Geneva – While the Syrian regime “brutal crackdown” on pro-democracy protesters continues unabated, with the death toll surpassing 3,500, the UN has now voiced concern over “shortages of food, water, electricity and medical services in Syria.”

Brasilia- Brazil and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) have launched a new initiative to help developing countries run their own national school meal programmes to advance the nutrition and education of children.

“Zuccotti Park is not Tiananmen Square,” said Scott Stringer, the Borough of Manhattan’s Democratic Party president, criticizing the way the New York police manhandled reporters and kept them at a distance as they evicted Occupy Wall Street protesters from their camp in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park in the early hours of yesterday.

On the eve of the 9th World Day Against the Death Penalty, Reporters Without Borders and the Paris-based NGO Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) would like to point out that being a journalist, editing a website or keeping a blog can still expose a person to the possibility of the death penalty in some countries.

In Hong Kong the High Court has ruled that a domestic helper from the Philippines should be allowed to apply for permanent residency in the city. The case was brought by Evangeline Banao Vallejos, a resident of Hong Kong since 1986. The ruling follows a landmark judicial review of what has been the long term practice ever since the British ruled Hong Kong.

Statement released at the Strasbourg event: We, the participants of the Roma Youth Conference in Strasbourg, are concerned about the current rise of extremism, racism and anti-gypsyism in many European countries, and particularly about the unbearable increase of violence and hatred in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary and other places across the Europe.

Documents found by Human Rights Watch in Tripoli contain evidence of collaboration by the British Government with the US rendition for torture program, in this case sending terror suspects to Libya for interrogation. “For several years, senior MI5 and MI6 officers have sought to deny that their agencies have been guilty even of complicity in rendition.

Somalia is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, the UN alerted over a year and a half ago. Now the UN calls on the world to save some 390,000 starving children in famine-ravaged regions. However, those who could really help—the rich, industrialised and oil exporting countries, apparently are now too busy with the ‘promising’ Libyan business.