Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch BlogPeacemakers Trust posts news, reports or announcements of interest to people studying or working in the field of dispute resolution, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Inclusion of an item on the media watch blog does not imply endorsement or agreement of Peacemakers Trust with views expressed by authors of posted items.
… two new positions at the Center for International Conflict Resolution (CICR),The deadline for applications is June, 1 2010.
(...more)Amnesty International have today joined with campaigners in more than 100 countries to call upon government leaders to develop a “bullet-proof” Arms Trade Treaty. Amnesty’s call came as they published a report [Killer Facts] on abuses fuelled by the trade in weapons.
Their comments come ahead of negotiations between leaders which are expected to begin in July. Some fear that proposals for the treaty will be watered down, while other campaigners have warned against putting too much hope in the treaty without wider political change…
“It beggars belief how no international agreement exists to regulate the global trade of weapons, despite the fact that there are global treaties for items such as bananas or dinosaur bones,” said Amnesty’s Oliver Sprague.
(...more)… Ken Anderson’s recent article “The Rise of International Criminal Law: Intended and Unintended Consequences”… “offers a high-altitude, high-speed look at the effects of international criminal law on other parts of public international law and organizations.” EJIL Talk! has solicited two very interesting responses so far, one from Prof. Brad Roth and the other from Amrita Kapur…
(...more)The World Health Organization released its annual Global Health Statistics which provides a global snapshot of how the WHO’s 193 member countries are progressing on the health related Millennium Development Goals. The figures are encouraging…
(...more)…Better World Campaign put together a helpful primer on how the United States pays the United Nations and its agencies…
(...more)Continued international support was crucial for Burundi as it faced multiple election processes this year and socio-economic challenges following the critical democratic transition, Charles Petrie, Executive Representative of the Secretary-General, told the Security Council today.
(...more)The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) today welcomed a ban on the recruitment of people under the age of 18 into the national police force and called on the defence ministry to adopt a similar prohibition with regard to the army.
(...more)One of Africa’s largest exporters of tropical hardwoods, Cameroon, has announced today a trade agreement with the European Union (EU) to rid all illegal wood from its supply chain to the EU and worldwide. Cameroon signed a legally-binding Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) that will cover all wood products produced in Cameroon.
(...more)Indigenous groups in the Colombian Amazon have long suffered deprivations at the hands of outsiders. First came the diseases brought by the European Conquest, then came abuses under colonial rule. In modern times, some Amazonian communities were virtually enslaved by the debt-bondage system run by rubber traders: Indians could work their entire lives without ever escaping the cycle of debt. Later, periodic invasions by gold miners, oil companies, colonists, and illegal coca-growers took a heavy toll on remaining indigenous populations. Without title to their land, organization, or representation, indigenous Colombians in the Amazon seemed destined to be exploited and abused.
But new hope would emerge in the 1980s, thanks partly to the efforts of Martin von Hildebrand, an ethnologist who would help indigenous Colombians eventually win control over 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 square miles) of Amazon rainforest…
(...more)A joint report released today by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP) finds that our natural support systems are on the verge of collapsing unless radical changes are made to preserve the world’s biodiversity.
(...more)For many years, social scientists have attempted to explain human cultural differences by studying behavioral or attitudinal traits. But recent advances in neuroimaging techniques are now allowing researchers to look directly into the brain and to identify these differences at a cellular level….[podcast]
(...more)Fawwaz Traboulsi is Associate Professor teaching history and politics at the Lebanese American University in Beirut and American University in Beirut… He writes in both English and Arabic on Lebanese history, Arab politics, and social movements, with his most recent book A History of Modern Lebanon (published by Pluto Books, London, 2007…
(...more)The fact is, Tasers kill. A 2008 study by Amnesty International found that 351 people have been killed by police Tasers since 2001.
(...more)RAMALLAH – It is not easy for a Palestinian woman to say that she wants to work against violent extremism in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
(...more)Seventeen-year-old Miriam Toaquiza is the only occupant of the teenage mothers’ ward in the public hospital in this Andean city. Beside her in the bed is Jennifer, her newborn baby.
She is relaxed and smiling, in spite of having to stay in hospital longer than expected because of a postpartum complication.
“Are they looking after you all right, dear?” asks Julio Guerrero. “Yes,” she replies. “Have they charged you for any medicines or for anything they have given you?” “No,” she says. “Has anybody asked you to pay for anything at all?” he asks again. “No, it’s all free, because of the free maternity programme,” she says cheerfully.
(...more)Washington – With five volumes now published, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) releases its new and growing “Peacemaker’s Toolkit,” a multivolume series of handbooks for people working in conflict zones around the world.
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