Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

• News source:
• 10 March 2010
• Globe and Mail
• By Cara Anna

BEIJING — Like the United States, China is having its own tea party movement, but this one has a very different agenda.

Police have long tried to shush and isolate potential activists, usually starting with a low-key warning, perhaps over a meal or a cup of tea. Now, the country’s troublemakers are openly blogging and tweeting their stories about “drinking tea” with the cops, allowing the targeted citizens to bond and diluting the intimidation they feel.

• News source:
• originally published 28 February 2010
• Newsmeat
• By AFP

After five years of trials, the grass roots courts that have judged more than one million people suspected of taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide are drawing to a close amidst mixed reviews.

“The whole process is expected to be over by the end of March,” Denis Bikesha, an official at the gacaca department, told AFP.

• News source:
• originally published February 2010
• BarTalk | Canadian Bar Association, BC Branch
• By James M. Bond

Legal Aid is in crisis in this province. The funding model for the Legal Services Society doesn’t work and as a result there is simply not enough money to fund the current system. As a result, there are fewer and fewer lawyers (particularly more experienced lawyers) who are willing to take on legal aid cases. Those that do so in any significant way undoubtedly believe it as the right thing to do, not the financially sound thing to do.

The Legal Services Society has cut service areas, cut staff and in the very near future will close offices everywhere but in Vancouver. There has also been an attempt to shift the form of legal aid delivery from a lawyer model to a “self-help” model. The results of “self-help” are being felt in courtrooms across the province. They are being clogged with unrepresented litigants…

It’s time to get the public involved in a real and meaningful discussion about Legal Aid in our province – what the framework should be, what should be covered, who should deliver it and how it should be funded. Last spring, a group of justice system stakeholders passed a resolution (which was adopted by the British Columbia Branch) calling on the government to hold an inquiry into the state of Legal Aid in British Columbia…

We have begun discussions with other justice system stakeholders to establish a Public Forum on Legal Aid in British Columbia. While it is still in the planning stages, this Public Forum would travel the province and hear from members of the public and others who understand the problems of the current Legal Aid system.

• News source:
• By Peacemakers Trust

Peacemakers Trust has received an invitation from The Sharing Way, a Canadian faith-based development agency, and its Rwandan partner, the Association des Églises Baptistes au Rwanda (AEBR), to work with them to develop a three year plan of action that responds to emerging needs and challenges in post-genocide Rwanda. The participatory planning process will involve consultation and planning meetings with a number of Rwandan church leaders from around Rwanda, including women and youth leaders.

You can become a partner in raising the costs of this initiative with a tax-deductable donation to Peacemakers Trust, a Canadian charity focused on conflict transformation and peacebuilding. (read more…)

• News source:
• 8 March 2010
• UN News Centre

Top United Nations officials are marking International Women’s Day by calling for greater support to women, particularly in developing countries, so that they can be empowered and contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the eight globally agreed anti-poverty targets with a 2015 deadline.

In his message for the Day, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that “the third Millennium Development Goal – to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment – is central to all the rest. When women are denied the opportunity to better themselves and their societies, we all lose.

• News source:
• 8 March 2010
• Hamilton Spectator
• By Lee Prokaska

Until all of us have made it, none of us have made it.

– Rosemary Brown, 1930-2003, Canadian politician

It is important on International Women’s Day we mark the progress made by so many women the world over.

Today provides an opportunity for all of us to celebrate the accomplishments of women, past and present, who fought for women’s rights, who pushed their way into old boys clubs to become members of government or doctors or astronauts.

• News source:
• 8 March 2010
• Canoe.ca

Canadian men on average get paid more than 20% more than their female colleagues, giving the country one of the highest gender gaps among the 30 OECD nations.

Only Korea, Japan and Germany rank higher than Canada in paying men more than women. Canada is in fourth place along with the United Kingdom, according to Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development statistics.

• News source:
• 8 March 2010
• Vancouver Sun
• 'In all thy sons command' sends a message that is both insidious and sexist, while 'In all of us command' hurts no one
• By Shelley Fralic

Ironic, isn’t it, given that today is International Women’s Day, when the world stops for a moment to reflect on the advances society has made on the rocky path to gender equality.

In Canada, like most modern industrialized countries, there are many achievements to celebrate this past century, even as there is still much work to be done: Women can vote, they work outside the home, they wear what they want in public and they speak up with impunity about injustice and inequity, the universal goal that of rectifying the social, economic and sexual prejudices of the past.

• News source:
• 8 March 2010
• Global News Journal
• By Sangeeta Shastry

Men are still paid more than women in Europe but the European Union is promising to narrow the gap.

The executive European Commission set out its plans to address the pay gap between men and women at a news conference to coincide with International Women’s Day, saying women were on average earning only 82 percent of male rates in the EU.

European Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Commissioner Viviane Reding said the Commission would work with member states to raise awareness and did not rule out using legislative measures to promote wage equality.

• News source:
• 8 March 2010
• Nepalnews.com

The political standing of women has “improved” in Nepal in comparison to many countries in Asia and the Pacific where works are being done to enhance women’s participation in politics, according to a new Asia Pacific Human Development Report on Gender.

“The political voice of women has improved in Nepal with the recent secured 1/3 quota in the Constituent Assembly. In comparison, only about 1/3 of countries in Asia and the Pacific have quota systems to enhance women’s participation in politics,” says the report titled, “Power, Voice and Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific” launched on the occasion of International Women’s Day in the capital on Monday.

• News source:
• 8 March 2010
• IPS
• By Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI – With assured backing from India’s main opposition groups, the ruling Congress party hopes to see voted through in the upper house of Parliament Monday a bill reserving 33 percent of seats in national and provincial legislatures for women.

• News source:
• 8 March 2010
• Huffington Post
• By Indra Adnan

Is there a connection between the lack of soft power in public life and the lack of women in top leadership positions? Are women inherently more capable of soft power than men? With soft power increasingly becoming the ‘weapon of choice’ for international as well as community relations, is it an imperative to bring more women into public life? This was one of the key questions which prompted Lee Chalmers and myself to begin the The Downing Street Project, one year ago.

With 51% of the electorate yet only 19% of MPs in the UK Parliament female, it seemed like a worthwhile exploration.

• News source:
• 8 March 2010
• Huffington Post
• By Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General, NATO

On this International Women’s Day, it is fitting that we reflect upon United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted almost ten years ago. With this resolution, the United Nations recognized that conflict disproportionately impacts civilians, and particularly women. It remains a powerful call to protect those who are most vulnerable in conflicts and their aftermath, and to enhance the participation of women in building peace and security.

• News source:
• 7 March 2010
• International Analyst Network
• By Mark Silverberg

Natan Sharansky uses what he terms “the 3D test” to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism, and he identifies the three categories as delegitimization, demonization and the double standard. Taking these three factors into account, one can discern that the new anti-Semitism manifests itself in many different forms and in many different forums – through divestment campaigns, international boycotts of Israeli products and entertainers (as Norway has done recently), boycotts of Israeli academics by Western universities, holding Israel to standards no other nations in the world are required to meet – not nearly, and through “Israel Apartheid Week” on Canadian and American college campuses where Israel is assigned the role of Jew among the nations of the world to be singled-out, cursed, harassed and defamed…

It is true, of course, that criticizing Israel does not make one an anti-Semite anymore than criticizing the government of France makes one anti-French. But it’s one thing to criticize France, and something else to declare the French nation illegitimate and to advocate its destruction…

• News source:
• 5 March 2010
• Media Global
• By Allyn Gaestel

Women in post-conflict Rwanda are working with Women for Women International, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting development for women survivors of conflict, to improve all aspects of their lives through the Commercial Integrated Farming Initiative (CIFI). The CIFI program creates links between the public, private, and nonprofit sector to empower women as autonomous economic actors. CIFI will work with 3000 Rwandan women over a three-year implementation period.

• News source:
• 4 March 2010
• Financial Post
• By Karin Mizgala

For Carrie Gallant negotiating is more than an art or a science it is a way of life. “We negotiate every day,” she insists. And it’s not just in business, but also in our marriages, with our children, and every other aspect of our lives. “We compromise. We make trade offs. We offer to make dinner if someone else does the dishes. We negotiate something countless times every day.” But, she adds, “this doesn’t mean we’re always good at it.”

• News source:
• 4 March 2010
• Foreign Policy
• By DAVID KENNER, ANDREW SWIFT

“The Land of Two Rivers” is also the land of thousands of aspiring political leaders. Foreign Policy takes you inside the diverse parties, coalitions, and sects, from the center of power to its outermost fringes, that make up Iraq’s political mosaic.

• News source:
• 5 March 2010
• Ekklesia

Aid donors to Cambodia, including the US, EU, Japan, China and the World Bank, should send a strong message to the government that they will not countenance the bankrolling of Cambodia’s military by private businesses, Global Witness said today.

The call follows the announcement last week by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen of the formation of 42 official partnerships between private businesses and Cambodian military units.

• News source:
• originally published 17 February 2010
• AFP

OTTAWA — The Canadian government asked the United States not to use shared evidence to prosecute Canadian Guantanamo inmate Omar Khadr. Canada’s Supreme Court ruled last month that Ottawa violated Khadr’s rights by sharing his statements to Canadian officials with Washington. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said Ottawa delivered a diplomatic note to Washington “seeking assurances that any evidence or statements shared with US authorities as a result of the interviews of Mr. Khadr by Canadian agents and officials in 2003 and 2004 not be used against him by US authorities in the context of proceedings before the (US) Military Commission or elsewhere.”

• News source:
• 2 March 2010
• Seattle Times
• By Richard Stearns

The earthquake that struck Chile early Saturday morning was 500 times more powerful than the one that ravaged Haiti less than seven weeks earlier. Yet the difference in death tolls and damage is even more striking: More than 200,000 Haitians perished in a matter of minutes, while the body count in Chile likely will not exceed 1,000.

Many people are wondering why.

Numerous scientists have been interviewed in recent days laboring to explain “subduction zones” and “tectonic plates.” But in a commentary for CNN, Dr. Colin Stark of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University demonstrated he grasps another, more significant reason for the shocking number of deaths in Haiti.

“Poverty is what ultimately kills most people during an earthquake,” he writes. “Poverty means that little or no evaluation is made of seismic risk in constructing buildings and no zoning takes place. It means that building codes are not written, and even if they do exist they are difficult, or impossible, to enforce … Haiti is a tragic illustration of this.”