Daily Archives: March 24, 2015

Food Security

Gates Foundation Slammed for Plan to Privatize African Seed Markets

InterPress Service

By Josh Butler

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Calling out a scheme to privatize Africa’s seed resources, protesters in London picketed outside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Monday, March 23, 2015. (Photo: Global Justice Now/cc/flickr)

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 23 2015 (IPS) – The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has been attacked by activists over alleged support of a plan to privatize African agricultural markets.

United Kingdom social justice organization Global Justice Now leveled the claims at the Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Monday, saying the two agencies were holding a “secret meeting” in London to promote a plan to help companies sell seeds in Africa, that will cut out small farmers. Continue reading Gates Foundation Slammed for Plan to Privatize African Seed Markets →

South Sudan

South Sudan Frees Hundreds of Child Fighters, Including 9-Year Old Girl

InterPress Service

By Lisa Vives

NEW YORK, Mar 24 2015 (IPS) – South Sudan’s Democratic Army Cobra Faction announced its third release of child soldiers as agreed in a pact with the government signed last May.

Over the weekend, 654 children registered with the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) were released – bringing the total freed by the militia group since January to 1,314. Continue reading South Sudan Frees Hundreds of Child Fighters, Including 9-Year Old Girl →

Church, Economy

Economics of Inequalities and Inequalities of Economics

AEFJN

Berlin Conference 1884-1885
Berlin Conference 1884-1885

The recent address of the Holy See to the Third United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights is very insightful. It underlines the centrality of human beings with their Dignity and Rights in all business activities. While it is good for the business corporations to pursue their legitimate profit, it should be done with a dual consideration for the common good and the tenets of Universal Human Rights standards. In the same vein, Amnesty International identifies Human Rights as an indispensable foundation for truly trans-formative post 2015 development agenda. These are salient observations in the wake of massive land grabbing ravaging Africa and the gun point trade agreements going on between Europe and the various economic blocks of Africa. Each of them is a violation of African peoples’ Rights to land and to self-determination. Continue reading Economics of Inequalities and Inequalities of Economics →

Nigeria

Democracy is taking root in Nigeria

Aljajeera

There is little appetite for military coups and rule by Big Men

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Nigeria will hold its rescheduled presidential elections on March 28. The poll was postponed last month amid growing instability in Nigeria’s northeastern region. Tension remains high ahead of the vote. As Nigerian army and African Union forces intensify the offensive against Boko Haram, the drumbeat for war is loud and clear. Vitriolic exchanges between the two major political parties in the Nigerian media suggest that the country is imploding. Continue reading Democracy is taking root in Nigeria →

South Africa

South Africa: Remembering the Sharpeville massacre

Mail & Guardian

AZAD ESSA, RAEESA PATHER

South Africans mark 55 years since one of the worst apartheid-era mass killings, but other atrocities are still forgotten.

South Africans remember the Sharpeville Massacre that occurred on March 21 1960- 55 years ago today. (Getty)
South Africans remember the Sharpeville Massacre that occurred on March 21 1960- 55 years ago today. (Getty)

South Africans commemorate the 55th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre on Saturday, when 69 people were killed and 180 others wounded for protesting apartheid.

The day is hallowed on the South African calendar as “Human Rights” day, but as politicians lead the nation in remembering Sharpeville, what is often forgotten about that bloody day is just as significant as what is recalled. Continue reading South Africa: Remembering the Sharpeville massacre →

trafficking

Nobel Peace Laureate Calls for Global Human Compassion to Combat Child Slavery

By Lyndal Rowlands

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Nobel Peace Prize Winner Kailash Satyarthi speaks at the DPI/NGO Special Briefing: Ending Child Slavery by 2030. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 18 2015 (IPS) – Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi has called for globalized human compassion to combat the global and persistent problems of child labor and child slavery.

“We live in a globalized world, let us globalize human compassion, ” Satyarthi told an audience at the United Nations Tuesday. Continue reading Nobel Peace Laureate Calls for Global Human Compassion to Combat Child Slavery →