Full coverage: Governance

31.08.2004 At a special Youth Day to kick off the Global Roundtable on the International Consensus on Population and Development (ICPD), nearly 100 young people from 56 countries called on governments to “move from paper to practice” in providing the sexual and reproductive health information and services they have promised over the past decade. The International Roundtable, a four-day event that will evaluate ten years of the ICPD, is taking place in London this week.

31.08.2004 Manitoba justice officials have intervened to cool down a private security outfit that has been enforcing laws outside its jurisdiction. Prairie Bylaw Enforcement Services employees have been stripped of their taser guns and told to back off.

31.08.2004 India is on the brink of a massive waste disposal crisis, but solutions are not forthcoming, says Sanjay K Gupta of New Delhi-based NGO Toxics Link, which disseminates information on toxics as well as hazardous, medical and municipal wastes.

31.08.2004 Dal Brasile arriva in Italia la voce dell’avvocato Ferreira che durante la Carovana della Pace dei Comboniani racconterà l’esperienza di cooperazione delle carceri “di chi si recupera”. Nel paese rimane diffusa la pratica del “trabalho escravo”, il lavoro in schiavitù economica e sociale che coinvolge 25.000 persone. Il governo Lula ha deciso di contrastare il fenomeno con la confisca delle terre dove viene constatato lo sfruttamento. Ma sulla riforma agraria promessa, forti critiche arrivano da Salete Carollo del Movimento Sem Terra brasiliano.

31.08.2004 The Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa (MDPESA) invites participants to a video conference session on "Information and Communication Technology: Potentials and Challenges for Local Government" to be held on Friday 3 September 2004. This session is part of the ongoing Africa Local Government Action Forum (ALGAF). The presenter for the Session is Dr. Sisti P. Cariah from Tanzania.

30.08.2004 While the World Health Organization says more money and attention is needed to contain bird flu in Asia, Canada's recent outbreak was successfully contained in less than five months. But that success came at an enormous - and many say unnecessary - cost.

30.08.2004 Last week, a U.S. consumer rights group chartered a train to bring seniors, patients and small business owners to Vancouver - to buy more affordable prescription drugs. The group has challenged both U.S. presidential candidates to institute national bulk-buying to bring down drug prices. But it's facing down a pharmaceutical industry that is now pumping millions into both election campaigns.

30.08.2004 Todor Petrov, the President of the World Macedonian Congress and initiator of the campaign to collect 150,000 signatures necessary to call for a referendum, announced that the campaign has succeeded and that he is prepared to present the 185,000 signatures to the Speaker of the Parliament. At the referendum, the citizens of Macedonia will decide whether they will accept the new Law on Territorial Organization of Macedonia or not. The signatures will be inspected by the regional offices of the Ministry of Justice.

29.08.2004 An attorney representing the family of Fred Woodruff, a CIA agent murdered in Tbilisi, Georgia, is pushing for fresh investigation into the case. The attorney asserts that new documents cast doubt on the Georgian authoritiesÂ’ official version of the events surrounding the 1993 murder for which a 20-year old soldier was imprisoned.

29.08.2004 Since the July 28 secret airlift of 468 North Koreans to South Korea, Chinese authorities have stepped up deportations of North Korean asylum seekers and increased pressure on the groups supporting them. China is tightening the flow across both the North Korea and Vietnam borders because the underground railroad that facilitates the movement of North Koreans to Vietnam and South Korea originates in China.

29.08.2004 Dozens of union members demonstrated against the new regulations that the Bush administration added to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which went into effect last week. The regulations expand the definitions of “executive” and “administrative” positions, currently exempt from overtime pay requirements. The move is seen as an attempt to reduce the number of workers eligible for overtime pay.

29.08.2004

Lilliput Lab WTO

Rather than commit itself to compromises within the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Bush administration is pursuing a policy of so-called competitive liberalization by signing free trade agreements (FTA) with single nations or sub-regional groupings around the world. But, the policy could backfire, because other countries might do the same and drop their commitment to the WTO to form “regional blocs to compete against the United States.”

28.08.2004 Si celebra oggi, 28 agosto, la prima "Giornata per la libertà del software". Dal Brasile, paese con già 60 amministrazioni passate al software libero, verrà lanciata l’idea di un deposito di componenti per le varie imprese. Anche la Corea del Sud sta guardando a Linux per il settore pubblico e in particolare per le scuole primarie e secondarie. Mentre in Europa la città di Monaco di Baviera sta ripensando la scelta di migrare a software open source.

27.08.2004 Nell’ambito del 32° Congresso internazionale di geologia, in svolgimento in questi giorni a Firenze, è in programma oggi una «escursione» nelle zone interessate dai lavori della TAV, in Mugello. Venti geologi provenienti da tutto il mondo (europei, americani, giapponesi e cinesi) studieranno il «caso» Alta Velocità, verificheranno sul campo le conseguenze dei cattivi progetti TAV sulle risorse idriche di superficie e su quelle profonde. L’associazione ecologista indipendente Idra indirizza una lettera aperta all’Internazionale dei geologi in visita al Mugello: “Vi chiediamo di spendere una Vostra autorevole parola, di dare un Vostro contributo, che ci sarebbe prezioso, a che Firenze non abbia a ricevere da questo scadente modello progettuale di Alta Velocità ferroviaria danni analoghi o confrontabili, o addirittura più seri?, di quelli che constaterete di persona in Mugello”.

27.08.2004 A couple of failing grades, five passes, and seven "incompletes." Ontario's Liberal government drew mixed marks on a first-year report card from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation. Union president Rhonda Kimberley-Young offered encouragement: "Undoing eight years of Tory teacher bashing, education underfunding and destabilisation of public education cannot happen overnight."

27.08.2004 Dall'inizio di agosto è partita nel paese un’ondata di arresti di adolescenti, in maggioranza ragazze. Si tratta di una campagna lanciata dalle forze di sicurezza iraniane, con il supporto di altri servizi di sicurezza privati, il cui pretesto è eliminare "simboli di corruzione pubblica" e "modi impropri di velarsi delle donne". Ragazze non "adeguatamente" velate, o in compagnia di coetanei, o entrambi mentre ascoltavano musica a "volume troppo alto", subiscono l’arresto e il deferimento a centri di detenzione dove li attende una bastonatura o una fustigazione. La testimonianza di un adolescente: "Quando ho protestato contro il mio arresto mi hanno frustato sulla schiena e sulle piante dei piedi, in modo tale che non ho potuto stare in piedi per giorni e giorni."

27.08.2004 UNDP and the government of Azerbaijan are partnering to shape up the countryÂ’s e-governance programme. The proposed national governance network will also help curb corruption in Azerbaijan.

26.08.2004 Two congressmen have expressed concerns about the Bush administrationÂ’s security arrangements for a planned shipment of weapons grade plutonium from Charleston, South Carolina to Cherbourg in France. Their letters echo similar arguments made by Greenpeace International about the vulnerability of the trans-Atlantic shipment to possible terrorist attacks.

26.08.2004 Ruling in a lawsuit filed by several environmental groups, a federal district court has ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to publicly disclose the locations of biopharmaceutical crops test fields in Hawaii. Currently, the USDA and biotech industry grow genetically engineered crops in undisclosed locations, raising fears that regular crops could be at risk of cross pollination.

26.08.2004 The Chilean Supreme Court this week upheld a decision by a lower court to strip former president August Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution. The case was brought by relatives of victims of a joint operation by the military regimes of Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay in the 1970s that entailed the "disappearance" of some dissidents as well as the kidnapping and smuggling of others to their home countries for torture, interrogation and imprisonment.