The linked rings on every Chinese Coke bottle and the leaping athletes on each McDonald’s paper bag testify to the power the world’s biggest corporations believe this summer’s Olympics wields. But having spent huge sums, the companies sponsoring the Games are about to find themselves the targets of a new war on China’s human rights record.
Saudi Arabia’s rigid sex segregation, compulsory male guardianship of women and other ”grossly discriminatory” policies are a denial of fundamental rights, a leading human rights watchdog says on Monday. Women are treated like legal minors who have no authority over their lives or their children, finds a new report by Human Rights Watch.
Zimbabwe’s opposition on Sunday accused the authorities of waging a ”war” that has killed 10 people and injured 500 others since disputed parliamentary and presidential elections. ”Ten people have so far been killed in Zimbabwe since March 29,” Tendai Biti, secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change, said.
The second and final day of voting in Ethiopia’s local and parliamentary polls was held Sunday amid tight security, days after deadly blasts in the capital, Addis Ababa. Three people were killed and 18 wounded when simultaneous bomb blasts went off at two petrol stations on April 14, a day after the first day of voting.
Zimbabwe’s opposition alleged widespread irregularities as the partial recount begun on Saturday of votes cast in the presidential and parliamentary elections held three weeks ago, including ballot boxes with seals broken before they were delivered for the count or with no seals at all.
Supporters of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF have set up a network of torture camps where they have been assaulting opposition activists, a leading rights group said on Saturday. The New York-based Human Rights Watch said that suspected supporters of the opposition were being rounded up and then beaten.
Formerly warring north and south Sudan were at loggerheads on Sunday as the south pulled out of a national census, a cornerstone of their fragile peace agreement, citing a barrage of grievances. ”We have deferred the census until sometime this year,” the information minister in the southern government confirmed.
Ethiopians voted on Sunday in a first round of general elections that the opposition coalition boycotted to protest alleged intimidation of its candidates, and that an international rights group said would be unfair. Governing coalition candidates are running virtually unchallenged after the main opposition coalition pulled out.
Carla del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor for war crimes in former Yugoslavia, has unleashed a storm of recrimination with allegations of a trade in human body parts in Kosovo and Albania after Nato bombed Serbia in 1999. Del Ponte’s claims are based on what she describes as credible reports and witnesses.
Police have banned political rallies and the opposition has accused the authorities of waging a violent crackdown as Zimbabwe’s political crisis deepens nearly two weeks after a presidential election that produced no official winner. Zimbabwe’s neighbours hope to find a resolution on Saturday at an emergency summit in Zambia.
Zimbabwe raised doubts on Friday over whether President Robert Mugabe would attend an emergency regional summit on the weekend to discuss deepening concern over a post-election deadlock in the country. Officials had earlier said Mugabe was expected to attend the Lusaka summit on Saturday of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community.
Girls as young as 11 have suffered rape by Sudanese government forces and armed groups across Darfur more than five years after war began there, a rights organisation said on Monday. Human Rights Watch said sexual violence is rife in Darfur, where neither Sudanese security forces nor international peacekeepers are properly protecting women and girls.
Tibetan monks stormed a news briefing at a temple in Lhasa on Thursday, accusing Chinese authorities of lying about recent unrest and saying the Dalai Lama had nothing to do with the violence. The incident was an embarrassment to the Chinese government, which brought a select group of foreign reporters to Lhasa for a stage-managed tour of the city.
Gang warfare will return to Nigeria’s oil-producing south unless President Umaru Yar’Adua brings to justice politicians who have fuelled the unrest, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday. Gangs behind kidnappings and oil theft in the Niger Delta were going unpunished partly because of their connections to politicians.
China has criticised human rights demonstrators who disrupted the Greek torch-lighting ceremony for the Beijing Olympics as being ”disgraceful”. Just before the torch was lit on Monday inside the archaeological site that played host to the Olympics in ancient Greece, three demonstrators managed to break a tight police cordon.
The road from Harar runs for more than 960km east towards the border with Somalia, penetrating deep into the desiccated badlands of the Ogaden desert, the dusty heart of Ethiopia’s war-torn Somali regional state. This is the land that the self-styled separatists of the Ogaden National Liberation Front claim as their own.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe warned the opposition on Friday against Kenyan-style violence if they lose next week’s election, saying security forces stood ready to crush such protests. The 84-year-old leader faces a stiff challenge from former ally Simba Makoni and long time rival Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
China admitted for the first time that security forces shot at Tibetan protesters, as the military on Friday pursued its crackdown on volatile areas amid fears of mass arrests. The admission comes with Beijing’s Communist rulers trying to put the country’s best face forward in the run-up to the Olympic Games in August.
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader and presidential candidate in the March 29 general elections said on Thursday that the voters’ register is filled with tens of thousands of ghost voters. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), also said that the voters’ roll was in a shambles and threatened to pull out of the elections.
South Africa will send a delegation of 55 observers to Zimbabwe’s general elections, the government said in Cape Town on Thursday. ”The South African contingent will comprise representatives from civil society, business, religious leaders, members of Parliament and government officials,” spokesperson Themba Maseko told journalists.
President Robert Mugabe is urging Zimbabweans to ”vote for the fist”. His campaign posters — portraits of Mugabe wearing an olive green military-type shirt and holding a clenched fist aloft — reflect his hard-line politics, and remind voters of the crack troops who have helped keep him in power for 28 years.
President Robert Mugabe’s supporters have used violence to intimidate opponents in the run-up to next week’s Zimbabwe election, undermining chances of a fair poll, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. Mugabe faces the strongest challenge to his 28-year rule in presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections on March 29.
China warned of a ”life and death” struggle with the Dalai Lama’s supporters today, as it sought to underscore its control of Tibet by claiming that over 100 rioters had surrendered to police. Officials had promised ”leniency” for anyone who handed themselves in before midnight on Monday, and warned that others would face harsh punishment.
China warned of a ”life and death” struggle with the Dalai Lama on Wednesday, as it sought to end a wave of protests in its Tibetan regions with arrests and tightened political control. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has accused the Tibetan spiritual leader of masterminding the protests from his base in the Indian town of Dharamsala.
World leaders had to accept some blame for the violence that rocked Kenya after a disputed December election, killing more than 1 000 people, the international Human Rights Watch group said on Monday. It accused police of causing ”hundreds” of deaths by using excessive force during the two-month crisis.
When rumours of a ”gay wedding” spread through the town of Ksar el Kebir, the only evidence produced was a video on YouTube of a man dancing in women’s clothes. Four people are now in prison accused of homosexual acts, Islamists are decrying a decline in morals and liberals are warning that the kingdom risks sleep-walking into extremism.
The Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, is headed for a confrontation with the International Criminal Court after saying he will not hand over to The Hague the leaders of his country’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army indicted for war crimes. Museveni said Joseph Kony, the LRA leader, and his commanders will instead be brought before ”traditional” Ugandan courts.
Sri Lanka was hit by scathing criticism over its human rights record on Thursday, with its government fingered over hundreds of ”disappearances” and an influential panel storming off the island. The move is a major blow to the image of the island’s government, which pulled out of a truce with Tamil Tiger rebels in January.
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/ 27 February 2008
French President Nicolas Sarkozy travelled to Chad on Wednesday as rights groups urged France not to ”cover up” for President Idriss Déby Itno, accused of having a hand in the disappearance of opposition members. The president will make a brief stopover in Ndjamena en route to South Africa.
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/ 22 February 2008
Tamil Tiger rebels said Sri Lankan government fighter jets killed five civilians in an air raid on their northern stronghold on Friday. Fighting between the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has intensified since the government formally pulled out of a six-year-old ceasefire pact in January.
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/ 19 February 2008
When Joyce Mandela’s cellphone beeped to signal she had a SMS, the 27-year old Kenyan expected a note from a friend. Instead, she found a message of hate. ”If your neighbour is a Kikuyu, just kick him or her out of that house. No one is going to ask you anything,” the SMS read.
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/ 18 February 2008
A key conference on cluster bombs began in Wellington on Monday with more than 100 countries expected to decide whether to formally back a treaty banning the controversial weapons. The five-day conference is one of a series held as part of a Norwegian initiative launched in February last year.