Louisiana’s Eroding Habitat |
By: HIC-HLRN (dossier) |
20 February 2015 |
This week, a federal judge in New Orleans rejected a lawsuit that sought billions of dollars from energy companies for their role in eroding Louisiana’s coast, which protects the state from flooding by violent storms from the Gulf of Mexico, especially hurricanes. As we look ahead this year toward the More...
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Turkey: Ecology Collective Condemns Security Bill |
By: HIC-HLRN |
15 February 2015 |
The Ecology Collective in Turkey has reacted to the controversial draft “Domestic Security” Package law currently under debate in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The Collective is united in opposition to the proposed legislation as a blow to local campaigns and an act that “criminalizes” the struggles of people More...
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Sahrawi CSOs Condemn Swiss Forum in Occupied Territory |
By: Sahrawi CSOs |
09 February 2015 |
Today, Western Sahara civil society organizations issued a statement criticizing the Swiss organization “Crans-Montana” for planning its annual forum this year (12–14 March 2015) in the occupied territory of Western Sahara. The organizations noted that lending such recognition to Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara violates international law and the More...
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Polish Farmers Protest GMOs |
By: Oliver Tickell, Ecologist |
09 February 2015 |
Thousands of small farmers in Poland are blockading motorways and holding demonstrations to demand land rights, a ban on GMOs and an end to oppressive health and safety regulations, and they are refusing to call off the protests until their demands are met.
We demand the introduction of legislation that will More...
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AU Condemns Forum in Occupied Western Sahara |
By: HIC-HLRN |
01 February 2015 |
The African Union has issued a strong Declaration condemning the plans of the Swiss organization Crans Montana to hold its Forum in Dakhla, occupied Western Sahara, as “a grave violation of the International Law." Read the full Declaration below.
Crans Montana Forum, a Monaco-based international organization that bring together world leaders More...
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Armenia-Azerbaijan Land Dispute Escalates |
By: David M. Herszenhorn, The New York Times |
31 January 2015 |
AGDAM, Azerbaijan—Overshadowed by the fighting in Ukraine, another armed conflict in the former Soviet Union—between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh—has escalated with deadly ferocity in recent months, killing dozens of soldiers on each side and pushing the countries perilously close to open war.
The month of January was More...
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UN Experts Hail Dutch Shelter for Migrants |
By: UN |
28 January 2015 |
The decision by the Government of the Netherlands to provide funding to help municipalities that offer emergency shelters for homeless migrants is a welcome change of position, three human rights experts* said on Wednesday.
The announcement by the Dutch Government represents a significant change in the Netherlands’ longstanding refusal to More...
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UN SR: "Cabo Verde Must Prioritise Housing for Poor" |
By: OHCHR |
27 January 2015 |
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing and non-discrimination Leilani Farha on Monday called on the Government of Cabo Verde to prioritise measures to ensure the poorest members of society can have affordable, adequate housing. Ms. Farha, speaking at the end of an official visit More...
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Detroit to Dublin, Fighting for the Right to Water |
By: Brian Fitzpatrick, Foreign Policy in Focus |
23 January 2015 |
DUBLIN—It’s lunchtime at a quiet bar and restaurant by Dublin’s River Liffey, and a man in his thirties walks in holding a copy of his résumé. He wants to leave it for management to look over.
“Sorry, waste of time,” the server says bluntly, raising her hand two feet off the More...
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Turkey: Confronting Mine’s Destruction of Black Sea Region |
By: Urban Movements Istanbul/HIC (UM) |
21 January 2015 |
Local villagers in the Black Sea Region of Turkey are locked in a long and bitter battle against a foreign extraction industry that is destroying both the environment and peoples’ livelihoods. The English mining company Stratex International PLC is the adversary, whose construction of a gold mine in Fatsa within More...
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World Bank & DfID Role in Ethiopia’s Villagization |
By: ICIJ, The Guardian |
20 January 2015 |
Leaked Report Says World Bank Violated Its Own Rules in Ethiopia
Sasha Chavkin, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
20 January 2015
This article was reported by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington DC-based global network of 185 reporters in 65 countries who collaborate on transnational investigations.
Internal watchdog finds link More...
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Spain: Austerity Driving Poverty, Growing Inequality |
By: CESR |
16 January 2015 |
As Spain faces a major UN review of its human rights record, a new factsheet by CESR illustrates how four years of austerity have driven rising poverty, deepening inequality and a serious deterioration in a variety of economic and social rights in the country. Published on the occasion of More...
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Palm Oil Risk to Africa |
By: Josephine Moulds, The Guardian |
15 January 2015 |
Forest regions and local livelihoods under threat as palm oil producers looking for new agricultural land are welcomed by African governments
Palm oil has long been produced in Africa on small-scale, diversified plantations. A report on palm oil, published last year by the NGO Grain, notes that tens of millions of More...
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Zimbabwe: Court Stops Eviction by First Lady |
By: Tendai Kamhungira, Daily News (Harare) |
13 January 2015 |
HARARE—High Court judge Erica Ndewere has granted a provisional order to stop the evictions of Mazowe residents at Manzou Farm following an application by six people who are part of the affected families.
The six are part of approximately 200 families who are facing eviction in a move reportedly aimed at More...
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India’s Environmental-reform Report Criticized |
By: Environment Support Group |
09 January 2015 |
On 29 August 2014, the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change of the Government of India (hereinafter referred to as MoEF & CC) set up a High Level Committee headed by former Union Cabinet Secretary Mr. T. S. R. Subramanian, IAS (retd.). This Committee was given a comprehensive mandate: More...
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Rise and Fall of World’s Poorest Nations |
By: Thalif Deen, IPS |
07 January 2015 |
UNITED NATIONS—The world’s 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs)—a special category of developing nations created by the General Assembly in 1971, but which the World Bank refused to recognise—have long been described as “poorest of the poor” in need of special international assistance for their economic survival.
But only three—Botswana, Cape Verde More...
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USA: 1 in 7 Detroiters Face Eviction |
By: Zac Corrigan, World Socialist Web Site |
07 January 2015 |
One in seven Detroit residents is threatened with eviction due to tax foreclosure in 2015, according to data compiled by Loveland Technologies. Last fall, Michigan’s Wayne County, which includes the city of Detroit, served foreclosure notices on a record 75,000 homes, which will take effect later this year. Sixty-two thousand More...
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San Francisco Evictions: Tenants’ 2015 Agenda for 2015 |
By: Gen Fujioka, 48 Hills |
06 January 2015 |
San Francisco—Ellis Act evictions are often the most dramatic and destructive forms of evictions because they displace all the tenants in a building. As discussed yesterday, Ellis Act evictions surged in 2012–2013 and then declined last year in the face of tenant resistance and aggressive policy proposals to control speculation. More...
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New York City: Mayor de Blasio’s Housing Gamble |
By: Henry Grabar, Next City |
05 January 2015 |
Here’s the paradox of affordable housing in New York City: The red-hot markets of gentrifying neighborhoods are both decried as the problem, because they displace existing tenants, and hailed as the solution, because of their appeal to real estate investors.
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg rather callously expressed this idea last year, More...
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Turkey: Privatization Threats Gümüşdere People |
By: KÜRŞAT BAYHAN, Sundays Zaman |
27 December 2014 |
Gümüşdere is one of the rare villages in Istanbul where people are still engaged in agricultural activities.
Nearly 300 families live in the village where they first settled in the 1920s in the exchange of populations. The second generation people who left their homelands behind made a new life for themselves More...
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