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Africa’s Great ‘Water Grab’ |
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By: Water grabbing.net |
| 24 November 2014 |
The banks of the Niger river, in southern Mali, have been flooded by a steady stream of foreigners. Coveted by foreign investors eager to snap up large tracts of fertile farmland, the river basin has been at the centre of a race to get hold of African land at rock-bottom
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Tanzania Maasai Prefer Death to Eviction |
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By: Tolu Ogunlesi, Al Jazeera |
| 23 November 2014 |
It`s a familiar story, starring African land and outsized corporate appetites. It begins in 1992, when the Tanzanian government licensed Ortelo Business Corporation (OBC)—owned by a senior official of the United Arab Emirates government—to organise hunting expeditions in Loliondo, a 4,000sq km stretch of land on the edge of the
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Boston (USA): Scholars Call Homeless Emergency |
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By: MIT/DRAN |
| 22 November 2014 |
Statement of MIT/RLS Global Convergence on Evictions and Displacement Conference Participants to State and City Leaders Regarding the Long Island Shelter Crisis
We, the undersigned, practitioners and researchers in the fields of housing and land rights and human settlements, gathered this weekend at MIT for a Global Conference on Strategies Against
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Israel Resumes Punitive House Demolitions |
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By: Al Jazeera |
| 20 November 2014 |
Contentious punitive tactic resumed with razing of building housing family of Palestinian man blamed for October attack.
Israel has demolished the home of a Palestinian in occupied East Jerusalem who it says carried out a deadly October attack, just hours after Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel`s prime minister, warned of strict security
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Saudi Arabia Bulldozes Its Heritage |
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By: Carla Power, Time |
| 14 November 2014 |
For centuries, the Kaaba, the black cube in the center of Mecca, Saudi Arabia that is Islam`s holiest point, has been encircled by arched porticos erected some three centuries ago by the Ottomans, above dozens of carved marble columns dating back to the 8th Century. But earlier this month, any
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Cleveland`s Plan to Destroy nearly 6,000 Homes |
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By: Les Christie, WMUR9.com |
| 13 November 2014 |
City is turning empty lots into parks, greenhouses, vineyards
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) —In and around Cleveland, nearly 6,000 foreclosed and abandoned homes are being destroyed in an effort to save neighborhoods from blight, crime and sinking home prices.
Instead of trying to rebuild on these properties, however, the city has been
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Boston Finally Acts on Stranded Homeless |
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By: David Abel, Boston Globe |
| 12 November 2014 |
On a city lot beside the Southeast Expressway, somewhere between massive piles of rock salt and rows of garbage trucks, city officials have found a site to house hundreds of homeless people who have lived in limbo since engineers last month condemned the bridge to their shelter on Long Island.
The
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Two Words Scare the World Bank |
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By: Philip Alston |
| 07 November 2014 |
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim spoke eloquently last month about the bank’s new commitment to end extreme poverty by 2030 and improve the plight of the poorest 40 percent in developing countries. In a speech at Howard University, he called for gender equity and access for the poor to food,
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India: Environment, Land-use Laws Threaten Human Rights |
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By: AI-India |
| 05 November 2014 |
Recent changes made and proposed to India’s environment and land acquisition policies strike at the right of communities to be consulted on decisions affecting them, Amnesty International India said today.
India’s Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has in recent months weakened requirements for public consultation with communities affected
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The Right to the City: Cairo |
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By: Joseph Schechla |
| 03 November 2014 |
Egypt’s capital city, Cairo, embodies one of the longest and most-dramatic transformations of any large urban center. Its current “transition,” following the 2011 popular uprising against a long-standing kleptocracy, suggests a well-developed and organized civil society and social movements that would drive democratic change. Urban social movements claiming the right
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Canada Accused of Failing to Prevent Overseas Mining Abuses |
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By: Carey L. Biron, IPS |
| 31 October 2014 |
WASHINGTON—The Canadian government is failing either to investigate or to hold the country’s massive extractives sector accountable for rights abuses committed in Latin American countries, according to petitioners who testified here Tuesday before an international tribunal.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) also heard concerns that the Canadian government is
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OECD Calls for Privatizing Tunisia’s Water |
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By: HIC-HLRN |
| 27 October 2014 |
Overcoming the Challenges to Private Sector Participation A new report diagnoses of the OECD addresses the main governance and financing challenges to management of the water supply and wastewater sector of Tunisia, and provides ways forward to address them through “private-sector participation” (PSP). Although OECD admits that the performance of
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The Right to the City: Jerusalem |
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By: Joseph Schechla |
| 26 October 2014 |
HIC-HLRN has produced a new report from an ongoing study on the prospects of realizing the principles of the “right to the city” for specific cities in several regions.
This report finds that applying the "right to the city" in Jerusalem challenges the current governance grounded in discrimination against, and dispossession of
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SR`s Survey: Housing and Local Authorities |
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By: Leilani Farha/OHCHR |
| 23 October 2014 |
Responsibilities of sub-national governments with respect to the right to adequate housing
Introduction
In her first report to the General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Ms Leilani Farha, outlines some of the priority themes for her mandate (A/69/274).
Among others, she identifies the important role of governments at the sub-national level
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3D-printed Postdisaster Homes |
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By: Rosanne Roobeek, Al Jazeera |
| 23 October 2014 |
Amsterdam—Architects in Amsterdam are building a 3D-printed house, an effort some say could soon transform disaster reconstruction and help the homeless around the world as the technology becomes increasingly more affordable.
The idea behind the project, according to the architects, was to develop ways to build homes in a faster and
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SR on Water Condemns Discrimination against Poor |
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By: OHCHR Statement |
| 20 October 2014 |
DETROIT / NEW YORK (Issued as received) – The unprecedented scale of water shut-offs taking place in Detroit is disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable and poorest, most of whom are African American, two United Nations human rights experts have warned today. So far this year over 27,000 residences have had
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Protests Disrupt London Property Fair |
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By: Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian |
| 15 October 2014 |
London—It was billed as the ultimate “property marketplace”, a high-profile networking event for investors, developers and local authorities to broker big deals, but the first day of the Mipim conference in Olympia, west London ended in a police lockdown. Protesters forced organisers to close the gates and one conference delegate
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The Struggle over World Bank Safeguards |
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By: HIC-HLRN |
| 14 October 2014 |
The World Bank’s “consultation” with global civil society on the proposed new safeguard policies in lending and project implementation took place in Washington DC on 11 October 2014. The proceedings of the session reflect wide skepticism about the avowed improvements in World Bank performance sought in the current draft policies.
The
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Disappointing ICN2 Outcomes |
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By: |
| 14 October 2014 |
Governments met in the FAO Headquarters in Rome from 10-12 October to finalize the Rome Political Declaration and the Framework for Action for the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2). After 22 years, civil society organizations (CSOs) were expecting significant progress to address the urgent problem of the more than
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USA: Home Is Where Car Is |
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By: Dina Demetrius and Michael Okwu, America Tonight/Al Jazeera |
| 10 October 2014 |
SANTA BARBARA CA—For four years, the only life Paula Corb and her two daughters have known is the one inside their 2000 Mazda minivan, stopping once in a while for take-out, groceries and gas.
Corb and the girls Alice and Emily are among 214,000 "unsheltered" homeless people in America, meaning they
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