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World We Want Poverty Rally June 2010, New York

Activists Demand `The World We Want’

 Hundreds of Prominent and grassroots anti-poverty campaigners from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and North America marched to Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza outside the United Nations today to demand urgent and concrete actions to reach and exceed the Millennium Development Goals.

The activists are in New York to participate in ground-breaking hearings at the United Nations, where for the first time civil society, private sector and government delegates are meeting together on the floor of the General Assembly. The interactive meetings are being held ahead of a high-profile summit at the UN in September, where global leaders are expected to take measures to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.

“Governments seem to be suffering from a collective infliction – memory loss,” says Lysa John, Campaign Director of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP). “They agreed on a framework and concrete targets to dramatically reduce extreme poverty by 2015. But with less than five years to go, we are way off track. We urgently need legally binding mechanisms to ensure that governments keep their promises alongside a global breakthrough plan to end extreme poverty.”

Ms. John joined international campaigners outside the UN in signing a giant letter of demands, addressed to the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. The letter, which was also signed by more than 120 civil society groups across the globe, calls for greater accountability, measures to increase gender equality and reduce social exclusion and concrete urgent steps to achieve MDG8, a global partnership for development focused on justice, sustainability and fair trade.

Anti-poverty campaigners are also demanding an increased focus on social exclusion and discrimination as well as legally binding accountability mechanisms.

“We are calling for the World We Want 2015 because we are not happy with the World we live in today,” says Gemma Adaba of the International Trade Union Confederation, “a world where children are denied the opportunity to go to school and neoliberal polices dictate that education is a service that must be paid for. The World We Want is a world where there is education for all, health, water, decent work, universal social protection floor and dignity for all.”

“We need Governments to be accountable to the citizens of the world and fulfill the internationally agreed commitments they have made,” adds Mr. Irungu Houghton, Oxfam’s Pan-African policy advisor. “Poverty has reached emergency proportions. Urgent action is needed. We cannot afford a business-as-usual approach.”

Leaders from 189 countries signed The Millennium Declaration in 2000, setting out eight clear cut time-bound commitments to end poverty. While some progress and significant achievements have been made, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are not on track to be achieved by the 2015 deadline, due in part to the feminization of poverty, the ever more apparent affects of climate change and the global financial and food crises. In 2009 alone, an estimated 90 million people – mostly women and girls – were pushed into poverty.

By Matthew Bruce

This decision to keep the Euro was very influential indeed as the UK wanted to keep sovereignty in the country, but also it would only be a step closer to handing over more power to the EU.

Since 1973, the UK’s membership to the EU has been an awkward one since. The UK had joined the EU at a very euro sceptical time, with many political parties unwelcome to the idea of an almost federalist state that was the European Union. In this, since 1973, major parties have always had precise views on the EU and in this the UK has been almost an outsider party in the EU to this day. Evidence to support this would the UK’s decision not to join the Eurozone, thus not adopting the Euro and keeping the Great British Pound Sterling.

This decision to keep the Euro was very influential indeed as the UK wanted to keep sovereignty in the country, but also it would only be a step closer to handing over more power to the EU. One major plan that the UK have is to keep this sovereignty in the UK, in Parliament and not hand power over to Brussels in the process. In this, many citizens wonder why the UK even joined the European Union in the first place, and there are good reasons behind this. The UK joined the EU first and foremost so that we were allowed to trade anywhere within the EU, any citizen was allowed to live and work abroad and people from other countries were allowed to come work and live in the UK. This brought to the UK more money and more profession, but in some ways it may not work as well as some people have become increasingly frustrated with migrant workers taking jobs and leaving British workers unemployed and without a job, but it is hard for the government to do anything around this subject as the EU citizens are entitled to work here, with migrant workers working sometimes for less than the national minimum wage.

Also people abroad come to live in the UK because of our welfare state, as the UK is one of the few countries in the whole world that offers a free national health service (NHS), all the other countries within the EU do not offer a free national health service and in this, people are coming to live in the UK for the use of the NHS as a priority.

What makes the UK awkward in these situations is the fact that UK citizens don’t pay attention to the EU and feel that the European Union doesn’t really affect them, this could be because of the attitudes that politicians have towards the EU, when Politicians show a lack of enthusiasm towards the EU, the citizen’s opinion isn’t really to pay attention towards the EU. In this, the UK is increasingly becoming an outside member state in the EU, really the UK is only in the EU as they get a matter of opinion and say into the formation of EU law, as EU law does affect UK law today and the UK need the beneficiaries of the EU in order to maintain a healthy society, even though most political observers and citizens today are confused about the EU’s strategy and its actual democratic legitimacy in today’s world.

“Discrimination and neglect are threatening women’s survival in the Asia-Pacific region where women suffer from some of the world’s lowest rates of political representation, employment and property ownership. Their lack of participation in productive sector is depressing economic growth,” says the new Asia Pacific Human Development Report on Gender.

Launching the report, Power, Voice and Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific, Hon’ble Binda Pandey, Chairperson of the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles Committee of the Constituent Assembly said, “Nepal has already made its way towards passing the bill on domestic violence in the legislative parliament which is a big leap in the right direction. Also the 33 per cent representation of women in the Constituent Assembly is noteworthy progress. However the big challenge of turning the Laws, Acts and Policies into implementation and practice requires change in attitude of all women and men in the country”.

Speaking at the launch event, UNDP Resident Representative Mr. Robert Piper stated, “Gender equality is good economics. Keeping women off the labour market simply costs money. Increasing their participation in the labour market will boost a country’s income, more so in countries with low current participation.”

The report focuses on three major areas of analysis illustrated in terms of Economic Power, Political Voice & Human and Legal Rights.

In the context of Nepal, the gap in women and men’s average daily earnings is alarmingly wide with women earning only 60% of what men earn while doing similar kinds of job in both the agricultural and non-agricultural sector. The report states that giving women economic opportunities also has an effect on gender-based violence – a problem common to the Asia-Pacific region. When women develop a stronger position to bargain and negotiate within their homes, it reduces their dependency on male relatives and frees them to make possibly different choices — including getting out of oppressive situations —that can improve their own welfare as well as that of their children and families.

The political voice of women has improved in Nepal with the recent secured 1/3 quota in the Constituent Assembly. In comparison, only about 1/3 of countries in Asia and the Pacific have quota systems to enhance women’s participation in politics. The report argues that the public policy decisions that the Governments make have fundamental implications on gender equality outcomes as they define the extent of opportunities and entitlements for women and men along with democratic space for civil society and for representing the interests of social groups with less representation, and effective delivery of social services.

Finally, with regards to rights, Gender-based violence is pervasive with more than one-tenth of women in the Asia-Pacific region reporting assaults by their partners. Nearly half of the South Asian countries lack laws on Domestic Violence. Nepal’s positive moves towards greater legal protection and equality for women needs to be continued.

An LTTE bicycle infantry platoon north of Kilinochchi in 2004

Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora groups should move away, once and for all, from the failed agenda of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and instead put their energies into the quest for a sustainable and just peace in a united Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora after the LTTE,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines political dynamics within the Tamil diaspora since May 2009, as Tamils abroad adapt to the LTTE’s defeat. It also looks at the potential for new forms of militancy within the diaspora, especially among the younger generations, radicalised by the deaths of thousands of Tamil civilians in the final months of the war. While there is little chance of the Tamil Tigers regrouping in the diaspora, most Tamils abroad remain profoundly committed to a separate state of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka.

“New diaspora initiatives attempt to carry forward the struggle for an independent state in more transparent and democratic ways, but they must repudiate the LTTE’s violent methods”, says Robert Templer, Crisis Group’s Asia Program Director. “And they must also recognise that the LTTE’s separatist agenda is out of step with the wishes and needs of Tamils in Sri Lanka”.

The gap between the diaspora and Tamils in Sri Lanka has widened. Most in the country are exhausted by decades of war and are more concerned with rebuilding their lives under difficult circumstances than in continuing the fight for an independent state. Without the LTTE to enforce a common political line, Tamil leaders in Sri Lanka are proposing substantial reforms within a united Sri Lanka. While Tamils have the democratic right to espouse separatism non-violently, Tamil Eelam has virtually no domestic or international backing. With the Sri Lankan government assuming Tamils abroad remain committed to violent means, the diaspora’s continued calls for a separate state feed the fears of the Rajapaksa administration and provid e excuses for maintaining destructive anti-terrorism and emergency laws.

“The Sri Lankan government must address the legitimate grievances at the root of the conflict: the political marginalisation and physical insecurity of most Tamils in Sri Lanka. The international community needs to press Colombo much more strongly for political and constitutional reforms. Donors should insist that money given to redevelop the north and east is tied closely to the demilitarisation and democratisation of the region. This should include giving Tamils and Muslims a meaningful role in determining the future of the areas where they have long been the majority. Donor governments and the United Nations must also insist on an independent investigation into the thousands of Tamil civilians killed in the final months of 20fighting in 2009”.

“Tamils in Sri Lanka currently have little appetite for a return to armed struggle”, says Robert Templer. “But should the Sri Lankan state continue to fail to respond to their collective aspirations, some may eventually seek a solution through violence and could find willing partners in the diaspora”.

File Photo:US President Barack Obama taking his Oath of Office - 2009 January 20

Just one year ago- today, Barack Obama was inaugurated as the President of the United States. Today is the first anniversary of the inauguration of President Obama. The night Obama was elected; relief was felt around the world. He inaugurated presidency not only as a new face on the same government’s body but also the victory of hope over fear. He is the most charismatic politician on earth and very famous in making speeches. Hopes were high but the things are going to get a lot harder. So what went wrong? I believe his biggest failure is not addressing the biggest issue everyone cares and hoped about- Climate Change. What do you think? Share your perspectives on Obama’s one year in the White House.

(Background: The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44^th President of the United States took place on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. The inauguration, which set a record attendance for any event held in Washington, D.C.,  marked the commencement of the four-year term of Barack Obama as President and Joseph Biden as Vice President. Based on combined attendance numbers, television viewership and Internet traffic, it was among the most observed events ever by the global audience).