Rights lobby blames State for woes of disabled
The Government is not doing enough to curb discrimination against persons with disabilities, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has said. Mr Lawrence Mute, a commissioner, cited some Government agents, which he said were culpable of suppressing the disabled. And despite the Persons with Disabilities Act (2003), Mute said people with disabilities continue to suffer because of its poor implementation.

The East African Standard, March 9, 2007

UN body tells India to halt caste discrimination
A UN human rights watchdog called on India on Friday to halt racial discrimination against lower castes which it said were victims of arbitrary arrests, rapes and killings, as well as land evictions. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said the more than 160 million Dalits - once known as "untouchables" - should be granted equal access to places of worship, hospitals, water sources and education.

Reuters India, March 9, 2007

Evo Morales calls for environmental justice
Commenting on the natural disaster that has left large swathes of Bolivia's lowland east underwater after months of flooding, and much of the Andean region covered in ice, in late February Bolivian President Evo Morales called for a global debate on the effects of climate change and environmental destruction on poor nations.

Green Left Weekly, March 9, 2007

UN panel tells Israel to respect Palestinian rights
Israel should ease roadblocks and other restrictions on Palestinians and put a stop to settler violence and hate speech, a United Nations rights watchdog said on Friday. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said Israel's security measures to ward off suicide bombings and other attacks must be re-calibrated to avoid discrimination against Arab Israelis or Palestinians living in Israeli-occupied lands such as the West Bank.

Reuters, March 9, 2007

Selling organs to survive
In a hot, bare hut in Tsunami Nagar in Madras, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, lives Lata Kala. Two years ago when the tsunami destroyed communities around the Indian Ocean, Lata's fisherman husband lost his fishing boat and nets. Desperate for money she sold her kidney a few weeks ago. A hospital in Madras (Chennai) cut it out. She has an eight-inch-long scar, jagged and crossed with stitch marks. It stretches round her left side just above her hip. She is still in pain, unable to sit or stand for long. "The doctor told me I will have breathing problems and back pain. If I lift heavy objects I will be breathless," Lata says, "but I agreed to it because I have debts and I have kids. Who will feed my children?"

BBC News, March 8, 2007

Hear our voices
"There are 130 million people with intellectual disabilities and their families around the world and the vast majority live in poverty. Regardless of where they live... they tell a remarkably similar story. People are excluded from education, employment, health care and other services, and from belonging in their communities. Parents and siblings face barriers to employment, adequate income, community services and community acceptance. People find their rights are denied. They feel invisible in development and poverty reduction strategies."
Inclusion International, Hear Our Voices: A global report - People with an Intellectual Disability and their Families Speak out on Poverty and Exclusion. More...

Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Find out about the work of OHCHR, a department of the United Nations Secretariat mandated to promote and protect the enjoyment and full realisation, by all people, of all rights established in the Charter of the United Nations and in international human rights laws and treaties. The site includes news stories and detailed information about a range of human rights issues.

www.ohchr.org/english/

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC)
Established in 1986 by an act of the Federal Parliament, HREOC aims to foster greater understanding and protection of human rights in Australia and to address the human rights concerns of a broad range of individuals and groups. The site includes news and information about human rights, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice, disability rights, sex discrimination and racial discrimination. A section of the site is dedicated to human rights resources for teachers and students.

http://www.humanrights.gov.au/

Foreign Correspondent - "That sinking feeling"
PNG correspondent Steve Marshall sets sail to the Carteret Islands off Bougainville to meet the islanders who say they're doomed because of global warming. The people of the Carterets are about to become environmental refugees as their homes literally disappear into the sea. Officials of Bougainville's new autonomous government are planning to relocate families, ten at a time.

ABC TV, Tuesday March 13, 2007 @ 9:20 pm; repeated Saturday March 17, 2007 @ 1:00 pm

"It is not just a question of eliminating hunger and reducing poverty. It is not just a question of fighting wretched conditions, though this is an urgent and necessary task. It involves building a human community where all people can live truly human lives, free from discrimination on account of race, religion or nationality, free from servitude to others or to natural forces which they cannot yet control satisfactorily. It involves building a human community where liberty is not an idle word, where the needy Lazarus can sit down with the rich man at the same banquet table."

Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, On the Development of Peoples, 1967, #47

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