Chinese authorities have been accused of mounting a crackdown on human rights lawyers, with many having their licences revoked. Perhaps as many as 70% of rights attorneys are being harrassed.
The lawyers handle a wide-range of cases, from families affected by last year’s tainted milk scandal, to representing prominent dissidents.
Al Jazeera’s Melissa Chan reports from Beijing.
People & Power looks at the politics of mountain top strip mining in West Virginia. Learn more at Coal River Mountain Watch:
Mountaintop Removal (MTR) is the most outrageous of all coal mining methods. In mountaintop removal, a mountain is first cleared of all vegetation. This often valuable hardwood is often just pushed into an adjacent valley to get to the coal faster. Legally, the topsoil from the planned MTR site is required to be collected and set aside so it can be returned after the mining is finished. Since the profitable wood is shoved into the valley, it is no surprise that the costly to store topsoil follows soon after.
Next holes are drilled and filled with explosives similar to those used in the Oklahoma City Bombing, but with up to 100 times the explosive force. In West Virginia alone,
A Blast Up Closenearly three million pounds of explosives are detonated per day, or, in a year, 27 times the explosive force of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. These powerful blasts have been known to crack foundations of nearby homes. In addition to the property damage caused by blasting, the silica dust is a health hazard to people living downwind.
After a blast is set off, the rubble (called overburden) is picked up by giant machines and dropped into nearby valleys creating valley fills. These fills can be a mile wide and hundreds of feet high and usually bury a waterway. Along with the destruction of the valley ecosystem and the stream, Valley fills also run the risk of collapse. Due to their steep slope, a heavy rainfall can cause failure.
What remains of Kayford MountainWith the mountaintop gone, the coal and easily be scooped up with large machinery at which point the coal is cleaned. This blast, clear and scoop process can be done for layer after layer of coal until it is uneconomical to continue.
When this happens, the final stage of MTR takes place, reclamation. Reclamation usually consists of little more than rough grading and spraying hydroseed over the rocky landscape. Pine trees are the only trees that don’t die immediately and even they don’t grow very large. Sites reclaimed 20 years ago look the same now as they did then.
These sites can be superficially reclaimed, the water tables are forever ruined, but the cost would make mining economically prohibitive. If coal companies were forced to pay for these externalities, rather than passing the burden along to the taxpayer and citizens living in disturbed areas, there would be no surface coal mining.
Does the code of conduct signal a shift in Taliban ideology? Are they hoping it might help increase their popularity with the Afghan people? How will it affect the Afghan elections next month? Is it a PR campaign, a sign of discipline, strength, or weakness?
The political turmoil in Iran continues to unfold. Hundreds of demonstrators were imprisoned following the street protests last month, and their treatment in the weeks since the disputed presidential election is now the subject of intense international scrutiny.
Iran’s official media reported on Wednesday that 20 of those detained will be put on trial as early as this weekend.
Though the protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, in some cases even silent, the demonstrators are accused by the Iranian authorities of carrying out bombings, and of attacking Basiji paramilitary forces — the very forces who repeatedly attacked them.
Ervand Abrahamian, a distinguished professor of history at City University of New York, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the fate of political prisoners.
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who worked on an advisory board to General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, joins Martin Savidge to discuss if victory is possible for NATO forces. In his comments, Mr. Cordesman finds that the Taliban has been steadily expanding the areas they occupy, steadily expanding their political influence and steadily expanding their control of the Afghan economy which should be translated as that they control the opium trade that represents nearly 60% of Afghan GDP. He adds that in much of Afghanistan Taliban courts are the ones that adjudicate justice arguing that the Taliban “are the only real presence of government.” Mr. Cordesman coldly notes that the Taliban are “winning the battle of political attrition.”
And yet Mr. Cordesman believes that victory in Afghanistan is still possible but would require a restructuring of the Afghan army in conjunction with putting in the “necessary resources” for the development of the country. He is also critical of the Karzai government citing its culture of corruption.
One of the more telling statements as to who is calling the shots in Afghanistan is Mr. Cordesman’s confessional that “we created a system that was extremely centralized in order to try to make the warlords weaker” but which unintentionally “strengthened the warlords.” He goes on to bemoan a vacuum of power at the provincial and local level.
WARNING: Viewers may find some of the images in the report disturbing. Al Jazeera’s Yvonne Ndege reports from the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
A day after the Nigerian president said calm was restored to the north, gun battles broke out again between government forces and Boko Haram fighters seeking sharia across the country.
Security forces yesterday raided the enclave of the radical Boko Haram sect in Maiduguri, in an all-out attempt to crush the group whose supporters ignited violence in five states in which more than 150 persons including security personnel died.
The army moved in six light armoured war tanks and deployed hundreds of heavily armed soldiers, mobile policemen and regular policemen around Maiduguri to destroy the residence of the sect leader, Malam Muhammad Yusuf, which also serves as the group’s headquarters.
The security forces also cordoned off old Maiduguri, Galadima, Kasuwan Shanu and Low Cost areas, which have been under the control of the sect members since Sunday night when the crises began.
The military action came a day after more than 100 people were killed in Borno, Yobe and Kano states in gun battles between the sect’s followers and security forces. Earlier on Sunday, more than 50 persons were killed in Bauchi, following at attack on a police station by the sect’s followers in retaliation for the arrests of their leaders. Most of the dead were members of the sect, while many police, soldiers and prison personnel also died in the clashes. Yesterday, the violence spread to Katsina State, where the sect’s followers attacked a police station in Danja injuring a policeman.
The Boko Haram sect is opposed to the western education and propagates a wholesale adoption of Islamic Sharia law across the country.
More on a new IDP crisis from All Africa:
Government emergency management teams in Nigeria are distributing blankets and water to thousands of people displaced from the northeastern city of Maiduguri following clashes between an armed group calling for strict Islamic rule and Nigerian security forces.
Remaining residents are holed up in their homes and goods at local shops are scarce.
Violence broke out on 26 July when members of the group, known locally as the Nigerian Taliban or as Boko Haram, attacked a police station in Bauchi state following the arrest of some of their leaders. Clashes spread to Yobe, Kano and Borno states in the following days.
On 28 July some 3,000 people fled Bayan Quarters, a Maiduguri neighbourhood where the latest round of fighting took place, and though many have returned home, others are now sheltering in the Maimalari and Giwa army barracks on the outskirts of the city, residents told IRIN.
Nigerian Red Cross workers are distributing plastic sheeting and food to some of the displaced, using local Red Cross stocks. The relief workers are assessing conditions in the three affected states, according to disaster manager Attah Benson.
Most people fled after security forces shelled the group’s headquarters and home of its leader Mohammed Yusuf, in response to the group’s attack on police headquarters on 27 July, Maiduguri police official Isa Azare told IRIN.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has also sent a relief team to nearby Bauchi state, director Mohammed Audu-bida said in a 28 July communiqué.
Most of Maiduguri’s streets were deserted on 29 July as remaining residents have locked themselves in their houses.
“All the markets and shops remain closed due to the fighting,” resident Suauwalu Hamisu told IRIN. “Neighbourhood shops are running out of supplies.”
About half of all women in India are married before the age of 18. But now, students at an all-girls school in India’s rural state of Uttar Pradesh are bucking the trend. As we her from Voice of America’s correspondent Linda Blake, 16 year-old Krishna Chaudhry is making a difference by inspiring her classmates to seek independence through education.
More from UNICEF:
The state of Bihar, India’s poorest, is home to nearly 90 million people. Half of them live in conditions of extreme poverty. Key development indicators, such as those related to public health or literacy, are among the lowest in the nation. As in much of the world, it is the children who suffer most from poverty. Thousands live on the streets of the capital, Patna.
Twelve-year-old Halima is one of them. She has been living on the streets for nearly a year and her existence is best described as marginal. “My village is somewhere on the Bengal border and I travelled to many places by hiding on trains. I don’t steal from people, but we find things the passengers leave behind and sell them for food.”
Halima’s travelling days came to an end two weeks ago when workers from a child protection organization met her at a railway station, where she had been living. She was brought to a dormitory in the capital, where she is now staying along with dozens of other vulnerable children. The children are provided with clothes and food, and they are also given an education and skills training.
Halima is happy to study. “I’m learning to read and write and also to sew. These are important skills that I never had and I think they will help me lead a better life.”
Thousands of Girls Attending School for the First Time
Girls’ education is now a state priority in Bihar, owning in part to efforts by the Indian government, international agencies and local non-governmental organizations. Quality education for all girls is a basic right, and UNICEF is working to ensure it remains high on the agenda.
Female literacy in India today is still considerably lower than male literacy, but the situation is improving: the rate of female literacy rose from 34 per cent in 1990 to 45 per cent in 2000.
In Bihar’s rural villages, a programme is encouraging parents to educate daughters along with their sons. As a result, thousands of girls are now attending school for the first time, in informal settings organized by village women. This is just one of several girls’ education programmes in the state, but much more needs to be done to realize the right of a quality education for all.
Non-Profits Doing Female Empowerment Work in India
Affus Woman Welfare Association (AWWA)
All-Orissa Advasi Sports And Cultural Society
Amar Jyoti Bal Vikas Sasthan
Association for Welfare Activities for Rural Development (AWARD)
Forum for Fact-finding Documentation and Advocacy
Grameen Koota
New Earth Team
Rainbow Academy
Rural Identity and Cultural Education (RICE)
Rural Women and Children Development (RWCD)
Sambhav Social Service Organization
Seva Foundation
Shantidhara Social Service Society
Spirit Of Life Mission
Star Social & Human Welfare Organization