Archive for month: August, 2014

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has called on the United States to stop racism and police brutality.

“The excessive use of force by law enforcement officials against racial and ethnic minorities is an ongoing issue of concern, particularly in light of the shooting of Michael Brown,” Noureddine Amir, CERD committee vice chairman, said on Friday.

“This is not an isolated event,” he added.

The UN watchdog was referring to 18-year-old black teenager Michael Brown who was shot dead by white police officer Darren Wilson in Missouri on August 9.

“It illustrates a big problem in the United States, such as racial bias among law enforcement officials, the lack of proper implementation of rules and regulations governing the use of force, and the inadequacy of training of law enforcement officials,” Amir told reporters.

The unarmed teenager was shot at least six times. Brown’s killing caused violent protests in Ferguson and heavily-armed law enforcement officers cracked down protesters.

A grand jury in St Louis is tasked with deciding whether to bring charges against Wilson, who is on paid leave.

“The United States must ensure that every case of excessive use of force is promptly and effectively investigated and the alleged perpetrators prosecuted and the victims or their families are adequately compensated,” the UN watchdog said.

“It should undertake complete and comprehensive measures to address the root causes and avoid any future recurrence of such tragic incidents,” he added.

The killing of black people in the US stoked outrage over racial profiling and lax US gun laws.

In 2012, the killings of unarmed 17-year-olds Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis also sparked demonstrations.

“The United States government should take effective measures to protect the lives of all individuals and to reduce armed violence,” Amir said.

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Six-hundred Bahraini prisoners have been on hunger strike for nine days to protest against being tortured in a prison, says the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR).

In report on Friday, the rights group voiced “concern over the reports of prisoners’ hunger strike at the Dry Dock detention center in protest against ongoing torture and ill-treatment in detention.”

The group quoted the prisoners as saying they suffered from “different types of ill-treatment including beatings, insults, deprivation from using the toilets, being locked in their cells at all times, insulting their sect, torture, solitary confinement, and being forced to stand for long hours.”

This is not the first time that Bahrain’s pro-democracy activists have gone on a hunger strike.  Dozens of similar strikes have been staged at the Dry Dock and Juw prisons since 2010.

The BCHR estimates that at least 3,000 people are held in detention in the Persian Gulf country.

On June 10, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) censured the Manama regime for human rights violations in the country. A total of 46 members of the international body expressed deep concern over the Al Khalifa regime’s crackdown on peaceful protesters.

Since mid-February 2011, thousands of pro-democracy protesters have held numerous demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.

On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini government in its crackdown on peaceful protesters.

According to local sources, scores of people have been killed.

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China has lodged a complaint with Japan over the prime minister’s letter to a ceremony honoring World War II-era soldiers which is seen as a symbol of Tokyo’s past militarism.

On Thursday, the Chinese government called on Japan to make a “clean break with militarism” and reflect on its actions during World War II.

“We urge Japan to adhere to its commitment to reflect on the invasion and take solid action to win the trust of Asian neighbors and international community,” Chinese spokesman Qin Gang said in the statement.

The statement comes after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a note to an annual ceremony at the Koyasan Buddhist temple in central Japan on April 29.

The Japanese premier’s message was read to people who attended the ceremony, which honors about 1,180 Japanese war criminals, including wartime prime minister Hideki Tojo and the 13 other executed officials.

This is while Abe claimed that the alleged war criminals are not considered as such under domestic law.

Relations between Japan, China and South Korea have soured since Abe prayed at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine last December.

The people of Japan consider the Yasukuni shrine a site dedicated to around 2.5 million people who lost their lives from the Boshin War of 1867 through the end of World War II.

High-ranking officials executed after World War II for committing war crimes are also buried at the shrine.

On December 26, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made his first visit to the shrine as the country’s premier.

Japan occupied large parts of China and the Korean Peninsula during World War II.

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The International Monetary Fund says that the United States must increase the country’s minimum wage and extend tax benefits for the poor if it wants to reduce poverty and sustain the economic recovery.

“Unless the economic benefits of an improving economy are felt more widely, this recovery may well prove neither economically nor socially sustainable,” senior IMF economist Deniz Igan argued in a report posted on the IMF website on Thursday.

“The United States needs more jobs that pay decent wages,” Igan stated.

“Also worrisome is that the poverty rate increased sharply during the recession and has not come down. The rate still hovers above 15 percent despite the ongoing recovery,” she wrote.

The IMF said raising wages in the US would have a relatively small effect on reducing employment figures, while the benefits, in a country with almost 50 million poor, could go far in reversing the “vicious cycle” of poverty.

A single parent earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is well below the official poverty line of $16,057 a year. Studies show that poverty has a self-sustaining nature. People who have been sucked into poverty in the past are more likely to fall back below the poverty line in the future.

The IMF also said a raise in wages coupled with an increase in the earned income credit– a special tax credit for low earners– would also have a significant impact in helping poor families while creating very little drag on the economy.

According to a recent wage study, jobs created in the US after the Great Recession tend to pay significantly less than the ones that were lost during the steep economic downturn.

Although the country has regained the 8.7 million jobs lost in the 2008-9 financial crisis, the average wage has dropped 23 percent, according to a study released earlier this month by the US Conference of Mayors.

Separately, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week slashed its projection of gross domestic product (GDP) growth for this year to 1.5 percent from 3.1 percent, “reflecting the surprising economic weakness in the first half of the year.”

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UK aid organizations have urged the British government to accept more Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict in the Arab country.

On Friday, British charity Refugee Council and the UK-based humanitarian aid organization, Oxfam, called on the UK government to admit more Syrian refugees as the number of people who have fled Syria topped three million.

The Refugee Council censured the UK in a tweet for the “pitiful” number of Syrians resettled in Britain.

“There are over 1 million refugees from Syria in Lebanon. UK’s plan to resettle ‘several hundred people’ simply isn’t good enough,” the charity said.

This is while Oxfam released a statement, saying Britain could do more to resettle refugees from Syria.

“To date, it (UK) has pledged several hundred refugees’ places [of residence] and only 50 Syria refugees have been resettled by June 2014,” said Oxfam.

The statements by the organizations came after the United Nations reported earlier in the day that the number of Syrian refugees fleeing violence in the country has surpassed three million.

According to the UN, a further 6.5 million people were displaced within Syria, meaning “almost half of all Syrians have now been forced to abandon their homes and flee for their lives.”

Most of the Syrian refugees have taken shelter in neighboring countries, including 1.14 million in Lebanon, 815,000 in Turkey and another 608,000 in Jordan. This is while just some 5,000 Syrians have been resettled in countries other than those neighboring Syria through a UN program.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011. According to the UN, over 190,000 people have so far been killed.

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