International

The online whistleblower WikiLeaks continues to release documents from the Syria Files, more than 2 million emails said to be from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies over a 6 year period ending earlier this year. WikiLeaks spokesperson Sarah Harrison said the files would embarrass not only the Syrian government but many of its political foes.

The United Nations is calling for a number of new taxes in a bid to help aid the world’s poor. In a new report, the World Economic and Social Survey calls for proposals including taxes on carbon emissions, financial transactions, and on the world’s billionaires. Robert Vos of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs unveiled the report.

Around three years ago, the U.S-born world financial crisis forced five European Union member countries to receive a really little honorable “title” — the PIGS. These were Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain. With Ireland added to the group, the acronym became PIIGS. More recently came Cyprus, the current EU president.

If added together, there would be a nation of nearly 700 million people—the third most populated one on Earth after China and India. Its population is made of over 210 million jobless, 215 million children obliged to work; 21 million victims of forced labor, and 228 million working poor youth living on less than the equivalent of US$ 2 per day.

Southeast Asian states should collectively negotiate with powerful China to resolve territory disputes. 04 Jul 2012 China’s claim to a disputed island in the South China Sea has angered many in the Philippines. No one will believe that the stand-off between the Philippines and China over a disputed island in the South China Sea is a straightforward bilateral issue.

Luc Gnacadja has rock-solid reason to be upbeat: some 100 heads of state agreed at the Rio+20 – to strive for “a land-degradation neutral world”, characterised by zero growth in desertification.
In doing so they were responding to the UNCCD’s clarion call in a “policy brief” for ‘A Sustainable Development Goal for Rio+20: Zero Net Land Degradation’.

More than 140 countries have passed counterterrorism laws since the attacks of September 11, 2001, often with little regard for due process and other basic rights, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.
The 112-page report, “In the Name of Security: Counterterrorism Laws Worldwide since September 11,” says that while terrorist attacks have caused thousands (read more)…

The status of human rights in Zimbabwe, environmental concerns from toxic waste, future of diamond revenue and level of transparency from the flow of those funds into treasury. Additionally, he addresses the role of the Kimberley Process and suggests ways the global jewellery industry should handle the supply-chain given how Marange diamonds are entering the market.

This is what the scientists say and it is CERN that announced the finding of the most sought-after elementary particle of recent decades, the Higgs boson, opening the doors to the subatomic world. Although other experts are more cautious: what has been registered indicates what could be the signature of the Higgs particle, such is science, very careful.

We are seeing increasing social protests all over the world, with hundreds of thousands on the streets from Santiago to Montreal, from Moscow to Tokyo and everywhere in between. Sudan, after having recently divorced its southern neighbour is a country not know for its human rights and police leniency, so it is encouraging that even here things are moving, even if carefully.