Region

Just hours before South Sudan becomes independent, a mood of joyful expectation swept through its capital, with crowds dancing in the streets and last-minute preparations ahead of Saturday’s ceremony. Processions of veterans, soldiers and civilians marched through central Juba in the hot sun, some dressed in traditional clothing, playing drums and dancing.

Demonstrators take to the street tomorrow in Malaysia calling for reforms of the electoral system to make elections clean and fair. The rally, organised by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih) is supported by the three largest opposition parties in the country but deemed illegal by the government.

Last week it was announced that Rupert Murdoch would be allowed to own all of BSkyB, a large provider of TV and video. Now a series of reports of criminal and indecent journalism on the part of the “News of the World”, part of Murdoch’s newspaper group are coming out. Avaaz is campaigning to flood the BSkyB public consultation and stop the deal.

They give life almost in every way – they deliver generation after generation; they plant seeds and grow crops, feed their families and sell food in rural markets; they bring water and heat and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their families. Yet, they are the victims of a nearly invisible, silent crime as millions of them die every year from preventable causes.

“How to get each one of us or as many as possible to start thinking and doing Green? As a start we have our Green Ambassador project to form people with a Green Heart to bring into birth a green culture where people can rethink everything and come to understand what being Green is all about,” Albert Oung, Green Institute Hong Kong.

The scenes that plagued Latin America through the 1980s bear a striking resemblance to those in the Arab World since Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in Tunisia nearly 30 years later. In Latin America, protests reflected the rising frustrations of the middle class, marketplaces were bombed by those angry at incumbent autocrats and citizens rallied against police brutality.

Politicians in rich countries use to cry to the sky and tear their hair out, warning against migrants and refugees’ alleged extraordinary threats and exceptional danger, while blaming them for all the troubles that their obedience to the “market lords” and the “war lords” has been causing.

They give life almost in every way – they deliver generation after generation; they plant seeds and grow crops, feed their families and sell food in rural markets; they bring water and heat and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their people be them newborns, adults or elderly.

The case of a young Armenian forced sentenced to two and a half years for refusing military service was taken up by a number of high profile international organisations, including Amnesty International. Today the European Court of Human Rights ruled that individuals have a right to conscientious object and called on Armenia to immediately introduce civilian alternatives.

The world is on course to miss United Nations hunger reduction targets set in 2000, despite successes in curbing extreme poverty, a UN report said Thursday. In 2000, the world body’s 192 member states launched eight Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015 and the 2011 progress report showed mixed results on the first target of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.