human rights

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Pope Urges UK Bishops to Fight Gay Equality Bill

Legislation 'violates the natural law,' pontiff contends

(Newser) - Pope Benedict wants English and Welsh bishops to fight proposed human rights legislation with "missionary zeal." The Equality Bill, which is pending in Parliament, is intended to combat discrimination on the basis of sex, race, disability, religion, or sexual orientation, but the pontiff argues that "it actually...

Police Shut Down 'Mr. Gay China' Pageant

Police say organizers didn't apply 'according to procedures'

(Newser) - Chinese police shut down the “Mr. Gay China” pageant an hour before it was set to start, saying the organizers didn’t apply for permissions “according to the procedures.” The event was seen as a symbol of China’s newfound acceptance of homosexuality, which was illegal in...

Google's Harsh Words for China Just Marketing

Company is doing poorly, and saw convenient rights-related out

(Newser) - The stand Google took against Chinese censorship and web-based malevolence yesterday is as much about the search giant’s self interest as any deep moral ideals, Sarah Lacy writes. “I’m not saying human rights didn’t play into the decision,” but it was surely an afterthought. First...

Onetime Gitmo Detainee Now a Top al-Jazeera Reporter

Al-Hajj finds niche in human rights beat

(Newser) - Sami al-Hajj was a cameraman when US forces captured him in 2001, but now, a year after his release from Guantanamo Bay, he’s mostly seen in front of a camera, as al-Jazeera’s special reporter on human rights. “I wanted to talk for seven years, to make up...

Angelina Jolie Hates Obama
 Angelina Jolie Hates Obama 
HE OWES DARFUR MORE
Dec 11, 2009 8:26 AM CST

Angelina Jolie Hates Obama

Actress slams president's Darfur policy in Newsweek

(Newser) - Angelina Jolie “hates” President Obama so much that she and partner Brad Pitt “get in nasty arguments all the time” about him, sources tell Us —and she lets a bit of her distaste shine through in a piece she wrote for Newsweek on Darfur. “When the...

Obama: 'War Is Sometimes Necessary'
 Obama: 'War Is 
 Sometimes 
 Necessary' 
nobel acceptance speech
Dec 10, 2009 7:53 AM CST

Obama: 'War Is Sometimes Necessary'

Obama accepts peace prize by saying force morally justified

(Newser) - President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize today with, paradoxically, a defense of war. Obama began his speech by acknowledging the controversy surrounding his reward, both because his accomplishments are slight and because of the wars he presides over. “We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes,”...

Iran Takes Nobel Winner's Peace Prize

It's never happened before, say outraged officials in Norway

(Newser) - In what would be a dastardly first, Norway has accused Iranian authorities of stealing a Nobel Peace Prize. The prize belongs to Iranian national Shirin Ebadi, a human rights lawyer who received the honor in 2003. “The medal and the diploma have been removed from Dr. Ebadi’s bank...

Race-Speech Obama Is MIA
 Race-Speech Obama Is MIA 
OPINION
Nov 24, 2009 2:13 AM CST

Race-Speech Obama Is MIA

Prez's actions failing to match his clear rhetoric of past

(Newser) - The moral clarity that Barack Obama revealed in his groundbreaking Philadelphia speech on race has been nowhere to be seen recently, writes Richard Cohen. The Obama who made that speech wouldn't have let the Chinese stage-manage his appearances, or allowed the civilian trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed go forward without...

Watchdog: Raúl Just as Bad as Fidel

He shares his brother's disregard for human rights

(Newser) - The perception that Cuba is less repressive under Raúl Castro than Fidel is false, Human Rights Watch says. Dissidents are still harassed by the state, subject to arbitrary detention—532 such cases in the first half of 2009 alone—fired. or denied work. The government also continues to pressure...

Obama, Hu Begin Bridging Divide

Superpowers work to find common ground on nukes, climate, economy

(Newser) - President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao emerged from intense talks today determined to marshal their combined clout on crucial issues, but still showing divisions over economic, security, and human rights issues that have long bedeviled the two powers. "The relationship between our two nations goes far beyond...

Obama Coming Up Short on Human Rights
Obama Coming Up Short
on Human Rights
OPINION
Oct 20, 2009 1:19 AM CDT

Obama Coming Up Short on Human Rights

President's actions don't match the promises that wowed Berliners

(Newser) - President Obama's decision to skip the celebrations of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall highlights the gap between his rhetoric on the campaign trail and the realities of his presidency, writes Bret Stephens. Obama hailed the "dream of freedom" in his big speech in Berlin last...

Two Pilots Face Extradition in Dirty War Death Flights

Some 1,000 Argentines were hurled into sea

(Newser) - Two Argentines charged with piloting notorious "death flights" during the country's brutal military dictatorship are facing extradition. The pilots, one arrested in Argentina and the other in Spain, are accused of flying the flights from which more than 1,000 drugged and blindfolded students, intellectuals, and trade unionists...

Poland OKs Chemical Castration for Pedophiles

Controversial new law also covers incest

(Newser) - A new law in Poland will require convicted pedophiles or those who rape family members to undergo chemical castration when their prison term is up. Human rights groups immediately raised objections, but Poland's prime minister isn't budging—he says the criminals in these cases don't qualify as "human,"...

US to Engage Burmese Junta
 US to Engage Burmese Junta 
Sep 24, 2009 6:09 AM CDT

US to Engage Burmese Junta

Clinton announces change in policy, says sanctions will remain

(Newser) - The US will directly engage with Burma's military leadership in addition to its current sanctions, Hillary Clinton said yesterday. The secretary of State acknowledged that sanctions alone had failed to change "the lack of democracy in Burma and the authorities’ abysmal record on human rights," and it was...

Spain Nabs Alleged Pilot in 'Dirty War'

Charged in 'death flights' that dumped Argentines into sea

(Newser) - Spanish police have arrested a commercial pilot they say flew "death flights" that dumped political malcontents into the sea for Argentina's junta during the Dirty War, the BBC reports. Julio Alberto Poch was nabbed in Valencia as he was preparing to fly a Transavia passenger plane to Amsterdam....

Yemen Right-Wingers Blocked Push to End Child Marriages

Conservatives claimed introducing minimum marriage age was un-Islamic

(Newser) - Conservative lawmakers in Yemen, where a 12-year-old girl died giving birth to her husband's child last week, shot down an attempt to set the minimum marriage age at 17 earlier this year, CNN reports. The lawmakers kept the bill from reaching the country's president by arguing that it violated Islamic...

Yemeni Child Bride, 12, Dies in Childbirth

Girl forced to marry 24-year-old dies after three days in labor

(Newser) - A pregnant 12-year-old Yemeni girl has died after three days of excruciating labor that also claimed her baby, a human rights group tells CNN. Fawziya Ammodi's poverty-stricken family forced her to drop out of school last year to marry a 24-year-old man. More than half of Yemeni girls are married...

Cuban Activists Rally Around Drunken YouTube Ranter

Man thrown in prison for video plea for food

(Newser) - Cuban activists have found an unlikely cause celebré in the case of Juan Carlos González Marcos, who was sent to prison last month for drunkenly interrupting a shoot for a video about reggaeton with a rant about hunger. González was drinking, as he often did, at his neighborhood...

Pentagon Tells Red Cross Who's in Secret Prisons

Military grants group access to prisoners

(Newser) - After years of refusing the Red Cross information about terror suspects held in two secret camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has quietly reversed course, the New York Times reports. The military has begun providing the identities of prisoners at the sites in Balad, Iraq, and Bagram, Afghanstan. Under...

Obama Defends Mexico's Drug War

Cartels are the biggest violators of human rights, president says

(Newser) - President Obama expressed his support for Mexico’s war on drug cartels after today's North American summit, the New York Times reports. Obama defended Felipe Calderón—who some criticize for not holding the Mexican army accountable for reported human rights abuses against the drug traders—saying that the ruthless...

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