An Issue of Child Rights
It is difficult not to view the recent excommunication of the nine-year old girl who had become involuntarily pregnant because of rape as a clear issue of the rights of…
Reading on the Bus
How many of you read on the bus? Maybe you don’t ride the bus. My work commute takes 50 minutes, composed of a seven minute bus commute at the start,…
Slumdog Millionaire: An Alternative View from an Indian Perspective
A friend sent me an email citing what follows. It is excerpted from an Indian website and offers an Indian perspective on Slumdog Millionaire. Not everyone, it appears, is cheering…
Trafficking in the Philippines
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has expressed concerns that the global economic slump, which is causing increased joblessness, could see an increase in human trafficking. This…
Bound and Gagged
Images can be powerful. Don Mullan, Irish author and social justice campaigner, took this photograph of sculptures at the Red Cross Museum in Geneva representing prisoners of conscience. It captures…
In India it’s a Guy Thing!
The title above is a deliberately ironic comment on what is a serious issue. We all remember those movies about infanticide. The ones showing babies being plunged in tubs of…
Economic Implosion is bad news for world's Poorest
Well it’s official. The UN site, IRIN, posted a report from Dakar citing analyses and forecasts by UN economists on the likely impact of the downturn in the West on…
A Slow Spring
Geneva is limping towards Spring – cold chill rain, light snow, the trees still bare. But, in the pre-dawn dusk, the blackbirds have started to sing, softly; the magpies are…
Rebuilding the Global Financial System (GFS)
I am reliably informed that GPS car installations were the Christmas gift of choice in 2008. Every time I get lost on the A43 into Lyon I pine for one!…
Miguel Barcelo and Geneva Ceiling
I spent almost all of Friday, December 12th, in the new Human Rights Council chamber at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. A special commemorative session to mark the 60th…