BRIEF: China will Retain Its One-Child Policy

BEIJING, China – The most populated country in the world, China, said it would keep its controversial family-planning policies for at least another decade.  The announcement refutes speculation that officials were contemplating adjustments to compensate for mounting demographic pressures.  Zhang Weiqing, minister of China’s State Population and Family Planning Commission, told China’s state-run China Daily newspaper that abandoning the policies at this point would cause “serious problems,” put a strain on economic development, and cause more problems than it would solve.

One-Child policy, one of the world’s strictest population control policies, launched during the late 1970s, has prevented an additional 400 million births.  Most urban couples are limited to a single child, while farmers are often allowed to have two.  Critics say the policy has led to numerous abuses, including forced abortions and sterilizations, which continue in some areas.

Giving a rapidly aging society in China, demographers commented that a lower birthrate may actually lead to social difficulties because there will be fewer young working adults to pay taxes and look after the elderly.  Already, factories have reported shortages of young workers in recent years. At the same time, the one-child policy is considered a contributing factor to a gender imbalance that has raised concerns that there may be too few females in the future.

For more information, please see:

CNN – China to keep one-child policy – 10 March 2008

New York Times – China Sticking With One-Child Policy – 11 March 2008

Wall Street Journal – China to Retain Its One-Child Policy – 11 March 2008

BRIEF: China drops from list of top ten violators of human rights

BEIJING, China – The U.S. State Department removed China from a list of top 10 human rights violators, according to its annual human rights report.  But instead of placing it among the world’s worst offenders, it shifted China’s listing to: “authoritarian countries that are undergoing economic reform and have experienced rapid social change but have not undertaken democratic political reform and continue to deny their citizens basic human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

The delisting of China upsets many rights activists, saying that China’s crackdown on dissent is getting worse as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in August.  In the past week, Chinese police crackdowned monks’ demonstrations in Lhasa, which is the capital of the remote mountainous region of Tibet. Human rights activist Hu Jia, detained after organizing a petition stating that Chinese wanted “human rights, not the Olympics,” was informed that his trial on charges of subverting state power could begin as early as this month.  A prominent human rights lawyer, Teng Biao, was abducted by the Beijing Public Security Bureau and then released two days later.  Migrant construction workers building the “new Beijing” are routinely exploited by being denied proper wages, under dangerous conditions with neither accident insurance nor access to medical and other social services.

State Department officials in Washington avoided questions about why China was dropped from the worst-offenders list, where it has appeared in each of the previous two years.  Jonathan Farrar, acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, said that China’s “human rights record remains poor” and that the report gives a “very frank appraisal” on the status of human rights in the country.

For more information, please see:

Christian Science Monitor – China’s human rights rating upgraded by U.S. State Dept. – 13 March 2008

International Herald Tribune – U.S. drops China from list of top 10 violators of rights – 12 March 2008

Washington Post – U.S. Delisting of China Upsets Rights Activists – 13 March 2008

BRIEF: Tamil Journalists Held in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Over the past week, five Tamil reporters have been arrested by Sri Lankan police for receiving money from Tamil Tiger rebels.

However, after investigation into these allegations, Reporters Without Borders found that the reporters actually received the money from a German organization and Tamil exiles with no connection to the Tamil Tigers.  The money was going to be used by the reporters to help Tamil students and fund an outreach website in Sri Lanka.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the fact that these reporters were beaten during the first few days of detention, and demands that Sri Lankan authorities explain why they are still being held.

For more information, please see:

Reporters Without Borders – Tamil journalists arrested and beaten by police acting on wrong information – 12 March 2008

Situation for Somali refugees worsens as U.N. envoy calls for support for reconciliation

By Ted Townsend
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

NAIROBI – An average of twenty thousand Somali’s are fleeing Mogadishu every month, according to Guillermo Bettocchi, the head of the U.N. refugee agency for Somalia. Bettocchi continued “the situation is intractable . . . (and) seems to be deteriorating. We don’t see any improvement.”  The recent wave of refugees means that up to one million of Somalia’s nine million total residents are now living as refugee’s.

This mass exodus gives Somalia’s the worlds largest group of internally displaced people, with over two hundred thousand clustered in difficult conditions between Mogadishu and another town to the west. Consequences for refugees have become dire, with many of the refugees surviving on less than a meal a day and spending almost their entire income on drinking water. In discussing the consequences, Bettocchi cited an example of an Ethiopian woman who gave birth while unconscious on a boat. Before she regained consciousness, smugglers threw her baby overboard.

The conflict that has wracked Somalia for the last seventeen years took a new turn in early 2007, when the Ethiopian-backed government was attacked by an Islamist-led insurgency.  The most recent wave of refugees fled what are described as “Iraq-style” attacks on the capital.

The recent exodus continues, despite the African Union Mission to Somalia’s (AMISOM) deployment of peacekeepers to the area. Assessments of the now one-year old peacekeeping force are mixed, with detractors citing a thinly stretched force that lacks funds and equipment to effectively provide a security presence. Out of a pledged troop strength of eight thousand from multiple African nations, only two Ugandan battalions and one hundred and ninety-two Burundian soldiers are on the ground in Mogadishu. Many of these troops do not have adequate resources.

However, officials from Uganda, provider of the most troops, cite improved security where troops are deployed, as well as improved medical services and water provisions as evidence of success of the mission. “What used to be hell on Earth if not hell after all,” said Captain Paddy Ankunda, a Ugandan army spokesman.” Even those who try and find success in the first year of AMISOM’s deployment, admit that the force could be much more effective if each country who has pledged troops would deploy those troops.

AMISOM’s mandate is to protect Somalia’s transitional federal institutions to enable them to carry out their functions of government. Citizens of Mogadishu claim to have seen no change since the deployment, saying that violence has continued, and there is no effect on the lives of the ordinary people.

The semblance of a functioning government in Somalia, non-existent for the last seventeen years, got a boost this week, when United National Special Representative Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah announced that the transitional government was ready to hold talks with the opposition. Ould-Abdallah will assume a leadership role, joining the two parties in discussions on peace and stability.  In discussing his role, Ould-Abdallah said “I have no doubt that all Somalis and their concerned friends, governments and organizations will support this move and that everyone would refrain from any action that might hinder these important steps.”

For more information, please see:

allAfrica.com – UN Envoy Lauds Government’s Willingness to Talk With Opposition – 12 March 2008

Reuters – Somalia War Creates 20,000 refugees a month – 13 March 2008

allAfrica.com – One Year Later, AU Force in Mogadishu Soldiers On – 12 March 2008

Relief Web – UN Special Representative for Somalia calls for support for reconciliation – 12 March 2008

Situation for Somali refugees worsens as U.N. envoy calls for support for reconciliation

By Ted Townsend
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

NAIROBI – An average of twenty thousand Somali’s are fleeing Mogadishu every month, according to Guillermo Bettocchi, the head of the U.N. refugee agency for Somalia. Bettocchi continued “the situation is intractable . . . (and) seems to be deteriorating. We don’t see any improvement.”  The recent wave of refugees means that up to one million of Somalia’s nine million total residents are now living as refugee’s.

This mass exodus gives Somalia’s the worlds largest group of internally displaced people, with over two hundred thousand clustered in difficult conditions between Mogadishu and another town to the west. Consequences for refugees have become dire, with many of the refugees surviving on less than a meal a day and spending almost their entire income on drinking water. In discussing the consequences, Bettocchi cited an example of an Ethiopian woman who gave birth while unconscious on a boat. Before she regained consciousness, smugglers threw her baby overboard.

The conflict that has wracked Somalia for the last seventeen years took a new turn in early 2007, when the Ethiopian-backed government was attacked by an Islamist-led insurgency.  The most recent wave of refugees fled what are described as “Iraq-style” attacks on the capital.

The recent exodus continues, despite the African Union Mission to Somalia’s (AMISOM) deployment of peacekeepers to the area. Assessments of the now one-year old peacekeeping force are mixed, with detractors citing a thinly stretched force that lacks funds and equipment to effectively provide a security presence. Out of a pledged troop strength of eight thousand from multiple African nations, only two Ugandan battalions and one hundred and ninety-two Burundian soldiers are on the ground in Mogadishu. Many of these troops do not have adequate resources.

However, officials from Uganda, provider of the most troops, cite improved security where troops are deployed, as well as improved medical services and water provisions as evidence of success of the mission. “What used to be hell on Earth if not hell after all,” said Captain Paddy Ankunda, a Ugandan army spokesman.” Even those who try and find success in the first year of AMISOM’s deployment, admit that the force could be much more effective if each country who has pledged troops would deploy those troops.

AMISOM’s mandate is to protect Somalia’s transitional federal institutions to enable them to carry out their functions of government. Citizens of Mogadishu claim to have seen no change since the deployment, saying that violence has continued, and there is no effect on the lives of the ordinary people.

The semblance of a functioning government in Somalia, non-existent for the last seventeen years, got a boost this week, when United National Special Representative Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah announced that the transitional government was ready to hold talks with the opposition. Ould-Abdallah will assume a leadership role, joining the two parties in discussions on peace and stability.  In discussing his role, Ould-Abdallah said “I have no doubt that all Somalis and their concerned friends, governments and organizations will support this move and that everyone would refrain from any action that might hinder these important steps.”

For more information, please see:

allAfrica.com – UN Envoy Lauds Government’s Willingness to Talk With Opposition – 12 March 2008

Reuters – Somalia War Creates 20,000 refugees a month – 13 March 2008

allAfrica.com – One Year Later, AU Force in Mogadishu Soldiers On – 12 March 2008

Relief Web – UN Special Representative for Somalia calls for support for reconciliation – 12 March 2008