Colombia femicide: new exhibition aims to raise femicide awareness

2017

TRT World journalist, Dimitri O’Donnell interviews Adriana Cely Verdadero, a women’s rights activist, and Ana Guezmes Garcia, a representative of UN Women Colombia, who provide background to the exhibition dedicated to the victims of femicide in Colombia and the gaps the social and political systems need to fill. Published on 16 December 2017 on YouTube.

Available online at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=92&v=op5DDnrqzz0

Briefing: The Rising Seas: Higher Tide

In: The Economist, 2019, pp. 16-19

Notes that two thirds of then world's large cities in 140 countries are close to the sea, that a billion people live only 10 metres above sea level. and that scientific reports show that the rate of sea level rise is accelerating. Discusses different estimates of rising sea levels and the inadequacies of engineering measures to create adopted by many countries.   

Indigenous deaths in custody: Why Australians are seizing on US protests

In: BBC, 2020

Explores the rise of Black Lives Matter protests in Australia in solidarity with the international response to the death of George Floyd, and also to highlight the long running tragedy of Aboriginal deaths in custody.

See also: Allam, Lorena and Nick Evershed, ‘The killing times: the massacres of Aboriginal people Australia must confront’, The Guardian, 3 March 2019.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/04/the-killing-times-the-massacres-of-aboriginal-people-australia-must-confront

Special report on the killing, incarceration and forced removal from their land of Indigenous Australians over 140 years. The article offers an interactive map that shows the locations and date of massacres between 1794 and 1928.

See also: Dovey, Ceridwen, ‘The mapping of massacres’ The New Yorker, 7 December 2017.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/mapping-massacres

The article reports on how historians and artists turned to cartography to record the widespread killing of Indigenous people in Australia.

Available online at:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-52900929

Rita Segato on political feminism: ‘There is no prince

In: TeleSur, 2018

Rita Segato, an Argentine-Brazilian academic and one of the most celebrated Latin American  feminists, comments on the biases still affecting cases of femicide in Latin America due to the hyper machismo culture. She also discusses the need to unite academics working in the field of Communication, journalists and editors in order to promote discourses that encourage women to be seen as political actors rather than merely as victims.

Available online at:

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Rita-Segato-on-Political-Feminism-There-is-No-Prince-20181219-0020.html

The referendum that changed Ireland

In: Foreign Policy, 2019

To celebrate the first anniversary from the repeal of the Eight Amendment of the Irish Constitution that prevented women accessing abortion even in cases of rape and incest, Ailbhe Smyth, the co-director of the ‘Together for Yes’ campaign in Ireland, is interviewed on First Person and describes what it was like for women in Ireland to live under the ban, and how the predominantly Catholic country managed to overturn it. She also talks about the laws passed in 2019 in Alabama and other parts of the United States that ban most abortions.

See also https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/world-reaction-ireland-historic-vote-abortion-rights/

Available online at:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/24/ireland-ban-abortion-constitutional-amendment-together-for-yes-reversed/

Sex and Power: #MeToo, one year on

In: Economist, 2018, pp. 16-16

Argues that movements sparked by alleged rape accusations could be the most powerful force for equality since women's suffrage' and discusses their impact and challenges in politics and business in the US.

See also more detailed articles on the same issue: ‘#MeToo and politics; Truth and Consequences', pp. 36-37, and 'American business after Weinstein: Behind closed doors', pp. 59-60.

Special issue on climate change

In: The Economist, 2019

Issue focusing on climate change: Contains an analysis of rising carbon dioxide emissions, articles on the role of China and Russia, forest fires in Indonesia, flood prevention plans in low lying Asian cities, and the climate diplomacy of small island states.

Young and old, city and country: Ireland unites to end abortion ban

In: Observer, 2018, pp. 1-3

Analyses the referendum and the 66.4 per cent vote to repeal the amendment to the Irish Constitution forbidding abortion. 

See also:

Emma Graham Harrison '"The future is safe" - a long fight pays off', Guardian Weekly, 10/06/18, p. 4-5, which looks back at 35 years of courageous campaigning, and Karl McDonald, 'Irish battle goes global: Abortion campaigners from around the world are intervening in referendum', the i, 19 May 2018, p.35.

Youth Climate Action Takeover

22-28 April 2019

In: The Big Issue, 2019, pp. 19-39

This special supplement in the paper focusing especially on the homeless (and sold by them) takes up the climate crisis and the role of youth activism. Features young people arguing for climate change to be on the school curriculum, and interviewing the UK Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, Caroline Lucas (the sole Green MP in the UK Parliament), and representatives of Marks and Spencer about their clothing and recycling policies. Includes interviews with young naturalists and activists in different parts of the country.

Our territory, our body, our sprit: indigenous women unite in historic march in Brazil

In: Amazon Frontlines, 2019

As part of the indigenous movement across the Amazon, thousands of indigenous women demonstrated in Brazil’s capital city in August 2019, joining the first Indigenous Women’s March. Carrying banners with the slogan “Territory: our body, our spirit”, women took to the streets to make their voices heard and to denounce the policies of Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, which have set the stage for escalating violations of indigenous rights, racism, violence and the most alarming Amazon deforestation rates in recent memory.

Available online at:

http://www.amazonfrontlines.org/chronicles/indigenous-women-march-brazil/

The Big Story: Oceans. 'Who Owns the Sea?'

Sept-Oct 2019

In: New Internationalist, 2019, pp. 16-26

Covers issues of both climate change and biodiversity: loss of fish stocks, plastic pollution and role of oceans as climate regulators, and dangers of planned seabed mining. These issues are framed by a legal and political analysis of the Law of the Sea, the role of the International Seabed Authority and the negotiations between 190 countries in the Intergovernmental Conference on the Protection of Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, intended to lead to a new Global Ocean Treaty.   

There are a number of timelines on the evolving scientific research and the political context of climate change:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15874560 (1712-2013)

Sources for the evolving scientific understanding of climate change include:

IPCC Reports (comprehensive assessment reports, special reports on specific issues and methodology reports); there are also summaries for policy makers. The IPCC releases very much shorter summaries to the press.

NASA provides climate change and global warming information on its website: climate.nasa.org

The Scientific American carries material on the science and politics relating to climate change. www.scientificamerican.com

The New Scientist provides accessible news reports and analyses on scientific issues, including climate change. https://newscientist.com

Defendants in Manresa gang-rape case escape sexual assault convictions

In: El Pais, 2019

Reports that five out of six men involved in a gang rape of a 14-year old girl were convicted of sexual abuse of a minor, rather than the more serious crime of sexual assault; the girl was for part of the time in an 'unconscious state'.  The report also provides an update on the Pamplona case, noting the  the Spanish Supreme Court ruled the men were guilty of rape and raised their prison sentences to 15 years. El Pais records in addition that the commission created after the Pamplona case to revise the legal definition of  sexual violence has reported, and recommended eliminating the lesser charge of  sexual abuse; but the Socialist Party government has not yet acted.

Available online at:

https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/31/inenglish/1572525418_791189.html

The Big Story: Black Lives Matter

In: New Internationalist, 2018, pp. 12-25

Originally published: March 2018

Introductory article by Amy Hall summarises the growth of BLM in the USA, discusses its global potential and spread to other countries, and notes the relevance of BLM in the UK.  Jamilah King comments on the US movement, both on its strengths and the divisions within it. Other articles examine how BLM relates to a history of  'a policy of black extermination' in Brazil, and to the struggle by Aboriginal people in Australia.

UN: ‘Machismo’ in Honduras driving epidemic of femicides

In: TeleSur, 2018

Provides recent data uncovered by the United Nations on femicide in Honduras. It also connects the occurrence of femicide, and the lack of effective measures to tackle it, to political and economic instability, which lead many people to flee the country.

To see the consequences of femicide in terms of the children made orphans in Honduras, have a look at this link https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Thousands-of-Children-Orphaned-in-Honduras-By-Femicides-Study-20180912-0010.html

Available online at:

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/UN-Machismo-in-Honduras-Driving-Epidemic-of-Femicides-20181128-0017.html

Sudan: The Generals Strike Back

In: The Economist, 2021, pp. 59-60

Provides a well informed summary of the context and nature of the October military coup.

See also: 'Sudan: Coup de Grace', The Economist, 27 November 2021, p. 55.

This analysis of the coup leaders' decision to reinstate Prime Minister Hamdok interprets this move as' the army tightening its grip on Sudan's political transition. 

Grassroots will drive North Africa women’s rights push

In: Oxford Analytica, 2020

The year 2019 has seen women’s rights movements come to the fore across the Maghreb, a region where previous initiatives have been driven by Western political pressure and from the top down by predominantly authoritarian leaders. This paper explores the unprecedented bottom-up activist movements that have begun advancing the agenda of women’s rights across the region.

Honduran President called ‘murderer’ at inauguration of UN anti-femicide initiative

In: TeleSur, 2019

Announces the launch of the ‘Spotlight Initiative’ in Honduras through a joint collaboration between the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) and the Honduras government to end femicide and impunity. By 2014, Honduras had the highest number of femicides in the world, according to the U.N. It is reported that 380 women were murdered in the country in 2018 and that 30 women were killed during the first 30 days of 2019. The impunity rate for this crime hovers at 95 per cent.

Available online at:

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Honduran-President-Called-Murderer-at-Inauguration-of-UN-Anti-Femicide-Initiative-20190214-0009.html

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