Day: November 16, 2022

In reaction to the draft text which the ministers are negotiating on loss and damage finance, Oxfam’s Climate Change Policy Lead, Nafkote Dabi said:

“As the COP27 enters the final crucial days, it is a shame that rich countries – especially the US – continue to reject calls from the G77 Group, representing 134 developing countries, for a loss and damage fund to be established here at COP27.

“Oxfam is in full support of the G77’s position and is saddened that the inclusion of Loss and Damage in the COP27 agenda remains a political game for developed countries, who may likely exit this summit with no agreement on the way forward. The principles that underpin the global climate discussion – responsibility, equity, justice, fairness – have left the conference room.

“More than 40 million people in the Horn of Africa are currently experiencing climate induced hungers crisis. Pakistan is faced with $30 billion worth of loss and damage from the recent mass floods that left a third of the country under water. It is crucial that developing countries can access a formal fund to pay for the damages and losses they are already suffering today.

“Rich countries must meet their $100 billion annual goal for climate finance in addition to establishing a new Loss and Damage fund that is fit for purpose, accessible and gender responsive. It is long overdue – the call for L&D finance was made 30 years back. Rich countries must heed the urgent call and deliver a loss and damage fund at COP27.”

Source: Oxfam

Today, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a $15 million award over five years, subject to availability of funding, for the Family Planning 2030 (FP2030) partnership. Through this award, USAID will provide global leadership and state of the art family planning technical assistance to support FP2030’s goal of advancing access to contraception for millions of women and girls around the world, including in USAID priority countries.

USAID is proud to be a significant technical and financial contributor in the FP2030 partnership, the world’s only global alliance aimed at empowering women and girls by investing in rights-based family planning, and was a founding member of its predecessor, Family Planning 2020. This award will also advance locally-led development through partnerships with local networks and organizations and co-fund the FP2030 Support Network consisting of regional technical resource hubs in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States.

The announcement was made at the International Conference on Family Planning in Pattaya, Thailand.

FP2030’s commitment to equitable and rights-based approaches, country-led leadership, inclusion, and transparency aligns with USAID’s localization agenda and offers USAID enhanced opportunities to engage with local partners in support of reproductive health. USAID’s partnership with FP2030 also supports broader U.S. efforts to advance gender equity and equality and promote the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls.

As the world’s largest donor of bilateral family planning assistance, USAID supports voluntary family planning and reproductive health programs in more than 30 countries. Today, as a result of USAID’s investments in voluntary family planning and reproductive health programs, millions of women and couples around the world are able to choose the number, timing, and spacing of their pregnancies, resulting in significant social, economic, and health gains for themselves, their families and their communities.

Source: US Agency for International Development

More international aid is arriving in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, ending a months-long blockade after the warring sides agreed to a ceasefire.

The U.N.’s World Food Program, or WFP, said Wednesday that its trucks had arrived in northwest Tigray via Gondor, a city in the Amhara region to the south.

The aid organization said, “More food nutrition, medical cargo will follow imminently” through all available routes into Tigray.

The news comes a day after two trucks of medical supplies from the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, reached Mekelle, Tigray’s capital.

Two years of war in the northern region have displaced an estimated 2.5 million people from their homes and left millions more in need of food aid and other basic necessities.

The ICRC said Wednesday that a “test flight” had arrived in Shire, a city in northwest Tigray that hosts hundreds of thousands of people uprooted by recent fighting. The resumption of airlifts would “alleviate the suffering of thousands needing immediate support,” the ICRC said.

The Gondar route used by the WFP convoy had been closed to aid groups since June, when federal forces and their allies retreated from Tigray in the face of an offensive by rebel forces led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Over the weekend, military leaders from both sides reached an agreement laying out a roadmap for implementing the cease-fire, which was signed in Pretoria on November 2.

The accord contains security guarantees for humanitarian workers and pledges the parties to facilitating “unhindered humanitarian access” to Tigray, although phone, internet and banking services have not yet been restored to the region.

Source: Voice of America

International human rights groups have called for urgent global pressure on Iran to stop handing death sentences to jailed antigovernment protesters and to refrain from executing any of the detainees.

Iran’s judiciary has said five people detained in the government’s crackdown on a two-month protest movement have been sentenced to death since Sunday. The five detainees, none of whom was named, include three people who were handed the sentences Wednesday.

In a message sent to VOA, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights, said the Iranian government is using the death penalty to try to scare the public into once again fearing its authority. Many Iranians have overcome such fears, joining mostly peaceful nationwide protests against 43 years of Islamist rule and defying repeated violent crackdowns by security forces since the protests began in September.

“The international community should send an extremely strong signal that the execution of even one protester will have severe consequences,” Amiry-Moghaddam said.

In a statement released Wednesday, London-based rights group Amnesty International said it has documented the court cases of 21 named individuals detained in the crackdown and charged with “enmity against god” and “corruption on earth,” offenses punishable by death.

The group said five of those individuals appear to have received the five death sentences announced by the judiciary, based on what the judiciary revealed about the charges that led to those sentences. Amnesty International named the five men as Mohammad Boroughani, Mohammad Ghobadlou, Mahan Sedarat Madani, Manouchehr Mehman-Navaz and Sahand Nourmohammad-Zadeh.

“Amnesty International is urging all governments with embassies in Iran to immediately send high level observers to all ongoing trials where defendants are at risk of being sentenced to death,” the advocacy group said. It noted that Iranian authorities have said such trials will be public.

VOA sent emails to the representatives of governments from Britain, France and Germany, asking if they plan to request permission from Iranian authorities to send observers to the trials of detained protesters facing serious charges punishable by the death penalty. All three have embassies in Tehran but did not immediately provide a comment.

The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency said that one of the individuals sentenced to death Wednesday was accused of killing a policeman and wounding several others by running them over with a car, while a second individual was accused of stabbing a security agent and setting fire to a government building and a third individual was accused of blocking traffic and damaging public property. It noted that the sentences were preliminary and can be appealed.

Amnesty International said it obtained information indicating that the 21 individuals at risk of the death penalty have been denied their rights to fair trials. It said Iranian authorities have denied them access to a lawyer of their own choosing and denied them the rights to be presumed innocent, remain silent and not incriminate themselves.

Iran’s judiciary said earlier this month that 1,024 indictments have been issued in relation to protests in Tehran province. Hundreds of other indictments have been issued against protesters elsewhere in the country. Rights groups say those charged are among thousands of protesters who have been arrested nationwide.

U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told a Wednesday press briefing that the U.S. continues to be deeply concerned about reports of mass arrests, “sham trials” and death sentences for Iranian protesters. He noted that the U.N. Human Rights Council will hold a special session Nov. 24 to address the worsening human rights situation in Iran and said the U.S. strongly supported requests by Germany and Iceland to convene the meeting.

“The Iranian government needs to end its state-sponsored violence against women and to allow peaceful protest,” Patel said. “The U.S. is going to continue to voice our support for human rights and our support for the Iranian people.”

The nationwide protests began in response to the Sept. 16 death while in police custody of 22-year-old Iranian Mahsa Amini, whom Iran’s morality police had arrested days earlier for allegedly not covering her hair fully enough with a hijab. Iran’s Islamist rulers long have demanded that women cover their hair in public in accordance with strict Islamic dress codes.

The protests against Amini’s death quickly evolved into a broader call by many Iranians for freedom and regime change.

Jason Kung, Canadian foreign ministry spokesperson, said in an email to VOA that Ottawa also is deeply concerned by reports that an Iranian court has sentenced up to five protestors to death for participating in recent demonstrations. He said reports that additional similar sentences and harsh penalties are being prepared against other arbitrarily detained protestors are disturbing.

“We call on Iran to stop escalating tensions and to refrain from committing further acts of violence against its own population,” Kung said. “We urge Iran to meaningfully address the grievances of all of its citizens without discrimination and to protect and respect their right to peaceful protest.”

Canada cut diplomatic ties with Iran in 2012, while the U.S. did the same at the start of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa deputy director, urged U.N. Human Rights Council members to use next week’s special session on Iran to “urgently establish an investigative and accountability mechanism to address this all-out-assault on the right to life and other human rights.”

Source: Voice of America