Protests in Syria

With Libya at the focus of the news we almost overview what happens in the rest of that region. Beside Yemen, which at least get a bit of attention there are also protests going on in Syria and the ruling Baath Party responds to these with extreme violence.

The main protests are going on in the city of Daraa. The government sealed the city of so no one is allowed to enter but people are allowed to leave, cellphones and landlines where also for a short time disabled in whole Daraa.

Airstrikes in Libya

Libya is at the moment nr 1 in the news, so after finally last week the No-Fly-Zone was approved at the UN security council, the Allied Nations started Airstrikes in Libya. According to what they are saying just Gaddafis Air defense weapons were destroyed.
After the No-Fly-Zone was announced Gaddafis troups announced an immediate ceasefire but everyone was very doubtful about that and the doubts turned out right.

No Fly Zone over Libya

Yesterday evening the UN Security council decided with a 10-0 Vote that a No Fly Zone will be implemented over whole Libya.
In the beginning that idea was heavily criticised when UK Prime Minister Cameron mentioned it first but finally he got his way.
Five Countries including Russia, China and Germany abstained from the Vote.

So now what does this No Fly Zone mean?

Living with HIV / Aids in Mississippi

Mississippi invests little in HIV programs. The state's policies also promote stigma and criminalize the transmission of the disease. Sandra Stringfellow tells her story.

Thousands of Mississippians are at risk for HIV, and many who are infected are denied lifesaving measures and treatment because of counterproductive state laws and policies, Human Rights Watch said in a report . Mississippi has resisted effective approaches to HIV prevention and treatment and instead supported policies that promote stigma and discrimination, fueling one of the nation's highest AIDS rates, Human Rights Watch said.

The Dale Farm Travellers

All who are not from the UK maybe don't know what travelers are, well they are Irish Gypsies who live across Ireland and the UK. 

Near London in Basildon is the largest UK traveller community. The Traveller community bought the former scrap yard  in the 1970s and Basildon council granted planning permission to 40 Families. 

Until 1994 the government was oblieged to provide sites for travellers but that act has been removed and now there is not even near enough space for travellers to stay permanently so a lot of them moved in to Dales Farm.

Still across the UK planning permission for travellers is rejected in 90% of the cases comparing to 20% of all other planning permissions 

Now Basildon council has permission to remove the travellers from their own land and is planning to send the Bailiffs with Bulldozers to do so.

The reputation of travellers is extremely bad among other residents but we should see that most of this is a case of prejudice. In the end travellers are normal people, of course not all of them are angels but in every community you will find good and bad. Alltogether we should let them live their lives on their own land where they are not harming anyone and just staying for themself. 

Most of them are just normal families with children, who wants to go to school and have good access to medical care and just a settled life. It is shocking that still the life expectance of travellers is much lower then of  "normal" UK residence due to a lack of medical care 

People always tend to look bad at minorities doesn't matter where they are from and who they are, Usually that is just because they are different and do things which looks strange. That doesn't mean they are not good people and it doesn't mean that they don't have rights. 

So lets all overcome our prejudice for minoritys and try to accept them as they are and even to understand them

The desasters of Japan

This topic is not really about Human rights but still I feel the urge to write down what I think about it as it really don't leave my mind.

Japan is known as a country who is known to experience many earthquakes, so it wasn't really a surprise that the quake came, actually it was long expected and the quake itself caused surprisingly less damage even though it was the 5th strongest earthquake since records and the strongest in Japan in 150 years.
The building regulations in Japan are so strong that most buildings did not have much problems with the quake, comparing to New Zealands quake recently which was far away from beeing as strong as the Japanese one but destroyed much more buildings.
Actually it was the Tsunami who caused the severe damage and the dead of thousands of peoples. In only one small coastal town 10000 people are missing, so you might be can immagine that there are much more deads as that was not the only city affected. there are many more along the coast.
But even Japans Tsunami warn system is extremely advanced and they gave a Tsunami warning just 3 minutes after the quake which is really fast but as the Tsunami striked just 15 minutes after the quake it was simply not enough time for most people to get away, its simply not possible.

So now I'm asking myself since days: How can a country as advanced as Japan, with such a strong economy and who got all precautions taken for natural desasters build so many nuclear power plants???
After Three Mile Island and Chernobyl we all should have learned our lesson and know that Nuclear Reactors are extremely danger and that not only local where they are build but worldwide.

When Chernobyl happened I lived in Germany and for years (even until today) radioactivity levels are higher then they should be even though not on a dangerous level anymore

Now as I said Japan is well known for earthquakes and also tsunamis as they are caused by the quakes so how can they build such a Nuclear Power Plant in that region?
How come that there is such an arrogance  that they really believe that never anything is going to happen, that their buildings and security systems are so safe that they can resist everything?

Nature proved us again that it has the upperhand against us humans and that we should not get to self confident in what we can and can't do on this planet.

Lets all hope that they can resolve this situation without causing to much harm even if it doesn't look good at the moment as already radioactivity leaked out and some people are found to have higher radioactivity levels.

To be honest I'm not even sure if the situation is not already worst as they are telling us as history teached us that the authorities tend to downplay what really happend.

So just lets hope the best and we should feel with all the Japanese people

The victims of Gaza

Demonstrations in Yemen

As we all know there are many demonstrations going on in the Near East and North Africa, we all know about Libya as it is all over the news but also in Yemen protestors are demonstrating against their government. 

In February a large Demonstration took place in Aden, Security forces used machine guns and assault rifles against the people and killed at least nine people, possible as many as double and injured at least 150 including children.

How can someone fire a weapon on children who are not even responsible for beeing there at all? 

International Womans Day

It is actually very sad that we still need a international womens day in the year 2011 and that we will also need it desperately in the years to come.

Still women all around the world have to fight for their rights in all parts of life. In some countries a woman is still considered as the property of her husband and don't have any rights, Some countries tell women what clothes to wear and prosecute them if they don't follow this rules or they are not even allowed to drive a car!

It still happens in some cultures that men marry girls as young as the age of 8 or 9, which is in my opinion nothing else then the legalisation of paedophiles.

In Asia many women who disobey their husbands or family in law are victims of acid attacks, they don't even stop doing this to little children and babies just out of vengeance.

Even in our developed countrires women are still not equal even if the problems whe face here are ridiculously beside the stuff I mentioned above. But then still women get paid less for the same job and even often work harder for that then man do.

I hope that today some people get aware of whats going on and take a little step (whatever that will be) to stop what is going on all around the world

Gaddafi launches Airstrike

I just read that Gaddafi launchend an Airstrike in Ras Lanuf,! Everyday when I watch the news that insane man shockes me more and more!
The statemens he gives are so inconsistent that I believe he actually would be better off in a mental hospital if he should really believes what he is saying.

Let us not forget that Ras Lanuf is one of Libyas important towns when it comes to the oil business so could that be the reason why he is so desperate to win powers back there?

I feel sorry for the people of Libya who could certainly need help from abroad but of course not in the way the UK did, or does really someone believe that they send a diplomatic mission in an helicopter in the middle of the night and heavily armed? very embarassing. I guess what was really behind that so called diplomatic mission will never be made public

Tunisias Secret Police

Ben Ali, the leader of the old tunisian regime is just gone and now the new interim government announced that it is going to dissolve its secret police.
A step which will be very welcomed by human rights activists.

I've never been in Tunisia but in Morocco where also a secret police exists and I can't forget how scared this people are to say anything against any political person or in morocco, the king. 

Not being able to express your meaning must be awful as it is a need of us humans to say what we think and feel. In countries like Tunisia people are even scared to talk about politics with the people who are closest to them as they never know who they can trust.

Reminds me also of the  German democratic Republic, where even husbands and wives didn't trust eachother. Honestly we should all ask ourself how our life would be without being able to trust the closest of people around us like our partners or children. If we can't trust even them, then to whom else would we be able to trust?

The Gaddafi syndrom

We all know what is going on in Libya at the moment, the People of Libya simply don't want their leader anymore. Excentric Muammar Al Gaddafi is unwanted by his own people and certainly not just since the time where the protest started.

He is the Lybian leader since 42 years now and always ruled very hard on his own people. The word dictator is certainly a good description for him.

The whole world or at least the leaders of the world most important countries like USA, UK, Germany, France and so on did know what kind of leader he is but still they never thought about to do anything against him. They didn't mind to accept his gifts and take his oil and never was any word mentioned about his people and how they were treated.

Now suddenly, when finally the people were brave enough to speak up against Gaddafi they finally urged him to step down and they think about to take more serious steps against him, His foreign accounts are frozen and The Hague investigates in the matter of war crimes against him and his closest circle including his son Saif Al Gaddafi.

So how serious can we actually take our politicians when it comes to international relations? What comes first for them? Money or in this case oil or the people who are suffering under a leader who is obviously insane?
As long as it was not really widespread in the news they just accepted his leadership even though they exactly knew what was going on for years.

A serious breach of Human Rights for 42 years!

Please also note that Gaddafi itself said that he is not Libya's leader as he don't have any official position but on the other side he is saying that he won't step aside and fight and rather die then stepping down.

I took Libya as an example but we all know that exactly the same is going on with so many other leaders in the world, lets look at China (Politicians rather don't mention human rights because their afraid of loosing business deals), UAE, Saudi Arabia are just a few examples from a long list......

Human Aid in the UK

 A few days ago I watched the BBC Breakfast show and they reported that the UK Government increases the money they spend for Human aid and a lot of people responded to that report that they completely disagree with the government decission in this matter as the UK citizens have to face a lot of cuts in the welfare system and in many other things so they think in this hard times that we face we should not give any more human aid.

I was really shocked about that response, well its true that we face a lot of cuts here in the UK but still no one here will starve or will be homeless unless they choose it to be, we still will have a welfare system which will let the poorest have their dinner on the table and pay for their housing and help them with other daily needs.
I'm itself not british but german and have lived also in the Netherlands and I have to say that still the UK system is a very good one and people don't have to suffer here. I should not forget to mention the free medical treatment through the NHS, which I experienced as really good comparing to the dutch system for example.

We always should bare in mind that there are people outside who don't know what to eat today or tomorrow or the rest of the week, who don't have even clean water to drink or in many cases don't have water at all, people who have to sleep rough and people who die from causes which are just unnecessary and which would be easy to prevent with a little bit of help.

It is really really sad that people can't give a little bit up from their money to help the poorest in this world who don't even have the essential things in life such as food and water so here the question came into my mind: how human are we humans actually??????