VeggieKris

It is five years since the agreement signed between the government of Sudan and the SPLM, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in the south of the country. Oxfam and other aid charities say that there should be urgent international...

The eight Millenium Development Goals to be reached by 2015 (or you may think, unlikely to be reached by 2015) include this one: Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women Education is one very important area where gender...

Continuing my look at the Millennium Development Goals , here the second: Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education If you were required to be at school until you were 15 or 16 it does not seem much to ask that all children in the...

I wrote about the Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015 and said that I would return each goal in more detail. True to my word let us look at the first one: Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger Now that is an...

It is now nearly a year since Barack Obama became president. On his inauguration there was comment on the Amnesty Trade Union solidarity blog about the need for respect for the rights of workers in the USA . I wonder how things have...

Friends, Families and Travellers is a group that seeks to end racism and discrimination against gypsies and travellers, whatever their ethnicity, background and culture. Their website has a section on the Human Rights Act in relation...

Johann Hari, a columnist on the Independent, looks on 2009 as a dark year now drawing to a close. He suggests that we give ourselves hope by looking at the people who have been inspirational during 2009 and gives his list.. Another...

In the 1990s in Angola there was an arms for oil scandal and it has led recently to several dozen convictions in France. Arming Angola was a programme first broadcast on Wednesday 6 January 2010.

Akmal Shaikh was executed In the far north-west of China, in the early hours (GMT) of Tuesday morning, 29 December 2009. Two of his cousins from London had travelled to Urumqi to present a final petition for mercy. Despite all the...

Trawling through recent blog entries on this site I have found some that relate to human rights. See Almansori's blog on the criticism of Libya by Human Rights Watch, for the detention of 330 prisoners without legal basis. Shao Jiang...

A human rights activist and Christian has entered North Korea with a letter asking the leader to release political prisoners.

Police have killed four protesters in Teheran . With other cities in Iran included the death toll may already be as high as nine . I wrote earlier on the interview between Jon Snow and the Iranian leader on Channel 4 news.

Liu Xiaobo, a leading dissident in China, was sentenced to 11 years in prison on 25 December 2009. The date of the announcement may have been cunningly chosen to minimise international attention. Many foreign diplomats and journalists...

Jon Snow interviewed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Channel 4 News. Snow challenged the Iranian leader in part of the interview with the statements of a defector from the Basij militia . The defector says that he witnessed killings and tried...

See the blog entry on on Akmal Shaikh , the Briton who faces execution in China, by Steve B from the Amnesty media team. The entry includes links to an interview with his brother and to the website of Reprieve. Clive Stafford Smith of...

The BBC has given an apology on Newsnight for one aspect of its reporting on Trafigura. The BBC withdrew the claim that waste dumped by Trafigura in west Africa caused deaths and serious injuries. If you saw the apology on the...

The medical aid charity Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) reports that civilians in various parts of the world have been denied access to aid , making humanitarian crises worse in 2009. They say that trapped civilians in Sri Lanka...

The Guardian reports today that UN investigators have looked into the massacre at the national football stadium in Guinea on 28 September 2009. Soldiers sealed the exits of the stadium and then attacked the many thousands who had...

Human Rights Watch issued a report earlier this month saying that migrants in South Africa suffer from discrimination and poor access to health care. Rebecca Shaeffer of Human Rights Watch says: "Migrants to South Africa are abused in...

Eritrea's football team will be depleted, at least for home matches, after twelve of the squad disappeared during a visit to Kenya . They are presumed to be hiding in an attempt to get away from the authoritarian regime in Asmara, as...