One of the creators of Oscar-nominated animation Waltz With Bashir has made a short film to alter Israeli perceptions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. A 90-second film Closed Zone has been launched online in support of the human rights group Gisha, which advocates freedom of movement for Palestinians. It shows a Palestinian boy chasing a bird but having his path blocked. http://www.closedzone.com/
Kala Dera, India: The Coca-Cola company has continued to operate its bottling plant in Kala Dera in Jaipur, India even as the area has been declared a drought area last summer and the groundwater levels are falling sharply – leaving the largely agrarian community with severely restricted access to water.
Data obtained this week by the India Resource Center from the Central Groundwater Board, a government agency, confirm that groundwater levels in Kala Dera fell precipitously again – a drop of 4.29 meters (14 feet) in just one year between August 2008 and August 2009, from 30.83 meters below ground level to 35.12 meters respectively. Read the rest of this entry »
Karama’s delegation of 32 women from around the Arab world is headed to the UN in New York to participate in the 54th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. During the session, Karama’s team will join women’s activists from around the world to present a detailed review of progress towards fulfilling the gender equality goals set fifteen years ago in the Beijing Platform for Action and ten years ago in the Millennium Development Goals. More information on Karama’s web site.
This article is drawn from a speech given by Josina Machel at the 4th Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights earlier this month in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Machel is a gender activist and a social entrepreneur and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Women’s Health Coalition.
Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and the author of the seminal A People’s History of the United States, died on January 28 at the age of 87 of a heart attack in Santa Monica, California. He was in a swimming pool doing laps and was spotted immediately by lifeguards but died instantly.
Anyone who has reveled in Middle Eastern or Mediterranean cuisine knows the important role olives play in giving their taste buds cause to cheer. Whether eaten whole or through their oil, olives complete nearly any meal. Yet, here in Palestine in particular, zaytoun (olives) provide flavor to our lives beyond simply satisfying our palates. They are a vital part of the Palestinian economy, and are the nation’s largest commercial crop. According to UN figures, olive trees account for more than 45 percent of all farmland and 80 percent of all orchards in Palestine. They also happen to be a consistent target for Israeli settler and military attacks.
By Afsaneh Najmabadi - The meaning of a Muslim woman’s veil is both multiple and historically contingent, its meaning has been subject to callenges and negotiations to which Muslim women themselves have been, and have become even more so today, a major party. As much as for some Muslim women the veil has become an oppressive requirement, for others its observance is what makes it possible to be part of modern public sociability. See full text (pdf format) - Source: Monthly Review
The CEDAW is made up of 16 substantial and 14 procedural articles. It is a surprisingly significant convention because it deliberately goes beyond conventional equality approaches and puts forward “positive measures” to promote women, and contains active political and legal steps towards gender equality. See WIDE information and analysis (pdf format). See also WIDE - CEDAW Campaign and Blog .
Source : Gender Action- Gender Action announces the publication of its fourth “Gender Action Link”, Gender, the IFIs and Debt, which highlights how International Financial Institution debt exacerbates the feminization of poverty and undermines gender equality. The Link specifically examines typical gender impacts of IFI loan conditions on female workers such as an increase in the amount of care-work for women and the exclusion of poor women and girls from essential health services. Read the rest of this entry »
