FILE – The Nobel laureates and the royal family of Sweden during the Nobel Prize award ceremony at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, Saturday Dec. 10 2022. The Nobel Foundation has withdrawn its invitation for representatives of Russia, Belarus and Iran to attend this year’s Nobel Prize award ceremonies after the decision to invite them “provoked strong reactions.” Saturday’s U-turn came after several Swedish lawmakers said they would boycott this year’s Nobel Prize award ceremonies. (Pontus Lundahl/TT via AP, File)
Updated 4:44 AM GMT+7, September 3, 2023Share
STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Nobel Foundation on Saturday withdrew its invitation for representatives of Russia, Belarus and Iran to attend this year’s Nobel Prize award ceremonies after the decision announced a day earlier “provoked strong reactions.”
Several Swedish lawmakers said Friday they would boycott this year’s Nobel Prize award ceremonies in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, after the private foundation that administers the prestigious awards changed its position from a year earlier and invited representatives of the three countries to attend, saying it “promotes opportunities to convey the important messages of the Nobel Prize to everyone.”
Some of the lawmakers cited Russia’s war on Ukraine and the crackdown on human rights in Iran as reasons for their boycott. Belarusian opposition figure Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on Friday called on the Swedish Nobel Foundation and the Norwegian Nobel Committee not to invite representatives of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s “illegitimate regime to any events.”
Unofficial figures point to a mental health crisis amid severe restrictions on Afghan women’s lives
Zahra Nader and Zan Times reportersMon 28 Aug 2023 10.00 BST
First, her dreams of becoming a doctor were dashed by the Taliban’s ban on education. Then her family set up a forced marriage to her cousin, a heroin addict. Latifa* felt her future had been snatched away.
“I had two options: to marry an addict and live a life of misery or take my own life,” said the 18-year-old in a phone interview from her home in central Ghor province. “I chose the latter.”
It was not an isolated act of desperation. Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, there has been a disturbing surge in the number of women taking their own lives or attempting to do so, data collected from public hospitals and mental health clinics across a third of Afghanistan’s provinces shows.
Refugees observe August 25 as ‘Genocide Day’ to demand justice and safe and voluntary repatriation to their homes in Myanmar.
Nearly a million Rohingya refugees live in cramped camps in southern Bangladesh [Faisal Mahmud/Al Jazeera]
By Faisal Mahmud Published On 25 Aug 202325 Aug 2023
Dhaka, Bangladesh – Mohammad Jalil still has nightmares recounting the harrowing journey he took last October on a rickety boat in the Bay of Bengal.
Jalil, a 26-year-old Rohingya refugee from Bangladesh’s Kutupalong camp, paid around $1,500 to an agent who promised him a safe journey to Malaysia.
A month later, he found himself on board an overcrowded fishing trawler drifting aimlessly on a fierce sea for about a week.
“We had no food and the children were crying in hunger. The people who were in charge of the trawler beat us mercilessly. On the ninth or 10th day – I can’t remember – the boat sank,” Jalil told Al Jazeera.
He, along with a few others, swam for hours before being rescued by the Bangladeshi coastguard.
“Some women and children couldn’t make it and drowned,” he said. “All my money is gone. I have lost everything.”
MADRID, Aug 25 (Reuters) – Spanish soccer boss Luis Rubiales on Friday refused to resign for grabbing star player Jenni Hermoso’s head and kissing her on the lips after Spain’s Women’s World Cup victory, leading the national team to mutiny and the government to denounce his “macho actions”.
In a joint statement sent via their FUTPRO union, all 23 of the cup-winning squad including Hermoso, as well as 32 other squad members, said they would not play internationals while Rubiales remains head of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF).
In the same statement, Hermoso denied Rubiales’ contention that the kiss he gave her at the medal ceremony after Spain beat England 1-0 in the final in Sydney, Australia, was consensual.
LONDON, Aug 17 (Reuters) – The world’s second-biggest fashion retailer H&M (HMb.ST) has decided to gradually stop sourcing from Myanmar, it told Reuters on Thursday, as reports of labour abuses in garment factories in the country increase.
H&M became the latest brand to cut ties with suppliers in the country after Zara owner Inditex (ITX.MC), Primark (ABF.L), Marks & Spencer (MKS.L) and others.
“After careful consideration we have now taken the decision to gradually phase out our operations in Myanmar,” H&M said in an email to Reuters.
“We have been monitoring the latest developments in Myanmar very closely and we see increased challenges to conduct our operations according to our standards and requirements.”
As the record-breaking 2023 Women’s World Cup ends, many see an exciting future – and many challenges – for the game.
Spain’s Jennifer Hermoso celebrates after winning the World Cup [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
By Alex Thomas Published On 21 Aug 202321 Aug 2023
Sydney, Australia – The success of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand has led to some grand predictions about the future of women’s football – and perhaps the boldest is that it will eventually surpass the men’s game.
“I’ve always said this and people thought I’m crazy but I think women’s football will be bigger than men’s football”, former New Zealand captain Rebecca Smith told Al Jazeera.
It might look like a contentious claim but few know the game as well as Smith.
GENEVA (19 June 2023) – Relentless edicts issued by the Taliban since taking power in Afghanistan in August 2021 have severely restricted the rights of women and girls and suffocated every dimension of their lives, UN experts* said today.
“Women and girls in Afghanistan are experiencing severe discrimination that may amount to gender persecution – a crime against humanity – and be characterised as gender apartheid, as the de facto authorities appear to be governing by systemic discrimination with the intention to subject women and girls to total domination,” the experts said.
Công ước Quốc tế về các Quyền Dân sự và Chính trị (tiếng Anh: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, viết tắt: ICCPR) là một công ước quốc tế do Đại hội đồng Liên Hiệp Quốc thông qua ngày 16 tháng 12 năm 1966 và có hiệu lực từ ngày 23 tháng 03 năm 1976, nêu tổng quan các quyền dân sự và chính trị cơ bản của con người. Cụ thể, các bên tham gia ký kết sẽ phải tôn trọng các quyền dân sự và chính trị của từng cá nhân, bao gồm quyền sống, quyền tự do tôn giáo, tự do phát biểu, tự do hội họp, quyền bầu cử và quyền được xét xử bình đẳng và theo đúng trình tự pháp luật. Công ước này, cùng với Tuyên ngôn toàn thế giới về nhân quyền (1948, viết tắt là UDHR) và Công ước quốc tế về các quyền kinh tế, xã hội và văn hóa (1966, viết tắt là ICESCR) hợp thành một “bộ luật nhân quyền quốc tế”. Ngoài ra, trong năm 2012, có thêm hai Nghị định thư bổ sung cho ICCPR liên quan đến giải quyết khiếu nại cá nhân và bãi bỏ hình phạt tử hình. Tính đến nay, đã có 72 nước ký vào Công ước và 167 bên tham gia. Việt Nam trở thành thành viên của ICCPR (Việt Nam gia nhập Công ước này vào ngày 24/9/1982).
TS. NGUYỄN LINH GIANG – Viện Nhà nước và Pháp luật, Viện Hàn lâm KHXH Việt Nam.
ThS. NGÔ THỊ THU HÀ – Phó Giám đốc Trung tâm Hỗ trợ giáo dục và nâng cao năng lực cho phụ nữ
Trong những năm gần đây, sự tham gia tích cực của các tổ chức xã hội dân sự (XHDS) trong tiến trình bảo đảm và thúc đẩy quyền con người (QCN) trên toàn thế giới đã được Liên hợp quốc (LHQ) và các tổ chức quốc tế ghi nhận. Việc mở rộng không gian XHDS nhằm thực hiện nghĩa vụ quốc tế về QCN, vì thế đã trở thành một xu thế chung trên toàn thế giới và Việt Nam cũng không nằm ngoài tiến trình đó.
1. Thực hiện nghĩa vụ quốc tế về quyền con người
Thực hiện nghĩa vụ quốc tế về QCN, trước tiên là thực hiện nghĩa vụ của một quốc gia thành viên của LHQ và thực hiện nghĩa vụ quốc gia thành viên của các Công ước quốc tế về QCN. Nếu xét ở nghĩa rộng, thực hiện nghĩa vụ quốc tế về QCN có rất nhiều việc phải làm, trong đó có những nghĩa vụ khá trừu tượng như tôn trọng Hiến chương LHQ, tôn trọng các nguyên tắc căn bản của pháp luật quốc tế, trong đó có pháp luật quốc tế về QCN. Nhưng cụ thể, để thực hiện nghĩa vụ một quốc gia thành viên của LHQ và thực hiện nghĩa vụ quốc gia thành viên của các Công ước quốc tế về QCN bao gồm những công việc sau:
While great strides have been made to balance the number of male and female athletes participating in the Olympic Games, the number of female coaches at elite level remains remarkably low. This new series will highlight the various initiatives taken by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to tackle this important issue and share the journeys of inspirational women coaches who are beating the odds and proving that “if she believes it, she can be it”.
Getty Images 2016
In the first article of the series, the IOC speaks to the canoe coach and two-time Olympian, Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi, who has called for more female coaches at elite level, reminding women there is a “door open for them” to become coaches.
Last December, Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi was honoured with an IOC Coaches Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognises coaches who have dedicated their lives to their athletes. Fox-Jerusalmi has done just that and gone above and beyond. After representing France in K1 at Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996, where she won bronze, Fox-Jerusalmi has gone on to create a successful coaching career over the past 25 years. On top of helping her daughter Jessica Fox to win 12 world titles and four Olympic medals, she’s been instrumental in helping to develop the women’s canoe slalom Olympic programme and achieve gender equality.
Fox-Jerusalmi welcomed the visibility that the Lifetime Achievement Award had brought to Australia and to canoeing, adding it showed that women could become Olympic coaches too. “Maybe now it shows that it’s possible and there’s recognition for the coaching job, because there’s not enough women coaching around the globe,” she said.
Author Pete HolmesSenior Lecturer in Sport Coaching, Nottingham Trent University
Football coach Sarina Wiegman training the Netherlands team at the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France. Pro Shots/Alamy Live News
As the 2020 American NFL season drew to a close with Tom Brady winning his record seventh Super Bowl, it was interesting to note another sporting first: the three women involved in the game – two coaches and one official.
With eight women currently coaching in the NFL, there’s still a long way to go when it comes to parity, but it does seem that women are finally breaking into elite men’s sports coaching in the US.
Sadly, the same cannot be said about most major team sports in the UK. Many elite sports, including rugby and cricket have a poor record in this regard. But perhaps the most high profile sport yet to embrace female coaches is professional football (soccer).
One contributing factor may be that when experienced top flight female coaches are linked to men’s football, the expectation seems to be that they should start at the bottom. Consider the case of Emma Hayes, the manager of Chelsea – the reigning Women’s Super League champions. Despite this leading position, Hayes was recently linked with the vacant manager’s job at the men’s side AFC Wimbledon – a team which is currently struggling to clear the relegation zone of the third tier of English football in League One.
The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) on Tuesday revealed compelling evidence of the country’s military and affiliate militias engaging in more frequent and audacious war crimes and crimes against humanity.
These include indiscriminate attacks on civilians from aerial bombing, mass executions of civilians and detained combatants, and large-scale and intentional burning of civilian homes and buildings, resulting in the destruction of entire villages in some cases, the Mechanism said in a news release.
After revelations of child labor and treacherous conditions in many cobalt mines, automakers and mineral companies said they would adhere to international safety standards
The Shabara artisanal mine, where cobalt and copper are dug out by hand, near the Congolese boomtown of Kolwezi.
Correspondent Katharine Houreld and photographer Arlette Bashizi traveled together across southeastern Congo, visiting industrial and artisanal mines in the country’s three largest cobalt mining towns. Houreld is The Washington Post’s East Africa bureau chief, based in Nairobi, with responsibilities stretching from the Horn of Africa to the continent’s southern tip. Bashizi is a Congolese photographer, based in Goma, focusing on issues related to health, environment and culture.
FUNGURUME, Democratic Republic of Congo — Alain Kasongo, burly and goateed, worked for four years driving the heavy trucks that hauled away tons of cobalt ore from a gaping hole at one of the biggest mines in Congo. The vibrations from the equipment and the jolts of driving over rough ground during his 12-hour shifts could be bone-rattling, he said. Finally, the pain in his spine grew so unbearable that he needed surgery.
His older brother, Patchou Kasongo Mutuka, worked the same job at the same mine. He suffered the same injury and required the same surgery — as did 13 other drivers of excavators and trucks at the mine who were interviewed. They lifted their shirts to reveal surgical scars and spread out carefully folded medical records confirming their accounts. They in turn named seven more colleagues who had suffered the same fate, all within a two-year period.
“It hurt so badly when I went home, I would lie awake at night,” said Alain Kasongo, 43, displaying bumps and ridges on his body from what he said were three operations.
FILE – The United States players hold the trophy as they celebrate winning the Women’s World Cup final soccer match against The Netherlands at the Stade de Lyon in Decines, outside Lyon, France on July 17, 2019. More prize money than ever will be awarded at this year’s Women’s World Cup, and the players stand to get direct payments from FIFA this time. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)
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The United States team celebrates a win against Wales during a FIFA Women’s World Cup send-off soccer match in San Jose, Calif., Sunday, July 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Josie Lepe)
A group of players across the globe asked FIFA late last year to increase the prize money for this summer’s Women’s World Cup. There had been pleas from the women to boost those funds before, but this time it was different.
The players not only wanted a prize pool equal with the men’s World Cup, they also sought a guarantee that a percentage of the prize money would go directly to the players themselves.
Internet freedom remained restricted in Vietnam, as the government enforced stringent controls over the country’s online environment. Though the government did not disrupt connectivity or throttle Facebook servers as it had done previously, the state continued mandating that companies remove content and imposed draconian criminal sentences for online expression. A COVID-19 surge in late 2021 propelled government surveillance, and authorities have also sought to expand control over content on social media platforms.
Vietnam is a one-party state, dominated for decades by the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). Although some independent candidates are technically allowed to run in legislative elections, most are banned in practice. Freedom of expression, religious freedom, and civil society activism are tightly restricted. Judicial independence is absent.
Key Developments, June 1, 2021 – May 31, 2022
Government officials ordered international social media companies to remove thousands of pieces of content, particularly targeting criticism of the authorities (see B2).
New regulations tightened content restrictions on websites that host advertisements and increased administrative fines on companies found to be hosting online speech that authorities deem illegal (see B3, B6, and C2).
Authorities imposed prison sentences on human rights defenders and everyday internet users for their online activities, including a ten-year sentence issued to activist Trịnh Bá Phương (see C3).
The expansion of government-run COVID-19 apps and the creation of a central database for new identification cards have raised privacy concerns (see C5).
A Obstacles to Access
A1 0-6 pts
Do infrastructural limitations restrict access to the internet or the speed and quality of internet connections?
4 6
The internet penetration rate was 71 percent by the end of 2021, according to data from the Ministry of Infomation and Communications (MIC).1 Mobile broadband has played a significant role in increasing access to faster internet service. As of May 2022, the median mobile download speed stood at 35.29 megabits per second (Mbps) while the upload speed stood at 16.89 Mbps according to Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index. The median fixed broadband download speed was 71.79 Mbps and upload speed was 67.20 Mbps.2 Market data aggregator Statista estimated smartphone penetration at 61.37 percent as of May 2021.3 Fixed broadband remains a relatively small market segment.
As of December 2021, 4G signal covered 99.8 percent of Vietnam’s territory, while 5G had been tested in 16 provinces, according to the MIC.4
Disruptions to international internet cables took place repeatedly during the coverage period when the country was in full or partial lockdowns due to COVID-19 outbreaks.5 In February 2022, three undersea cables—the Intra-Asia, Asia-America Gateway, and Asia-Pacific Gateway cables—were disrupted at the same time, seriously affecting internet users nationwide.6 The cables are pivotal for connectivity to the international internet.
A2 0-3 pts
Is access to the internet prohibitively expensive or beyond the reach of certain segments of the population for geographical, social, or other reasons?
CVD 