Billionaire George Soros to donate $100 million to Human Rights Watch

Source: The New York Times | by Stephanie Strom

George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, plans to announce on Tuesday that he is giving $100 million to Human Rights Watch to expand the organization’s work globally. It is the largest gift he has made, the largest gift by far that Human Rights Watch has ever received, and only the second gift of $100 million or more made by an individual this year, according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Lives at risk at the UN

Source: European Council on Foreign Relations | By Richard Gowan*

Europe has always been seen as a human rights champion. It is viewed the world over as model for an open, democratic society, with its governments protecting rights as a given. But the EU is undeniably losing influence at the UN, and its ability to push the human rights debate on the world stage is dwindling with it. And as European power at the UN declines, human rights standards drop and lives are put at risk as the EU is outplayed in power politics.

U.S. joins U.N. Human Rights Council

Source: The New York Times | By Neil MacFarquhar

The United States won a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, joining a group that the Bush administration had pilloried. The controversy surrounding the 47-member body, which assesses the rights records of United Nations member states, was underscored by the General Assembly’s re-electing other nations condemned by human rights organizations for abusing their own citizens. They include Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Cameroon.

U.S. to airlift supplies to Darfur

Source: The International Herald Tribune | By Sheryl Gay Stolberg

With just 15 days left in office, President George W. Bush announced that he had ordered an immediate airlift to deliver vehicles and equipment to the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan to bolster a struggling international peacekeeping effort there.

The United Nations discusses gay rights

Source: The New York Times | by Neil MacFarquhar

An unprecedented declaration seeking to decriminalize homosexuality won the support of 66 countries in the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, but opponents criticized it as an attempt to legitimize pedophilia and other “deplorable acts.”

Slow progress for women in the United Nations system

by Andreas S. von Warburg

United Nations Secretary-General Bank Ki-moon released today his report to the General Assembly on the improvement of the status of women in the United Nations System, including latest statistics, progress made and obstacles encountered in achieving gender balance, as well as recommendations for accelerating progress.

A better China after the Olympics

Source: The Washington Post | by Maureen Fan and Zhang Jie

The government began taking 30 percent of its cars in the capital off the roads Wednesday in an attempt to make permanent some of the traffic restrictions imposed during the Olympic Games, officials and media reports said.

U.N. study finds more women in politics

Source: United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

Ahead of a highlevel meeting of world leaders on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) next week, a new report, Progress of the World’s Women 2008/2009, Who Answers to Women? Gender and Accountability, released by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), reveals that much stronger accountability mechanisms for tracking progress on gender equality are needed in order to meet national and international commitments to women’s rights.