World

Russia President Vladimir Putin and the leader of Abkhazia have signed an agreement under which Putin will become the commander of a joint military force in the breakaway region.

“I’m sure that cooperation, unity and strategic partnership between Russia and Abkhazia will continue to strengthen,” stated Putin after signing the agreement Monday.

Russia already has a military presence in the territory. Russian troops have served in Abkhazia since it broke away from Georgia in a separatists war in the early 1990s.

The United States issued a statement in response to the deal. “The United States will not recognize the legitimacy of any so-called ‘treaty’ between Georgia’s Abkhazia region and the Russian Federation,” read a press release issued by the US State Department.

The US and other nations strongly suspect Russia is stepping up its attempt to expand in the region, which recently had a change in leadership after the former leader was forced to step down and a former Soviet KGB officer was elected president.

Read more: Prime Minister of Abkhazia Beaten After Car Blocked in Traffic, Escapes

The deal was signed by this president, Raul Khadzhimba.

“The United States’ position on Abkhazia and South Ossetia remains clear,” wrote Jeff Rathke, Director of the Bureau of Public Affairs at the Office of Press Relations for the State Department, “these regions are integral parts of Georgia, and we continue to support Georgia’s independence, its sovereignty, and its territorial integrity.

“We once again urge Russia to fulfill all of its obligations under the 2008 ceasefire agreement, to withdraw its forces to pre-conflict positions, to reverse its recognition of the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, and to provide free access for humanitarian assistance to these regions.

“We renew our full support for the Geneva international discussions as a means to achieving concrete progress on security and humanitarian issues that continue to impact the communities on the ground in Georgia.”

Georgia also condemned the move towards greater Russian involvement in Abkhazia, and called on the international community to speak out against the move.

However, Khadzhimba was more optimistic in his assessment.

“Ties with Russia offer us full security guarantees and broad opportunities for socio-economic development,” said Khadzhimba.

By Andy Stern

Chinese authorities have expelled 26 nuns from a nunnery in Pekar Township, Driru County, Tibet Autonomous Region. The nuns were expelled for refusing to defame their highest spiritual leader. Chinese authorities used a new law regulating religious institutions to expel the nuns legally.

The nuns were expelled from Jhada Gon Palden Khachoe Nunnery by a large number of Chinese “work team” members tasked with removing the nuns from their the religious community.

The work team was following up on the results of a police raid on the monastery, during which many nuns refused to criticize their religious leader, the Dalai Lama, who is considered a splittest and terrorist orchestrator and is a wanted criminal in China. After the refusals, officials examined the registration records of the nunnery to check its population.

The nuns were expelled legally under new Chinese legislation that restricts the number of registered pupils that are permitted in religious institutes in Tibet. In this case the number was set at 140, and the 26 extra nuns were expelled.

This is the first instance of enforcement of a new measures detailing causes for expulsions of monks and nuns from religious institutions. The new Chinese “rectification” drive also warns of the destruction of “illegal” monasteries and mani walls.

Billions in banknotes, gold bars, land title deeds, rare images of the Buddha and other religious artifacts were seized from the home of a Thai police chief Sunday. Central Investigation Bureau commander Lt-General Pongpat Chayaphan has been charged with several crimes, including lese majeste–an offense against the dignity of a sovereign or against the state.

The case also involves six other police officers, who are being detained along with Pongpat at seven separate metropolitan police stations, as well as three civilians who are currently on the run.

The officers include Marine Police commander Maj-General Bunsueb Phrai-thuen, Samut Sakhon Immigration Chief Colonel Kowit Muangnual, Senior Sgt Major

Surasak Jan-ngoa and Senior Sgt Major Chattrin Laothong. Malfeasance in office, taking bribes and violating protected species laws were among the charges laid against the officers.

All of the officers have confessed to the crimes, including Pongpat.

In a related incident, Thai police officer Colonel Akkharawut Limrat was killed Friday ago after falling from a height. Akkarawut had reportedly attempted suicide at least three times after he was transferred from a top position along with Pongpat.

The two officers had been transferred from top positions to inactive posts after an urgent transfer order Nov. 11.

According to police officials, Akkharawut had killed himself due to fear of prosecution for criminal activities.

Royal Thai Police spokesman Lt-General Prawut Thawornsiri said that Akkharawut had been cooperative with police in their investigation following a previous suicide attempt. Prawut said, “After giving his statements, he jumped off a building to kill himself out of distress and fear for prosecution.”

Akkharawut had not been charged with any crimes.

A police investigation is currently underway to determine how Pongpat had amassed the cash and goods.

By James Haleavy

Although the head of the Russian occupation administration in Crimea has stated that the international community would recognize Crimea when US President Barack Obama left office, the US Committee on Foreign Affairs passed the “Crimea Annexation Non-Recognition Act” Friday with a unanimous vote.

The act is modeled on a similar non-recognition policy that was enacted to deal with the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states, and is based on the Stimson Doctrine, which holds that the US will never recognize any territorial changes that have been achieved solely by force.

Bill HR 5121, the “Crimea Annexation Non-recognition Act,” was drafted by Representatives Gerald E. Connolly (D-VA) and Steve Chabot (R-OH), and prohibits any recognition by the US government in law or practice of any sovereignty over Crimea by Russia, including airspace and territorial waters.

It also requires that “no Federal department or agency may take any action or extend any assistance that recognizes or implies recognition of the de jure or de facto sovereignty of the Russian Federation over Crimea, its airspace, or its territorial waters.”

The bill provides for presidential oversight, although in special circumstances. The waiver included in the bill reads, “The President may waive [the above legislation] if the President determines that it is vital to the national security interests of the United States to do so.”

The head of the Russian occupation, Sergey Aksyonov, while claiming that the international community would come to recognize Crimea as legally Russia’s, also stated that “all of the anti-Russian policy of the last two or three years” would disappear with the end of Obama’s term.

Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind), who brought the bill to the Senate in April, wrote that the bill would “ensure that the United States does not recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea nor take any action that would imply such recognition. A policy of non-recognition will communicate the seriousness of this situation and help reassure our allies and friends precariously placed on Russia’s borders that Putin must stop his aggression.

“My proposal would also prohibit the United States from financing or guaranteeing investments in Crimea with Russia as an intermediary and restrict foreign aid to countries that recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea,” wrote Coats.

By James Haleavy

A railway stretching over 850 miles (1,400 km) along the Nigerian coast is being taken on by China. Chinese officials announced this week that the $12bn contract was China’s biggest ever overseas contract.

The project is being undertaken by China Civil Engineering Group Co., Ltd. (CCECC), a subsidiary of China Railway Construction Corporation Limited. The railway will cross 10 Nigerian states, including NIgeria’s oil-producing delta, and will include 22 railway stations. The train will be designed for speeds of 120 km/h.

Officials at CCECC have said that the line could eventually be included in the proposed ECOWAS Railway, that would link the entire economic community of western African states.

Africa has seen uninterrupted growth for almost two decades. China, with a cooling domestic economy, is taking on infrastructure in Africa’s developing regions. In order to help African nations pay for the projects, China is launching new financing plans.

Transportation projects are among the biggest sectors for Chinese investment, although well below energy projects.

Analysts have noted that these transportation projects often connect inland regions to the coast, drawing obvious comparisons to China’s own three-decade growth boom, which began with the development of coastal manufacturing hubs served by ports that transported goods between China and the rest of the world.

The massive reserves accumulated by China during its growth are now being used to bankroll similar development outside its borders.

While economic expansion in the developing world is increasing demand for infrastructure–the value of which has been estimated as high as $78 trillion by 2025–this growth is expected to be funded by public finance groups such as the World Bank and its upstart rival the Asian Development Bank, as well as by private investment.

China announced last month that it would join BRICS countries to form the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which will serve 20 other Asian countries. Chinese officials said that China would pay half of the funding for the bank’s $50 billion start.

China also announced this month $40 billion in funding for the Silk Road project that will connect major Asian cities and break the “connectivity bottleneck” in the region.

China currently holds more reserves than any other country–$3.8 trillion. China holds eight times as much reserves as the US, and three times as much as Japan, the next largest holder. China’s reserves have been sharply and steadily increasing since the early 2000s.

By Sid Douglas

Photo: China Civil Engineering Group Co., Ltd.

Engineer Alain Thebault is aiming at a new record. The sailboat designer, who began his career as a teenager wanting to build a boat that would fly, has previously set the sailing speed record with his Hydrofoil, which achieved 50 knots average speed (95km/h) in 2009. Thebault is aiming for a much higher sail speed, and he aims to do it by sailing at four times the speed of wind–something that has never been done before.

Thebault’s new project is the Hydroptere Rocket. Thebault teamed with an Aeronautics engineer-led group under Philippe Perrier of Dassault Aviation and Maurice Prat of Airbus to launch the iDroptere, a glider boat which aims to push the absolute sailing speed record to 80 knots (150 km/h).

Assembly of the iDroptere Rocket has begun in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez.

“This is great news!” said Thebault. “We look forward to attending the launch of Hydroptere Rocket in the Mediterranean. Our first objective will be sailing between Lausanne and Geneva for Syz and Co Sailing Speed Records, and between Hyères and La Ciotat to climb the wall of 80 knots under sail!”

“My interest in this is to do some things that nobody has done before,” said Perrier. “Basically, hydrodynamics and aerodynamics are quite the same. The main difference is density of water, which is 800 time the one of air. But, when you go to high speed, some differences may appear.”

“In the air, you have the speed of sound, which is the sound barrier, and this creates different phenomena as the plane is pushing its noise and its perturbation in front of it. This changes completely the way it behaves.”

“The speed of sound in water is very high, so nobody will ever get it.”

“But there is another phenomenon, which is called ‘cavitation.’ At the upper side of the foil in the water you get such low pressure that the water starts to uprise, and when this starts to occur–it starts around 40-45 knots, it takes place more around 50 knots, and when you up to 55 knots, you can consider that all the upper side of the foil doesn’t work anymore in the water, but it works in the vapor of water.”

“And this changes completely the behavior in a way that is comparable to sonic and supersonic differences in aerodynamics.”

“We consider that in order to go at more than 65 knots, we must try to do it with a lower speed of wind. That means that our goal is to get 80 knots with only 20 knots of wind.”

“That means that the speed of the boat is four times the speed of the wind. This has never been done before.”

A foil that is capable of working efficiently at over 80 knots is one of the challenges the team faces, Perrault said, and referred to technical engineering partnerships the group has made, which has given them confidence that the goal is achievable.

Photo: Hydroptere

Hydroptere

 

Photo-reportage by Spanish photojournalist César Dezfuli and journalist colleague María Sanz takes us into the lives of Uruguayans dispossessed by the floods that occurred in the south of the country this month–and specifically into the city of Colonia del Sacramento, where 150 families had to be evacuated. The area suffers flooding regularly, and the impoverished residents, who also suffer social exclusion, are the most affected. This community of Uruguayans waits to be relocated by the local government into houses which are owned by a Finnish paper company, but since they were first promised three years ago that they would be moved to new houses nothing has happened, although the government knows they are living in a flood area. 

 

“Tonight I can finally get back to my palace,” said Claudia Machado with an ironic smile, standing on the back of a Uruguayan Army truck. She is a victim of a flood that forced more than 150 people to evacuate Oct. 29 in Colonia del Sacramento, a city by the Río de la Plata in southern Uruguay.

Claudia was among last of the evacuees returning to her home in Villa Ferrando, a squatter settlement in the suburbs of Colonia. This area was one of the most damaged by the rains due to the swelling of La Caballada, a stream close by the place where the houses were built.

Most of the residents in Villa Ferrando found shelter in the Campus Municipal, the sports center in Colonia. Two days later, in the early morning, they returned to their houses under a darkened sky reflecting the threat of another storm.

The houses were not in proper condition, so no one should have spend another night there. However, the residents had been asked to leave their temporary refuge in the sports center. Some of them were happy to be back home, and others guessed that they had been forced to go because there was a football match that day and the visitor’s team needed the Campus Municipal to sleep.

Many of the people in Villa Fernando had to face the heavy damage caused by the storm when they arrived home: destroyed ceilings, houses flooded with mud, moldy walls, unusable furniture and appliances… Dripping clothes and drenched mattresses were hanging on ropes to dry in the sun.

By the door of her empty place, one of the closest houses to the river, Marta explained how the stream reached the two-room house where she lived with her whole family. “It was all under water–you couldn’t see that curve on the river there, it was all covered with water. The house started to get flooded and we all had to get away,” she said.

Neighbors made an inventory of losses and recalculated how long it will take them to recover what had been damaged. “At home we had a fridge, a washing-machine… My husband and I are working, and it takes us more than one year to pay the fees on everything,” explained Ana Acosta, spokeswoman of the slum. “Our appliances are ruined and no one is accepting that responsibility. We have to start again, and again, and again… because this is not the first flood we are suffering.”

Acosta works in a retirement home in the city, but most of her neighbors confess that they live off “changas”–irregular, sporadic jobs–just to survive. “It’s really hard to get regular employment, because when you say you live in Villa Ferrando, you are automatically discriminated and employers don’t call you anymore,” she revealed.

Her parents, who are already retired, have been living in this very same place for decades. They remember at least one similar flood in 2007, although they state it did not damage as many houses as this last one did. “The stream was huge. It was just impressive,” said Acosta.

According to Omar Espinosa, another resident, recent swells had been caused by the work on the upper side of the river course, destined to create a new quarry for the company Arenera Colonia. Curiously enough, the neighborhood was named after the founder of this enterprise, Santiago Ferrando, who had been dedicated to sand extraction in the area.

“When they started the excavations to extract more sand in the upper part of the stream, a wider water flow began to go down the river, so this area is now more likely to get flooded,” warned Espinosa. “If the lower part of the stream would get drained, the river would get deeper and be less likely to overflow,” he thought.

Omar, a 60-year-old evangelical priest, works in the building sector. He has lived in the shanty town of Villa Ferrando for more than twenty years with his wife, Suly Roldán, and their offspring, which includes 27 grandchildren. As a missionary, he had traveled to faraway places: Peru, Southern Korea, Angola… until he settled down in Colonia to go on with his preachment. To him, successive floods are “God’s challenges,” and he faces them with faith and a fighting spirit. He himself built up the walls of his precarious home, which has electricity and is open to everyone else in the neighborhood.

Outside, in the huge puddle that grows with every new rainfall, one of Omar’s grandchildren played in the silt wearing big rubber boots. Behind the house, survivors of the disaster were looking for shelter: some hens, some dogs, but no pigs. In addition to the objects and the scarce goods in the houses, the rains had taken a big part of the food and the livelihood of the slum inhabitants.

“If your house gets flooded, you have to run away. You resist until the last moment, trying to save some of your things, but when you are up to your neck in water, material things are not so important,” explained Alba Machado while cleaning her muddy home in the dark, suddenly brightened by lightning. She was so convinced of her indifference toward material goods that some years ago she moved from her house to the slum, following her partner. He died some time ago, a victim of a lung disease. Obviously life conditions at the slum would not have contributed to his recovery.

Waiting for a place to call home

Villa Ferrando’s inhabitants have been waiting for some years for their relocation, given that they occupy a zone close to a stream, and that the authorities are trying to finish with shanty towns in the area. Uruguay’s Housing Ministry (MVOTMA) and Social Development Ministry (Mides), in collaboration with Colonia’s local government, are working together to provide the 270 slum families with safe houses equipped with all supplies.

The aim is to relocate the families in different areas in the city in order to make the community become more “integrated into society,” according to public servants in the MVOTMA headquarters in Colonia.

One of these areas would be the neighborhood built three years ago by the Chilean-Finnish paper company Montes del Plata to host the employees working on the construction of the plant destined to become a paper mill. Now that the job is finished, furniture and other comfort supplies are being removed in order to “make houses match with the families’ profiles,” explained staff at MVOTMA.

The local government wants to give the houses to all their occupants at the same time, but Villa Ferrando’s inhabitants are not satisfied with this measure. “Here we have some families with children, with elderly people…Families who live at the river bank and have to deal with the risk of a new flooding… And we want these families to be relocated first, because their situation is much more urgent. The houses are already built, but they remain empty,” Ana Acosta stated.

It never rains but it pours inside the houses, and people in the slum calculate how many spring and summer weeks are left. They do not talk about seasons anymore, but about chance of rain. Resignation sticks out. “We have no more hope to have a home,” says Amelio, another neighbor. “All politicians came here before election day to ask for our votes. That is when they care about us). They all make promises, but then they never keep their word,” he complains.

According to Uruguay’s National Statistical Institute (INE), in 2011 there were 165.271 people living in slums in the country, the global population of which is just over three million inhabitants. The number of people living in slums lowered 8 percent between 2006 and 2011, and the total of irregular housing settlements reported around the country fell 11 percent, according to the data provided by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

It is considered that 5 percent of Uruguayans currently live in shanty towns, while more than 30 percent of the houses in the country do not have access to water and sewerage. The Frente Amplio, a left-wing political party which has governed the country since 2005 and represents the option with more chances to win the upcoming November 30th elections, stated that more than 400 million Uruguayan pesos (approximately 13.28 million euros) would be invested in 2014 in a special program for informal housing settlements.

At the same time, the opposition party, the Partido Nacional, second in number of votes in the first-round elections day held on October 26th, has proposed a strategy to achieve the goal of a country without slums. They promise to “relocate people living in slums, especially those groups located in highly polluted areas or in zones that are more likely to be flooded.”

What Villa Ferrando is asking the candidates of any party for is support before they become abandoned and forgotten. “We want them to be a little bit more concerned about us. We are not here in the slum by choice, but because we are needy people,” said a neighbor while she walked by. But her voice was lost in the sounds of the thunderstorm that was getting ever closer.

César Dezfuli and María Sanz

 

In this captivating first hand account of the situation in South Sudan’s IDP camps, South Sudanese Assistant Director for Information and Media at the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, Afayoa Richard Metaloro, details the actuality of life in the camps, their problems, and some of the measures currently being taken and proposed as solutions for the gender based violence and other issues that plague the lives of residents there.

The camps were set up by the United Nations and other international aid groups to shelter and provide basic human requirements to South Sudanese and others who were displaced by the civil conflict that has raged in the country since Dec. 2013.

Some 30,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are being protected by the United Nations in the nations capital, Juba, and 100,000 live in Protection of Civilians (PoC) camps nationwide.

The humanitarian situation across the entire nation of South Sudan remains “dire,” according to the UN. To date, almost 2 million people have been displaced in a nation of 11.3 million. Of those, 1.35 have been displaced internally, while approximately 500,000 have relocated to neighboring countries.

---

 

We want to go home whether there is peace or not in South Sudan. The government and rebels must know that they are also citizens of South Sudan, thus deserve equal rights. South Sudanese IDPs are in despair!

In my visit to the IDP camps in Juba–Protection of Civilians (PoC) camps–the IDPs there expressed the bitterness of their situations living in the PoCs, saying that whether there is peace or not, they are eager to move out of the Pocs! To where? Is it safe out there? And who to depend on remained a big and challenging question to all the humanitarian actors working in South Sudan. The living conditions of the IDP’s living in the camps has remained a very big challenge, as the situation has pushed them deep into the misery from where recovery is difficult if not impossible. They are cut off from carrying out livelihood activities, despite the efforts of the humanitarian community in the emergency response to attempt to save lives.

This however, came after several clashes that occurred between the IDP communities within the PoCs, shortages of funding from the donors to the NGOs that led to the cut off of some services, denial by agencies to register new arrivals, incidents of sexual harassment of women and girls by members of various groups such as the UN and and other NGOs, armed groups and the IDP communities within the camps, lack of effective representation for the voice of the voiceless, etc.

The government, since the fighting broke out in South Sudan on Dec.15, 2013, payed little attention to the needs of the IDPs living in camps, yet it is a constitutional mandate that a sovereign state ensures the protection and service provision of the affected population in times of civil conflict. Surprisingly, little was done by the government, which pretends to implementing the international humanitarian law despite the huge challenges encountered by humanitarian agencies in delivering humanitarian assistance to needy people. These barriers to assistance include impediments to access the target people, road blocks that charge huge amounts of cash, rape cases, ill treatment and detentions, and kidnapping and looting of humanitarian items. It is not as if these problems make up the only observations in the humanitarian intervention; the worst case scenarios have been practiced by the rebel side, where there has been a very large number of children abducted for child-soldier recruitment, as well as massacres of innocent lives, arbitrary arrests, detentions, etc.

Read more: South Sudan: Child Soldiers Enter Fight on Government Army Side, Condemned by Human Rights Watch

The needed response

Many of the threats to women and girls highlighted by assessment participants can and should be mitigated by the humanitarian response. It is the obligation of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and other humanitarian actors to ensure that relief services are not only not harmful, but are also proactive in their interventions to alleviate risks and make the camps a safer environment for women, girls, boys and men.

As the cooks, cleaners, and caretakers of the family, women and girls ensure lifesaving relief services are used at the household level. The humanitarian community is doing a disservice to families, if relief interventions do not fully incorporate in their lifesaving activities the safety issues that women and girls face as they carry out their essential contribution to their family’s well-being and health.

To overcome barriers in the community that prevent survivors from seeking services and to ensure that survivors feel welcome to seek assistance from the available services, outreach and awareness is important.

Awareness, however, is not enough to encourage survivors to report. GBV and health service providers need to build trust, and therefore must demonstrate that they support the interests of survivors. It is essential that they make concerted efforts to respect survivors by talking with them and listening to their needs and wishes. Confidentiality must be respected. All efforts should be made to ascertain the safest options for survivors before and during interventions to meet their needs for protection and efforts to access justice. Simultaneously, it is necessary to work with the community to change attitudes and practices that stigmatize survivors and create barriers for them to seek help and justice through extended social mobilization and awareness campaigns.

Read more: South Sudanese Propose “Reconciling Many Truths” to End Crisis, Form One Acceptable Narrative

Change has started but vigilance needs to be sustained

According to the camp managers, an assessment was conducted, and the humanitarian response began to mitigate some risks in ways that will have a positive impact on the safety of women and girls. A new extension has been opened and two-thirds of the population has moved to new residential areas that have been designed to be less congested and to ensure that access to essential infrastructures is more evenly balanced. Congestion and overcrowding has been the underlying factor in many of the risks of gender based violence (GBV) in the original PoC (tight alleys, hidden dark spaces, difficult access to latrines and water, crowded markets, etc).

Other improvements that can potentially lower risks of GBV have also started, according to the camps’ managers. The structures of the latrines in the new site are more private and safe. A water pipeline is being constructed to provide clean water directly to the site, which will mean that women do not have to take risks when getting water, because there will better quantity and reliable schedules. Handheld torches have been distributed to all households and streetlights are being purchased for installation. Activities targeting adolescent boys and girls are starting. A women’s committee has been formed. United Nations Police (UNPOL) conducts daily patrols and investigates offences agsinst the general public. A holding center is now operational to separate offenders of major public offences, such as rape, according to camp managers in the PoCs. Despite all these improvements claimed by the camp managers, it still has not restored the hope of the IDP community to believe that they can live in safety and move out of the PoCs to their desired locations.

By Afayoa Richard Metaloro

Photos: European Commission DG ECHO, United Nations Photo, Oxfam East Africa, Arsenie Coseac

Afayoa Richard Metaloro is the assistant director for Information and Media in the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission. He was born in South Sudan in 1986 and lived with his family in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia as refugees of the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005). Metaloro completed his education in Mass Communication in Kampala and worked as editor and administrator at South Sudan’s electronic news portal, Sudan Tribune. 

 

The Indonesian government continues to conduct mandatory “virginity tests” on all female applicants to the country’s national police force, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch. The longstanding practice continues in accordance with police regulations and despite claims by officials that the inspections–including the “two-finger test”–are no longer applied. Human Rights Watch in their report stated that this practice was in violation of international law, in addition to other criticisms.

“The Indonesian National Police’s use of ‘virginity tests’ is a discriminatory practice that harms and humiliates women,” said Nisha Varia, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Police authorities in Jakarta need to immediately and unequivocally abolish the test, and then make certain that all police recruiting stations nationwide stop administering it.”

The “virginity tests” take place as a matter of law, Human Rights Watch reported. Article 36 of the Chief Police Regulation No. 5/2009 on Health Inspection Guidelines for Police Candidates requires all female police academy applicants to undergo an examination for “obstetrics and gynecology.” This examination continues to include, according to senior police women interviewed by Human Rights Watch, a “virginity test,” and, according to interviews conducted in six major Indonesian cities in 2014, the test had been applied to all women who were in the academy.

The tests take place in violation of international law, Human Rights Watch alleged.

“’Virginity tests’ have been recognized internationally as a violation of human rights, particularly the prohibition against ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’ under article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and article 16 of the Convention against Torture, both of which Indonesia has ratified,” stated Human Rights Watch in their report.

The tests also contravene National Police principles, which state that recruitment must be “nondiscriminatory” and “humane.”

Indonesian officials have claimed that the tests are no longer applied. Other claims have been made that steps are being taken to remove the tests, but, according to Human Rights Watch, the rights group has seen little evidence that could support any such claim.

The National Police website continues to state, “In addition to the medical and physical tests, women who want to be policewomen must also undergo virginity tests. So all women who want to become policewomen should keep their virginity.”

Married women are ineligible for the police force.

Indonesia is not the only country with well-documented policies of “virginity tests.” Other nations known for the practice include Egypt, India and Afghanistan. Neither are “virginity tests” only conducted on police applicants in Indonesia; school girls are also subject to the tests, which Human Rights Watch have criticized as being not only discriminatory and degrading, but also subjective and unscientific.

“So-called virginity tests are discriminatory and a form of gender-based violence – not a measure of women’s eligibility for a career in the police,” Varia said. “This pernicious practice not only keeps able women out of the police, but deprives all Indonesians of a police force with the most genuinely qualified officers.”

By Sid Douglas

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaBFLwD934U#t=39″]VIDEO[/su_youtube]

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, facing a return to fighting in East Ukraine after a seventh Russian convoy days ago refortified the Russians and pro-Russians fighting Ukraine in and around Donetsk, has stated that Ukraine is now ready for total war with the Russians.

“We are prepared for a scenario of total war, said Poroshenko in an interview Monday. “We don’t want war. We want peace and we are fighting for European values, but Russia does not respect any agreement.”

The Ukrainian army, Poroshenko said, was more ready than it was months ago when Russia first began its invasion of Ukraine.

“More than anything we want peace, but we must at the moment face up to the worst-case scenario,” said Poroshenko. “Our army is now in a better state than it was five months ago and we are being supported by the entire world.”

Despite the peace agreement between Russian and pro-Russian soldiers in East Ukraine and Ukrainian authorities, Russian military equipment, including aircraft, entered Ukrainian territory and airspace last Wednesday.

“Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defence systems and Russian combat troops” were sighted, according to US Gen Philip Breedlove, commander of NATO.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) held an emergency meeting over Ukraine the same day. Besides representatives of the UNSC’s 15 members, the meeting will be attended by the permanent representative for Ukraine. The Russian delegate, however, did not attend the meeting.

Since the crisis in Ukraine began early this year, the UNSC has met over a dozen times to the purpose of addressing Ukraine, but little action has been taken, partially because every UNSC decision must be approved be all of the five permanent members of the council: China, France, UK, US and Russia, which invaded Ukraine in late Febuary and continues to fight against the Ukrainian army in an undeclared war.

The Sept. 5 Minsk Agreement ceasefire has been violated almost daily. Donetsk, the main city in Eastern Ukraine, has seen the heaviest shelling in recent weeks.

Fresh volleys of artillery were heard in many parts of Donetsk Monday, days after a seventh convoy of Russian humanitarian aid was delivered to Russian and pro-Russian fighters there, and the United Nations stated that it feared a “return to total war” in the area.

By James Haleavy

Photo: Anatoliy Stepanov

Prime Minister Beslan Butba of the Republic of Abkhazia was assaulted while travelling with his family Wednesday. The vehicle in which the leader of the disputed state was travelling in was blocked in traffic, and Butba was beaten by two men before escaping.

Butba was travelling in a vehicle with his family in Sukhumi, a city in western Georgia and the capital of Abkhazia, when the car was cut off by another vehicle. Two men jumped out of the second vehicle and attacked the prime minister. Butba was able to escape, according to Raul Lolua of the Abkhazian interior ministry.

The extent of Butba’s injuries are not known, but he was able to call the interior ministry immediately after the incident.

The prime minister was travelling without his bodyguard when the attack happened.

The vehicle in which the attackers traveled has been detained by authorities at the Eshera checkpoint, according to sources. The identities of the two men and a woman who accompanied them are now being confirmed.

As reported by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, the two assailants may have been intoxicated, and the prime minister may have suffered a concussion and was admitted to a hospital before returning home.

Also Saturday, tens of thousands of Georgian protesters in Tbilisi demonstrated against a planned agreement between Russia and Abkhazia. The deal would create a joint Russian-Abkhazian military force.

Demonstrators expressed concern that Russia would annex oil-rich Abkhazia in the same way it recently annexed Ukraine’s Crimea. Protesters waved flags that read, “STOP PUTIN” and “STOP RUSSIA.”

Abkhazia is a disputed territory also claimed by Georgia. Independent statehood is recognized by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru, as well as other partially recognized separatist states in the region. Abkhazia is controlled by a separatist government which resides in exile in Tbilisi and not by the government of Georgia. The United Nations and most world governments hold that the territory does belong to Georgia, however.

By Jame Haleavy

Photo: Reuters

According to Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Vice Director Cai Fang, China will fully relax their one-child policy in two years. The government has already conducted an experiment to allow some couples to have a second child, and that experiment has led to a decision to expand the two-child policy to all Chinese.

“People wish to choose the number of children they want to have, and they should be given the choice–at least for two children,” said Fang at in interview Thursday, “We will fully relax the policy.”

The Chinese government relaxed its one-child policy last year, allowing couples to have two children if either parent was an only child. Six months later, only three percent (700,000 couples) of all eligible couples applied for a second child.

Cai said that relaxing population control would not significantly increase the Chinese population. Currently, China’s fertility rate is 1.66–considerably below the 2.1 rate needed to sustain a given population.

China is also experiencing a labor shortage, and that shortage is expected to increase–labor supply will increase only 6.2 percent annually up to 2020, according to Cai. A large labor supply is part of the reason for China’s three decades of rapid economic growth.

By Sid Douglas