Ernestien Jensema, Martin Jelsma, Tom Kramer, Tom Blickman
01 ဇွန်လ 2014
Report
TNI's indepth examination of the illegal drug market in the Golden Triangle, which has witnessed a doubling of opium production, growing prison populations and repression of small-scale farmers. This report details the failure of ASEAN's 'drug free' strategy and the need for a new approach.
David Bewley-Taylor, Martin Jelsma, Christopher Hallam
16 ဇွန်လ 2014
Policy briefing
Scheduling is mostly prioritised in its repressive pole, though present debates are increasingly highlighting the need to modify the balance of the system in order to affirm the importance of the principle of health.
After several months of political unrest in Thailand, the military declared martial law on May 20, 2014, and then called leaders in for a supposed attempt at dialogue before seizing power in a coup d’état on May 22. General Prayuth Chan-ocha abolished the 2007 Constitution and dissolved the caretaker Government and Senate. In subsequent days, the military has summoned and detained scholars, activists, journalists and politicians, even carrying out arbitrary arrests and secret detentions, targeting people who think differently and who have campaigned for democratic and legal reforms.
Since their inception, powerful governments and the US in particular have wielded the conventions and the war on drugs as a way to exert power and influence, and punish and control their population.
Poppy cultivation has rapidly expanded in the Myanmar and Laos parts of the Golden Triangle, to feed new demands for heroin, chiefly in China, according to a report released Monday.
"After a decade of decline, Southeast Asia is now once again a major opium growing region," it claims.
The resurgence of the illicit drugs trade in Burma in recent years is the result of flawed drug control policies by Burma and its neighbors, a new report says. It urges regional governments to reform their repressive policies in order to better address the trade’s underlying causes, such as rural poverty, and the impact of a rise in drug use.
The steep rise is opium cultivation across Southeast Asia and its associated problems over the past five years is being encouraged by draconian anti-drug policies instituted as part ASEAN's strategy to become "drug-free" by 2015, a non-government organisation says in a new report.
The strategy of Asean's 10 member countries to become "drug free" by 2015 is failing dramatically. In the last decade, opium cultivation in the region has doubled, drug use -- especially of methamphetamines, a powerful synthetic stimulant -- has increased significantly, and there remain strong links between drugs, conflict, crime and corruption.
Popular demands for a binding treaty on corporate human right violations will get an unprecedented hearing this month at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Already subjected to the consequences of the European and Greek debt crisis and the resulting austerity measures, privatisation will continue to hit Thessaloniki hard. In a referendum the people voted overwhelmingly against water privatisation. While their struggle continues, they look upon the crisis as an opportunity to intensify the search for democratic alternatives.
The 26th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) opened in Geneva on June 10th. A major focus on the UNHRC agenda is the issue of binding regulations for Transnational Corporations (TNCs). This demand has been raised by Ecuador and 84 other governments in a Statement to the UNHRC last September 2013.
Maxime Combes of Attac France interviews Gonzalo Berron and Brid Brennan on the eve of the debate at the 26th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on the need for a new legal framework to end corporate impunity.
Muzzling NGOs is unbecoming of a democracy. Self-confident democracies encourage, indeed applaud, the involvement of citizens’ associations, including NGOs, in social and political decision-making and development planning. Instead, our paranoid government bullies and terrorises them
Despite large aid support, Ghana's privatised water utility AVRL consistently failed to meet its contractual commitments. Water is now back in state hands, but it will need increased investment and a vigilant civil society to deliver the services Ghanaians need.
