UN to investigate gender-biased laws

Pressure to Scrap Gender-Biased Laws. A Billion Lives in the Balance.

21.02.2006 |Sascha Gabizon

IPS brings you independent reporting on how the Millennium Development Goals are influencing policy decisions and making a difference on the ground. Our stories reflect the latest thinking on progress towards attaining the MDGs, their relevance, and the key issues from poverty to partnership.

New Pressure Needed to Scrap Gender-Biased Laws Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS - The UN is studying the feasibility of appointing a special rapporteur -- a human rights expert -- who will focus specifically on national laws that discriminate against women in their home countries. "The goal of eliminating all sex discriminatory laws has so far not been achieved," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan confesses in a new report.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32171

Chilean Women See Steps in the Right Direction Daniela Estrada SANTIAGO - The election of Chile's first woman president, and her choice of a cabinet with equal numbers of male and female ministers, are a positive sign for the political aspirations of women in this country, but more concrete action is still needed, activists and authorities agree.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32110

DEVELOPMENT: The Lost Decade, Lisa Söderlindh
UNITED NATIONS - Ten years after the UN launched the "Decade for the Eradication of Poverty", more than one billion people still live without access to safe drinking water, health care, adequate housing and other essentials of daily life, development experts and independent observers here say.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32145

World Bank Slammed for Retreating on Whistleblower Protections Emad Mekay WASHINGTON - The world's largest development agency, the World Bank, should end a culture of intimidating its whistleblowers and adopt smoother mechanisms for reporting wrongdoing within the institution, says an internal report leaked by a watchdog group.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32130

Ablution Facilities for the Homeless "Essential", Moyiga Nduru
JOHANNESBURG - This is the financial heart of South Africa, and for those who gain a share of the city's wealth, affluent homes await. Far less fortunate is Johannesburg's homeless population, variously put at 500,000 to 800,000 people out of 3.2 million people in the city.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32183

ARGENTINA: Public Aid Generous but Hard to Get, Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES - The Argentine government announced substantial improvements to the social programmes created in 2002 at the height of the economic crisis. But analysts observe that the changes favour those beneficiaries who have already registered, while nearly half a million families remain outside the system.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32173

Lifestyle Diseases Overtake Asia's Infectious Killers, Marwaan Macan-Markar BANGKOK - Mounting evidence that more people in Asia and the Pacific will be dying of chronic diseases rather than infectious ones by 2015 will force the region's governments to redraw their public health budgets, say UN officials.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32166

Uruguay's Pulp Mills Pit "Greens" Against Labour, Darío Montero - Tierramerica
MONTEVIDEO - The frequent antagonism between protecting the environment and creating new jobs is clearly evident in the construction of two pulp mills on the Uruguayan side of the river that creates the border with Argentina. In addition to threatening bilateral relations between the two countries, the projects pit environmentalists against labour unions. "I'd rather die of pollution 20 years from now than die of hunger today "from lack of work."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32165

'Water Valued Only When Priced', Frances Suselo - Asia Water Wire
BANGKOK - Apichart Anukularmphai would rather conceded the title of "world's champion rice exporter" to Vietnam than to his own country Thailand. This, he says, is because Thailand is actually giving away its water for free every time it sells its rice.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32153

ARGENTINA: Allegations of Illegal Adoptions Implicate Church, Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES - María Jerez remembers her first daughter, who would be 17 today. She says that when the baby was born, she gave her to Catholic nuns in the northern Argentine province of Santiago del Estero in exchange for a promise of a house.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32115