Brussels, 26/01/09: A decision hailed by most but deplored by right-wing anti abortion groups, the U.S. President Barack Obama Friday announced the lift of an eight-year ban on U.S. funding for overseas family-planning groups and clinics that perform or promote abortion or lobby for its legalisation. Critics called the ban "the global gag rule" because of its restrictions on the right of groups receiving U.S. family-planning assistance to participate in public debate on abortion in their home countries. According to many health organisations, this signals a new era in U.S. leadership supporting health, safety and rights of women across the world.

Click here to read an IPS article on the decision.

Brussels, 19/01/09: Three Members of European Parliament, Francis Wurtz,  President of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left parliamentary group, Luisa  Morgantini, Vice-President of the EP,  Kyriacos Triantaphillides, President of the EP Permanent Delegation for relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council, today launched an appeal for all governments of the European Union to agree to freeze the plans of an upgrade of Israel's relationship with the EU. They also call for the suspension of the EU's trade agreement with Israel on the basis of the non-respect for human rights.
 

Click here to read the appeal.

Brussels, 09/01/09: Social Watch – an international network that monitors poverty eradication and gender equality – emphasised Human Rights as key to eradicating poverty in their most recent report launched yesterday at the European Parliament, in the presence of Luisa Morgantini, Vice-President of the European Parliament. As Roberto Bissio, the coordinator of Social Watch stated, ‘Human Rights have been violated as a direct consequence of the same global economic order that has created the financial crisis.’  Social Watch, that has developed a measure known as the "basic capabilities index" to assess the level of hardship throughout the world, finds that 80 countries -- home to half the world's population -- fare badly when measuring three very basic criteria: the number of children who die before their fifth birthday, the proportion of children who complete primary education, and the proportion of births that are attended by trained midwives or other medical professionals.

• Find more about Social Watch Report 2008: ‘Rights is the answer’: http://www.socialwatch.org/en/informeImpreso/informe2008.htm
• Click here to read an IPS article about the launch
• Click here to read the press release from the launch
• Click here to see some more pictures in our photo library

Brussels 06/01/09:  Already before Christmas civil society organisations around the world were urging the EU to put a halt to its plans to step up cooperation with Israel because of its failure to respect human rights standards. View the horrible development in Gaza, the plea is getting stronger. The EU is obviously divided in this question with the current EU presidency, the Czech Republic, calling the Israeli attacks on Gaza "defensive not offensive" while many other member states directly condemned the attacks. In December, the EU's foreign ministers decided to plough ahead with plans to develop a 'privileged partnership' with Israel. However, the European parliament has yet to approve the plans of allowing Israel to take part in a greater number of the EU's community programmes. Further, there are plans to upgrade the EU-Israel Association Agreement which forms the legal basis for the trade relationship which gives Israel preferential trade terms with EU countries. Article 2 of the Agreement states that these relations shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles which must guide internal and international policy.

• Click here to sign a petition supporting the suspension of the EU-Israel trade agreement
• Click here to read an IPS article about the upgrading of Israeli relations with the EU
• Click here to read an article from Reuters about the European positions
• Click here to read a statement by civil society organisations in Israel

Brussels, 15/12/08: The situation in the Middle East is again on the European agenda with the EU foreign ministers confirming their desire to upgrade relations with Israel and to rapidly prepare for the signing of a new cooperation instrument by April 2009 to follow from the current Action Plan on implementing the European Neighbourhood Policy. At the last EU-Israel Association Council meeting in June 2008, the EU27 agreed to a “advanced status” for Israel but that the upgrading should be linked with respect for shared values and the peace process. The European Parliament, which also has its say in this matter, has postponed its vote on the report outlining the proposal until January due to the controversial nature of this topic. A group of European Jewish peace organisations, EJJP, have written a letter to urge the European Parliament to link the upgrading with pre-conditions related to human rights.

• Click here to read the letter from the European Jews for a Just Peace, EJJP
• Click here to read the GAERC conclusion on the Middle East peace process and Israel
• Click here to read an article on the new context of the peace process related to Israel elections in 2009 and also to Obama taking office.