URGENT: Email Minister of Immigration McCallum to stop next week's litigation

URGENT: Email Minister of Immigration McCallum to stop next week's litigation 

Despite our best efforts, the Canadian government is going ahead with  litigation that was initiated by the Harper government against U.S. Iraq War resisters. The Federal Court hearings are scheduled for April 5 and 6.

• We are asking every supporter to immediately email Minister of Immigration John McCallum,  at minister@cic.gc.ca and john.mccallum@parl.gc.ca (model message below)
• Under your name, please include city and province
• Please cc Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca
• Please also bcc the War Resisters Support Campaign at wrsctoronto@gmail.com

Here is a model email message you can copy and paste into your message (or feel free to personalize it) --

SUBJECT: U.S. Iraq War resisters – Stop litigation initiated by Harper government
Honourable John McCallum
Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Dear Minister McCallum,
I am writing to ask that you immediately cease the litigation initiated  by the former Conservative government against U.S. Iraq War resisters. Our new government should not defend decisions made under the previous  government and re-litigate matters the Court has already found on in  favour of these conscientious objectors. As you know, Canadians  overwhelmingly opposed the Iraq War and the Liberal government under Jean Chrétien made a decision not to participate in it.

The cases to be heard by the Federal Court on April 5 and 6 should be settled, and the matters sent back to be re-determined by new  immigration officers.

I thank you for your consideration and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
cc: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

CSW: World leaders accused of backtracking on gender equality commitments |

World leaders accused of backtracking on gender equality commitments

Claims that world leaders are backtracking on their commitment to end gender inequality have emerged on the final day of negotiations at the Commission on the Status of Women.

Several countries are reportedly trying to water down the progressive language on financing for gender equality and sexual and reproductive health rights contained in the draft text of the outcome document.

Governments are understood to be unwilling to agree commitments on targeted funding for gender equality, getting corporations to pay their fair share of tax, and creating a better environment for women’s rights organisations to operate, which would include more funding.

The work of local women’s groups is regarded as the most likely to bring long-term change in their communities and nationally.

This year’s CSW was seen as the first major barometer of leaders’ appetite to implement the sustainable development goals, adopted by the UN general assembly in September. The SDGs are regarded as the roadmap for ending poverty and inequality, and conserving the environment over the next 15 years.

Goal five commits governments to achieve gender equality and empower women and girls, with specific targets to end violence and harmful practices, recognise the unpaid care work that falls disproportionately on women, get more women into leadership positions, and ensure women can uphold their reproductive rights.

Campaigners went into the two-week annual meeting, which began on 14 March, demanding that governments demonstrate their commitment to the new 2030 agenda by agreeing an outcome document that showed how they plan to implement and finance the goals.

But Shannon Kowalski, director of advocacy and policy at the International Women’s Health Coalition, and a partner of the Women’s Major Group, which represents the views of women in UN processes, said governments “seem to be having second thoughts” on the 17 goals and 169 targets they signed up to last year.

The language surrounding sexual and reproductive health and rights – always a contentious area, particularly for more conservative governments and the Holy See – is being unpicked, with Russia and the African bloc of countries purportedly leading the push back.

Kowalski said the EU, negotiating as a group this year, has been “paralysed by internal politics” as Poland and Hungary seek to water down language on these issues. In the past, the EU has opted not to negotiate as a group because of the diverse nature of its member governments.

“We are extremely disappointed. Countries coming to these negotiations are not even willing to negotiate,” added Kowalski.

“There are a huge number of issues the Africa group and Russia are saying they are not going go discuss here. It makes it almost impossible to make progress.”

On Wednesday, the Coalition of African Lesbians, a pan-African feminist organisation, said it was “deeply disturbed” by the positions being taken by the Africa group in regard to sexual and reproductive rights.

It said: “States are seeking to weaken or delete references to sexual and reproductive health and rights. Twenty years’ worth of agreements are at risk because of the Africa Group’s refusal to accept the word ‘sexuality’ in the agreed conclusions.”

The coalition called on South Africa to break ranks with the Africa group if its members continued to take this stance. The coalition said the text was inconsistent with South Africa’s constitution.

The CSW is due to end on Thursday, but negotiations are expected to continue into the early hours of Friday.

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Medically Assisted Dying Panel Tickets, Sat, 14 May 2016 at 1:30 PM

Medically Assisted Dying Panel Tickets, Sat, 14 May 2016 at 1:30 PM | Eventbrite

Medically Assisted Dying - Where Do We Go From Here?

The Supreme Court has ruled. Polls indicate 4 out of 5 Canadians support physician-assisted dying. Parliament has the directive to produce simple and straightforward legislation. Our distinguished panel will speak to many of the questions that arise as we consider where we go from here.

Panel Members:

• Shanaaz Gokool, CEO, Dying with Dignity
• Dr. Isser Dubinsky, Physicians’ Advisory Council, DWD
• Blair Henry, Ph.D (pending) Clinical Bioethicist Sunnybrook Hospital

When:

Saturday, 14 May 2016 from 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM (EDT) - Add to Calendar

Where:

Koffler House - 569 Spadina Crescent Room 108, Toronto, ON M5S 2J7, Canada - View Map

Global Actions Demand Fast Food Giants Get Antibiotics 'Off the Menu'

Global Actions Demand Fast Food Giants Get Antibiotics 'Off the Menu' |

In light of the public health risks associated with increasing antibiotic resistance, activists in 60 countries are celebrating World Consumer Rights Day by calling on fast-food companies to get antibiotics "off the menu."

The worldwide actions, organized by the London-headquartered Consumers International (CI), call specifically on McDonald's, Subway, and KFC to make "global, time bound commitments to stop serving meat from animals routinely given antibiotics that are classed as important for human medicine by the World Health Organization."

As CI director general Amanda Long wrote Monday at the Huffington Post:

McDonald's has made such a commitment on chicken in USA
and Canada. The commitment does not extend to other types of meat
however, nor to other countries outside of North America. Subway has
committed to stop serving meat from any animal given antibiotics in the
USA. KFC has made no meaningful commitments anywhere.

Of course we would like to see other restaurant chains, as well as
meat suppliers and retailers, make global time bound commitments to stop
selling meat from animals routinely given antibiotics important for
human medicine. We are focusing on these three chains because they have
over 100,000 restaurants between them. It is about more than simple
buying power however, these are global household names with the ability
to influence markets even where they have fewer outlets.

In February, a coalition of more than 50 public health, environmental, and consumer rights groups issued a similar demand to In-N-Out Burger, California's hamburger restaurant chain.

A report (pdf) issued late last month by CI stated that: "Despite worldwide concern about the overuse of antibiotics, their use in agriculture is due to increase by two thirds by 2030: from 63,200 tons in 2010, to 105,600 tons in 2030."

This is cause for alarm because antibiotic resistant bacteria spreads from farms to people through air, soil, water, manure, and theconsumption of medicine-treated meat and animal products

Top Pakistani religious body rules women's protection law 'un-Islamic' | Reuters

Top Pakistani religious body rules women's protection law 'un-Islamic' | Reuters

"This Law makes a Man insecure".  sometimes you don't even have to write the analysis...

(note: the law was supported by  AURAT, the women's rights group ...very interesting work)

A powerful Pakistani religious body that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam on Thursday declared a new law that criminalizes violence against women to be "un-Islamic."

The Women's Protection Act, passed by Pakistan's largest province of Punjab last week, gives unprecedented legal protection to women from domestic, psychological and sexual violence. It also calls for the creation of a toll-free abuse reporting hot line and the establishment of women's shelters.

But since its passage in the Punjab assembly, many conservative clerics and religious leaders have denounced the new law as being in conflict with the Muslim holy book, the Koran, as well as Pakistan's constitution. "The whole law is wrong," Muhammad Khan Sherani, the head of the Council of Islamic Ideology said at a news conference, citing verses from the Koran to point out that the law was "un-Islamic."

The 54-year-old council is known for its controversial decisions. In the past it has ruled that DNA cannot be used as primary evidence in rape cases, and it supported a law that requires women alleging rape to get four male witnesses to testify in court before a case is heard.

The council's decision this January to block a bill to impose harsher penalties for marrying off girls as young as eight or nine has angered human rights activists.

The new law establishes district-level panels to investigate reports of abuse, and mandates the use of GPS bracelets to keep track of offenders.It also sets punishments of up to a year in jail for violators of court orders related to domestic violence, with that period rising to two years for repeat offenders.

Fazlur Rehman, the chief of one of Pakistan's largest religious parties, the Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam, said the law was in conflict with both Islam and the constitution of Pakistan.

"This law makes a man insecure," he told journalists. "This law is an attempt to make Pakistan a Western colony again."

In 2013, more than 5,800 cases of violence against women were reported in Punjab alone, the province where Wednesday's law was passed, according to the Aurat Foundation, a women's rights advocacy group.   

Female farmers in 90 nations face discriminatory land laws

Female farmers in 90 nations face discriminatory land laws

Author: Chris Arsenault

A woman picks coffee berries while holding a child at the Paradise Lost coffee farm in Kiambu, outside Kenya's capital Nairobi, November 10, 2015. REUTERS/Siegfried

TORONTO, March 8 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Women in more than 90 countries still lack equal rights to own land, hurting food production and efforts to tackle poverty, Rwanda's former agriculture minister said. Nations in eastern and southern Africa have considerably improved their laws to grant land ownership rights to female farmers, Agnes Kalibata said.

But many states in North Africa and South Asia continue to treat women as second class citizens when it comes to land ownership, "In Africa, six out of 10 women depend on the land for their livelihoods," Kalibata told the Thomson Reuters Foundation "They must have access to the means of production - the land itself. If we are going to have development across the globe, women need equal access to the land." Up to 30 percent of women have land access in eastern and southern Africa, compared to less than 10 percent in northern and central Africa, she said.

Without formal land titles, women have a harder time feeding and educating their children.
Agricultural productivity also suffers as female farmers are less likely to invest in improving the land without formal ownership, making it harder to feed the 795 million hungry people worldwide.

During her tenure as Rwanda's agriculture minister which ended in 2014, Kalibata helped enact legal changes that give a woman ownership of half the land her family owns. In many other developing countries, land titles are kept in the husband's name. She also made it easier for widows to inherit family plots when their husbands died.

"Incredible things are going on in Rwanda when it comes to women's land rights," said Rena Singer, spokeswoman for the Washington-based rights group Landesa.

"If women can't inherit land, we see the continuation of inequality between genders. The only way most poor people get resources in their lifetime is to inherit - they don't have the money to purchase land."

Even in countries like Rwanda with good land laws, lax enforcement and patriarchal customs can make it harder for femalefarmers to control their incomes, Kalibata said.

International Women's Day - Canadian Nurses, MSF, and Gender Violence

International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day, and Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is using this opportunity to highlight sexual violence as an urgent health and medical issue. Here, two Canadian MSF nurses discuss how we can make a difference in the lives of women affected by sexual and gender-based violence.

Learn more about their work, and how MSF helps the survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in more than 90 projects in nearly 30 countries around the world.