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ladybroadoak writes:
Well, knowing what I know, seeing what I see.. I was not in the least surprised to see this item today. This was the WORST day I have had EVER in posting global headlines - I have the rarest of ideas of what is actually transpiring while people debate US elections.RATCHET UP THE IMPEACHMENT ACTIVITIES, prepare to take off work and get BUSY.
I can't agree more.
UN rejects water as basic human right
Mike De Souza , Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, March 25, 2008OTTAWA - The Harper government can declare victory after a United Nations meeting rejected calls for water to be recognized as a basic human right.
Instead, a special resolution proposed by Germany and Spain at the UN human rights council was stripped of references that recognized access to water as a human right. The countries also chose to scrap the idea of creating an international watchdog to investigate the issue, choosing instead to appoint a new consultant that would make recommendations over the next three years.
Federal officials in Canada said last week that the government wanted to ensure the meeting's outcome reflected the fact that access to water is not formally recognized as a human right in international law. But a social advocacy group said that the position was designed to protect the right to sell water under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
"Clearly (the Harper government is) happy with the status quo: They're not going to be an agent for change, and they're not going to support the right to water," said Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians. "About every eight seconds, a child somewhere in the world is dying from dirty water, and it's just shocking that our government has taken this position."
The opposition Liberals supported the government's position last week, arguing that the original UN resolution could open the door to bulk water exports to the U.S. because of NAFTA. Liberal water critic Francis Scarpaleggia said he planned to introduce a private member's bill to restrict large transfers of water within Canada to ensure that bulk exports abroad would also be forbidden.
The UN's high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, said last week that the position doesn't reflect Canada's traditional role on the international stage.
"Canada is taking a position that is not the more classic perceived, Canada as the kind of the bridge builder, peacemaker, consensus maker," Arbour told the CBC.
Meantime, Barlow denied that the resolution would require Canada to make bulk water exports to the U.S.
"The requirement in the United States would be for them to conserve first," said Barlow. "There's no requirement as a human right for us to provide water for swimming pools and golf courses and fountains in Las Vegas."
A spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Department said in an e-mail that there was "no consensus among states regarding the existence, scope or content of such a right."
mdesouza@canwest.com
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When will they say that oxygen is not a basic human right?
Perhaps this is the sadder day.
Even after posting this - and you won't find it easily anywhere on the MSM or on a single Canadian Parlimentarians website - no one picks up on this and proliferates the information!
Honestly, can anyone who comes across this tell me - doesn't anyone see Canada's complicity in all these genocidial war activities? Can't they see the rough raw hands that have crafted neocon policy? Can't they SEE that Canada is now totally and completely annexed and militarized?
When NATO announced that provoking nuclear war was a pathway to peace (!!), an idea all done up in a bow by Richard Cheney, I thought MAYBE some would get hip and start really POUNDING AWAY at the "NATO coalition of the willing" and recognize there is more to participation in genocide than just troops officially on the ground - that providing jet fuel, "advisers", places to land and refuel rendition flights, setting up phoney faLse flags (Toronto 18) jailing activists for discovering du dumping in Ontario in the form of du canisters with Lebanon stencilled on them (see MNN newsflashes. "Ardoch Lake" google will net you alot of information) and silencing them, allowing war criminals like BuZh and Rove in and protecting them at taxpayer's expence in 2007 and 2008, well - I thought people would WAKE UP. At least the blogosphere.
But no.
Everyday there is some fresh new affront to human rights activists here in Canada, And it seems to me, no one is listening.
The acitivities to shut me off the internet continue ..
But to anyone who comes along and reads my comments, I do offer up this pdf and hope that people will read it, digest it, and pass it along. It is an awesome statement of international law violations by NEOCONS.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/genera_ladybroa_080215_special_prosecutor_i.htm
I also have a global petition for impeachment that needs signatures!! For nonUS citizens to sign ..
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/global-people-for-the-impeachment-of-richard-cheney
Mo one should allow defocus off impeachment activity!
And I see signs of "compassion fatigue" on the blogosphere going on and the new soft fascism of environmentalISM taking over. So very very sad.
No matter what, no matter what, we must keep speaking on behalf of wounded children and their mothers in the Middle East ..
If not us, WHO??
THe killing must stop. It is up to us.
Thank you for being the one blog that would post this. It SHOULD have been picked up by ALL human rights blogs … imho.
Where o where is Greenpeace speaking up in horror at this? I may cancel my money I send to them and send to YOU.
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[...] UN decides Water is NOT a basic right. The Harper government can declare victory after a United Nations meeting rejected calls for water [...]
Water is not a basic right; latest neocon OUTRAGE!!…
Why am I not surprised?…
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