Category Archives: Post Human

TRIPOLI, LibyaLibya's Congress elected a human rights lawyer as interim prime minister on Sunday, a week after his predecessor was sacked for failing to present a Cabinet line-up that political factions could agree on.

Ali Zidan, also a former independent congressman, won 93 votes, securing a majority of those who voted in a poll to determine the country's leader for a transitional period of around 20 months.

Zidan's top priority will be to name a new government that congress approves. The Cabinet will be faced with the daunting task of disarming thousands of young men who fought in last year's eight-month civil war that led to the capture and killing of longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

The ministers will also be pressed to provide basic services, restore security by creating a military and police force capable of asserting authority over disparate militias left over from the war, and unifying the country's tribes and towns.

One such militia, a radical Islamist group that now claims to have dissolved, has been linked to the attack last month on the U.S. Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi that killed the American ambassador and three others.

Feuds between cities and towns also flare up frequently. Militias are currently deployed on the outskirts of the mountain town of Bani Walid, one of the few remaining strongholds of Qaddafi loyalists. The possibility of an outbreak of violence there highlights the highly polarized atmosphere.

Any prime minister who wants to impose his authority on the militias will need broad national support for his government - but such support is hard to obtain.

The 200-member congress selected Zidan following last week's dismissal of Mustafa Abushagur after just 25 days in the post for failing to present a Cabinet list that satisfied legislators.

Some parliamentarians argued that Abushagur's Cabinet choices were not diverse enough, involved too many unknown individuals for key posts, and also had too many names from the previous interim government, which was seen by some Libyans as weak and corrupt.

Zidan was a diplomat under Qaddafi before defecting in the 1980s and joining Libya's oldest opposition movement, National Front for the Salvation of Libya, from Geneva where he lived.

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Human rights lawyer elected new Libyan PM

The police force in Egypt was the backbone of 30-year dictator Hosni Mubarak's government. During the heady days of the revolution, demonstrators fought pitched battles with the police, a force trained to crush all opposition with violence. Now, human rights groups say the police must be a top priority of reform under the new Islamist president's rule. NPR's Leila Fadel reports.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Now to Egypt, where human rights groups are pressing for sweeping reforms that country's police force. During the heady days of the revolution, demonstrators fought pitched battles with Egyptian police, a force trained to crush all opposition with violence. As NPR's Leila Fadel reports from Cairo, those pushing for reform say they've seen no indication that change is near.

LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: The trouble in the slum of Ramlet el Boulaq began after administrators at a nearby mall and hotel refused to pay the salaries of guards hired from the area. The guards protested and a confrontation ensued. Video of the clashes and raids were posted on YouTube.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)

FADEL: One of the local guards was killed. Police say they killed him in self-defense, but human rights groups and witnesses say the man was unarmed when he was shot dead.

KARIMA SULEIMAN: (Foreign language spoken)

FADEL: Local resident Karima Suleiman says her husband tried to help the victim, but then he too was shot and wounded as was her son. The youngest boy, only 14, was so angry he went and threw rocks at security forces. He was then detained and beaten, his front teeth knocked out of his mouth.

After the shootings, angry residents set cars on fire. The police responded by bombarding the neighborhood with tear gas and raiding homes. The raids in this slum of mud-brick shacks and sewage-soaked roads haven't stopped. More than 40 men have been detained, many others have fled the neighborhood including Karima's sons and husband.

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Post-Mubarak Egypt Wants Police Force Reined In

New Delhi, Oct. 13: CBI director Amar Pratap Singh is set to get a post-retirement job as a member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

Sources said Singh, who retires on November 30, would be appointed a member of the NHRC the next day, replacing P.C. Sharma, a former director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, whose term with the rights panel ended in June.

Permanent members of the rights commission, headed by former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, enjoy the rank of a minister of state at the Centre.

The nine-member NHRC includes four permanent and four ex-officio members apart from the chairperson.

Very few CBI directors have been rewarded with post-retirement sinecures. The last to be rewarded was Sharma, who was one of the few commission members not related to the judiciary when he was appointed in March 2004.

His successors ' U.S. Misra, Vijay Shanker and Ashwani Kumar ' had retired without plum post-retirement jobs.

Singh's successor will be shortlisted on October 18 at a meeting held by the chief vigilance commissioner, The Telegraph has learnt. The CBI comes under the vigilance commission, which shortlists three names before sending the recommendations for the director's post to the Prime Minister's Office.

Singh ' who is known to have been a strong supporter of keeping the CBI out of government control and under whom the agency has been investigating several scams that have troubled the UPA government ' would retain his Lodhi Road house.

Sources said the house, the official residence of the agency director for years, had already been allotted in the name of the outgoing director.

A new bungalow on Janpath is understood to have been earmarked by the urban development ministry for the new director.

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CBI chief set for post-retirement job

In a story sent Oct 11 about a U.N. report on Iran's human rights situation, The Associated Press misidentified the number of Iranian journalists in prison in December 2011, as tallied by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The correct number is 42, not 179.

A corrected version of the story is below:

UN report finds Iran's crackdown expanding

UN report calls for probe into post-election violence; finds Internet crackdown expanding

By PETER JAMES SPIELMANN

Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) The U.N.'s human rights expert on Iran is condemning the Islamic Republic's reliance on stoning as a form of capital punishment, citing that as just one of a number of "deeply troubling" Iranian rights violations, many of which are "systemic in nature," according to a report circulating among U.N. delegations.

Ahmed Shaheed, the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council's special rapporteur on Iran, also called for an "extensive, impartial and independent investigation into the violence in the weeks and months that followed the presidential election of 2009," when pro-democracy protesters surged into the streets to denounce the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as bogus and rigged.

Shaheed also "reiterates his call for the immediate release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience," according the report, which The Associated Press obtained Thursday.

The document will be the basis for a General Assembly resolution critical of Iran's human rights violations, which will probably be voted on in December.

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UN Report Finds Iran's Crackdown Expanding

UNITED NATIONS (AP) In a story sent Oct 11 about a U.N. report on Iran's human rights situation, The Associated Press misidentified the number of Iranian journalists in prison in December 2011, as tallied by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The correct number is 42, not 179.

A corrected version of the story is below:

UN report finds Iran's crackdown expanding

UN report calls for probe into post-election violence; finds Internet crackdown expanding

By PETER JAMES SPIELMANN

Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) The U.N.'s human rights expert on Iran is condemning the Islamic Republic's reliance on stoning as a form of capital punishment, citing that as just one of a number of "deeply troubling" Iranian rights violations, many of which are "systemic in nature," according to a report circulating among U.N. delegations.

Ahmed Shaheed, the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council's special rapporteur on Iran, also called for an "extensive, impartial and independent investigation into the violence in the weeks and months that followed the presidential election of 2009," when pro-democracy protesters surged into the streets to denounce the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as bogus and rigged.

Shaheed also "reiterates his call for the immediate release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience," according the report, which The Associated Press obtained Thursday.

The document will be the basis for a General Assembly resolution critical of Iran's human rights violations, which will probably be voted on in December.

Link:
Correction: UN-Iran-Human Rights

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) A senior United Nations human rights envoy is calling on Ivory Coast to release the full version of a national probe into last year's post-election violence.

Doudou Diene, the U.N.'s independent expert on human rights in the West African nation, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday that publication of the report completed earlier this year by the National Commission of Inquiry was "a condition of reconciliation."

Ivory Coast headed to the brink of civil war after former President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede defeat in the November 2010 presidential runoff vote to now-President Alassane Ouattara. The resulting violence, which ended in May 2011, claimed at least 3,000 lives, according to the U.N.

Despite evidence that supporters of both men committed grave crimes during the six-month conflict, only Gbagbo supporters have been charged, sparking allegations of victor's justice.

Gbagbo was transferred late last year to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he awaits trial on charges of crimes against humanity, and in Ivory Coast, more than 100 Gbagbo loyalists have been detained, accused of post-election crimes.

Human rights groups including New York-based Human Rights Watch have accused Ouattara's administration of biased justice. In response to that criticism, government officials had said they were waiting on the report from the National Commission of Inquiry before launching further judicial proceedings.

The report was handed over to Ouattara in August, but a summary version that was made public contained little new information and no names of suspected perpetrators.

In the interview Thursday, Diene, who is wrapping up a 19-day mission focused on impunity for gross human rights violations, said the commission's work would be of little consequence if its complete findings weren't made public.

"For that report to have an impact, it has to be publicized. It has to be part of the national debate of reconciliation, of truth and reconciliation," he said. "The Ivorian population has to know what happened, and to know it from a commission established by the state."

Justice Ministry officials were not available for comment Thursday. But in an interview when the report was released, Human Rights Minister Gnenema Coulibaly expressed reservations about making the full version of the report public, citing concerns about witness protection.

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UN envoy calls on Ivory Coast to release probe

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) - Human rights groups applaud the creation of a new Cabinet post dedicated to human rights in Guinea, which has 1 of the worst records in West Africa, following a shocking 2009 massacre.

In that incident peaceful protesters were mowed down by the military inside the national soccer stadium, and dozens of women were gang raped.

Thierno Sow, head of Guinea's largest human rights group, said that it's the first time that human rights occupy such an important place in the Guinea government.

The post was created last week in the wake of a Cabinet reshuffle, which saw the purging of the last three members of the military serving in the government. It finalizes the transition to civilian rule which began after the massacre, when the military agreed to cede power.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Quincy Herald-Whig | Illinois & Missouri News, SportsGuinea creates 1st human rights ministerial post

The Department of Human Services dabbled in cloud collaboration and considered cloud-based email services, according to minutes from the Government's internalCloud Information Community (CLIC).

The minutes,released to iTnews under freedom of information, reveal the Government's formative steps to understand the cloud, including several trials, negotiations and projects.

A Department of Human Services (DHS) spokesman confirmed the agency undertook a five-week trial ofHuddle, a collaboration tool that bills itself as a SharePoint alternative.

Huddle is a US-based service with servers located in the United States.

A DHS spokesman told iTnews thatno classified or protected information was shared or discussed over Huddle, and that the department's IT security team "provided specialist advice and participated in a risk assessment before the trial started".

The trial encompassed 60 staff and ran between July 5 and August 6, 2010, at a cost of $3000.

Staff used the platform to share ideas and unclassified information about how human resource roles and functions could be structured in the lead up to Centrelink, Medicare Australia, Child Support Agency and CRS Australia integrating to form the Department of Human Services.

The DHS spokesman told iTnews that the trial was "valuable", though it appeared much of the value derived was cultural.

"Some participants cited busy workloads and lack of understanding and confidence in using social media at work as reasons for their low level of [Huddle] activity over the five weeks," the spokesman said, summarising a post-trial evaluation.

"The department has used the learnings from the trial to develop training materials for staff on how to use social media at work."

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Human Services diced with cloud collaboration

As our friends at All Things Considered say, "it's been a frustrating week for daredevils."

Felix Baumgartner had to postpone his attempt to rise 23 miles high in the sky and then jump from a balloon to see if he can break the speed of sound on the way down.

And maybe you haven't heard, but Chris Todd had to give on his "walk" across the Irish Sea in a human hamster wheel.

It seems that Todd, to raise money for charity, tried over the weekend to hamster-wheel 66 miles from North Wales to County Wicklow, Ireland. He made it about 15 miles (after an exhausting nine hours) before winds and rough waves pummeled the contraption.

"I could see the glow of lights illuminating the clouds over Ireland," Todd writes on his IrishSeaCrossing.co.uk website. "Despite the wheel coping well with larger than forecast waves ... late on Sunday night, the rudders were overcome by fighting the force of the waves, which were constantly battering the side of the raft, and eventually both rudders failed."

He got aboard the boat that was traveling alongside. The hamster wheel, alas, "broke up whilst being towed" and is now at the bottom of the sea.

There is video, though, of how the Tredalo did work when it was seaworthy. Courtesy of the Daily Mail, it's posted here.

Click here to find an NPR station that broadcasts or streams All Things Considered. Later, we'll add the show's report to the top of this post.

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'Human Hamster Wheel' Sinks; Here's Video Of How It Used To Work

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Oct 9, 2012) - Infor, a leading provider of business application software serving more than 70,000 customers, today announced that Infor HCM has been recognized as a Leader among human capital management applications in two of Nucleus Research's latest Technology Value Matrixes for Human Capital Management (HCM) and Human Resources (HR). The HCM Value Matrix is based on functionality and usability, the two core measures that Nucleus has found indicate an application's ability to deliver initial ROI and, ultimately, maximum value over time. Nucleus Research placed vendors in the HCM Leader category who have invested in both functionality and usability features that are most likely to deliver the greatest potential returns.

"One of the main strengths of Infor HCM is the solid foundation on which it is built, which allows companies to use and reuse a framework for talent management," said Gabriel Gheorghiu, principal analyst, Nucleus Research. "The Infor ION platform contributes to the flexibility of the solution so that it can be configured easily, is deployed in the cloud, and can be accessed from mobile devices."

Scores for usability are based on intuitiveness of the application, availability of role-based interfaces, training requirements, and productivity impact on users. Similarly, composite scores for functionality are based on the breadth and repeatability of functionality in the core application, the availability and ease of integration of add-on functionality that delivers additional benefit, and the vendors' investment in innovative functionality outside the core that will deliver additional benefits.

"These Leader rankings further underscore our commitment to innovating Infor's HCM offerings post Lawson acquisition, and validates the effort our team has put in to make it an industry-leading application," said Amy Ihlen, industry strategy director, Human Capital Management, Infor. "We're making sure our customers are receiving the customized tools they need to attract and retain talent in this challenging business environment and linking employees to the overall organizational strategy."

Infor HCM delivers complete insight into every aspect of employee management and provides effective and economical solutions to save money and increasing employee morale.

"Infor's acquisition of Lawson made it a leader in both HCM and HR market segments," continued Gheorghiu.

About Infor Infor is the world's third-largest supplier of enterprise applications and services, helping more than 70,000 large and mid-size companies improve operations and drive growth across numerous industry sectors.To learn more about Infor, please visit http://www.infor.com.

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Infor Recognized as Human Capital Management Leader and Human Resource Leader by Nucleus Research