Category Archives: Post Human

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Human rights organizations have called for the United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, to add the IDF to the blacklist of states and armed organizations responsible for serial injury to children during armed conflict, alongside brutal terrorist and guerrilla organizations such as ISIS and al-Qaida. This attests to the international communitys profound misunderstanding of the difficulty sovereign states face in low-intensity war (fighting terrorist/guerrilla organizations) while minimizing the collateral damage.

For years the State of Israel has endured a deep lack of understanding regarding its war against terrorist organizations. A prominent case in point is the UNs Goldstone Report that was published after Operation Cast Lead in 2009. This report served as a moral earthquake as far as Israel was concerned, as it stated that Israel had a policy of deliberately harming civilian noncombatants.

In an op-ed published two years later (April 2011) in The Washington Post, Goldstone retracted this statement and admitted that if I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

Upon retraction, Goldstone argued that the international laws of war should be implemented by nonstate organizations, such as Hamas, to the same extent in which they should be implemented by the armies of sovereign states. According to Goldstone, lack of implementation of the international laws of war during warfare should lead to investigation of the violating party.

This assertion is compelling testimony to the lack of understanding that the terrorist organizations, such as Hamas which the IDF is fighting, have an entirely different value system from that which is acceptable to Israel as a democratic country. These organizations tend not to take human life into consideration not the lives of their own activists, or the lives of the population in whose name they are fighting, or the lives of the enemy.

Thus, despite their similarity to conventional armies and their military might possessing as they do large quantities of ammunition, an organized military force and sophisticated military tactics and strategy not only do they not adhere to international law during fighting, they deliberately violate it. One of their main strategies is to fight against Israeli civilian populations and IDF soldiers from within their own civilian populations, in order to deliberately blur the distinction between the civilians and their fighters for instance, firing rockets or mortar shells from civilian facilities such as schools, mosques, churches and hospitals. In this way they hope to force the IDF to target those facilities and thus deprive it of legitimacy to act, leading to condemnation of the IDF and Israel by the international community.

Such acts by these organizations from within civilian populations lay the responsibility for endangering civilian security on them and not on the IDF. Nevertheless, during battle, the IDF as a moral army is undoubtedly responsible for maintaining not only the human dignity of Israels civilians and soldiers, but also the human dignity of the opposing sides civilians and soldiers. Meaning, the IDF must strive to minimize as much as possible the damage caused to the civilian population of the other side.

However, it must be understood that so long as the UN and human rights organizations are unable to comprehend the huge difference between conventional wars and low-intensity wars; and until the legal and moral justifications for the various actions taken during combat are adjusted accordingly, we will continue to witness international condemnation of Israeli and IDF actions. Liram Koblentz-Stenzler is a doctoral student of military ethics and terror in the Political Science Department at Tel Aviv University. She previously was a research fellow at Yale University

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A disgrace to human rights - Jerusalem Post Israel News

Laurie Abadie, Jamestown native who works in NASAs Human Research Program, visited the Martz Observatory to discuss with a full crowd the research and preparations in place to send humans to Mars. P-J photo by Jimmy McCarthy

FREWSBURG A round-trip to Mars would take three years. That means youre away from your family and friends.

Youd be in a confined and isolated environment and you would survive on nutrition made of freeze-dried food.

Youd be required to exercise every day for two hours just to maintain your bone and muscle strength.

Ready for the journey?

Laurie Abadie, Jamestown native and NASA human space flight specialist, visited the Martz Observatory on Wednesday evening to discuss to a full crowd how NASA is preparing the human body for a mission to Mars.

Abadie has spent over four years in NASAs Human Research Program. She currently works in a NASA office in Cleveland, and prior to that, she spent 10 years at the Johnson Space Center in mission control where she helped cargo ships that traveled to the space station.

What the Human Research Program is tasked with is figuring out all the risks associated with sending humans to space, she said. We basically fund the research both on the ground and in flight to help make sure we keep astronauts not only safe, but healthy to have a successful mission to Mars.

Abadie said the program is examining and researching risks, and one of the biggest ones theyre delving into is space radiation. Abadie said space radiation not only causes nausea and fatigue, but it can also impact memory and the ability to think clearly. The central nervous system can be damaged and theres higher risk for cardiac disease and cancer.

To address the risk, Abadie said NASA uses a unique facility in Long Island, the Brookhaven Lab, to test space radiation.

We test different materials.We test biological samples and cells, she said. We basically send different types of radiation at it to see what would be the best material for a space craft or habitat on Mars to protect the astronauts.

Abadie said the Human Research Program is also addressing issues related to isolation, alternate gravity fields and ensuring theres enough food and medical supplies for a three-year journey.

Abadie said isolation can lead to behavioral health problems with months of confinement in a capsule. As for changes in gravity fields, she said it could cause sickness and an inability to control muscles.

Challenges are still in the way to get humans to Mars, and Abadie said theyre working to mitigate them. Abadie said NASAs looking to make the journey when Earth and Mars are at their closest point. That translates to a six-month trip leaving Earth to reach Mars.

Everything is working to a presence on Mars, she said. To get humans on Mars, we wanted to look for water. We found it and now we want to figure out wheres the best place on Mars to live, is there any life on Mars and basically how well get there.

Abadie was born and raised in Jamestown. She attended the University of Buffalo for undergraduate school where she majored in aerospace engineering.

During her junior year, she applied and was accepted to a cooperative education position at NASA Jobs and Space Center in Houston. She alternated semesters between UB and in Houston working for NASA.

Abadie continued her education and applied for the NASA Fellowship Program, which paid for her graduate school expenses while guaranteeing a job after. She attended the University of Arkansas and got a masters in space and planetary sciences. She went on to receive a second masters at the University of Colorado in space operations.

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Jamestown Native, NASA Member Talks Mission To Mars - Jamestown Post Journal

The Amur tiger left apond and lazily walked up a ramp to the catwalk, putting himself 12 feet above the onlooking crowd. People who were taking photos yelped and scurried away as water and perhaps something else raineddown.

The incident sparked jokes for rest of Wednesdays preview of the Denver Zoos new Edge Exhibit, which needs only a few finishing touches before it opens to the public March 17 such as a sign reminding people to look up.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post

Nikolai one of 3 Amur (Siberian) Tiger's in the new enclosure shows his teeth during a huge yawn as the Denver Zoo unveiled its new tiger exhibit, the Edge, March 8, 2017. It brings you closer to the tigers than ever before and it's nearly twice the size of the previous exhibit.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post

The Denver Zoo unveiled its new tiger exhibit, the Edge March 8, 2017. It's nearly twice the size of the previous exhibit.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post

Nikita one of 3 Amur (Siberian) Tiger's in the new enclosure with large windows as the Denver Zoo unveiled its new tiger exhibit, the Edge March 8, 2017. It brings you closer to the tigers than ever before and it's nearly twice the size of the previous exhibit.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post

Nikolai one of 3 Amur (Siberian) Tiger's in the new enclosure rolling after a short rest as the Denver Zoo unveiled its new tiger exhibit, the Edge March 8, 2017. It brings you closer to the tigers than ever before and it's nearly twice the size of the previous exhibit.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post

Metal panels designed to look like you're looking into the forest are filled with small holes. You are close enough to smell a tigers breath in the new enclosure as the Denver Zoo unveiled its new tiger exhibit, the Edge March 8, 2017. It brings you closer to the tigers than ever before and it's nearly twice the size of the previous exhibit.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post

Nikolai one of 3 Amur (Siberian) Tiger's in the new enclosure climbing down after a look from overhead as the Denver Zoo unveiled its new tiger exhibit, the Edge March 8, 2017. It brings you closer to the tigers than ever before and it's nearly twice the size of the previous exhibit.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post

Nikita one of 3 Amur (Siberian) Tiger's standing up for carnivore keeper Raejeann Eyeht in the new enclosure as the Denver Zoo unveiled its new tiger exhibit, the Edge March 8, 2017. It brings you closer to the tigers than ever before and it's nearly twice the size of the previous exhibit.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post

Nikolai one of 3 Amur (Siberian) Tiger's in the new enclosure watching as the Denver Zoo unveiled its new tiger exhibit, the Edge March 8, 2017. It brings you closer to the tigers than ever before and it's nearly twice the size of the previous exhibit.

We really wanted to give people a chance to get up close and experience the animal, Rebecca McCloskey, the zoos curator of primates and carnivores.

The new tiger exhibit has 18,200 square feet of outdoor space, including ponds, the catwalk, trees and toys, and is nearly double the size of the big cats former home. The exhibit took more than 2 years to create and roughly $2.2 million in Better Denver Bond funding from the City and County of Denver.

The exhibit has a large walk-in semicircle with windows that give the sense of being inside the enclosure with the animals. It also includes perforated metal walls so people can smell the tigers and potentially hear them chuff,the greeting noise tigers make, McCloskey said. The catwalk goes above the opening to the semicircle, allowing the cats to watch you while you watch them.

The exhibit is meant to showcase the animals athleticism and encourage their natural behaviors with logs for scratching, steps for jumping and ponds for light swimming. The catwalk lets them be up high, a position favored by the large animals. The cats behaviors indicate that they are enjoying their new environment, appearing more engaged, interested and active, McCloskey said.

My favorite part is that they have a lot of options to play and jump around and stuff, said Sophie Dawe, who is 5 years old and was wearing tiger ears and a tail. Also, they can, like, nap up there.

Sophie and her twin sister, Gwenyth, come to the zoo often and said the new tiger exhibit was their favorite part, calling the animals cool.

The zoo has three of the cool animals, brothers Nikolai and Thimbu (pronounced TIM-boo) as well as Nikita, who spent some time Wednesday morning using a tree to scratch her ear.

There are fewer than 400 Amur tigers in the wild, the cats trainer Kim Pike said. The cats used to be referred to as Siberian tigers, roaming the Russian Far East, northern China and the Korean peninsula. But as poaching and a loss of habitat threaten the species, they only remain in the Amur River area of the Russian Far East, sparking the name change. The World Wildlife Federation says they also are found in small pockets in the border areas of China and perhaps in North Korea.

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Human guests get first up-close peek at The Edge tiger exhibit at ... - The Denver Post

What do Americans fear more than flying, germs, or animals? Computers replacing people in the workforce. The 2016 Chapman University Survey on American Fears found 16 percent of respondents were afraid or very afraid of losing jobs to technology. And the generation thats grown up attached to a smartphone is even more concerned. An international 2016 Infosys survey of 16-to 25-year-olds found that 40 percent thought their current jobs could be replaced by some form of automation within a decade.

So just how worried should we be about being replaced by a robot?

Not very, according to Martin Fiore, Americas Tax Talent Leader for EY, the global professional services firm. Fiore believes we should look forward to working alongside robots, particularly young people starting their careers. EY is the number two hiring firm for U.S. college graduates.

Robots can free workers from mundane tasks, allowing them to provide purpose and value at a higher level, says Fiore. EY uses Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in its tax practice, which consists of bots, or software applications that handle repetitive, high-volume automated tasks.

Our people used to have to spend hours cutting and pasting, pulling together disparate pieces of information, says Fiore. Now they can start with that information and ask What does it mean for our client? Its a huge change.

Using this type of automation allows EY workers to focus on interpreting data as they work alongside a bot, according to Fiore. He says the bots havent cost any jobs at EY.

Weve taken the robot out of the human, says Fiore, by eliminating mundane and repetitive tasks. He says this is especially important for millennials, who want to make a difference early in their careers and apply what theyve learned in college more quickly.

This sounds great for an information worker who no longer has to slog through data, but what about other industries? Momentum Machines has developed a robot that creates 400 made-to-order hamburgers in an hour without any help from humans. A 2015 Ball State University report found that almost 88 percent of job losses in manufacturing in recent years could be attributed to enhanced productivity because of automation. Can we expect more jobs to disappear as robots become cheaper and smarter?

It depends on who you ask. A 2016 Oxford University report found that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are at risk of being lost to automation over the next two decades.

But a 2016 McKinsey Global Institute report concluded that fewer than five percent of careers can be completely automated using existing technology. However, the report found about half of work activities could potentially be done by a machine. Data collection and processing and predictable physical work are the activities most likely to be automated.

Perhaps the most likely scenario is that many of us will end up working alongside robotic technology, like EYs tax practitioners, rather than being kicked to the curb by them. For example, Fiore says a robot could lay bricks while a human being directs its work.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans are already using a digital assistant or some form of robotic technology, according to Loop Intelligence. A Roomba cleaning the kitchen floor has become routine for many of us, frightening only the cat.

But even as we become more reliant on Siri and Alexa in our personal lives, accepting more automation at work wont be easy. Companies that invest in robotic technology will have to work hard to manage the people side of change. Workers worried about losing their jobs may have to learn new skills. For example, Momentum Machines, the maker of the burger bot, posted a job ad for a restaurant generalist who can troubleshoot softwarequite a different skill from whats normally expected of fast food workers.

If you look at whats ahead, youre either going to be disrupted, or get in front of the disruption, says Fiore. He says the best way to prepare workers for robotic technology is to help them understand how it will benefit themimproving the quality of their work, reducing mundane tasks, and giving them the time to provide purpose and value at a higher level.

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Taking the robot out of the human - Huffington Post

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The human toll of suicide bombings in Afghanistan Washington Post Such shocking acts of violence are hard to visualize in remote locations whether at a desert police post or on a snow-covered highway. Often there are few witnesses and no television coverage; the victims remain nameless and faceless. But when ... and more »

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The human toll of suicide bombings in Afghanistan - Washington Post

Less than two months in, President Donald Trump is already shaping up as a disaster for human rights. From his immigration ban to his support for torture, Trump has jettisoned what has long been, in theory if not always in practice, a bipartisan American commitment: the promotion of democratic values and human rights abroad.

Worse is probably set to come. Trump has lavished praise on autocrats and expressed disdain for international institutions. He described Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as a fantastic guy and brushed off reports of repression by the likes of Russias Vladimir Putin, Syrias Bashar al-Assad, and Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As Trump put it in his bitter inauguration address, It is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, has written that Trumps election has brought the world to the verge of darkness and threatens to reverse the accomplishments of the modern human rights movement.

But this threat is not new. In fact, the rise of Trump has only underlined the existential challenges already facing the global rights project. Over the past decade, the international order has seen a structural shift in the direction of assertive new powers, including Xi Jinpings China and Putins Russia, that have openly challenged rights norms while at the same time crushing dissent in contested territories like Chechnya and Tibet. These rising powers have not only clamped down on dissent at home; they have also given cover to rights-abusing governments from Manila to Damascus. Dictators facing Western criticism can now turn to the likes of China for political backing and no-strings financial and diplomatic support.

This trend has been strengthened by the Western nationalist-populist revolt that has targeted human rights institutions and the global economic system in which they are embedded. With populism sweeping the world and new superpowers in the ascendant, post-Westphalian visions of a shared global order are giving way to an era of resurgent sovereignty. Unchecked globalization and liberal internationalism are giving way to a post-human rights world.

All this amounts to an existential challenge to the global human rights norms that have proliferated since the end of World War II. In that time, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, has been supplemented by a raft of treaties and conventions guaranteeing civil and political rights, social and economic rights, and the rights of refugees, women, and children. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War served to further entrench human rights within the international system. Despite the worlds failure to prevent mass slaughter in places like Rwanda and Bosnia, the 1990s would see the emergence of a global human rights imperium: a cross-border, transnational realm anchored in global bodies like the U.N. and the European Union and supervised by international nongovernmental organizations and a new class of professional activists and international legal experts.

The professionalization of human rights was paralleled by the advance of international criminal justice. The decade saw the creation of ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and the signing in 1998 of the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court an achievement that then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan hailed as a giant step forward in the march towards universal human rights and the rule of law. On paper, citizens in most countries now enjoy around 400 distinct rights. As Michael Ignatieff wrote in 2007, human rights have become nothing short of the dominant language of the public good around the globe.

Crucially, this legal and normative expansion was underpinned by an unprecedented period of growth and economic integration in which national borders appeared to disappear and the world shrink under the influence of globalization and technological advance. Like the economic system in which it was embedded, the global human rights project attained a sheen of inevitability; it became, alongside democratic politics and free market capitalism, part of the triumphant neoliberal package that Francis Fukuyama identified in 1989 as the end point of mankinds ideological evolution. In 2013, one of Americas foremost experts on international law, Peter J. Spiro, predicted that legal advances and economic globalization had brought on sovereigntisms twilight. Fatou Bensouda, the current chief prosecutor of the ICC, has argued similarly that the creation of the court inaugurated a new era of post-Westphalian politics in which rulers would now be held accountable for serious abuses committed against their own people. (So far, no sitting government leader has.)

But in 2017, at a time of increasing instability, in which the promised fruits of globalization have failed for many to materialize, these old certainties have collapsed. In the current age of anger, as Pankaj Mishra has termed it, human rights have become both a direct target of surging right-wing populism and the collateral damage of its broader attack on globalization, international institutions, and unaccountable global elites.

The outlines of this new world can be seen from Europe and the Middle East to Central Asia and the Pacific. Governments routinely ignore their obligations under global human rights treaties with little fear of meaningful sanction. For six years, grave atrocities in Syria have gone unanswered, despite the legal innovations of the responsibility to protect doctrine. Meanwhile, many European governments are reluctant to honor their legal obligations to offer asylum to the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing its brutal civil war.

To be sure, not all of these developments are new; international rights treaties have always represented an aspirational baseline to which many nations have fallen short. But the human rights age was one in which the world, for all its shortfalls, seemed to be trending in the direction of more adherence, rather than less. It was a time in which human rights advocates and supportive leaders spoke confidently of standing on the right side of history and even the worlds autocrats were forced to pay lip service to the idea of rights.

If the human rights age was one in which the contours of history were clear, today it is no longer obvious that history has any such grand design. According to the latest Freedom in the World report, released in January by Freedom House, 2016 marked the 11th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. It was also a year in which 67 countries suffered net declines in political freedoms and civil liberties. Keystone international institutions are also under siege. In October, three African states South Africa, Burundi, and Gambia announced their withdrawal from the ICC, perhaps the crowning achievement of the human rights age. (Gambia has since reversed its decision, following the January resignation of autocratic President Yahya Jammeh.) Angry that the ICC unfairly targets African defendants, leaders on the continent are now mulling a collective withdrawal from the court.

African criticism reflects governments increasing confidence in rejecting human rights as Western values and painting any local organization advocating these principles as a pawn of external forces. China and India have both introduced restrictive new laws that constrain the work of foreign NGOs and local groups that receive foreign funding, including organizations advocating human rights. In Russia, a foreign agent law passed in 2012 has been used to tightly restrict the operation of human rights NGOs and paint any criticism of government policies as disloyal, foreign-sponsored, and un-Russian.

In the West, too, support for human rights is wavering. In his successful campaign in favor of Brexit, Nigel Farage, then-leader of the UK Independence Party, attacked the European Convention on Human Rights, claiming that it had compromised British security by preventing London from barring the return of British Islamic State fighters from the Middle East. During the U.S. election campaign, Donald Trump demonized minorities, advocated torture, expressed admiration for dictators and still won the White House. Meanwhile, a recent report suggests that Western support for international legal institutions like the ICC is fickle, lasting only as long as it targets other problems in other countries.

In the post-human rights world, global rights norms and institutions will continue to exist but only in an increasingly ineffective form. This will be an era of renewed superpower competition, in what Robert Kaplan has described as a more crowded, nervous, anxious world. The post-human rights world will not be devoid of grassroots political struggles, however. On the contrary, these could well intensify as governments tighten the space for dissenting visions and opinions. Indeed, the wave of domestic opposition to Trumps policies is an early sign that political activism may be entering a period of renewed power and relevance.

What, then, is to be done? As many human rights activists have already acknowledged, fresh approaches are required. In December, RightsStart, a new human rights consultancy hub, launched itself by suggesting five strategies that international rights NGOs can use to adapt to the existential crisis of the current moment. (Full disclosure: I have previously worked with one of its founders.) Among them was the need for these groups to communicate more effectively the importance of human rights and use international advocacy more often as a platform for local voices. Philip Alston, a human rights veteran and law professor at New York University, has argued that the human rights movement will also have to confront the fact that it has never offered a satisfactory solution to the key driver of the current populist surge: global economic inequality.

In a broader sense, the global human rights project will have to shed its pretensions of historical inevitability and get down to the business of making its case to ordinary people. With authoritarian politics on the rise, now is the time to re-engage in politics and to adopt more pragmatic and flexible tactics for the advancement of human betterment. Global legal advocacy will continue to be important, but efforts should predominantly be directed downward, to national courts and legislatures. It is here that right-wing populism has won its shattering victories. It is here, too, that the coming struggle against Trumpism and its avatars will ultimately be lost or won.

Photo credit:CHIP SOMODEVILLA/Getty Images

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Welcome to the Post-Human Rights World | Foreign Policy - Foreign Policy (blog)

In January, millions of women around the world took to the streets to advocate for legislation and policies on womens rights and other issues. While the Womens March on Washington drew 500,000 passionate activists and the lions share of the media attention, the march also extended to all seven continents in locations as varied as DR Congo, Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. The message was clear and profound women will not sit back and be designated as second class citizens. Womens rights are human rights, period.

While the sentiment is easily understood, the execution is often more complex. To improve gender diversity, employers look to balance ratios, broaden the hiring net, and ensure representation at the table. Similarly, the public and not-for-profit institutions that promote education and health and other basic services seek to reach women as well as men. There is a tendency merely to involve women once things are already in place, let women in the room but not think critically about how the room is arranged. By confining our efforts to bringing women into the conversation without questioning the underlying power relations, we add women and stir, running the risk of reproducing inequality, further marginalizing women, and denigrating their roles in society.

Yes, gender balance is important; however, it should not be the goal. Transformative change can only happen when a strong movement for gender equality reshapes norms, habits and social policy. In order for this to become a reality, we need to rethink the roles of women and men, adolescent girls and boys, as well as women and men facing disability, old age, marginalization and vulnerability. This is true everywhere but especially so in geographies, North and South, where poverty is manifest and therefore where women are vital for sustaining healthier, better-educated and vibrant communities.

Sticking with the status quo will lead to a world that neither responds to the needs of women and girls, nor provides adequate and efficient services that empower women to become leaders in their communities. Globally, over 1.2 billion women lack access to basic sanitation and hygiene. This has far-reaching impact on their lives, from childhood to motherhood and on to their twilight years.

Without access to toilets, women fear assault and a loss of dignity from having to defecate in the open. They suffer urinary tract infections and other diseases from holding in their urine or feces. When they menstruate they miss work, intentionally not travel, and avoid school, thereby suffering economic losses for the family. The average woman menstruates for 3000 days in her lifetime; however, the subject is hidden by taboos preventing women from learning how to manage their periods hygienically and safely.

In a forthcoming study on womens access to sanitation services in the West African country of Niger by WSSCC, UN Women and the African Institute of Training and Demographic Research, researchers found that less than 12% of those surveyed felt safe while using toilets. When asked why, they said that it is because they are not gender segregated. In the same study, researchers found that at least 70% of toilets surveyed could not be closed from the inside. The study will be launched 20 March during an event at the Commission on the Status of Women.

This has a huge impact on the well-being of women and girls, inducing shame, risk and fear. For the 1.2 billion women who lack access, a focus on sanitation and hygiene is an effective way to link one vital narrative (toilets) to sustain another (womens rights).

Over the past five years, there has been a groundswell of interest in menstrual hygiene as well as in a set of tactics activists and policy makers are using to break the taboo associated with the subject. In places as diverse as Senegal, Niger, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Nigeria, Malawi and Cambodia, women and men are openly discussing menstruation.

At the national level, governments are engaging in conversations with activists to ensure schools, health clinics, public markets, transport hubs, as well as individual households have safe, secure sanitation facilities for women and adolescent girls. Their commitment takes the form of approved policy guidelines and budget allocations, as well as retooled program interventions and systems to monitor the implementation of these programs.

At the local level, individual households, local governments and small-scale entrepreneurs are engaging in conversations about how to bring about a change of behavior in which people make connections between sanitation and health, hygiene and dignity. Their commitment takes the form of tens of millions of people stopping the practice of open defecation, investing in sanitation and adopting hygiene practices, including menstrual hygiene, that ensure no one is left behind.

While interest in menstrual hygiene is growing, with it is a wider reflection on the appropriateness of basic services for the disabled, socially marginalized groups, the elderly and the homeless as well as for women. The discussion on menstruation is breaking down barriers, allowing for a deeper reflection on multiple forms of inequality and discrimination.

These critical, yet pragmatic tactics to promote gender equality are far from complete. Much work remains. However, the likelihood of these gaining traction is greater as a result of the commitments made by 182 Member States in September 2015 with the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals. The 17 SDGs as they are commonly referred to, provide a fifteen year (2016-2030) framework for social, ecological and economic development. Rather than being confined to one goal, the themes of gender, equality and non-discrimination run through most of the targeted actions of all 17 global goals. The attainment of one goal requires an understanding of the other goals. By improving their access to sanitation and hygiene, women can at once manage menstrual hygiene with safety and dignity, have greater mobility, attend school and take steps to realize their productive potential.

Practical action, taken to scale and reinforced by the commitments of the international community, is a decided break from business as usual. Women and men are now better placed to generate a discussion on how the status quo is leading to a world that isnt responding to the needs of women and girls. They can replace add women and stir by being part of efforts to improve policy, budgets and program design. They can re-think the people who execute and implement, those who are left behind, the indicators that we use to monitor progress, which together can improve the suitability of these services, so that sanitation and hygiene is a reality for everyone, everywhere.

At WSSCC, we are committed to this principle, and are applying it in all countries where we operate, thereby informing our work on policy, advocacy and the large-scale implementation of sanitation improvement programs. We recognize the importance of empowering women and men to take control of their sanitation needs, to construct latrines, and to improve their health and well being. The approach, known as collective behavior change, builds trust, enabling women and men to promote menstrual hygiene while also contributing to efforts to end female genital mutilation and prevent child marriage.

The path of least resistance reproduces gender inequality. It is time we stop adding, and start integrating women into the work place, the policy arena and the delivery of basic services. On this International Womens Day 2017, that indeed would #BeBoldForChange.

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Women's rights are human rights, period - Huffington Post

A man who was locked out of his room at a Lower East Side shelter tried to human-fly himself over to his window by jumping off a fire escape Sunday but landed in an air shaft, police sources said.

The man survived the more than three-story fall, they said.

The victim, who lives at the Bowery Residents Committee homeless shelter on Pitt Street, jumped from a fifth-floor fire escape and landed in an air shaft between the second and first floors just after 3:30 p.m., according to police.

Staff at the scene say they were trying to un-jam the mans door for him but could not keep him from heading for the fire escape.

He was trying to human-fly to his window, a police source told the Post. He wasnt thinking very logically.

Emergency responders were able to extricate him and rushed him to Bellevue Hospital. Doctors say he is expected to survive.

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Man's 'human fly' attempt goes horribly wrong - New York Post

Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle

This house on Allston Street in the Heights, where human remains were discovered in a wall on Saturday, is shown surrounded by development on Sunday, March 5, 2017, in Houston.The house was the former residence of a 61-year-old woman, who was the last holdout in the neighborhood, refusing to sell to developers who were leveling 1930s bungalows in favor of modern apartments, She went missing in 2015. The house was foreclosed, repaired and flipped and the new owners discovered human remains inside one of the walls of the home.

This house on Allston Street in the Heights, where human remains were discovered in a wall on Saturday, is shown surrounded by development on Sunday, March 5, 2017, in Houston.The house was the former

The picture of Mary Cerruti that was on a Houston Police Department Missing Persons Unit flyer in 2015. Cerruti had last been seen in the spring of 2015. (Photo courtesy Houston Police Department)

The picture of Mary Cerruti that was on a Houston Police Department Missing Persons Unit flyer in 2015. Cerruti had last been seen in the spring of 2015. (Photo courtesy Houston Police Department)

Mary Cerruti's basket holds photos of her mother and father, Ruth and Boyd Stewart, who died 35 years ago.

Mary Cerruti's basket holds photos of her mother and father, Ruth and Boyd Stewart, who died 35 years ago.

This house on Allston Street in the Heights, where human remains were discovered in a wall on Saturday, is shown surrounded by development on Sunday, March 5, 2017, in Houston.The house was the former residence of a 61-year-old woman, who was the last holdout in the neighborhood, refusing to sell to developers who were leveling 1930s bungalows in favor of modern apartments, She went missing in 2015. The house was foreclosed, repaired and flipped and the new owners discovered human remains inside one of the walls of the home.

This house on Allston Street in the Heights, where human remains were discovered in a wall on Saturday, is shown surrounded by development on Sunday, March 5, 2017, in Houston.The house was the former

This house on Allston Street in the Heights, where human remains were discovered in a wall on Saturday, is shown surrounded by development on Sunday, March 5, 2017, in Houston.The house was the former residence of a 61-year-old woman, who was the last holdout in the neighborhood, refusing to sell to developers who were leveling 1930s bungalows in favor of modern apartments, She went missing in 2015. The house was foreclosed, repaired and flipped and the new owners discovered human remains inside one of the walls of the home.

This house on Allston Street in the Heights, where human remains were discovered in a wall on Saturday, is shown surrounded by development on Sunday, March 5, 2017, in Houston.The house was the former

Broken sheet rock lies in the front yard of a home on Allston Street after new homeowners discovered a human skeleton inside a wall Saturday, March 4, 2017. The previous owner went missing in 2015.

Broken sheet rock lies in the front yard of a home on Allston Street after new homeowners discovered a human skeleton inside a wall Saturday, March 4, 2017. The previous owner went missing in 2015.

Human remains found inside Houston house

HOUSTON - The two-bedroom, steel-blue 1930s-era home is among the last few standing next to condo towers and shiny new townhomes in Houston's Heights neighborhood.

The new owners were just moving into the 1,161-square-foot house on Saturday -- the upturned soil still fresh in a row of pink, white, yellow and purple flowers in front of the porch -- when one of them shifted a board in the attic, peered down inside a wall and saw a jumble of bones.

In the rain-soaked grass, thrown into relief by the soft glow of a single porch light, a little pile of broken sheet rock looked like just another moving-day project.

"We popped a pretty good hole in the wall," Houston Police Detective Jason Fay said.

Neighbors said the remains could belong to a woman who went missing in 2015. Mary Cerruti, 61, was last seen in February or March of 2015 and is still listed as missing, Fay said. Public records show she was the previous homeowner of the $400,000 home.

According to a post on the West Heights Coalition website, police visited the home in the summer of 2015 after receiving calls about the house, but didn't find Cerruti.

"Neighbors remain hopeful that Mary will be found alive and well," the post said.

There was nothing else in the wall but a tattered rag and a pair of red-framed eyeglasses, of the $5 drugstore variety. Animals had disturbed the skeleton.

The owners called police in the afternoon, and the medical examiner's office finished extracting the bones shortly before 7 p.m. They appeared to belong to an adult, Fay said.

The new residents left after nightfall.

They were "a little worried because they have a body in the house," Fay said. "Was it someone who was killed and stuffed in the wall, or did they accidentally pass away by ending up in the wall?" It's possible the person tripped in the attic and fell into the empty space, he said.

Mark DeBoer said the home was abandoned, the lawn overgrown, with a "for sale" sign out front, since he moved to the area a few years ago. He wondered how the new owners might be coping with their discovery.

"That sort of thing is supposed to go on the seller's disclosure," he said.

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Human remains found inside Houston house - CT Post

Theresa Brown (Abortion and a Womans Centrality, Feb. 26 Forum) uses an ectopic pregnancy to justify any abortion after five months of pregnancy, as if this were a typical reason given for all abortions. It isnt. This would be the equivalent of expelling a thousand high schoolers when one student is caught smoking in the bathroom.

Moreover, she never gives any sources when she states that pro-lifers would want the mother to die to save the child. This is just a false talking point that pro-abortion advocates have been spewing for years in the attempt to paint pro-lifers as against women. In reality, pro-lifers believe in loving the woman and the child, saving the womans life when threatened. Moreover, that does include free prenatal care, expert medical care for both mother and child, and everything from diapers to day care from over 3,200 pregnancy resource centers in America, 22 right here in our area (1.800.712.HELP).

Yes, pregnancy is, in Ms. Browns own words, a mother-child dyad. Its a mother and a child. Only a rigid pro-abortion supporter would deny that two human beings are involved in a pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancies are rare and deserve medical treatment. Killing a preborn child should be just as rare.

E.A. SVIRBEL Whitehall

More:
A pregnancy involves the lives of two human beings | Pittsburgh ... - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette