Category Archives: Post Human

Accountability key to achieving sustainable development goals, UN human rights experts stress

GENEVA (26 JANUARY 2015 ) The post-2015 sustainable development goals currently being debated by the international community must be anchored firmly in international human rights standards and backed by strong means of ensuring accountability for meeting them, leading UN human rights experts have stressed.

We welcome the emphasis placed on accountability and call for this to be strengthened, the Chairpersons of the 10 Treaty Bodies, the expert committees that oversee implementation by States of the core international human rights treaties, said in a statement.

Their call was issued as UN Member States started discussions to finalise the draft set of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) that will frame agendas and policies over the next 15 years, and which will be put forward for adoption by Heads of State at a UN Summit in New York in September 2015.

The Chairpersons urge Member States to reinforce the alignment of the SDGs with human rights. Their concrete recommendations include strengthening the reference to protecting fundamental freedoms (Goal 16, target 16.10) by explicitly referring to freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly.

Read the full statement here: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15505&LangID=E

The Chairpersons statement stresses that there should be reliable and validated means of measuring progress in meeting development goals, based on disaggregated data. In addition, progress should also be measured in terms of how fundamental rights and freedoms are being protected.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for there to be a robust and participatory monitoring and review framework for the SDGs at the national, regional and global level, said Malcolm Evans, Chairperson of the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture and current head of the Treaty Body Chairpersons group. We strongly support this and urge Member States to build upon the principles and inclusive working methods of the Treaty Bodies, as well as other existing human rights mechanisms such as the Universal Periodic Review.

The statement also highlights the important role to be played by the private sector in achieving the SDGs, and the importance of ensuring private sector accountability.

The work of the Treaty Bodies regarding corporate sector accountability is highly relevant here. For example, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have issued guidance regarding the impact and obligations of business, said Mr Evans.

Read the rest here:
Accountability key to achieving sustainable development goal

Hello friends. My name is Higgs and I am a male mammal of the species felis catus. I have previously written for Philly.com, Parade.com and other news outlets. I am pictured below.

My favorite topics include evolution, philosophy, and particle physics. Ive also traditionally been tasked with keeping track of reader responses, and I was particularly intrigued by this question:

Heres a good topic: The dangers of sleeping with pets in ones own bed and other close encounters with them. I gave up dog sitting for friends after I came down with Lyme disease. These dogs were spoiled in my care, being allowed to sniff as much as they wanted on their walks and to sleep on my bed.. after getting Lyme disease, which may or may not have been the result of taking care of these animals, I decided to give up this fun activity. Was I wrong? What other possible dangers exist in being too chummy with pets?

Thank you for being a reader and for sending this very interesting query on the safety of sleeping with animals of other species.

As it turns out, there has been research directly addressing your concern, but the experts are divided on how to interpret the results. The most widely cited research paper was published by the Centers for Disease Control in 2011. The main author, Bruno Chomel, a professor at the University of California School of Veterinary Medicine, warns that after sleeping with companion animals, people can acquire so-called zoonotic diseases (i.e. diseases that come from other animals). There have been cases of cat scratch fever, antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections and even bubonic plague (from fleas).

Dr. Chomel has been widely quoted saying he does not recommend that humans share a bed with non-human animals.

Other experts are not convinced the risk is so dire. While this seriousness of the diseases can sound alarming, cases of transmission by this route are pretty rare. I thought this New York Times story helped balance the risks with the potential benefits of warm blooded creatures sleeping together. Slumbering the night away together can be pleasant and may offer psychological benefits for everyone. Also, its considerably warmer in the human bed than in my cat bed on the floor.

In Dr. Chomels paper, he notes that the bacterial diseases, such as MRSA, tended to come from animals with the habit of licking as a sign of affection. I would never show affection this way. As a cat, such behavior is not my style.

It should also be noted that since the disease research is conducted by a human animal, it is rather one-sided in that it does not properly address the risks I may face. I live in an urban environment and stay indoors. The humans Im exposed to are indoor-outdoor animals and I dont know what germs they may pick up traipsing around outside. My human friend goes out and sometimes pets d*gs. If fleas or ticks are introduced to our home, I should not be blamed.

Read more from the original source:
Guest Post: The Health Risks (And Benefits) Of Sharing A Bed With Non-Human Animals

Five times a week, Bullet Man Ruben Mariani is fired from a cannon to entertain the crowd at Circo Mundial, one of Portugals largest circuses. Photographer Francisco Salgueirocaptured the exciting moment forCircus Life, an ongoing project that takes us back stage at Portugals25 traveling circuses.

Mariani is the only human cannonball in the country, and has been performing the tricksince 2010. Hes flown through the air some 1,200 times since then. Though he makes it seem routine, the dangers are endless.

Ruben is being shot at around 75 mph and the cannon must have the correct elevation and angle. At the end of the tent there is a net held by circus personnel. If the angle and elevation arent right he might miss the net. This is danger number one, Salgueiro explains. Danger number two: As soon as he touches the net he must do a perfect somersault, then roll down about 30 to 50 feet until he reaches the ground. Danger number three: If the button for him to be shot out of the cannon doesnt work, he cant climb off the cannon because if there is a malfunction, the mechanism could jump start and break his legs or worse.

Marianis never been seriously injured, which is somewhat abnormal in the circus biz. Salgueiro says many performers suffer dozens of broken bones falling fromropes and trapezes.

While attempting to make the perfect pictureof Marianis spectacular but brief flight, Salgueiro found itdifficult to successfully capture himin the frame. Beyond the speed with which the human cannonball flies, the timing of his ejection from the cannon isnt always exact. There is a countdown to Marianis exit, but sometimes its as many as five seconds off. Since Salgueiro was shooting raw files in burst mode and could make just six photos at a timethe difference of a few seconds could easily mean missing the moment. Salgueiro barely managed to capture the frame seen above,as it was the last of the six in his camera.

In the last year, Salgueiro has made 70 trips documenting life under the big top, but still finds he has more to explore.

Although I have visited all the circuses that operate in Portugal, this is an ongoing project because every time I visit a circus there is always a new story to be told, he says.

More here:
What Life Is Like as a Human Cannonball

Z for Zachariah, just your ordinary every day post-apocalyptic love triangle flick, is one of those Sundance entries thats all subtext and lingering glances and atmospherics and call it Z for Zzzzzz.

This dull, slow movie represents a major step back for director Craig Zobel, who looked like he was ready for the big time with his deeply unsettling Compliance a couple of years ago. The new one is, Im afraid, though competently executed, pretty much a waste of time.margo

But its a step up for the hugely talented 24-year-old Australian Margot Robbie, by far the best element of Wolf of Wall Street, who this time does an Appalachian accent as a farmgirl living alone in a valley that is naturally insulated from the effects of a nuclear disaster that seems to have wiped out nearly all of humanity.

She gets by setting traps and farming a bit, but she has no electricity and seemingly no prospects for storing enough food to get her through a winter.

A drifter named Loomis (Chiwetel Ejiofor) happens by, and she saves him from the effects of taking a bath in a radioactive waterfall (you can scrub radiation right off your skin, like coal dust? I did not know this).

Hes harboring a secret, plus hes literally the last man on Earth, so the two fall in love. Except they dont; shes mad for him, but he keeps her at a distance.

When a second wanderer, Caeb (Chris Pine) comes by (both men happened to be underground when the nuclear event occurred), the way seems to be clear for her to hook up with Caleb, and Loomis even tells her its okay with him. Yall be white people together, he says, in virtually the only witty line in the script.

It turns out that her fathers church has to be ripped apart in order for Loomis, an engineer to make a mill thatll provide hydroelectricity and get the lights turned back on, and the chief dramatic energy of the film comes from her holding onto, then finally letting go of, her fathers legacy in order to save her life.

The love triangle, though, is a wet firecracker: Ejiofor is a good actor but hes miscast here; he isnt a romantic lead, and at no time does Loomis (who has a bizarre and pointless drunk scene) seem particularly interested in her, though Robbie does a very sensitive portrayal of a woman desperate for a human connection.

The ambiguous and unexplained final minutes essentially amount to a giant shrug that leaves the audience walking out of the theater wondering what the point of it all was. Well, the point is that Robbie is a major star in the making, but we already knew that.

Here is the original post:
Z for Zachariah is a post-apocalyptic snoozefest

Editor's Note: The Kyiv Post is not publishing the most graphic videos of human rights abuses and war crimes allegedly committed by the Kremlin-backed fighters waging war in eastern Ukraine.

Extremely graphic video and photographic material appeared on a number of Kremlin-backed separatist websites showing evidence of torture and evidence of war crimes being committed against captured Ukrainian soldiers.

Kremlin mercenaries, often led by the Russian army, have seized more ground in the eastern Donbas region in recent takes, taking over the Donetsk Airport and a Ukrainian forces checkpoint in thevillage of Krasny Partizan,close to Horlivka in Donetsk Oblast on Jan. 23.

Shortly afterwards, a separatist information agency released a video showing the abandoned building of the checkpoint, a torn Ukrainian flag and the bodies of Ukrainian servicemen on the roadside.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Kremlin separatists show bodies of Ukrainian servicemen after taking over a checkpoint in the village of Krasny Partizan.

Earlier, the Kremlin's Aleksander Zakharchenko, who heads the separatist fighters in Donets, promised on Jan 20 to pay tribute to Ukrainian soldiers because they fought worthily We respect them as an enemy for their heroism and courage.

In reality, the mercenaries show little mercy to captured and killed servicemen. Close-up footage shows piled bodies of Ukrainian troops with insulting, humiliating comments by the separatists.

Another video that popped up on YouTube on Jan. 24 showed 12 captured Ukrainian soldiers, mostly from Dnipropetrovsk and Kryvyi Rih, sitting outside the building with their hands tied. At least two of them are severely wounded with signs of torture and four other killed. The video was actively shared in social networks and was viewed more than 271,000 times.

The separatists ask the soldiers whether they have children and wives.During the questioning one of them says he doesn't have his own family. "There's only my old mother," the soldier answers. "Old mother? Well, then we can shoot him," says one of the fighters. Then the video shows the scene of the dead Ukrainian servicemanlying on the groundwith his head blown up. "Maybe hismother will recognize him," one of the separatist says.

See the rest here:
Kremlin's mercenaries post videos of captive Ukrainian soldiers; human rights activists charge war crimes committed ...

26 January 2015 As United Nations Member States start discussions to finalize the post-2015 development agenda, 10 top UN human rights experts have today stressed the need to anchor the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in international human rights standards and to ensure that strong means for ensuring accountability are employed to make sure they are met.

We welcome the emphasis placed on accountability and call for this to be strengthened, said a statement issued by the Chairpersons of 10 UN human rights treaty bodies as Member States began negotiating the framework for setting plans and policies to achieve sustainable development over the next 15 years.

The statement collected the views of the:

They urge Member States to ensure that the goals they put forward for adoption at a UN summit in New York in September 2015 reinforce the alignment of the goals with human rights. Their concrete recommendations include strengthening the reference to protecting fundamental freedoms by explicitly referring to freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly in proposed goal 16.

In the new goals, reliable and validated means for measuring progress in meeting all the goals should be provided, and based on disaggregated data. In addition, progress should be measured in terms of how fundamental rights and freedoms are being protected.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for there to be a robust and participatory monitoring and review framework for the SDGs at the national, regional and global level, said Malcolm Evans, Chairperson of the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture and current head of the Treaty Body Chairpersons group. We strongly support this and urge Member States to build upon the principles and inclusive working methods of the Treaty Bodies, as well as other existing human rights mechanisms such as the Universal Periodic Review.

The statement also highlights the important role to be played by the private sector in achieving the SDGs, and the importance of ensuring private sector accountability.

The work of the treaty bodies regarding corporate sector accountability is highly relevant here. For example, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have issued guidance regarding the impact and obligations of business, said Mr Evans.

The treaty body Chairpersons also said they would encourage their Committees to consider the impact of development goals on the enjoyment of the rights in their respective treaties, and draw on development data and reports in their dialogues with States.

Link:
UN experts say post-2015 negotiations must emphasize human rights, accountability

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we can track just about any superficial health metric imaginable: Our steps, our sleep, the number of beers we drink, the number of gym classes we miss because of those beers. Is it just me, or should we be sick of ourselves by now?

If this is the age of the quantified self, tomorrow very well could be the age of the quantified other. Why stop at evaluating yourself when you could measure, chart and optimize your relationships with the people around you, too? The thought is a little unnerving, but its not unrealistic. The new app pplkproffers a provocative glimpse of what this future might look like: It helps optimize your social life, automatically sending messages and using data to determine whos worth spending time with.

Developed by artists Lauren McCarthy and Kyle McDonald, pplkpr lets you quantify the value of your relationships based on a few data streams. A heart rate wrist band measures the subtle changes in your heart rate, alerting you to spikes in stress or excitement. This biometric data is correlated with information you manually input about the people youre hanging out with. Based on patterns, algorithms will determine whether you should be spending more time with a certain person or if you should cut himout altogether.

Follow this link:
Having a Hard Time Being a Human? This App Manages Friendships for You

Posted on January 25, 2015

Participants make their way up South 3rd Street during the Mercy Project of Washington's 2nd Annual Anti-Trafficking Awareness Walk at Millennium Plaza in Yakima, Wash. Saturday, January 24, 2015. (MASON TRINCA/Yakima Herald-Republic)

YAKIMA, Wash. Barbara Justis says she was taken from her home at the age of 5 and sold for sex until she was 22. Now 46 and living in Yakima, Justis says the healing only began in recent years.

Click to Watch Attached Video

If you go

What: Human Trafficking Education Forum

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Eisenhower High School auditorium

Cost: Free

Sharing her story through tears with about 60 people gathered at Millennium Plaza in downtown Yakima to bring awareness to the human trafficking epidemic, Justis said putting an end to the sex trade starts with building a community that cares about victims.

View post:
Human trafficking advocates stand up for silent victims (photos/video)

Posted on January 25, 2015

Participants make their way up South 3rd Street during the Mercy Project of Washington's 2nd Annual Anti-Trafficking Awareness Walk at Millennium Plaza in Yakima, Wash. Saturday, January 24, 2015. (MASON TRINCA/Yakima Herald-Republic)

YAKIMA, Wash. Barbara Justis says she was taken from her home at the age of 5 and sold for sex until she was 22. Now 46 and living in Yakima, Justis says the healing only began in recent years.

Click to Watch Attached Video

If you go

What: Human Trafficking Education Forum

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Eisenhower High School auditorium

Cost: Free

Sharing her story through tears with about 60 people gathered at Millennium Plaza downtown to draw awareness to human trafficking, Justis said putting an end to the sex trade starts with building a community that cares about victims.

Read this article:
Human trafficking a local issue, advocates say

Pyongyang, January 23 (KCNA) -- The U.S. and other forces hostile toward the DPRK have worked desperately to do harm to the DPRK by internationalizing and dramatizing its "human rights" issue only to suffer a bitter setback.

"Defector from the north" Sin Tong Hyok whom the U.S. called "a figure symbolic of fierce fight against human rights abuses" and put forward as a stooge in its "human rights" racket admitted his crimes. Sin let loose a whole gamut of slanders and lies while working as a key "testifier" at a time when the "report of the Commission of Inquiry (CI)" on the human rights situation in the DPRK was worked out. The report was used as a key document for "human rights resolution" against the DPRK that was railroaded through a session of the UN General Assembly later last year.

Sin admitted that he told lies and said he would withdraw from the "anti-DPRK human rights campaign."

That meant the total bankruptcy of the U.S. vicious anti-DPRK "human rights" campaign.

The DPRK already made it clear that the "report of the CI" and UN "human rights resolution" were false documents based on testimonies made by those who fled the DPRK after committing crimes.

The undeniable validity of the DPRK's assertion was proved by the confession of Sin, who played a key role in offering false data.

As already known, Sin deserted his parents and motherland, raped a minor and he is the worst crook who used false name and forged his personal history.

He, talking about a "concentration camp of political offenders" which does not exist in the DPRK, tried to give impression that he survived there, a height of hypocrisy and a challenge to justice and truth.

No wonder, an American journalist who authored a book about the non-existent "concentration camp of political offenders" in the DPRK based on the plausible testimonies made by Sin lamented his act in an article contributed to The Washington Post in the wake of Sin's confession.

What matters is that the U.S. shielded such an imbecile.

See the original post:
KCNA Commentary Demands Nullification of All False "Human Rights" Documents against DPRK