News Clips- January 13, 2017

Posted on January 13, 2017 by IJRC

The UN Security Council January 11, 2017 meeting on the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch launched its World Report 2017, a 687-page report that chronicles the situation of human rights and identifies impediments to human rights protections, such as the rise of demagogues. [Human Rights Watch]
In Israel, Palestinian citizens launched a nationwide strike in response to government demolitions of Palestinian homes on Tuesday. [Al Jazeera]
This week, indigenous rights activists in the United States protested the Trans-Pecos pipeline, which will transport fracked natural gas to Mexico, citing damage to the environment and sacred sites. [Guardian]

This week in the United States, the Obama administration approved a rule modifying privacy protections to enable the National Security Agency to share surveillance information with other intelligence agencies. [New York Times]
On Thursday, American troops entered Poland to deliver on a promise to provide protection to the region, a move that may be impacted by the next administration’s relationship with Russia. [Washington Post]
In the Philippines this week, President Duterte implemented legislation providing access to reproductive health services to impoverished women. [Washington Post]
On Wednesday, Germany approved a plan to increase its contribution to the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali by eight helicopters and 350 soldiers, bringing the total number of soldiers to 1,000. [Reuters]
In Nicaragua, President Ortega was sworn in for his third five-year term with his wife becoming the new vice president. [Al Jazeera]

This week, Germany expressed an intent to return to the European Union’s “Dublin rules,” which require refugees to file asylum in the first country they enter, after halting the practice in 2015. [Al Jazeera]
This week the United Kingdom expressed an intent to relocate lone child refugees that are facing life-threatening risks due to below freezing temperatures in camps throughout Europe. [Guardian]

On Thursday, the government of South Sudan announced that it would no longer accept the 4,000 UN peacekeepers that the country had agreed to last November on the grounds that the government is capable of protecting its citizens. [Al Jazeera]
On Tuesday, more than 30 people were killed in attacks claimed by the Taliban in Kabul, Afghanistan against an intelligence agency. [Washington Post]
On Monday, the United Nations stated that tens of thousands of people have been uprooted from central Democratic Republic of Congo in the last few months due to ongoing conflict between the government and a militia group. [Reuters]
According to data collected by the Guardian’s project The Counted, racial inequities continue to pervade police killings in the United States with young black males nine times as likely to be killed. [Guardian]
Last Friday, Russia initiated a move to reduce its military presence in Syria as a part of the ceasefire deal with the Syrian government and opposition groups. [Reuters]

On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights found in its Chamber judgment that a mandatory co-ed swim course and a fine for not attending it did not violate the right to religious freedom of the parents of two Muslim girls seeking an exemption from the program. [Human Rights Europe]
On Monday the Lahore High Court in Pakistan ordered the government and the National Database and Registration Authority to count and include transgender populations in the 2017 census, which could affect an estimated 500,000 people in the country. [Reuters]
On Monday, Hissène Habré, the former president of Chad, began his appeal to refute his conviction for the war crimes and crimes against humanity of summary execution, torture, and rape handed down by a special court in May of last year. [Guardian]