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	Land Grabs and Human Rights Violations exposed in Liberia by All Africa   February 2013   Monrovia — Palm oil companies are grabbing more than 1.5 million acres of land in Liberia and are violating the human rights of local communities, warn Liberian NGOs including Friends of the Earth Liberia (SDI - Sustainable Development Institute), Save My Future Foundation (SAMFU) and Social Entrepreneurs for Sustainable Development (SESDev).   On the eve of a United Nations meeting in Liberia, that will discuss a new global development framework, Friends of the Earth International is backing the local NGOs demands - including renegotiation of contracts for land concessions and a reassessment of the Liberian agricultural development strategy on which these concessions are based.   Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby and Indonesian Golden Veloreum have entered into long term land leases with the Liberian Government.   Investigations into Sime Darby"s operations reveal that communities located in the areas allocated to the company had little warning or consultation of this land grab. Many of the inhabitants, especially women, say they have lost their farms and food sources, livelihoods, as well as culturally sacred sites to oil palm plantations.   An analysis of the contracts between the Liberian Government and the Asian companies demonstrates they are likely to be violating several Human Rights conventions ratified by Liberia.   "Giving away land for large scale plantations is hailed as promoting the economic recovery of Liberia but in reality these plantations undermine Liberia"s basic food security and cause poverty when livelihoods are lost.   Therefore allowing these plantations contradicts the Liberian Government"s own policies on reducing poverty and preventing hunger", says SDI campaigner Silas Kpanan Ayoung Siakor.   "Allocating large swathes of fertile agricultural land to foreign companies for several decades will push people further into poverty, as local income generating activities are curtailed and peoples earning capacities become limited", he adds.   Civil society organisations are also concerned about large scale conversion of primary and secondary forest to palm oil plantations as Sime Darby expands into Gbarpolu county. They are demanding a halt to any further planting and further deforestation and environmental degradation in any of the concession areas.   "Forests have environmental benefits and provide multiple livelihood sources for the people, which they have now lost. Employment from the plantations is insecure; low- paid and does not contribute to sustaining livelihoods in the long term.   Instead, local communities want the Liberian government and the palm oil companies to recognise their ownership of community land", says SAMFU campaigner Robert Nyahn.   The UN High Level panel meeting in Monrovia brings together political leaders from around the world, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, to discuss development goals especially in Africa.   Friends of the Earth Liberia will be present at this meeting to question the suitability of large scale land concessions as a development strategy in Liberia.   Sime Darby claims that it upholds international human rights standards and voluntary guidelines such as the UN Global Compact of which the company is a signatory.   However, in its operations in Liberia, Sime Darby is violating several principles of the Global Compact as well as OECD Guidelines for Multinational Companies.   Feb 2013   World Bank Foresters Ignore Independent Evaluation and Pledge to Carry On Logging the World"s Rainforests. (Global Witness)   An independent evaluation leaked earlier this week found that the World Bank"s support for the logging of tropical rainforests is failing in its key aims of preventing their destruction and addressing rural poverty. But, according to sources in the Bank, its forestry department is refusing to reconsider its approach, is lobbying the Board hard to avoid being held accountable for its failures, and has stated its intention to continue supporting tropical forest logging.   "The World Bank"s evaluation confirms what has long been obvious - cutting down trees on an industrial scale is not the way to preserve the world"s remaining tropical forests or help the people that live in them." said Rick Jacobsen, Head of International Forest Policy at Global Witness. "When Bank Board members meet on Monday to decide next steps, they need to act on the evaluation"s findings and demand that the Bank pursue alternatives to industrial logging in tropical forests that better help the poor and preserve forests."   Over the years, the World Bank has supported the expansion of industrial logging in some of the world"s most important and endangered rainforests in countries such as Cambodia, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, and Liberia. In Cambodia, Congo and Liberia this prompted formal complaints from communities living in the forests that the Bank was harming their livelihoods. Two inspections by the Bank"s own ombudsman found that Bank staff had breached multiple safeguard policies meant to protect vulnerable people and the environment.   "The Bank"s foresters remain in denial and resistant to all efforts to hold them accountable to the people whose interests they are supposed to serve. In the meantime, the evidence continues to pile up that industrial logging in tropical forests mainly benefits a few international logging companies and corrupt government officials," said Rick Jacobsen. "Increasingly, scientific research is revealing that the decades-old dogma about the benefits of industrial logging is more about politics than science, and is certainly not backed up by the reality on the ground. The Bank and its member governments have avoided this reality for too long; now they need to take action."   The review of the Bank"s forestry programmes that Board members are examining on Monday was carried out by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), an independent evaluations division of the World Bank that reports directly to the Bank"s Executive Directors. The IEG reviewers visited many of the countries where the Bank is pursuing forestry programmes and reached a series of damning conclusions. As well as criticising the outcomes of the Bank"s support for industrial-scale logging in the tropics, the IEG faults Bank programmes for failing to involve local people, tackle rural poverty or recognise the risk - which virtually always manifests itself - that the financial returns from logging will be gobbled up by powerful and corrupt interests.   Feb 2013   South Africa: New Minimum Farm Wage Set. (SAPA)   Cape Town — The new minimum wage for farmworkers is R105 a day, Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant has announced. The new rate, R36 more than the current minimum wage of R69 a day, would take effect from March 1.   "The new minimum wage... is R105 per day for employees who work nine hours a day, or R11.66 per hour, R525 weekly, or R2274.82 per month," Oliphant told reporters in Pretoria.   This new sectoral determination would be promulgated for a three-year period, "and... during year two and three, wages will be increased by CPI... plus 1.5 percent."   The labour minister"s announcement followed countrywide public hearings on a new minimum wage for the agriculture sector, prompted by violent protests across parts of the Western Cape.   Farm workers in the region have demanded a R150 a day minimum wage.   12 January 2012   Eritrean Refugees Kidnapped, Killed - UNHCR Chief.   Eritrean refugees are being kidnapped and sometimes killed by human traffickers, the head of the UN"s refugee agency said in Sudan on Thursday, calling for global action against the crimes.   The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, spoke after a tour of the Shagarab refugee camp which receives about 2,000 asylum-seekers every month, largely from neighbouring Eritrea where many have fled military service.   "Taking profit of the desperate situation of many Eritreans that are leaving the country we have now a network, a criminal network, of smugglers and traffickers," Guterres told reporters.   "People are kidnapped for ransom," and in Egypt"s Sinai peninsula where some end up, they have been "killed for the traffic of organs", he said.   To deal with the "extremely serious" problem, the UNHCR will work with Sudanese authorities and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), an intergovernmental body, to strengthen local police with additional vehicles, computers and other equipment, Guterres said.   "This is not only a problem of Sudan" because the gangs are global, he added, and countering their "very lucrative" activity requires combined action by different governments.   UNHCR is seeking $2 million from donors for its joint project with the IOM to research the trafficking and kidnapping issue, improve security in the refugee camps and develop local authorities ability to deal with the problem.   Young migrants are turning to illegal transportation by smugglers to reach the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the Middle East or Europe, where they hope to find greater opportunities, UNHCR said in a briefing paper.   But the agency said it received "numerous reports" last year of refugees and others being held for thousands of dollars in ransom.   "They"re being taken through the country by criminal groups and subject to kidnapping. This is happening here in the east of Sudan regularly," said Felix Ross, the UNHCR"s senior protection officer.   "Daily, human trafficking is happening here," one Eritrean refugee told AFP. Visit the related web page
	2013 Annual Report on Global Trends for Human Rights Defenders by Front Line Defenders   Front Line Defenders has released its fourth Annual Report on Global Challenges facing Human Rights Defenders around the World in 2012.   The report explores the situation on both the global and regional level including several countries examined in focus namely: Burundi, Vietnam, Guatemala Kazakhstan and Algeria. It highlights the ''unabated'' targeting of human rights defenders for their work documenting abuses, exposing corruption, or pushing for reform.   “The attacks and killings highlighted in this report are only the tip of the iceberg. In many countries the government has either shut down the local media, subjected human rights organisations to campaigns of intimidation or tried to silence those brave enough to bring the facts to international attention” said Front Line Defenders Executive Director Mary Lawlor.   The report highlights: 24 killings of HRDs in 2012; Physical Attacks on HRDs reported in 28 countries across all regions: Attacks on LGBTI human rights defenders in Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Kyrgyzstan, Russian Federation, South Africa, Uganda, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe.   Restrictive legislation passed or under discussion in Algeria, Azerbaijan, Burundi, China, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Lithuania, Moldova, Russian Federation, and Ukraine.   Judicial harassment reported in nearly 40 countries.   Information technology laws used against those expressing dissent or circulating information on human rights abuses, in particular in Asia and the Middle East.   Reprisals for cooperating with international human rights bodies were reported by HRDs in Bahrain, Belarus, Colombia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, and Sri Lanka.   “The facts speak for themselves”, said Ms Lawlor “The sad reality is that while governments proclaim support for human rights and their respect for the work of human rights defenders in international fora, in practice, human rights defenders face a daily struggle for survival”, added Ms Lawlor.   This report shows how the safe space in which human rights defenders work is consistently shrinking, while their personal credibility is attacked through state sponsored defamation campaigns in which they are routinely portrayed as agents of western/foreign interests.   The introduction of restrictive legislation which limits both their work and their ability to source international funding is increasingly used to hamper their work.   The Report highlights the alarmingly high number of killings of human rights defenders and the fact that Front Line Defenders alone has documented physical attacks on human rights defenders in 28 countries and 24 killings of human rights defenders.   Conditions for human rights defenders in Africa, Asia and the Middle East continue to be worrying while the report finds that that in many countries in Europe and Central Asia the situation has actually deteriorated.   On the regional level many countries in Africa have seen a series of disturbing ongoing trends including physical violence, and impunity for perpetrators. As noted in the report the murder of two LGBTI rights defenders Thapelo Makhutle in South Africa and Maurice Mjomba in Tanzania illustrate these risks.   Such impunity is also commonly seen in the Americas alongside a common trend, the use, region-wide, of fabricated criminal charges such as those that have resulted in an 18-year prison sentence for Colombian human rights defender David Rabelo Crespo.   Asia has seen the continued usage of smear campaigns against human rights defenders branding them as ''enemies of the state or as working for foreign interests''. One example of such a case can be seen in India with the branding of P.V. Rajagopal, Vice Chairman of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, as a ''Maoist sympathiser''.   The situation in Europe and Central Asia is characterised by the increasing use in many countries of legislation to curb the activities of human rights defenders. This is particularly evident in the Russian Federation with a swathe of legislation being implemented including a law designating NGO''s in receipt of foreign funding as ''foreign agents''.   Finally in the Middle East and North Africa region the report confirms the fears of ''limited real change'' despite the events of the Arab Spring that ''gave hope to thousands of people in virtually every country in the region''.   In Bahrain in particular almost all of the most vocal human rights defenders were in detention at year''s end including former Front line Defenders staff member Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja.   The Report is based on Front Line Defenders'' work in support of human rights defenders at risk. In 2012, Front Line Defenders issued 287 urgent appeals on 460 human rights defenders at risk in 69 countries; it provided 267 security grants and trained 358 human rights defenders.   Overall, more than 1150 HRDs benefited from Front Line Defenders’ protection support in 2012. 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