OHCHR dialogue on treaty body reform
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is hosting a five-week dialogue on treaty body reform and proposals for a unified standing treaty body
Reconstruction of Earthquake Affected Areas
50% of this housing stock has collapsed and another twenty per cent has been badly damaged, over 500,000 housing units will have to be rebuilt or repaired in a manner that can withstand future earthquakes. A proper re-building of homes is not possible before winter ends. What can be done in the winter months?
Pakistan: World fails to grasp scale of disaster
World body’s relief official says scale of calamity beyond capacity of any country; much more needs to be done: 2,000 villages yet to be reached
Global Fundisation and Mass Privatisation of Housing
Tenants’ rights, jobs, the structure of the neighbourhoods are under pressure. By large steps the traditionally large portion of rental housing within German housing stock gets reduced. However, even the large sales of the last years only build the prelude to a much larger wave of sales and
privatisation, which massively gets influenced by the increasing role international Private Equity Funds
Iraq’s catastrophe after the U.S. occupation
It has been proved to the whole world that the United States-led invasion of Iraq had no legal justification. At its “Social Production of Habitat” workshop and in General Assembly, in Cairo, September 2005, HIC members meet for the first time in the Middle East/North Africa region and learned of the special circumstances that affect habitat and human settlement issues across the region. Among the eloquent reminders was the address by Dr. Hazim Alluhebe, director of the HIC member organization, Human Rights and Immigration Bureau (Baghdad, Iraq). The text of his intervention is reproduced here.
South Asia Earthquake
South Asia tremor must reinforce resolve to work towards development of safe housing standards, Rights Expert says. According to recent estimates, the earthquake has resulted in more than 35,000 deaths and over 50,000 injured in northern Pakistan and India. These estimates are expected to rise with the clearance of debris and rubble from collapsed buildings, often in remote areas. Statement was issued by Miloon Kothari to the Commission on Human Rights.
A Pathetic Scroll of Honour
After the pathetic answer of the UN-Habitat offices, without any substantial agumentation, the friends of UPC answer: We also could not find any reasonable relations between "UN-HABITAT projects of some US$25 million under the post-tsunami reconstruction" with the award for Jakarta, as the tsunami happened in Aceh, Sumatera. After learning from the great effort carried out by UN Habitat on post-tsunami reconstruction, we could come to the conclusion that the scroll of honor should not go to the city of Jakarta but to UN Habitat itself.
Feminism in Democracies: Can the rules of the game be changed?
“Feminist political practices have advanced, critical analysis in current debates and deliberations among feminists of the region have not reflected the challenges posed by these political practices. Greater effort is needed to revise feminist thought,” say the organizers of the 10th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter in Brazil. More than 1250 feminists from 26 countries of the region congregated to rethink feminism and its challenges.
Motion of rejection to the steel factory in the city of San Luis, Maranhao, Brazil
Such undertaking affects more than 3500 families that will be evicted for the said factory, violating the Right to Housing of several traditional communities of the island.
III World Urban Forum in Vancouver, June 2006
The III World Urban Forum will gather over ten thousand people to debate ideas and topics related with urban development in the context of globalization.
Louisiana Coalition Demands Voice in Rebuilding
The coalition was formed to ensure that the hundreds of thousands of Louisiana's displaced working families have a voice in the efforts to rebuild the gulf coast states devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
Colombia: For Millions, Nowhere Left to Run
Forced off their ancestral land by right-wing paramilitaries, leftist guerillas and the army, more than a million people have arrived in Colombia's cities in search of jobs and housing, but are getting little help from the government, say United Nations officials and development activists working there.