By Brian Bonci
At the United Nations, senior officials today drew attention to laws around the world which discriminate against LGBT people, and called for equality and the repeal of such laws.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced this week a windfall of $1.6 billion dollars in additional funding available over the next two years. The statement points to “strategic decisions made by the Board,” including cutting staff by a surprising 7.4 percent. The new amount also includes a combined billion dollars in donations from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Japan.
By Kthi Win
Plenery speech by Kaythi Win, Chairperson of Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers, at Association of Women in Development Forum forum in Istanbul on April 21, 2012. See the exciting video here.
Hello everybody,
I am Kthi Win from Myanmar and I am a sex worker. I manage a national organization for female, male & transgender sex workers in Burma & I am also the chairperson of the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers. Until now, organizing anything in Myanmar has been very difficult. And people ask, “how did you set up a national program for sex workers?” And my answer to them is “Our work is illegal. Every night we manage to earn money without getting arrested by the police. We used to work and organize together, so we use this knowledge in order to work out how we can set up the National Network without making the government angry”.
This topic is about transforming economic power. I want to say to you, that when a woman makes the decision to sell sex, she has already made the decision to empower herself economically. What we do in organizing sex workers, is we build on the power that the sex worker has already taken for herself – the decision to not be poor.
By Kevin Woods & Tom Kramer
Contrary to official rhetoric China’s opium crop substitution program has very little to do with providing mechanisms to decrease reliance on poppy cultivation or provide alternative livelihoods for ex-poppy growers.
This week the Transnational Institute published a comprehensive report documenting new developments at the Chinese Burmese border.They find that China’s opium crop substitution program has very little to do with providing mechanisms to decrease reliance on poppy cultivation or provide alternative livelihoods for ex-poppy growers. They call for investments related to opium substitution to be carried out in a more sustainable, transparent, accountable, and equitable fashion
You can read the whole report here or read on for the Executive Summary.
1.
[China Dialogue] What the smog can’t conceal
(English)
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/4734-What-the-smog-can-t-conceal-
(Chinese)
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/ch/4734-What-the-smog-can-t-conceal-
Since
the autumn, a series of polluted “hazes” in cities across China –
and discussion of that now ubiquitous term for fine particulate
matter, PM2.5 – have attracted widespread public attention. So too
has the official response: while urban air pollution fast became a
focus of public anger, the Ministry of Environmental Protection
(MEP), which is responsible for monitoring air quality, took the
opportunity to show its sluggish and bureaucratic side.
2.
[Blog | New Yorker] The Chinese View of
SOPA
https://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2012/01/the-chinese-view-of-sopa.html
In
China, the reaction to American protests has ranged from sympathy to
gentle Schadenfreude. A commentator known as Dr. Zhang wrote on
Weibo, the Twitter-like micro-blogging site: “I’ve come up with a
perfect solution: You can come to China to download all your pirated
media, and we’ll go to America to discuss politically sensitive
subjects.”
