Human Rights Glance
George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, plans to announce on Tuesday that he is giving $100 million to Human Rights Watch to expand the organization’s work globally. It is the largest gift he has made, the largest gift by far that Human Rights Watch has ever received, and only the second gift of $100 million or more made by an individual this year, according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.
“We’re seeing noticeably fewer charitable gifts at the $100 million level from individuals reported than we did just a few years ago,” said Patrick Rooney, the center’s executive director. “Between 2006 and 2008, an average of about 13 gifts a year of that size by individuals was reported. In 2009, it dropped to six, and this year, we know of only one other.”
A federal judge has agreed with the government that it can indefinitely hold at Guantánamo an Afghan man whom military intelligence says belonged to an anti-American cell near Kandahar. Judge John Bates' ruling, his first on a Guantánamo habeas corpus petition, left the so-called government win-loss scorecard at 16-38 in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
A report from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (Acri) found that violent confrontations between Jewish residents and their Palestinian neighbours had risen rapidly, but that Israeli police have largely ignored Palestinian complaints.
A month and a half has gone by since the doctor told Khaleda Jarrar she needed an urgent brain examination. Early tests were worrisome, but more information was needed to make an exact diagnosis. But Jarrar has not yet undergone the examination. And she knows, as do her partner and friends, the significance of each day of delay. During all the waiting, it's clear who the uber-doctor is who makes decisions about the health of the Palestinians, and the uber-doctor is not in a hurry.
In what authorities call the largest human-trafficking case in U.S. history, a federal grand jury in Honolulu this week indicted the owner and four employees of Global Horizons Manpower Inc., along with two Thai labor recruiters, on charges of engaging in a conspiracy to coerce the labor of those workers and about 400 other Thai nationals.
An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.
Last week nearly 60 theater professionals announced they would refuse to perform at new cultural center built in West Bank settlement of Ariel.The actors' boycott of the new Ariel cultural center received a boost yesterday with over 150 academics and several dozen authors and artists signing letters in their support.
