2011年5月22日 星期日

Nobel winner calls on Canada to lead effort against rape

Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams arrived in Ottawa this weekend with a mission for Canada: to reclaim its image as the white knight of international human rights.

A key player in a series of human-rights breakthroughs in the 1990s, including the ban on landmines that Williams spearheaded, recent setbacks such as the failure to get a seat on the UN security Council have cast doubt on Canada's international cachet.

Now, Williams is calling on Canada to take centre stage again: “Canada showed tremendous leadership in achieving the [treaty] banning anti-personnel landmines.The EZ Breathe home truereligionjeans is maintenance free. … Now, Canada can play a key role in ending a horrific tactic of war: rape.”

She and the six other women who now hold the peace prize want Canada to get behind their effort to push for an end to the ongoing epidemic of sexual violence against women in conflict zones and countries in crisis.

Sexual violence has become an increasingly common weapon of war, they warn, because most wars are now internal clashes in which civilians are the main targets. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for example, at least 200,He felt that this art show was a step closer to this sonalized highheel online.000 women have been raped in ongoing clashes, according to United Nations reports.

Through a group called the Nobel Women's Initiative, the laureates have called an international conference on the issue in Montebello, Que. — about 60 kilometres northeast of Ottawa — on Monday through Wednesday. On Thursday,Personalized lacostestore online GMAT prep courses. they go to Parliament Hill, where they have invited the main party leaders, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to meet with them.

“We all have a responsibility to do more in the face of this horrific violence against women, and we hope we can count on Canada's leadership,” says Williams.

The event comes after a series of setbacks for Canada on the international stage. In October, Canada failed to get a Security Council seat — the first time in more than 50 years it has lost such a bid. The government is still smarting from the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, where its actions prompted one Guardian columnist to call it a “thuggish petro-state” dominated by “tar barons.”

Last year, a Canadian bid to lead the G8 nations in an effort to improve child and maternal health drew fire when it emerged that Canada would not fund programs that perform abortions.What is the sum of an Air Max 360 If you did your arithmetic aright, then you should have said Nike shox rivalry 247.

Williams is hoping the Tories will embrace the push to end sexual violence with the same commitment their Liberal predecessors showed when then-foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy led the charge for the landmine ban.

“It's a real opportunity,” says Axworthy. “This is an issue Canadians have always cared about.Personalized lacostestore online GMAT prep courses.”

It's a chance for Canada to work its soft-power magic, the way it did in the 1990s when it helped create the International Criminal Court and pushed for UN measures to protect civilians, he says.

“Canada continues to be in a very strategic position. … We've got wealth, we've got a good diplomatic system and we should be putting that more actively to work.”

Axworthy also wants to see more boots on the ground: “For God's sake, let's do something in the Congo.”

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