Today's hearing and briefing should serve to turn the world's attention to the systematic abuse of human rights in North Korea, which amount to crimes against humanity by perhaps the world's most repressive totalitarian regime. As stated in the United Nations Commission on Inquiry report on North Korea, such a regime is a state that does not content itself with ensuring the authoritarian rule of a small group of people but seeks to dominate every aspect of its citizens' lives and terrorizes them from within. For in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea we see a state that seeks to control...
Today's hearing and briefing should serve to turn the world's attention to the systematic abuse of human rights in North Korea, which amount to crimes...
This is not the first hearing that we have had on the Central African Republic. It follows up on a hearing that we held last November; many of us, like our distinguished witnesses, have been in ongoing and numerous meetings with bishops, imams, humanitarian NGOs, diplomats, and interested parties. We are witnessing a country that is in rapid disintegration, apparently descending again from a pre-genocide stage to one characterized by a word almost too painful to articulate, genocide. For in a country that for decades has been characterized by brutal misrule and brazen corruption, we are...
This is not the first hearing that we have had on the Central African Republic. It follows up on a hearing that we held last November; many of us, lik...
Boko Haram is a Nigerian terrorist group whose name in Arabic is "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teaching and Jihad." The name Boko Haram is from Hausa meaning that conventional education, boko, is forbidden. Because of its repeated attacks against Christian targets during holy days such as Christmas and Easter, Boko Haram is seen by some as principally an anti-Christian organization. According to various reports, Boko Haram began in 2003 when about 200 university students and unemployed youth created a camp in Yobe State near the Niger border to withdraw from what they...
Boko Haram is a Nigerian terrorist group whose name in Arabic is "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teaching and Jihad." The name B...
The world community has known of the Ebola virus disease, more commonly called just Ebola, since it first appeared in a remote region near the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1976. In previous outbreaks, Ebola has been confined to remote areas in which there was little contact outside the villages at which it appeared. Unfortunately, this outbreak, now an epidemic, spread from village to an international center for regional trade and spread into urban areas in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia that are crowded, with limited medical services and limited resident trust of government. The...
The world community has known of the Ebola virus disease, more commonly called just Ebola, since it first appeared in a remote region near the Democra...
Ebola is a severe, often fatal disease that first emerged or was discovered in 1976 and has killed 90 percent of its victims in some past outbreaks. Since March of this year there have been more than 1,700 cases of Ebola, including more than 900 fatalities in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria. This time, the average fatality rate in this outbreak is estimated at 55 percent, ranging from 74 percent in Guinea to 42 percent in Sierra Leone. The disparity in mortality rates is partially linked to the capacity of governments to treat and contain the disease and per capita health spending...
Ebola is a severe, often fatal disease that first emerged or was discovered in 1976 and has killed 90 percent of its victims in some past outbreaks. S...
Today we will inquire into the Northern Ireland peace process, particularly the aspect of it which is called "dealing with the past." Sadly, much of what we will hear about amounts to failures to deal with the past, as in the rejection of the recent proposal by Dr. Richard Haass. Dr. Haass serves as chair of the Panel of Parties in the Northern Ireland Executive. In that capacity, Dr. Haass spent months consulting and formulating a proposal. Dr. Haass's proposed Historical Investigations Unit proposes establishing a single unit with full investigative power to eliminate the overlaps, the...
Today we will inquire into the Northern Ireland peace process, particularly the aspect of it which is called "dealing with the past." Sadly, much of w...
There are more than 50 million children orphaned on the continent of Africa. To put this in perspective, as one of our witnesses today, Shimwaayi Muntemba, has pointed out, the orphans of Africa, if grouped together in a single country, would be the fourth-largest country in all of Africa after Nigeria, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The factors contributing to this crisis are varied, starting with civil war and civil unrest, which have displaced millions, wars that have led to the deaths of parents and other adult relatives, leaving children to fend for themselves, or...
There are more than 50 million children orphaned on the continent of Africa. To put this in perspective, as one of our witnesses today, Shimwaayi Munt...
It is both unfortunate and absolutely unnecessary that more than 1/2 billion Africans, especially in rural areas, live without electricity. Perhaps the great irony is that Africa has more than enough energy capacity to join the rest of the world in utilizing modern technologies that require energy supplies. Approximately 30 percent of global oil and gas discoveries of the past 5 years alone have been in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, currently, only 290 million out of 914 million Africans have access to electricity. And the total number lacking such access continues to rise. Bioenergy- mainly,...
It is both unfortunate and absolutely unnecessary that more than 1/2 billion Africans, especially in rural areas, live without electricity. Perhaps th...
The global incidence of autism is steadily increasing. About one in 68 children have been identified with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. ASD is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic and social economic groups, but is almost five times more common among boys, 1 in 42, than among girls, 1 in 189. Studies in Asia, Europe, and North America have identified individuals with ASD, with an average of about 1 percent of the population. The prevalence of autism in Africa is...
The global incidence of autism is steadily increasing. About one in 68 children have been identified with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, according ...
