Perspectivas / Perspectives

In response to written questions posed by members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Rex Tillerson, who received Senate’s confirmation as Secretary of State on February 1, 2017, has said that he will commit to encourage dialogue on Tibet and to receive the Dalai Lama.

Secretary Tillerson also expressed concern for the restrictions imposed by China on reporters, civil society actors, diplomats and others in accessing to Tibet, for the denial of visas to foreign journalists and the limitations to freedom of movement and information. He responded affirmatively to the question whether he would consider “problematic” the above-mentioned restrictions, when compared with the free access to the United States provided to Chinese officials and Chinese state-controlled media.

The US Supreme Court will open hearings to rule on originally anti-Catholic Blaine Amendements now affecting other churches as well

Washington DC, Apr.13.─ Can a church be cut out of a state funding program merely because it’s a church? That’s the question on Wednesday when the Supreme Court hears arguments that could determine whether state laws that discriminate against religious groups violate the First Amendment.

In 2012 Columbia, Missouri-based Trinity Lutheran Church applied to participate in the state’s Scrap Tire Grant Program, which gives money to schools or other groups that want to resurface playgrounds with recycled tires to provide a safer surface. The program is neutral and secular and provides around a dozen applicants with playground renovations each year.

Madrid, Abril 9 (DP.net).─ El jueves 6 de abril se reunieron en Madrid destacados cubanos procedentes de Cuba con miembros del Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos (OCDH), entre los cuales se encuentra nuestro WebMaster, Ernesto Ortiz. El OCDH organizó este evento para lanzar la iniciativa 'Registro de Asociaciones cubanas de la sociedad civil', motivados sus miembros por las trabas políticas y jurídicas existentes en la isla que entorpecen o impiden la labor de cualquier grupo de la sociedad civil independiente del gobierno, negándole las autoridades toda visibilidad y reconocimiento público.

En su convocatoria anunciaron que “a modo simbólico, realizaremos la primera inscripción en el Registro de Asociaciones de la sociedad civil cubana con la Asociación Jurídica Cubana (AJC)”. Con esta iniciativa rompen desde España la censura del gobierno castrista a las asociaciones independientes de la sociedad civil cubana.

La AJC no es reconocida legalmente en su país, pero acaba de estrenar este nuevo registro impulsado desde Madrid por el Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos (OCDH) que desarrolla esta nueva estrategia orientada a esquivar la censura y los obstáculos que interponen las autoridades cubanas a los trámites de creación y funcionamiento de organizaciones no vinculadas al aparato del Estado.

 Famine menaces 20m people in Africa and Yemen ─ War, not drought, is the reason people are starving   

Panyijia/Maiduguri, Mar. 30.─ Outside a thatched hut in Panyijiar, in South Sudan, Nyakor Matoap, a 25-year-old woman, clutches the youngest of her three children. Dressed in a silky emerald shawl, she hides the baby, named Nyathol, underneath its folds. Her other children crowd happily enough around her legs. But the baby is in a bad way. Though almost a year old, he is scarcely larger than a newborn. When he cries, it is quiet and gasping, his tiny ribs pushing out his chest. His swollen head lolls uncomfortably on his emaciated frame. Asked whether he will survive, she replies simply, “I do not know.”

Before 2013 Mrs Matoap cultivated a patch of land near Leer, some 80km (50 miles) further north. But then civil war broke out in South Sudan, and her husband went to join rebel fighters. In August last year, government forces came into her village. They pulled the men out of their huts and shot them; the women fled. She found herself in the murky waters of the Sudd, a vast swamp which spreads either side of the White Nile. For seven months she has lived off wild fruit and the roots of water lilies. She last saw her husband in 2015, when her son was conceived.