Derechos Humanos / Human Rights

On November 8 about a million people across the country took to the streets with a clear message: Argentina wants more freedom, an independent judiciary, free press, and an end to widespread corruption

Dec. 6.─ Seventy-one years ago this week, on December 7, 1941, the United States changed forever. What began as a tranquil day in a country that thought it could avoid the violence wracking the rest of the world ended with a bloody and unprovoked surprise attack. That "day that shall live in infamy" -- in President Franklin Roosevelt's famous words -- saw our country transformed from a growing but isolated nation into the military, technological and economic superpower that routed a vicious totalitarian Axis, then a brutal communist empire, and that has ensured peace and democracy in the world ever since.

On December 7, 2012, the people of Argentina will wake up to a different assault. The attack on its freedoms will not be a surprise and it will not come from a foreign empire. It will be a pre-announced offensive on freedom of expression, the most fundamental liberty of any democracy, and it will come from the increasingly despotic regime headed by Cristina Kirchner, a left-wing populist that, like most authoritarians, cannot abide an independent press.

It is often said that Argentines only protest when the economy hurts their pockets. If so, last November 8, was an exception to this rule.

La Habana, Nov. 27 (DP.net).─ De algo sirvió la campaña por Antonio González Rodiles (foto) para que el régimen cubano decidiera dejarlo en libertad. Evidentemente el escándalo internacional hace su mella en la dictadura cubana. La policía cubana lo puso en libertad el lunes, 19 días después de su arresto durante una violenta represión que generó una desusada queja legal por abusos policiales, presentada por abogados disidentes que desafiaron la represión.

Al recobrar su libertad, Rodiles declaró que: "Ahora hay que seguir, por supuesto, con más fuerza", demostrando su inquebrantable vocación por la libertad y la democracia. "La moraleja es que las cosas tienen que cambiar y la violencia tiene que cesar", añadió.

Su familia pagó una multa de 800 pesos —alrededor de $32, o el equivalente de seis semanas del salario promedio en Cuba—, pero Rodiles nunca supo cuáles fueron los cargos en su contra.

• La Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas pidió un esfuerzo que las autoridades, servicios médicos y líderes religiosos y comunitarios redoblen sus esfuerzos para aumentar la concienciación y combatir las actitudes que aún defienden la ablación del clítoris femenino
• En la foto, una niña de 6 años grita de dolor mientras sufre la mutilación genital en Somalia

Naciones Unidas, Nov.27 (EFE).─ La Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas aprobó este martes por primera vez una resolución que condena la mutilación genital femenina y pide a los Estados miembros medidas de castigo y educativas para frenarla.

El texto urge a los Estados miembros de la ONU para que tomen todas las medidas, incluyendo leyes que prohíban expresamente esta práctica, a fin de proteger a mujeres y niñas de "cualquier forma de violencia" y poner fin a la impunidad, señaló un comunicado.

The political ramifications of several judicial rulings

 Nov. 24.─ In the Balkans the big news is who is out of jail, who is in and who is going to court. All the cases are high-profile and all have political fallout. The most significant was the acquittal on November 16th of two Croatian generals by the UN war-crimes tribunal in The Hague. Croats were ecstatic, Serbs bitter.

Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac were first convicted in 2011 of conspiring, as part of a "joint criminal enterprise", to drive Serbs out of Croatia's Krajina region. When Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990s the Serbs, backed by Serbia and the Yugoslav army, carved out their own mini-state in Krajina. But in 1995 the Croatian army took most of it back. Some 200,000 Serbs fled, most never to return. Nobody denies that war crimes took place. But the acquittal of the two generals means that the court believes there was no organised plan for "ethnically cleansing" the Serbs.

The generals returned home to a heroes' welcome. Mr Gotovina may even enter politics.