News Clips- October 7, 2016

October 07, 2016
Categories:

Civil Society

  • After demonstrators in Poland  protested a new law to ban abortion early this week, a parliamentary committee recommended parliament vote against the bill. [Guardian]
  • Anti-government protests continued in Ethiopia this week after tear gas and shots from the police instigated a stampede at a religious festival last weekend, trampling between 55 and over 100 people. [Al Jazeera]
  • The authorities in Ethiopia arrested a blogger and lecturer this week and confiscated his computer. [CPJ]
  • The High Court in Zimbabwe refused to find the ongoing ban on protests in the capital unconstitutional, stating the ban is necessary to preserve the peace. [Jurist]
  • Myanmar has repealed the Emergency Provisions Act, which had previously allowed authorities to hold people without charge. [VOA]

Humanitarian Crises, Conflict, & Violence

  • After a major hurricane hit Haiti on Tuesday, reports indicate that nearly 500 people are dead and 15,000 people are displaced. [Guardian]
  • In the region of Lugansk in Ukraine, the electricity supply was cut for a week, leaving the region without water or heat and forcing the International Committee for the Red Cross to temporarily pay for electricity in the area. [ICRC]

Refugees and Migrants

  • The majority of voters who turned out for a referendum in Turkey voted that the country should not take in more migrants, but an insufficient number of people voted to make it official. [NYTimes]
  • In one day, over 4,650 people were rescued off of Libya’s coast, and at least 28 people were found dead. [Al Jazeera]

Politics

  • In a referendum, Colombian voters rejected the peace deal between the government and FARC, an armed rebel group. [Reuters]
  • The Paris agreement will enter into force on November 4 with deposits of instruments of ratification from the EU, Canada, and Nepal this week. [Washington Post]

United Nations