U.N. rights chief urges freedom for dissenters

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ON REUTERS

By Robert Evans

GENEVA | Wed Dec 8, 2010 10:45pm EST

(Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay, in a clear reference to campaigners such as China's Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo, called Wednesday for the release of all prisoners jailed for promoting democracy.

Pillay, a former South African High Court judge, issued her appeal in a statement for U.N. Human Rights Day to be marked in Geneva and New York Friday at the same time as Liu will be honored in absentia with the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.

Pillay has been criticized over the past days for "kow-towing" to Beijing by refusing to go to the ceremony, but her spokesman said Wednesday she had not been invited.

"I call on governments to acknowledge that criticism is not a crime and to release all those people who have been detained for peacefully exercising their fundamental rights to defend democratic principles and human rights," she said.

Although she referred to dissenting journalists and teachers and to the families of imprisoned dissidents being harassed -- which could apply to Liu and many others -- she did not mention him by name in the two-page statement.

Issued by her office in Geneva, it said advances across the world in human rights were due to "the enormous efforts of hundreds of thousands of largely unsung heroes" and the commitment and courage of human rights defenders.

Pillay has been outspoken on rights violations in countries like Iran and Sri Lanka and has criticized Russia, China and the United States in the past. She rebuked Beijing openly last December when Liu was given his 11-year prison sentence.

Over the past few days, Chinese dissidents in the West and some non-governmental rights groups often critical of the U.N. have asserted that she -- like a number of governments -- had given in to Chinese pressure by declining to go to Oslo.

But spokesman Rupert Colville told Reuters that was based on false information: "She could not have refused because she has never had an invitation from the prize committee."

Colville said she would be making a wide-ranging speech expanding on Wednesday's statement at the rights day ceremonies in Geneva Friday, and would be ready to answer questions on Liu at a news conference after, he added.

Even before the denial, some Western diplomats expressed sympathy for Pillay, whose often feisty pronouncements have angered members of the developing country bloc, including China, which holds sway in the U.N. Human Rights Council.

"We may criticize some of what she has done, but by and large she has proven her credentials as a champion of human rights in what is a very difficult job," said one European envoy who asked not to be named.

(Editing by Alison Williams)

Exclusive: Corruption charges to feature in WikiLeaks release

click here to view this story on Reuters

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 24, 2010 4:23pm EST

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 24, 2010 4:23pm EST

(Reuters) - Classified U.S. diplomatic cables reporting corruption allegations against foreign governments and leaders are expected in official documents that WikiLeaks plans to release soon, sources said on Wednesday.

The whistle-blowing website said on its Twitter feed this week its next release would be seven times larger than the collection of roughly 400,000 Pentagon reports related to the Iraq war which it made public in October.

Three sources familiar with the State Department cables held by WikiLeaks say the corruption allegations in them are major enough to cause serious embarrassment for foreign governments and politicians named in them.

They said the release was expected next week, but could come earlier.

The detailed, candid reporting by U.S. diplomats also may create foreign policy complications for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, the sources said.

Among the countries whose politicians feature in the reports are Russia, Afghanistan and former Soviet republics in Central Asia. But other reports also detail potentially embarrassing allegations reported to Washington from U.S. diplomats in other regions including East Asia and Europe, one of the sources familiar with the WikiLeaks holdings said.

The U.S. government has strongly objected to past WikiLeaks revelations, which it said compromise national security and can put some people at risk.

Past WikiLeaks releases of classified U.S. documents on related to Iraq and Afghanistan have given a battlefield view of both conflicts and sensitive intelligence, but contained few startling revelations.

CREATING TENSION

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Washington was assessing the implications of what WikiLeaks may reveal and was notifying foreign governments "that a release of documents is possible in the near future."

"We decry what has happened. These revelations are harmful to the United States and our interests. They are going to create tension in our relationships,' Crowley said. "We wish that this would not happen but we are obviously prepared for the possibility that it will."

Both the State Department and the Pentagon confirmed they had been in touch with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to inform them of what may be coming.

Sources said three international news organizations which previously published stories based on classified U.S. government documents acquired by WikiLeaks -- the New York Times, Britain's Guardian newspaper and the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel -- were given access the documents some time ago by Julian Assange, the Australian-born computer hacker who says he is WikiLeaks' founder and leader.

Two of the sources said Assange has also made the documents available to at least two other European publications -- the newspapers El Pais of Spain and Le Monde of France.

Assange did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.

The New York Times, Guardian and Der Spiegel are trying to coordinate when they release their first stories about the material -- likely to be next week -- but one of the sources said that it is unclear whether Le Monde and El Pais will be publishing on the same schedule.

The sources said the documents -- which also report on other local controversies beyond allegations of corruption -- may result in more international uproar than did the earlier release by WikiLeaks of Pentagon reports on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Asked by e-mail to comment on the latest anticipated WikiLeaks release, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller told Reuters: "If we had a big story in the works, we'd be disinclined to discuss it before publication."

(Editing by Andrew Quinn and Mohammad Zargham)

U.N. labour agency staff threaten industrial action

CLICK HERE TO VIEW REUTERS STORY

* ILO staff union questions credibility of agency's edicts

* Dispute concerns job security, hiring process, bargaining

GENEVA, Nov 9 (Reuters) - International Labour Organisation staff will meet on Wednesday to consider their first global industrial action, alleging the U.N. agency does not uphold the standards it is urging others to meet.

Christopher Land-Kazlauskas, chair of the ILO Staff Union Committee, said too many of the ILO's 3,000 workers are on precarious short-term contracts and called for more transparent hiring processes and acceptance of collective bargaining.

"We believe it is hypocritical that the ILO cannot apply inside its own walls the policies that it promotes to the G20, to the International Monetary Fund and to governments, employers and workers the world over," he said in a statement.

An e-mailed request for comment from the ILO on the allegations, including that the ILO censored communications from the union and interfered with the hiring of union staff, was not immediately responded to.

Short-term contracts are common in the United Nations system and can limit workers' possibilities to rent apartments, access benefits and plan their lives.

Salaries, which at the ILO like other international organisations are offered tax-free, are not at issue in the dispute, which has flared up during a Nov. 4-19 meeting of the ILO's Governing Body.

In a report released on Monday, the ILO urged G20 leaders meeting in Seoul to focus on "productive employment and job-intensive growth policies" given still-high unemployment following the global financial crisis. [ID:LDE6A71V8]

Staff union members will meet on Wednesday afternoon at the ILO's Geneva headquarters "to take decisions on the industrial action to be carried out during the Governing Body and beyond."

It was not clear whether a full strike was among the options being considered. The union described the planned "global job action" as the first in the ILO's 90-year history."

On its website, the ILO says its main aims "are to promote rights at work, encourage decent employment opportunities, enhance social protection and strengthen dialogue in handling work-related issues." (Reporting by Laura MacInnis; Editing by Charles Dick)

Afghan watchdog alters vote recount after criticism

http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSISL341008

(For more on Afghanistan, click on [ID:nAFPAK])

By Peter Graff

KABUL, Oct 7 (Reuters) - The U.N.-backed watchdog overseeing a fraud investigation in Afghanistan's Aug. 20 vote altered its ballot-counting rules on Wednesday, ditching a plan criticised for favouring President Hamid Karzai.

The new recount rules, which watchdog officials said were a "clarification", take into account the possibility one candidate may have disproportionately benefitted from fraud, a finding that would be necessary in order for Karzai to be forced to face a second round.

The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), mainly appointed by the United Nations, has ordered a recount of ballot boxes it deemed suspicious -- around 12 percent of the total -- after finding "clear and convincing evidence of fraud".

To speed it up, officials are sampling 10 percent of those suspicious boxes.

Preliminary results gave Karzai 54.6 percent of the vote. If the fraud investigation reduces his share below 50 percent, he would face a run-off against his main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.

For that to happen, the commission would have to find fraud overwhelmingly benefitted Karzai, which the president denies.

Under rules the ECC announced on Monday, such a finding would have been unlikely, because the commission said it would eliminate the same percentage of votes for all candidates from groups of ballots that were suspicious for the same reason.

On Wednesday, it issued new guidelines, which specify a separate percentage of fraudulent ballots would be calculated for each candidate, so candidates who benefitted more from fraud would face a greater penalty.

Diplomats say about 75 percent of the ballots in the suspicious group were cast for Karzai. Karzai's opponents say his share of the fraud may have been far greater, because most of the fraud took place in the south, where he won overwhelming support.

Under Monday's rules, more than 1 million ballots could be found to be fraudulent and Karzai would still win in a single round. Under the revised rules, Karzai could potentially face a second round if as few as 520,000 votes are disqualified.

KARZAI SAYS FRAUD EXAGGERATED

Karzai says the extent of fraud has been exaggerated by some Western officials and media. Officials expect the final outcome next week, with a second round at the end of October if needed.

ECC officials said the new rules amounted to a "clarification" of Monday's order, rather than a change. ECC official Scott Borden said the intent was always to calculate separate percentages for each candidate.

However, Borden and several other ECC officials, including the body's head, Grant Kippen, had told Reuters on Monday the same percentage would be applied to each candidate.

Asked by Reuters on Monday: "You are going to apply the same percentage to all of them, that's what you said today?", Kippen nodded and said: "Yep."

"We are trying to put some sort of number on it: 70 percent, 50 percent, 20 percent, etc. And then we will be looking at all of the votes that these candidates have received in that universe and we will be applying that percentage against the votes that these candidates received," he said.

The initial rules had attracted criticism. Peter Galbraith, a U.S. diplomat fired as deputy head of the Kabul U.N. mission for speaking out about fraud called them "not acceptable".

"It cannot be correct to treat all presidential candidates equally for disqualification of ballots, because there was not an equal opportunity for fraud," Galbraith told Reuters on Monday.

"Let's not mince words: there was one candidate who had control of the state apparatus." (Editing by Jonathon Burch and Jerry Norton) (For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: here)