Twenty years after a landmark U.N. Security Council resolution seeking to include more women in the prevention and settlement of conflicts, the head of U.N. Women says “exclusion is still the norm.””Evidence shows that peace processes that involve women are key to long-lasting peace, yet women are still systematically excluded, confined to informal processes, or relegated to the role of spectators, while men sit in the rooms that will define their lives and decide their future,” Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of U.N. Women, told a Security Council meeting marking the anniversary Thursday.She said in peace negotiations from 1992 to 2019, only 13% of negotiators, 6% of mediators, and 6% of peace agreement signatories were women.”These negotiations are still structured in a way that elevates and empowers the actors that have fueled the violence, rather than empowering the constituencies who make peace,” she said.  Resolution 1325 was adopted unanimously by the Council on Oct. 31, 2000. It stresses the importance of equal participation of women in both the prevention and resolution of conflicts, as well as peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction. The resolution also calls on parties to conflicts to protect women and girls from gender-based violence.”This resolution was born out of the horrors committed against the bodies of women and girls in Bosnia and Rwanda, and the example set by women who fought for representation in Northern Ireland, southern Africa, and Central America,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said. While she commended women and civil society groups for bringing atrocities committed against women and girls from the shadows into the light, she said justice is yet to be won for most victims and impunity continues to be the norm.”We had to wait until last year to see the first ever successful conviction for sexual and gender-based violence at the International Criminal Court,” she noted. FILE – Congolese militia commander Bosco Ntaganda sits in the courtroom of the International Criminal Court during his trial at the Hague, in the Netherlands, July 8, 2019.That case was against Bosco Ntaganda, a warlord from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. He was convicted on 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including rape and sexual slavery, and sentenced to 30 years in prison. There has been notable progress in several countries, where women have made and retained gains. Mlambo-Ngcuka pointed to achievements by women in Afghanistan, Kosovo, the Philippines and Liberia, among other countries.Mlambo-Ngcuka said moving ahead, there must be “a radical shift and tangible results” in the equal and meaningful participation of women in peace processes. She said that neither the United Nations nor its member states should give funding or legitimacy to processes that have only symbolic or superficial female representation. The protection of women’s rights should be another goal going forward, she said. ”In all conversations I have with women’s civil society organizations about women’s rights, they start or finish with concerns about women’s sexual and reproductive rights and widespread violence against women,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said. “For women to play a role in decision-making in society, they need to be able to decide over their own bodies.”She also warned that the coronavirus pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on the female population. Lockdowns have exposed deep inequalities in education, health systems and economic opportunities for them. Women also make up the majority of front line health care workers globally. ”Yet they are once again under-represented in pandemic decision-making,” she said, noting it is even worse for women in conflict areas.  
 
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel Thursday defended new coronavirus restrictions to lawmakers and lashed out at those who tried to dismiss the infection as harmless as the number of cases hit a new high.
In a speech before the Bundestag – the German parliament – that was interrupted by heckling from right-wing politicians, Merkel said the new measures “are appropriate, necessary and proportionate.” She said, “There is no other milder approach than reducing personal contacts to try and stop the infections chain and to change the course of the infections back to a level where we can handle it.”  
Merkel spoke a day after she and the governors of Germany’s 16 states agreed on far-reaching restrictions to curb the spread of the virus, including the closure of bars and restaurants, limits on social contacts and bans on concerts and other public events.
But, as in most countries around the world, there has been pushback against such restrictions. There have been protests and reports of violence in some areas by those claiming the dangers of the virus have been overstated and restrictions are nothing more than a power grab.
When heckling broke out from populist politicians during Merkel’s speech, Bundestag President Wolfgang Schauble warned there would be consequences for their actions if they did not let the chancellor continue.
Merkel responded by lashing out at those who claim the virus is harmless, saying, “Lies and disinformation, conspiracy theories and hate, damage not only democratic debate but also the fight against the virus.”
She said, “When science has proven something is false then it must be clearly stated. Because our relation to facts and information not only affects democratic debate but human lives.”
Merkel told lawmakers that Germany is in a “dramatic situation” as it goes into winter, which she said would be “four long, difficult months. But it will end.”
Germany’s disease control center said local health authorities reported 16,774 new positive tests in the past day, pushing the country’s total since the start of the outbreak close to half-a-million.
The Robert Koch Institute recorded 89 additional deaths, taking Germany’s toll to 10,272.
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A powerful typhoon in Vietnam has killed at least 35 people and left more than 50 missing, state media reported. At least 1.7 million people were left without power, as the typhoon set off landslides.Officials said Typhoon Molave was the most powerful storm to strike the Southeast Asian country in 20 years. As it made landfall Wednesday, it ravaged a central area of the country that was already reeling from weeks of torrential rains that killed at least 160 people.New Storm Bears Down on Flood-Damaged Central VietnamTwo typhoons this month have already killed 130 and destroyed homes and agricultureHundreds of military personnel with heavy machinery were deployed to remote areas of Quang Nam province, where landslides killed at least 19 people and left 12 others missing.Eight bodies were recovered Thursday morning in the province’s Tra Van village, where a hillside collapsed on houses, according to the Vietnam News Agency. About 45 kilometers away in Tra Leng village, eight more bodies were recovered after another landslide buried a community with several houses where about 45 people lived.Another section of the hillside collapsed into a torrent of mud in the nearby Phuoc Loc district, killing three people.Twelve fishermen were also killed after their boats sank Wednesday, as the typhoon approached with winds of up to 150 kilometers per hour.Officials said the death toll in the country could rise because some regions have been unable to report casualties and details of damage. Officials also said at least 40,000 people were evacuated to emergency shelters and that workplaces and schools were closed to prevent more casualties.
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Asian markets are mostly lower Thursday in the aftermath of Wall Street’s big losses a day earlier, sparked by growing pessimism over the tightening grip of the COVID-19 pandemic.The Nikkei index in Tokyo lost 0.3% in its trading session.  Sydney’s S&P/ASX index closed 1.6% lower.  The KOSPI index in Seoul was down 0.7%, and Taipei’s TSEC index lost 1%.In late afternoon trading, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index is down 0.4% in late afternoon trading, while Mumbai’s Sensex is 0.3% lower.The lone bright spot in the region was Shanghai’s Composite index, which gained 0.1%.In commodities trading, gold is selling at $1,881.40 per ounce, up 0.1%. U.S. crude oil is selling at $37.26 per barrel, down 0.3%, and Brent crude oil is selling at $38.96 per barrel, down 0.4%.All three U.S. indices are trending higher in futures trading, a day after losing an average of 3.5%.
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A rising tide of new coronavirus cases has prompted the leaders of France and Germany to impose a new round of lockdowns to stop the spread of the virus.During a televised speech Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a nationwide monthlong lockdown that will take effect Friday. Macron said restaurants, bars, cafes and other nonessential businesses will be closed, while residents will only be allowed to leave their homes for work, shopping and doctor’s appointments.German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a set of similar measures in her own monthlong lockdown order Wednesday after a meeting with leaders of the nation’s 16 federal states. In addition to restaurants and bars, all gyms, theaters and opera houses will be shut down under Merkel’s order, which takes effect Monday, while the majority of businesses, shops and hair salons will be allowed to remain open.Schools in both nations will remain open during their respective lockdowns.The restrictions were announced by Macron and Merkel as both nations struggle with a record number of new COVID-19 cases practically every day — with Germany posting nearly 15,000 new cases Wednesday — creating a situation that has pushed their respective health care systems to their limits.France and Germany are joining several other European nations that have been forced to impose a new set of restrictions to deal with a second and growing wave of the virus as the cold weather season approaches in the Northern Hemisphere.As of early Thursday, there are more than 44.4 million total COVID-19 cases worldwide, including over 1.1 million deaths. India has reached the milestone of over 8 million total novel coronavirus cases, second only to the United States, with 8.8 million total confirmed cases.As the effort to develop a safe and effective vaccine continues, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration says it will ensure that everyone in the United States will be able to be inoculated free of charge.Seema Verma, the head of the federal government’s Medicare and Medicaid health insurance programs, announced Wednesday the agency will cover the cost of any vaccine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.Verma also said that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will cover a larger portion of the cost of any new COVID-19 treatments. Private health plans will also be banned from charging their customers anything for administering the vaccine.
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The CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter testified before a Senate committee hearing Wednesday, just days before the U.S. election. Tina Trinh reports.
Producer: Matt Dibble
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A Malian court sentenced to death a suspected jihadist and his co-defendant for killing more than two dozen people in attacks targeting foreigners in 2015.Wednesday’s court ruling against Fawaz Ould Ahmed and his co-defendant Sadou Chaka came after two days of hearings.Ahmed said his militant group, Al-Mourabitoune, carried out the attack at the La Terrasse club, but he expressed no remorse for killing five people in revenge for cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published by France’s Charlie Hebdo magazine.Ahmed also admitted to participating in a raid that killed 17 people at Hotel Byblos in the town of Sevare in August and another that killed 20 people, including 14 foreigners, at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in November.Two other Malian nationals were charged in the attacks.Ahmed was reportedly planning other attacks when he was arrested in 2016.
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Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​.Daily DebunkClaim: “Posts based on a video by a German neurologist have been shared thousands of times on Facebook making several claims about the alleged dangers of wearing face masks, notably that rebreathing oxygen in the mask leads to neurological damage. According to experts, this is false, since these masks allow fresh air to pass through and oxygen to be inhaled.” — AFP Fact CheckVerdict: FalseRead the full story at: AFP Fact CheckSocial Media DisinfoFootball star Tom Brady. (AP Photo/David Becker)Circulating on social media: “Super Bowl champion Tom Brady told his Instagram followers that suicide accounts for more death than COVID-19.” — PolitifactVerdict: FalseRead the full story at: Politifact Factual Reads on CoronavirusHealth Experts’ Thanksgiving Advice In The Time of COVID-19
While Thanksgiving is still weeks away, people hoping to connect with distant family members are already making anxious plans — and if they aren’t, they should be, public health experts say.
— STAT News, October 16
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If everyone showed up to vote on election day, polling places could be overwhelmed. Early voting eases some of the pressure. Here’s how it works.
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An unexpected consequence of the COVID crisis in Germany has been the rapid increase in followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory. As Jacob Russell reports from Berlin, Germany now has the second largest following outside the United States as more people become skeptical of their government’s good intentions.Camera:  Jacob Russell 
Producer:  Jason Godman 
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Authorities in Niger say an American citizen has been kidnapped from his home at gunpoint and is being held for ransom.Philip Walton was seized Tuesday at his farm in the rural village of Massalata in southern Niger near the border with Nigeria, said Ibrahim Abba Lele, a police official in the nearby town of Birni Konni.  A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said Tuesday it is aware an American citizen has been abducted and is providing support to the person’s family.  No one has claimed responsibility. Niger is part of Africa’s Sahel region, which has been plagued by a growing number of attacks by insurgents linked to both Islamic State and al-Qaida. Six French aid workers and their Niger guide were killed by Islamic extremists back in August while visiting a wildlife park near the capital, Niamey.Walton is now the seventh foreign national being held captive by Islamist insurgents in Niger. 
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A landmark law passed this month in Indonesia will open the populous, impoverished country to labor-intensive industry like many of its Southeast Asian neighbors despite a hit to worker rights, people on the ground say. The 905-page Omnibus Bill on Job Creation bill will give millions of young people chances to work, including in formal jobs that can be hard to find because older Indonesian laws discouraged foreign investors from setting up factories, analysts believe. Indonesians are struggling to earn income during an unrelenting COVID-19 outbreak that prompted shutdowns from April. The nation with nearly 400,000 infections reported a sharp drop in retail sales from April through August and a fall in exports over the three months ending in September.   “With this new law, it is expected that the investment would come not only to the Indonesian economy, but also come to the labor-intensive part, and by getting more investment in that area it is expected that more jobs will be created, and those jobs are more of the quality jobs, not only informal jobs,” said Yose Rizal Damuri, economics department head with the Center for Strategic and International Studies research organization in Jakarta.   Indonesia’s government and House of Representatives passed the bill ahead of schedule on October 5, the Jakarta Post reported. The bill aims to cut bureaucracy and make it easier for investors to create jobs, said Richard Borsuk, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies adjunct senior fellow in Singapore.Protest against the government’s proposed labor reforms in Sukabumi, West Java, Oct. 7, 2020.President Joko Widodo’s government sees this bill as part of his “legacy” to stimulate the 270 million-person country’s economy, Rizal said. Minerals, oil and farming make up much of Indonesia’s $1 trillion-plus GDP today. “Labor-intensive” industry players find Indonesia too expensive now, Rizal said, explaining why that sub-sector makes up just 2% of the country’s total investment. Foreign manufacturers of garments, shoes and textiles normally pick other low-cost Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam, over the past decade because of stiff pro-labor laws, economists say. Foreign investment eventually raises the living standards, as witnessed in China and eventually Vietnam. “It’s probably something that will be a long-term benefit, if this does go through,” said Rajiv Biswas, senior regional economist with IHS Markit, a London-based analysis firm. “It creates a better environment for foreign multinationals to hire, because from the perspective of foreign multinationals, it’s very restrictive labor laws there,” Biswas said. “They’re worried about hiring because it’s very hard to reduce the workforce later on.”   Foreign investors will consider the law a “step in the right” direction for making Indonesia friendlier, forecast Song Seng Wun, an economist in the private banking unit of Malaysian bank CIMB.“This Omnibus Bill is part of something that Jokowi [was] looking to see how they can help sort of improve the investment landscape to make it a little bit more attractive in Indonesia, just to make sure Indonesia doesn’t get pushed down the investible list of countries,” Song said, using the Indonesian president’s nickname. But the law sparked staunch opposition. Some governors have asked Widodo to revoke the law and other people protested in the streets over three days, sometimes violently, Borsuk’s study says. The law effectively eliminates the power of labor unions, said Paramita Supamijoto, an international relations lecturer at Bina Nusantara University in greater Jakarta. The October bill would roll back legal support for fair wages, safe working conditions and excessive overtime, U.S.-headquartered human rights advocacy group Amnesty International said in a statement in August. It called the bill’s preparation process “opaque.”   Severance pay for laid-off workers will also slip, Damuri said. For workers, the law means that “whatever you do, your life will be determined by your employers,” Supamijoto said.But the law could stoke enough investment to stop people from migrating overseas in search of work, she said. “Under our current president’s administration, they prefer to invite the investors rather than sending workers abroad, so it’s better to invite you to come here to spend money, to invest your money, then to help us to build the infrastructure,” she said. 
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Asian markets are mixed Wednesday as concerns grow among investors over a new surge of coronavirus cases across Europe and the United States.   Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index closed 0.2% lower.  In Australia, the S&P/ASX index finished 0.1% higher. The KOSPI index in South Korea rose 0.6%, while Taiwan’s TSEC index dropped 0.6% In late afternoon trading, the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is down 0.1%, Shanghai’s Composite index is up 0.4%, and Mumbai’s Sensex is down one percent. In commodities trading, gold is selling at $1,908.40 an ounce, down 0.1%. U.S. crude oil is selling at $38.55 per barrel, down 2.5%, and Brent crude is selling at $40.35 per barrel, down 2%.   All three U.S. indices are trending negatively in futures trading.   
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Iran has imposed harsh sentences on 36 residents of a southwestern city who joined the nation’s last major wave of anti-government protests in November 2019, according to a knowledgeable source who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.   Speaking to VOA from Iran on Friday, the source said the 36 protesters from Behbahan in Khuzestan province were handed their sentences by the city’s criminal court October 22. The source said the defendants were sentenced to a cumulative total of 109 years in prison and 2,590 lashes, while each individual was fined more than 3 million tomans, equivalent to roughly $700. A copy of the verdict, provided by the source and verified by VOA Persian, showed the protesters were convicted of disturbing public order, disobeying security agents and vandalizing public property. The source said the Behbahan court’s presiding judge, Rasoul Asadpour, barred defendants and their lawyers from the courtroom for the October 12 trial session, allowing them to submit only a written defense. Prosecutors presented no evidence for many of the charges, the source asserted.   VOA could not independently confirm the circumstances of the trial because it is barred from reporting inside Iran.   There has been no comment from Iranian officials about the cases of the 36 protesters in state media this month.   VOA’s source said two of the defendants, Ahmad Hatampour  and Maryam Payab, previously had been sentenced to a total of 12 months in prison in a separate trial overseen by a Revolutionary Court in the southwestern city of Mahshar several months ago. The source said the Mahshar court had convicted Hatampour and Payab of spreading anti-government propaganda, and its ruling was upheld on appeal.   “The 36 Behbahan residents only were protesting against inflation and government mismanagement,” the source said. The defendants, who remained free on bail, were planning to visit the Behbahan prosecutor’s office in the following days to appeal their sentences, the source added.   Iran’s government sparked the November 2019 demonstrations in dozens of cities nationwide by ordering a 50% increase in the subsidized price of gasoline, further straining the finances of Iranians facing high unemployment and inflation in a shrinking economy under heavy U.S. sanctions. Iranian security forces killed hundreds of protesters and arrested thousands more in a violent crackdown on the mostly peaceful demonstrations, in which some people also damaged public buildings and businesses. The Trump administration said the protests represented the worst political crisis for Iran’s Islamist rulers since they seized power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Click here for the original Persian version of the story. 
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