Sheryl WuDunn: Our century's greatest injustice

Sheryl WuDunn's book "Half the Sky" investigates the oppression of women globally. Her stories shock. Only when women in developing countries have equal access to education and economic opportunity will we be using all our human resources.

About Sheryl WuDunn
Sheryl WuDunn and her husband, Nick Kristof, won a Pulitzer for their New York Times coverage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Their joint reporting work in China and other developing nations convinced them both that, just as slavery was the moral issue of the 19th century, sex trafficking, gender-based violence and other abuses make women's rights the moral issue of the 21st.
In their book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, WuDunn and Kristof make the case for empowering women as a means of development. Women tend to spend more on education, nutrition and business, the economic engines of growth in a community. And if we can find ways to develop the untapped potential of the millions of women who are now left uneducated, denied basic rights, oppressed and threatened -- we'll turn on a firehose of economic power that could transform the developing world.

Neighbourhood comes together and kicks out religious haters

From Ggskelding's YouTube Channel: This is a group from a church at the end of a street. Apparently they have been grouping in front of a couple's house and reading their bible loudly for the past 7 years. They may have also driven another couple from the area as well by doing the same thing. Tonight most of our neighbours came out and were successful in getting them to leave. The people who go to that church don't even live in our area! Police came by shortly thereafter.



Awe-inspiring stuff.

41 countries that did not support making water a human right

Every year, 3.5 million people die of water-borne illness. Diarrhea is the second largest cause of death among children under five. Lack of access to potable water kills more children than AIDS, malaria and smallpox combined. Worldwide, approximately 1 in 8 people lack potable water.

In just one day, more than 200 million hours of women’s time is consumed by collecting and transporting water for domestic use.

The situation of lack of sanitation is far worse, for it affects 2.6 billion people, or 40% of the global population.

These are the 41 countries that abstained in the July 28 UN General Assembly vote on Bolivia’s resolution to recognise access to water and sanitation as basic human rights. Rather than honestly vote “no”, they abstained to avoid being labelled as opponents of access to water, but many made statements that reveal their hostility to the very idea of recognising water as a human right.

Among others:

• Canada complained that the resolution “appeared to determine that there was indeed a right without setting out its scope”.
• The UK said “there was no sufficient legal basis for declaring or recognising water or sanitation as freestanding human rights, nor was there evidence that they existed in customary law”.
• The United States said “there was no ‘right to water and sanitation’ in an international legal sense, as described by the resolution”.
• Australia “had reservations about declaring new human rights in a General Assembly resolution”.

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